Can he stop his baby's mother moving away before the birth?

[Sadgie]

His baby mum to be is 5 months pregnant and has told him she plans to move back to her parents home which is rural and 2.5 hours away by car, he doesn't drive. She presented this as a done deal, has had a transfer of office base for her job etc, wants to raise child where she grew up.
She has lived in the same city as him for the decade he has known her.
He is devastated as can't see how he can be an involved dad as he wanted to be now. He has signed up to driving lessons in quite a defeated way, reluctant to get legal advice as doesn't want to start things off badly.
They were in the same friendship group for a long time, never in a relationship. They got together in the wake of them both breaking up with their long term partners. Son thinks she's embarrassed and doesn't really want him in the picture.
Is there anything he can do to prevent her moving? I appreciate she may want more support in new parenthood but as she's planning permanent relocation it's going to mean they have a dad at long distance for the whole of their childhood.

That's your viewpoint for which you have failed to provide any argument.

I find the fact you keep replying to me also rather tedious. So let's call it quits eh?😂

She made the choice to keep the baby. He has no say whatsoever in wether he becomes a parent but she gets to make a choice to continue or not. So yes her life will change, her body will change but that is hers and only her choice. I agree you can't rely on the other person for contraception but usually if your friends with someone you take their word for it. She did say she was on the pill.

It just sounds like this woman has had unprotected sex with her mates ex, got pregnant, decided to keep it and then wants to move away and have the baby alone because she's embarrassed apparently?

id be embarrassed too if I slept with my mates ex got pregnant and selfishly decided to keep it.

If he did do this I'm sure everyone will be quick to say how much of an audacity it is for him to be doing all of that when it's not his place. can't win.

hope none of you have sons 🥲

His desire to see his baby for short periods of time very frequently is the gold standard of visits for that age. Just because most father’s can’t be bothered to show up for a hour a day doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be asking for that. The mother might not be happy with it, but neither of them is going to be happy in this situation. Both of them are supposed to be doing what is in the best interest of the child.

Why doesn't he do a week long driving course where the test is included at the end?
I don't think you can expect anyone to agree that a pregnant woman should commit to living in a city where she has no family support and no partner.
They are not a couple, she would not want him there while she's post partum. She's made a very sensible decision.

I think he needs to wait until the baby is born. In the meantime she can move to wherever she wants to. At this stage no one knows whether he is going to be listed on the birth certificate and any access will depend on what the mother wants. He’s unlikely to be taking a new baby out of the house away from the mother.

You've just demonstrated further how he can not win- how intrusive would it be to be around hers making her tea all the time? It's all either apparently too little or too much!

So instead she should instead make it much harder for herself? Why cant he move?

He has no say whatsoever in wether he becomes a parent

Dont be ridiculous, of course he had a say, he had a say when he had sex, he had a say when he ejaculated inside her, he had a say when he decided not to use condom. Stop infantising men.

I've struggled to keep up with all the responses but feel like I made a mistake posting to be honest. He has no clue I have.
When I say he is defeated and learning to drive I mean that he is resigned to the move not that he is resentful. The title is AI generated an perhaps represents a harsher sentiment than I meant to express.
It was a shock as she has just bought her ex out so owns her flat in the city. They are texting and meeting up every so often, he went to 20 week scan. He is tied into his job here for another year but will consider moving to the nearest city if her move goes well.
They both were idiots as afr as the conception is concerned. He should have used a condom but also he's well aware of his responsibilities and completely respected her choice to keep the baby.

Sadly, @Sadgie MN posters will mainly defend the female, run down the male and god help you as the paternal grandparent.

I wouldn’t even try to justify yourself or your son’s actions and choices on here. As a prospective young father, your son has already been written off here and can’t win, whatever you suggest, whatever actions he takes. Plan to support his child and he is controlling, plan to walk away and he is a despicable human who does not care.

I am still scarred from posting about my DS, a young primary teacher, whose ex wife prevented him seeing their child. Courts involved, contact repeatedly frustrated. He did everything to see his child, agreed to any contact plans suggested, short visits, slow transitions, frequent contact, contact centre, absolutely anything to continue a relationship. Courts were looking at parental alienation and considering the child being made resident with my DS.
Posters on MN, suggested a huge range of untruths about my DS, defended DiL, blamed DS, couldn’t accept that this was a female unwilling to share their child with his DF. I was questioned and interrogated, made out to be covering. I was vilified for sharing their story, for wanting to offload. I wasn’t involved at all, a choice taken to maintain an objective distance.

My advice would be to walk away from the thread OP.

lol what idiocy. If a woman who your actually friends with says I'm on the pill and NIETHER have not said let's use a condom. The one who is taking the contraceptive pill and missing a few days here and there is obviously the one who is making the bloody decision to get pregnant more so than the other participant. THE WOMAN also is the only one (rightly so) who chooses to keep the baby or not. Don't come at me about how I'm infantiling men. There are plenty of women out there who make these choices consciously and I'm sorry to say but if you are not taking your pill continuously and have unprotected sex and you really really don't want to get pregnant you would obviously not have sex!!!

If you want a relationship with your grandchild OP, you need to do what you can to build one with their mother, starting now and the same applies double to your son. She's being sensible in going to a proven, reliable source of support which your son, however well meaning he might be, isn't at the moment.

You really need to stop working on how to stop her moving away (you can't) and start concentrating on what you can both do to support her, even from a distance. Your son has big decisions to make about where he lives etc but learning to drive as quickly as possible and ensuring financial support is paid on the dot is a start.

Also on the learning to drive front he is trying and is having weekly lessons, has a slot for his theory, but is struggling to get on a fast pass course with it being the summer. He is desperate as it will be 5 hours on public transport. He is doing what he can in that regard.

I think that it's really hard to be fair when it comes to having children. It's never going to be an equally shared experience even in a committed relationship. I get that your DS is in an unwinnable situation as a father but I also get why this woman is doing what she feels she needs to in order to cope with motherhood.

Surely once the baby is here he will be looking to move closer to him / her? It makes far more sense to me for the mum to be to move close to her wider support system (as she plans to) and then him to move closer to them too, rather than her staying somewhere that is closer to your son when the rest of her support system is elsewhere.

You must remember from the early days of parenthood how much of a difference it makes having a support system close by. She is sensible to be setting that up for her and the baby. Try to think of it that way. She’s making a decision that is best for the baby as your son can move closer, but her entire support system cannot relocate.

And from her POV while your son may turn out to be a lovely father who coparents healthily she doesn’t know him well enough to know yet if he will do so, so she is quite rightly surrounding herself with people she knows she can rely on for support.

Oh of course because IF a woman you're not in a relationship with, tells you shes on the pill, and you have no idea if she takes it properly or not, all condoms disappear from the vicinity?! Men can of course only access condoms if a woman asks him to 🙄
Youre being ridiculous claiming he had no say, men are perfectly capable of protecting their own fertility and wearing a condom, no matter what she says. It's called being responsible FOR YOURSELF. Also, have you heard of STDs?

yeah I never said they can't my main point was a woman decided to keep the baby or not so no he doesn't have a choice lol. You can wear a condom and it split/come off. It still would be the woman's choice.

Right...except this bullshit was what I picked you up on:

He has no say whatsoever in wether he becomes a parent

He did have choices, didn't he? And he didn't take them, yet now youre talking about the nonexistent condom splitting, bending over backwards to remove his responsibility.

Oh absolutely but birth mothers have to be on there so it’s a bit different. Ideally people would have these conversations before having children together so both men and women can consider if they want that person to be their child’s other parent. But for so many reasons things don’t always happen that way.

She’s about to be a single mother. She is probably scared and wants to be sure she will be supported and helped. No wonder she wants to be near her parents. Presumably she knows she can rely on them and doesn’t know if she can rely on your son as she doesn’t really know him or if his current promises can be taken at face value.

Are you dim? if a woman gets pregnant no matter how it happened of course the man doesn't get a say in it!?!? so no he doesn't get a say in it whatsoever. wether you use protection or not having sex doesn't guarantee the outcome because no contraceptive is 100% reliable. EVERYONE KNOWS that nothing is 100% so again like I have said it is always the WOMANS CHOICE so no he doesn't have a say. No man ever has a say because it's not their body. Jesus 🤦

@Naunet

If a man and woman have sex and use protection they can still get pregnant.

If they don't use protection they can get pregnant.

if they do get pregnant the woman is the one who makes the choice.

hope this helps.

Well any man who doesn’t understand sex can result in pregnancy must be astoundingly dim. He made the choice to have sex knowing the risk is that it could always lead to pregnancy.