Wife Got Pregnant On Purpose, What To Do?

[NorthWestMan]

Hey Everyone,

First time poster here. I could really do with peoples perspective’s on this as I’m swimming with so many thoughts and I can’t seem to lay them out to make sense.

Im 28 year old husband who’s been married for just under a year, we’ve been together for around 7 years and we have a 3 ½ year old son.

I came home on Monday night from work for my Mrs to tell me she is pregnant again, I’ve made it very clear that I didn’t want another child and I didn’t even want one child but things happen. It’s worth pointing out at this point that I love my son dearly and wouldn’t change him for the world. We initially found out that she was pregnant with our first when she was 7 months gone and I have been led to believe that it was an accident which up until the announcement of baby 2 I firmly believed. However recent events have shook me to my core and I’m really lost now.

My Mrs takes care of birth control and has been on the pill, she said that she was on it throughout our first child and it was just an accident. I believed her as I know the pill isn’t 100% proof and had no real reason to doubt it as she appeared just as shook up as me. I know I should use something as well rather than just trusting her however I trusted her 100%, if things work out I will definitely be taking control of birth control.

What has happened on this occasion is that she has just stopped taking the pill, she wanted to “take a break” as the pill was making her feel awful. She says that she told me but there is no way that she did as I am so adamant about a second child I would of remembered 100% and would’ve done anything I could so stop the possibility of child number 2. Theres a couple of reasons that I don’t want a second child which can be summarised below;

• I’m too selfish and it takes a considerable amount of effort on my part to be a good dad (I like to think I’m a good dad as every dad does)
• I don’t want to go through the first 24 months of no sleep, no freedom, nappies and all the other stuff
• We can’t financially afford it (we have around £10k worth of Credit Card debt which comes from the Wedding she insisted on having in the UK despite it costing double as going abroad)
• 60% of my wage is commission and can’t be counted on (this adds an enormous amount of pressure on my shoulders)
• My basic wage doesn’t even cover the basic bills so I have to ensure that I perform at work
• She wants to go back to work once she has the second child (I can never understand this, why do you want a child if you just want to go work and dump them on nursery?)
• Her wage doesn’t even cover 1 child’s childcare – I basically pay for her to go to work
• I guess, the most fundamental reason is that I just don’t want a second child

What is killing me is the thought that she may have got pregnant on purpose the first time and pulled of some Oscar winning act to convince me she didn’t. Also, the main issue which is what sticks in my mind is that can I trust? Will I ever be able to trust her again? She knew I didn’t want a second child but came off the pill without telling me and now she is pregnant. I don’t know if I’ll be able to trust her again. If that’s the case, how can the marriage last? How can I provide a stable home for my son? How can I be the dad that I want to be?

All I can see are two options;
Option One: Stay and try and work things out (I don’t know how this will affect us mentally and physically)
Option Two: Leave

I think that I should leave but I’m a coward, I can’t walk out on my son and pregnant wife, what kind of man does that make me? But then again, what kind of dad will I be if I am unhappy and me and the wife lose our connection?

Any thoughts?

I don't think that suggestion is any more ridiculous than expecting the woman to take responsibility for contraception by way of invasive hormonal methods indefinitely.

I can't believe your accusing dw of getting pg on purpose! As tou said pill not 100%. You should of took care of contraception if you didn't want a baby.

Poor OP. You were always going to get slatted on here.

If your wife got pregnant deliberately that is imo unforgivable. I couldn't see my marriage surviving such a loss of trust.

Tbf, OP would've got less of a hard time without the "dump them in childcare" and "pay her to go to work" comments - it wasn't just the contraceptive stuff!

Fucking hell, can you imagine some of the stuf being posted on this thread - 'you sound really whiny and selfish' 'it takes two to tango' 'you should have sorted additional contraception to that discussed and decided by the two of you' 'you should have got a permanent sterilisation, if you don want kids right now, even though you might want them in the future' etc etc - if it was a woman who posted on here to say that she was upset she was pregnant becuase her husband really wanted kids so pricked holes in the condoms they had decided on together as their method of contraception?

No, me neither.

'He's only 27. How ridiculous to suggest he should have a vasectomy.'

Why? He's an adult who is adamant he wants no more children. Entirely sensible to make that so by taking responsibility for oneself and make that so.

But how do you know they didn't decide together that taking the pill was the best option?
It's completely ridiculous to say the op should have not relied on the pill. Millions of couples do just that without any issue. This is not a casual relationship, this is his wife. If I was on the pill and DH told me he wanted to use condoms too as he didn't trust me then I'd be furious. Not at the condom idea but at the suggestion that he didn't trust me. Married couples in normal relationships should be able to have such trust.
And he really shouldn't have a vasectomy if he feels there's any chance he may wAnt further children in his 30s.

This is going to be my last post because I can't be arsed with arguing. I think you sound massively resentful of your wife in many ways, right back to the wedding that she "insisted" on having in the UK. She doesn't seem to be able to do much right at all. So she's either a big, demanding princess who rides roughshod over you and ignores all your opinions or you are a massive "Blamer" who needs to have someone to pin anything that goes wrong on. It's probably a mix of both.

Finally women's hormonal contraception is massively complex and affects every woman differently. I stopped taking the pill years ago as it literally made me ill. As a previous poster said there's a big difference between slyly and manipulatively stopping taking the pill in order to conceive without input from the father or stopping it because it makes you ill while factoring in the fact that you have sex infrequently, hope that residual hormones will protect you for a while and intend to have sex in what you believe to be a "safe" time of the month i.e taking a risk because you simply cannot bear to be on the pill anymore. Been there!

OP I hope it all works out for you and you and your wife find a way through that you're both able to accept relatively happily.

But Expat, that's just it; he's not adamant. He said early on in the thread that he is completely sure he doesn't want another child now but he may change his mind in 5yrs or so. If he has any doubt he shouldn't have the op.

My wife always had it in her head that I would change my mind and who knows I may have done a few years now but we had plenty of time. She's only 25.

I think a lack of clear communication between us is a problem we need to look at.

Slightly off topic but the issue of 2 adults and 3 children is a real pain and I feel for you there. Usually long haul holidays work out the best in that case as any hotel in Europe rips you off. Depending on what your budget is and how you feel about flying Mauritius may work out best. Somewhere like Long Beach it Sugar Beach. A lot of hotels in the Far East and Indian Ocean offer family suites which can be excellent value.

I agree with your post Nicki. I said up thread I thought their relationship was dysfunctional. but I still think you can't come off the pill and think it won't happen so don't mention it to your partner.

NWM

Again, not excusing any lying.

But for me, contemplating having another child once the first was 7 or 8 would be quite a different decision from when the first was 2 or 3. IMO, harder to go back to the nappy years the further you are from them. Of course, some people plan their families that way and that works fine for them too. But she may not have viewed the option of "second child - maybe later" quite the same as you.

For what it is worth we did discuss what the best method of contraception would very and it was definitely the pill. We take multivitamins every day and we were less likely to forget than getting caught in the moment and not using a condom.

If I come across resentful about my wife, at this moment in time I am, a little. I feel like she has made a massive decision without me and that calls in to question all previous decisions.

Thanks, NWM We're actually 2 adults and 4 children so even more awkward I imagine. But thanks for the tips anyway. Kids range from 12 down to 1 so I was trying to avoid longhaul.
And I'm 45 with a 1yr old. 25 with a 4 yr old seems so young to me. I was massively selfish then too and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to give up my career and stay at home.

I've never had a problem going anywhere as 2+3, and have bargain european holidays. Soon to be 2+4 and I don't envision any problems with that either.

Hi OP

I can't believe the bashing you're getting on here, it's ridiculous.

To me you sound thoughtful, rational, balanced and yes you have opinions which we all do and you're getting a hard time about those among other things. You don't sound like a dickhead or an idiot and I think there is a valid issue here, which didn't arise because of your behaviour.

First off I think as a woman it is very difficult when you are pretty desperate to have a child (or another child) and your partner or husband doesn't want one. It may be the same if you reverse the roles but I don't know not being a bloke.

The hormonal pull for a woman can be massive. There is also a sizeable contingent that supports the view that 'tricking' your H into getting you pregnant is sort of acceptable, he'll come round' to the idea, etc - I think this is partly as a result of what quite often appears to happen, ie a man says he never wants a child, and then when you become pregnant, he gradually does 'come round' to it and turns out to love the baby very much.

You can see how this skewed belief in 'doing it for their own good' has come about, I guess.

I don't agree with it and it doesn't make it morally sound but there is a certain sort of 'sisterhood' that supports it as I said and perhaps your wife has subscribed to that or been influenced by it. It's easy to fall into if you really feel strongly that you want a child. And you've already shown how much you adore being a father so perhaps she thought it would work out Ok in the end.

Coming back to the point, you aren't sure whether or not she mentioned the pill issue. Maybe she mentioned it while you were reading or not really listening, or maybe she didn't mention it but wants you to think she did so you accept the pregnancy.

I seriously doubt she concealed the first pregnancy from you. That would have been massively hard work and probably impossible, as well as being a bit pointless. So I'd forget that personally unless she admits it in which case yes, look again at the entire relationship because that would make it difficult to know you could trust her going forward.

I think it's fairly likely that she really wanted another baby and accidentally-on-purpose didn't really tell you properly about the pill, hoping that you would be Ok with it and I think in your situation I'd sit down with her and have a real heart to heart conversation about this, how you really want to support her and so on but you wish to Goodness she had asked you properly first as the way she has approached the issue is unfair.

You really need to get back to basics on this, have a proper, genuine talk about it, without recrimination, and try and establish what happened and why and then you can probably start to go forward with a bit more of a chance than if you just walk in separate metaphorical directions and ignore the issue.

Hope this helps a bit; I think you already know it really but thought I'd put the female perspective...I've been in a similar situation so kind of understand, if indeed she has done this.

Hope you can forge something out of your obviously otherwise good relationship.

Really? Where do you go? DH will not contemplate self catering at all. Also want somewhere packed with activities like sailing and raft building and volleyball and stuff like that.

In that case Connie, have a look at the Martinhal in the Algarve. They have some lovely Villas there so you get the benefit of being in a resort without the issue of taking multiple rooms

Thank you, will do!
As an aside, we used to live in the NW (Wilmslow) loved it!

I think you should leave your wife and children.
I don't think you will ever get over this either miscommunication or lie from what you say.

Running two households will be a completely different life anyway so maybe you could look at giving up your job and going for full time residency, being the sahd? You do think that's best for children and your wife doesn't, so she can work.

I think it's possible to get over it once you get to the root of it and build back up from there.

Good luck whatever you decide to do.

A vasectomy.

He's 27, his wife is 25, they have one toddler and you're suggesting a vasectomy when he has said he may consider having children in the future.

Hormonal BC is not "massively complex". It might not work for some women. I don't know that this is the case for the OP's wife, but if it's not (which is the likely case) this makes a hell of a lot more sense than condoms between a married couple.

But she says she did tell you she was stopping the pill.

Are you sure? Absolutely completely sure that she's lying about that? Is it just conceivable (ha!) that she did tell you she was thinking of stopping the pill? Could she have perhaps mentioned her unhappiness with the pill and you've pushed it to the back of your mind as 'women stuff'? Has she ever told you anything else that you haven't taken on board when you've been busy or distracted? Are you the sort of person who needs things spelled out very straightforwardly rather than picking up on less direct signals?

My guess is you've not heard something she's been saying to you in different ways for a while now.

Hi Invizicat

I'm pretty sure we didn't have that conversation. I remember her saying her pill was making her feel funny but at no point did she say, Hey, I'm off the the pill now. It's a pretty big thing to just hint at. Much like I think we need a new car, the car is using too much fuel compared to Surprise! Here's our new Car!

That wasn't meant to sound horrible or ratty, it was meant to have a touch of humour but I know sometimes Northern humour can come across wrong.