"Except, perhaps having to contribute towards the baby's financial keeping, the consequences for a man are almost none."
I know a young man whose (now ex) girlfriend poked holes in the condoms (that came out in a row, apparently) and told him she was taking her contraceptive pills, when she wasn't. She ended up pregnant, and they now have a 2 year old.
The young man, however, ended up hospitalised after having a heart attack brought on, the doctors say, by the stress of having fathered a child with a young woman whom he didn't want to be with. They'd split before the heart attack. He was then diagnosed with another heart condition - which again, is thought to have been brought on/caused by this situation. He spent almost a month in the hospital just after his child was born, because of this.
He also has PTSD and flashbacks to the delivery of his child. He didn't want to be there, having left the child's mother as soon as she told him how she'd fallen pregnant when, as far as he was concerned, protection was being used to prevent this. Obviously, she refused to terminate the pregnancy - as was her right (her body = her choice) - but he had no say in whether or not he became a father. The delivery was attended by the young woman's hostile mother, and the whole situation (it was a long labour) left him feeling abused and traumatised.
Yes, he pays for the child. More so, actually, than he's been told to by the CMS and his family. I admire/respect him for this fact. Having been a single mother, myself, and raised two children whose "fathers" didn't pay maintenance for them (and stole from the oldest, to boot), I know how hard it is. But the ex-girlfriend got precisely what she wanted (a baby) and the young man has been left with a lifelong heart condition as a result. It's only in the last year or so that he's been allowed to see the child - and that's on the condition that his new girlfriend (definitely not me, before anyone thinks so... I'm far too old for that sort of "deal", thanks!) vacates her own home/space during the child's visits. The ex-girlfriend, essentially, dictates and controls what happens in another woman's home/life. Why? "Because she can", I've been told.
The young man has said that he regrets ever having had anything to do with the ex-girlfriend (she was abusive in other ways, too, but he was too frightened to say anything because "blokes don't get abused" is very much the mindset still), doesn't love his child because of how they were conceived, resents having to disrupt his life - for the rest of it - because of them.
So for some men (because I doubt very much this young man is the only one who has endured what he has, because their girlfriends knew they were about to have their relationship ended... and thought a baby would fix everything/bind them together so that the boyfriend couldn't leave them...) there are lifelong consequences which aren't necessarily only a child(ren).
As for your cousin's husband, @topflower123, I agree with other posters. He is trying to destroy her career/earning potential in an effort to be "top dog". If she takes a second maternity leave of a year (if you're in the UK), within a few weeks/months of returning to her job... she's likely to be fired, I'm afraid. Thus making her more vulnerable and dependent upon the husband. All you can do, though, is be a friendly shoulder for her. Advise her of her options - because she does have them! - and support her choices/decisions. If only you know about the pregnancy, and she wants to terminate (which, again her body = her choice), then no one else need ever know about it. Her husband has raped her. And cultural reasons or not, her parents would have to be pretty awful in and of themselves, if they disowned/lost their daughter and grandchild(ren) because of what that abusive bastard has done to her.
