Girlfriend has shown her hand!

[Ccooped1]

Hi, Im extremely sad and angry with myself over the position I have let myself get into. I am a single dad with custody of 3 young children (aged 4, 6, and 8 YO). I work full time and raise my children on my own and have done for the last 3.5 years. They are amazing and we work so well as a family unit - life couldn't be any better under the circumstances. I moved away from family for work several years ago so my nearest family member is 120 miles away... At present my children have not seen their mom for 19 months as she has moved away without any idea. I get zero support, of which I don't moan about as i'm fortunate to have a good job and be motivated to my children. They have everything children need, an extremely special bond with me, they are taught morals / values, have life experiences etc. Again I am lucky to be able to do this. I have got my head down over the initial 3 years on my own ensuring my children are in a good place emotionally after the disappearing act of mother.
I have just done the basics right, worked hard, renovated a house for us to grow old in, and been a dads taxi of course.

Anyway now the scene is set, I have a major issue. Over the last year I have been building a relationship with a girl who I thought was very caring and in a similar position to me would be a safe bet. We have been open about our situation, limited time we spent together and agreed on things like kids, marriage moving in together etc. It was clear that as she had 2 children and I have 3, that I did not want any more children as it just doesn't make sense obviously to me and I dont want to change nappies for ever! Anyway after being on the pill she is pregnant and basically told me to f off she is keeping it. I know we can all say you should have not listened to her and used a condom but it has been a year and i thought trust was there. My point of view is that I have been clear from day one and this is all against my consent. She already has 2 children off different dads and I am not judging by this but surely she wants solid foundations to void being in her current position again. She has told me that she is having it regardless of what I say. I know her kids dads are not the best so she wants a good dad but this is all wrong. She is not listening to me and everytime I try and talk calmly to her she goes off on one and i see a side I never once thought was there. I understand that there is nothing i can do so this message really is me venting off and hoping that someone can tell me they have had something similar or what on earth I am going to do. I would never ever walk away from a child so I will be there for it no matter what, with regards to the mother I cannot be false and this is betrayal and whilst I am not a nasty person I cannot move forward with a women like this. I feel such a fool!!

I don't want any babies so I'm on the coil.
Before I was on the coil I was on the pill and my husband wore condoms because he REALLY doesn't want a child and understands that contraception is both people's responsibility.

@Ccooped1

I want to try and frame this as nicely and respectfully as possible and hopefully put in to perspective how she might be feeling based on what you’ve said about her (obviously I don’t know her and can only offer light on a female view point)

She has 2 children already, from 2 fathers who are not supportive. She’s a single parent and going through all the challenges related to that (as you know yourself) and she has a part time job she dislike. She has also had 2 abortions prior to your meeting.

Given the above I can’t imagine she is eager to become a single parent to 3 children, (unless she has purposefully gotten herself pregnant and I don’t know why she would) I would imagine she’d rather not be in the position she is in. You have to also take into account the abortions here, you can never really know how deeply they may have affected her. An abortion can be a tough thing to reconcile with even when it has been done for all the right reasons. Three terminations may just be too much for her to take and when she considers things and knowing your not a bad man who will abandon his child see’s no drastic reason to terminate the pregnancy. So whilst you may see that she has been willing to make that choice before, for her the circumstances and reasoning is different. She may also feel very protective over the pregnancy and can’t deal with hearing reasons for why she shouldn’t continue it it hence why she didn’t want to discuss it with you at all. Granted she could have said she wasn’t willing to discuss it in nicer terms however the sentiment is the same.

A different situation but might be helpful to you: I had 2 children 13 and 7 at the time when I found out I was unexpectedly pregnant. We hadn’t planned on having any more and I had in fact terminated in the past (prior to the 7 year old so a long time before) due to us being in a terrible situation financially at the time. We were just at the point where our children were old enough to allow us a little more freedom and life was getting easier. The unexpected pregnancy spelled disaster to my partner and he didn’t want a return to the baby days or the additional financial strain. For me it was not a disaster and while I had not planned of becoming pregnant I couldn’t help but feel positive about having another child.

As you might imagine it was quiet a conundrum knowing what to do for the best and given that as the woman and the one carrying the baby the decision was ultimately up to me. It was very difficult and so tough when you have children to consider already as well as different feelings and view points from your partner. I can tell you that it was very tempting to utter their words ‘I’m keeping it regardless’ but a 15 year relationship and children already warranted more consideration and respect than that.

Ultimately I kept the baby, we were financially stable our relationship was stable and keeping the pregnancy was the better thing to do. There was no way I could terminate when having the baby was very possible and knowing that terminating would mean an emotional turmoil and a deep resentment towards my partner that our relationship may never recover from. 2 years on we have a little DD and she is the best thing ever for all of us and he loves having her despite his feelings on the matter when we discovered I was pregnant.

Wow that was so much longer than I intended sorry. I hope that things can calm down enough for you to be able to talk this through. I hope what I have said has offered you some insight to her thoughts and that it is helpful to you.

Women have it absolutely drilled into them to control their fertility and use contraception.

Men need to have it equally drilled into them.

You be responsible for your own contraception - always.

If you don't want any children, then you source, buy and always use your own contraception.

Not doing so is potentially completely life-changing (ruining, even).

Why would you just leave it up to someone else? No woman ever would - unless it was a happy married couple and he was having a vasectomy because their family was complete.

The pill being 99% effective, doesn't that equate to 1 in 100? With the sheer amount of traffic on mumsnet surely it would make it seem fairly common? - sorry first ever post, but this is the Internet thousands of people are directed to this site every few seconds. It's seem harsh to damn women who get pregnant with these numbers..

Just keep your wayward dick in your pants stop trying to blame women for not wearing a raincoat and take some responsibility for yourself HINT it wasn't the feckin tooth fairy that impregnated your girlfriend it was you and although both partners are responsible for their own actions it still take two to tango but one to blame! The pair of you need to sit down and sort this out, you can't force someone to have an abortion if they don't want to and as for girlfriend has shown her hand well you have shown your dick so the pair of you need to grow up, step up and deal with this situation like adults and stop whining as that won't help

It depends how you measure effectiveness. If used strictly according to instructions, the failure rate is only 0.3% .

If men really don't want children then they need to take responsibility for their own fertility and that is by wearing a condom.
If a woman doesn't want them to wear a condom then surely you know she doesn't respect your wishes and you move on? Same as it would be the other way round?

Yet I have met plenty of men who are the ones who 'refuse' to use condoms though, we have all heard the "but arnt you on the pill?" Or "i dont like condoms because they are too tight, no sensation ect"

If men really believed that women were 'using' them to get pregnant or for financial gain then you would be protecting yourselves!
It is just a cop out, put all the responsibility on the woman so if she does get pregnant then we can walk away and blame her still whilst we look hard done by.

The pair of you need to sit down and sort this out

He's tried. Read the OP. She told him to fuck off.

Women have it absolutely drilled into them to control their fertility and use contraception.

Men need to have it equally drilled into them.

You be responsible for your own contraception - always.

If you don't want any children, then you source, buy and always use your own contraception.

Really? Women do this? All women? How there are so many unwanted pregnancies then? Bit strange if all women are controlling their fertility, being responsible for their own contraception, sourcing, buying it and using it isn't it?

Maybe if he stopped whining and blaming her she might give a better response??

If the woman gets pregnant and she doesn't want to carry a child she has an abortion.

Why haven't they made sure their contraception is water tight or abstained? Why is it aok for a woman to get pregnant because they weren't being responsible and then decide that they don't want to be a parent but not ok if it's a man in that situation?

She got you good and proper mate sorry.
Yes you should have had the snip as soon as you were happy you didn't want more kids.

There is nothing suggesting she trapped him .

You don’t actually come across as liking thus woman at all.

I would support any woman who doesn’t want van abortion not to have one . If anyone books me differentl my response would be the same .

The comments about shared care I am assuming buoy don’t mean from birth ?

Why haven't they made sure their contraception is water tight or abstained? Why is it aok for a woman to get pregnant because they weren't being responsible and then decide that they don't want to be a parent but not ok if it's a man in that situation?

Because there's nothing wrong with having an abortion.

What there is something wrong with is forcing someone to either have an abortion or carry a child against their will. That's why the situation is the way it is.

OP, you came on here throwing knives at your girlfriend, blaming her for the whole situation, ascribing malice to her actions and painting yourself as a blameless paragon of virtue.

And then you are surprised that people threw those knives back at you to defend her.

It’s entirely possible the pregnancy is just an accident. One which could had been more likely to be avoided if you had taken a larger part of the shared responsibility of contraception. And it’s entirely possible that the conversation has become bitter and angry due to your initial reaction (anger, hurt, blame) rather than because your girlfriend is a bad person.

If you’ve said you don’t want a vasectomy in case the girl of dreams comes along and wants a baby, but then outright reject the possibility of keeping an unplanned baby, you’ve basically told your girlfriend that it’s not that you are totally opposed to babies, but that you judge her unworthy.

I think your anger at your girlfriend is misplaced. You are actually angry, and right to be angry, with yourself. You could have taken extra steps to make pregnancy even less likely and didn’t take them. She did take some action, it just wasn’t sufficient- no single form of contraception is ever reliable enough for that. You didn’t take action.

You let yourself down. The mature and morally upright thing to do would be to shoulder the consequences and get on with it, whilst working through your anger with yourself in a way that doesn’t harm others. Not to try to take out your anger with yourself on someone else who actually did their share of prevention.

By the way, when you are angry with yourself, taking it out on someone else won’t solve the anger, it will just intensify it. You weren’t and aren’t being responsible for yourself and you will end up hating yourself for it.

Well, Hear, the woman has to carry the child and give birth to it is why. A little basic biology there. Similarly, a woman has to have a medical procedure on her body to terminate.

He's tried. Read the OP. She told him to fuck off.

He's tried to convince her to have a termination she does not want. She told him no. He didn't get the message.

He's tried to convince her to have a termination she does not want. She told him no. He didn't get the message.

That's not exactly sitting down and having a sensible discussion, though, is it? Yes, it's ultimately the girlfriend's choice and no one should take that away from her, but I do feel the OP is entitled to more of an explanation than 'fuck off'

How there are so many unwanted pregnancies then? Bit strange if all women are controlling their fertility, being responsible for their own contraception, sourcing, buying it and using it isn't it?

Well, in those cases, the woman takes responsibility for her 'mistake'.

She doesn't go around whining, and blaming the man for her predicament - which, after all, she'd have grounds to do, given he ejaculated inside her.

Obviously.

I assume the discussion went something like this

OP: WTF? How are you pregnant? I don't want anymore kids!
GF: Me neither/I know but it has happened now!

OP: But the girl of my dreams isn't going to like this. Please have an abortion.
GF: Fuck off.

Why is it aok for a woman to get pregnant because they weren't being responsible and then decide that they don't want to be a parent but not ok if it's a man in that situation?

Err, because it's her body.

The man can equally fuck and leave her high and dry, which many do, so it's not like they don't have options of their own.

The problem is that the Op’s Girlfriend seeing the foetus as a baby. And once someone sees a foetus as a baby then you can’t have a reasonable discussion with them about termination. (Op - if I suggested one solution to your problem that you only want 3 kids and there is now a 4th on the way is that you could kill your 4 year old would you sit down and have a reasoned discussion with me or would you tell me to “fuck off”.)

It is not logical why people see some pregnancies as “baby” and some as “foetus”. My two were conceived in pretty much identical circumstances (very much planned within a marriage) - one I saw as “my ickle baby” the second the test turned positive. The other took a lot longer. I was pleased to be pregnant as I wanted a baby but I didn’t have any huge attachment to that particular baby for quite few weeks.

Because there's nothing wrong with having an abortion.

So you're saying that it's fine to be lax with contraception as a woman because you can have an abortion is that right?

Well, in those cases, the woman takes responsibility for her 'mistake'.

Does she? In what way?

Op - if I suggested one solution to your problem that you only want 3 kids and there is now a 4th on the way is that you could kill your 4 year old would you sit down and have a reasoned discussion with me or would you tell me to “fuck off”.)

Ridiculous argument though isn't it? Murder is illegal. Abortion isn't.

It's beyond me why the woman wants another child when she already has two by different fathers. It's all very well being sentimental about a foetus but that won't put food on the table.

However what's done is done, I'm sure the op will support his fourth child as much as he can and will make sure he has no more. I wonder if the new baby-mother will ensure she has no more.