What would you say to a bloke whose ex is emotionally blackmailing him over unborn baby?

[Mousey84]

She is 5 months pregnant. They split up before she found out she was pregnant, and only told him when she was 3 months along.

Now, I know how emotional being pregnant can be, but she is telling him that if he dates anyone else (bearing in mind, they are not together), then he will not be allowed to see his child.

I know dads get a rough deal when it comes to custody etc. I just dont know what to tell him. His heads a mess atm.

Its unlikely she will date while pregnant, so maybe she thinks he shouldnt either? I dont know... Also, obviously, Im only getting one side of the story.

Has anyone been in, or had a friend in a similar situation? Any advice?

keep out of it is the answer

tell him to seek legal advice to see what his rights are and to get some framework in place for when the child is born

If his head's a mess atm, as you say, he's probably not in any mood to go dating yet anyway? But obviously she cannot control what he does in this manner.

I would stay out of it tbh, I also would not want to get involved with a man who had a child on the way. If the child was from a loving relationship who knows what may happen when the child arrives and I would not want to get in the way of a potential family unit. Or if it was a casual fling or accident he is not very reponsible so again I would stay clear.

Sounds like she could want to be back with him and this is her way of getting some control over the situation.
I am due any day by an ex and we do have an unspoken thing that we don't date at the moment. Only cos it is such a complicated time and he is waiting for the call any time to come to hospital, and when baby is born he is going to stay with me for a couple of weeks. Totally platonic but a lot for a new partner to have to deal with...

Oooh, bit unfair to say he's not very responsible if it was a fling, leftieluvvie, there's no such thing as 100% guaranteed contraception.

Point him in the direction of Families Need Fathers. They'll be able to offer him sound advice about how to avoid inflaming the situation but also what the law says.

I was in a similar position during my pregnancy and I did ask my then XP not to date anyone else as it did not sit well with me at all. He was more than happy to agree to do that too, we didn't need any additional complicating factors to what is an undeniably tricky situation!

I don't think she is unreasonable to ask but I don't think it is fair to threaten him with not seeing the baby either - would imagine it was said in the heat of the moment. Why doesn't he just say ok? Regardless of what he says he either meets someone or doesn't and what he has said and agreed won't matter if he meets the love of his life. If he doesn't then he has kept relations good between him and the mother of his child, win - win.

Mousey men are very seldom denied access to a child unless actual threat of harm is proven.

She's talking nonsense. does she want him back or summat?

Ewe, x posts there, sorry if I sounded callous - may I ask you to explain a bit more clearly why you didn't want him to date?

Thats what I thought Tess but he says she doesnt. They split up months before, had a one night thing and not been together since.

I agree that he shouldn't date right now. She needs the support for the forseeable future, and have told him this. However, I also wonder if this is the start of a heap of threats she will make and I cant see much positive stuff re custody / contact rights in the brief searches I have done online.

DDs dad and I have a very amicable arrangement and I cant imagine ever threatening to stop them from seeing eachother ( except for cases of abuse etc, of course)

Want to be a supportive friend but feel totally useless!

It probably is harsh, it all just sounds complicated and life is hard enough tbh without looking for complications.

I am very old fashioned though when it comes to sex so that would be my thought pattern.

I imagine she is in a panic about being left alone holding the baby while the man that impregnated her is off sowing his wild oats. Not right but understandable.

I just didn't think it was appropriate when I was carrying his baby, just like I didn't think me having sex with other men would have been appropriate either. It didn't seem to make sense to complicate an already messy situation by involving a third party pro actively iyswim, meeting someone by chance is one thing but pro actively dating is another in my book.

As it happens, we then got back together, not sure that would have been as easy had he been dating whilst we weren't together and I was pregnant. I think for men the dating thing can be a bit of a knee jerk reaction to this scenario, I know it was one of the first things that came up as I think he felt like he needed to assert his single-ness.

Obviously it depends on the circumstances, how in contact they still are, are they friends etc. I can only go by my experience and we were maintaining friendship and even living together for a time when I was pregnant, him dating would have messed a lot of stuff up. It's an emotional reaction more than a logical one!

Will pass him details of the web site now, thanks snorbs.

I dont know many men who have the right balance of logic and emotion!

EWE - its great that you and partner worked things out.

Thanks everyone for the insight to your thoughts on this. Guess I just keep up with what I had already said to him, and listen when he needs a rant

The web site is great too - had a look around it and have passed it on to him.

Thanks Ewe, I can certainly understand...but I had a different take on it when mine left me - I hoped he would find someone else to focus on as he was such a horrible bloke.