AIBU to be angry after a girl faked pregnancy so my son could respond to her messages?

[PithySloth]

I'm a mum of four boys, in my 40s so I am not going to pretend I understand what goes on in the minds of 18 year old girls. I grew up at a very different time. My husband and I met in first year at university and have been together ever since, so I don't really have any personal experience of what it feels like to be rejected in the way my son apparently rejected this girl.

I can empathise with her feeling hurt. I really can.But I'm also incredibly annoyed for my son.The more I've seen of their messages, the more confused I am about how this situation got to where it did.

Before they even slept together, my son told her very clearly that he wasn't interested in a relationship with her. He said he liked her physically but only wanted sex and wasn't looking for anything more. He gave her a very clear opportunity to say no.

Her response was essentially that she was fine with that and didn't want a boyfriend either.So I'm genuinely struggling to understand why she then slept with him and subsequently became so determined to get his attention.

Afterwards, my son told her again that he wasn't interested in anything more. He has shown us messages where he was very blunt about it. He wasn't leading her on. If anything, he was probably too blunt.
He told her he wanted to meet other girls at university and that he wasn't looking for a relationship with her.She continued messaging him, asking to see him. He stopped responding.Then came the pregnancy.And that's the bit I simply cannot get my head around.She wasn't pregnant. She invented the pregnancy because she wanted him to speak to her.

He believed her so completely that he deferred his place at Durham. He was prepared to spend a year working and putting his university plans on hold because he thought he had a responsibility to at least be there for her as she planned to have an abortion (she was already planning a gap year anyway) When he offered to go with her, she said she didn't want him there.
Then she eventually admitted the pregnancy wasn't real.

I am furious but I also keep questioning myself because I know I'm seeing this entirely through the eyes of a mum who is incredibly protective of her son.I don't understand the mindset of sleeping with someone who has explicitly told you, before you've even had sex, "I don't want a relationship with you, I only want sex", agreeing that you're okay with that, and then seemingly becoming deeply invested afterwards.I absolutely understand that people can change their minds. I understand that feelings can develop. I understand rejection can hurt.

But surely you cannot respond to rejection by fabricating a pregnancy?And now my son is saying he'll never speak to a girl again. I know as soon as he gets to university he will but it’s just upsetting to see him so down.
I don't want this to turn into "boys good, girls bad". My son is not perfect. He's 18. He can be immature, thoughtless and occasionally a complete idiot as parents we are to blame for that, he has 3 younger brothers and we thought an all boys school would be a good idea. He was unnecessarily harsh in some of those messages and I've told him that. But I don't think he deserves what happened either.

I'm trying to encourage him to take the gap year positively. He has a job he enjoys, some of his friends are taking gap years anyway and he may travel with them. We've also said we'll contact Durham to see if there is anything they can do in regards to reinstating his place for sept 2026 and not 2027 but economics is a popular course there so the chances are unlikely. He says he's now happy with his decision.
I'm just absolutely seething that this whole situation was manufactured because someone couldn't accept that a casual sexual relationship was exactly what my son had told her it was.

Sorry for the long ranting post. Just so confused why anyone would do this. My son was crying and upset. I didn’t really want to see my sons stash of condoms or his “sext” messages but it was the only way he could at least prove that he asked her if she’s on contraception,him telling her that he always uses condoms, told her he doesn’t want a relationship just casual, and her lying about being pregnant then apparently wanting an abortion for a pregnancy that didn’t even exist.

AIBU?

My children are now adults but I would never have done them the disservice of behaving as you are.

Sheer spite towards this girl wrapped up as faux concern. Your true colours are showing OP.

These 2 young people had sex, evidently consensually, sending the photos was a mistake on this girl's part by my god you are making sure she pays for that and a stupid lie.

Shame on you!

I think lying about a pregnancy is disgusting and I don't think yabu to be angry about that. I'd find that hard to forgive.

However, I also think it's naive at best for your son to think most girls of 18 are cool with just sex. It's very well established that sex commonly leads to feelings of attachment and intimacy, so even if this girl was originally telling the truth about just wanting sex it's entirely unsurprising that she developed feelings afterwards.

I would just encourage him to enjoy his gap year, and be talking to him about the fact that sex always carries risk of stds (not all of which can be avoided with condoms), pregnancy and feelings of attachment (or, even worse, false accusations of rape) and is best in a committed relationship. Tbh I think his open admission that he wanted sex because she's hot, but nothing more, is pretty horrible.

I find it absolutely astonishing how many people feel comfortable and righteous blaming OP's son. Outrageous. I'm very glad that I'm not a mother of sons.

He came to OP when he deferred for a year?

That’s why we asked him after contacting the safeguarding lead because they said they’ll need to contact the police regarding all of this. He said she has no explicit photos of him and he has never sent anyone explicit photos. If he is lying then he will be caught. What I can say is that she has asked him for explicit photos multiple times on different occasions and he has said no multiple times this is via iMessage and instagram

He says he did. It's his word. Only 2 X people actually know and 1 of them isn't the boys mother

Sorry, are young people now expected to be psychologists and able to deeply analyse whether someone has low self esteem or if they just like no strings attached sex?

PROBABLY more to the story?

your son had sex believing he was using two forms of protection, and then deferred his university place to be present for an abortion, without any proof of pregnancy?

there is a whole hell of a lot more to this story!

if I were you, I’d not be focusing on somebody else’s child. Focus on your own. He clearly needs to learn to respect women, stop using them as pieces of meat, and talk to them like human beings.

very ‘boy mum’!

Excellent post.

Yes it not easy at all. I have 4 this has taught me a lesson too and the perspectives on here have as well. If a boy receives explicit photos multiple times even after saying no it’s his fault 100% but if it was reversed it’s not. It’s weird some of the perspectives here and I haven’t even once said my son is an angel in this he can be a victim and not an angel at the same time. I don’t believe there’s a perfect victim I think people have this idea of a perfect victim which can’t really hold up. All I can do is make sure he learns a lesson from this and doesn’t get himself involved in such a situation again.

But it’s not the first time she has done this and if it isn’t addressed, she will likely continue doing things like this/escalate her lies until she does get what she wants or seriously harms someone.

If the school were aware of it the first time around, it probably wouldn’t have happened again. She clearly needs educating/support, The school are hardly going to parade her out in assembly with her messages up on a projector to humiliate her, but if it’s not reported, she’ll just move on to the next boy.

I have it too and it makes me bloody furious that you link me with a girl pretending to be pregnant to get a boy's attention!

We're having enough problems getting people to understand ADHD at the moment, we don't need nonsense like this!!

This girl is infatuated with the boy and her mental state is obviously fragile, getting the police and the school and the school governor's all involved may be very bad for her mental health.

Yep we know he’s not innocent in this either that’s why he will have to answer questions and explain what the hell is going on here we can only infer from the messages on insta and iMessage. The deferral he said he was stressed and upset and not really sure what to do he didn’t want to speak to us about the situation. We’ve seen his search history and messages to his closet friend who tried to support him I can only say he panicked and was quite upset even asking to call her so they can talk through things, go to the appointment even asked for proof but she refused. Even during this she said she wants to see him misses him etc and proceeded to ask him if he wants pics (I assume she meant explicit picture, he has said that’s what was meant) his response to her was no.
Either way it’s will be handled by people who know more about safeguarding than I clearly do. Clearly we’ve failed as parents to raise our son well.

I believe that your son has learnt some valueable lessons

Sex can lead to a real or "phantom pregnancy" (late period ?) at every time

Sex without emotional attachment
Is easy to do, but can lead to problems.
Some people change their minds

The good thing is that he has spoken about things, rather than bottle them up

Except here is the OP and husband driving the utter humiliation of this girl by sharing these photos with her school!

It is the boy's parents doing the real damage here. I seriously fear for this girl's wellbeing. If I were her parents I'd be frantic at the school's involvement and hordes of people now knowing all about this and seeing explicit photos of their daughter courtesy of the OP and her DH.

Indeed. As a young woman that enjoyed casual sex for what it was at times, I can’t say I would have expected a full psychological evaluation before being taken at my word. It seems a 17 year old male is allowed agency, whereas an 18 year woman must be considered a vulnerable mental infant.

He didn’t ‘use’ her any more than she used him. As far as he was aware, they were on the same page. Fair enough if she changed her mind afterwards, but that hardly obliged him to do the same. He very clearly told her no, which is something she should have accepted. Instead she chose to harass him with unwanted photos and communication.

I don’t think a teenage boy searching about ending his life is a great look either. It’s good you’ve all got great children mine clearly made a mistake he was down didn’t know who to talk to. I am disappointed in myself as a parent. When you find out your child has searched up the effectiveness of condoms, contraceptions, abortions risks then feeling suicidal. I think it’s okay for me to give him a big of grace that he didn’t handle this well. I think if he is feeling suicidal I don’t think he will be speaking to any girls for a while. We are getting him help and support. DH doesn’t want to get the girl in trouble also our sim doesn’t deserve to be searching up about feeling suicidal etc. No one is a perfect victim, yes he shouldn’t have had sex with her, yes he could have told us about explicit pictures sooner. He didn’t do those things he was 17 he wasn’t being or acting rational and we will do better.

he told her to stop he’s not interested multiple times that’s when she started sending explicit pictures.

has told multiple girls to not send him explicit pictures albeit in a harsh way saying “I don’t like you please stop sending me pictures”

He hasn't taken the initiative and blocked them so they can't keep doing it though, has he?

It was completely wrong what she did, but there was mixed messages. Even if he said 'I don't want anything serious', he slept with her, which implies he liked her to some extent, as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. She did one thing wrong, it sounds like he was unpleasant to her many times, and to other girls too. I would personally be concerning myself more with his behaviour, and speaking to his school around the messages they are teaching these young men - as you said his mates were also similar in behaviour.

He also had to be prepared that he might become a Dad if he is having sex, no contraception is foolproof.

My daughter wants to go to single sex school which is paired with a boys school , I'm not keen as I think it can lead to a belief that boys and girls are different, and one believing they are superior to the other - hopefully a grammar might be better than a private for this, but I still have my reservations, especially after reading this thread.

Who has given you this information ?

have you really raised 4 boys in this time of social media and not closely supervised their phone use to the extent that you are now surprised that this is going on? I'd stop focussing on this girl and start focussing on how to remedy this, god knows what your boys have learnt about women and how they treat women without have close parental support to explain that the internet world and even the reality TV world of fantasy sex is not the real or healthy world.

Don't let school scapegoat this girl when it is not addressing a bigger issue. School needs something like this https://www.ceopeducation.co.uk/professionals/ceop-talks-relationships/

If the girl is humiliated, it’s because of her own actions. Her behavior is deeply concerning, and I don’t see why she shouldn’t be held accountable for it.

I strongly suspect that you don't have the full story here.

I am just happy my son has spoken to us instead of ending his life. I am upset and disappointed at the situation he has got himself into and we are trying to handle it the best that we can no one is trying to get anyone in trouble I wouldn’t want the girl to hurt herself. This is my first time finding out my son has searched up things to do with ending his own life it’s really hurt me. I came here just for perspective not a pile on for how unpleasant he is for receiving unsolicited pictures from a girl or for his reaction to finding out she is pregnant/not pregnant/wanting to support her on her abortion and even wanting to talk about it etc. he was 17 maybe we didn’t prepare him enough for talks on pregnancy that is our fault yes it’s not good for him to say to her that he wants to find better girls at uni to be in a relationship with but regardless that doesn’t warrant what has happened