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Pregnancy

Talk about every stage of pregnancy, from early symptoms to preparing for birth.

Infidelity - Found a condom under the bed

235 replies

Pippa0321 · 06/11/2022 22:17

I’m 2 months pregnant, we tried for a year and when we found out we were extremely happy. (we’ve been happily together for 6 years). However today I was cleaning and I found a condom wrap under the bed. I confronted him and he admitted he cheated with a random girl a year ago. He was out partying and met a girl, went back to her place and got with her, he thinks the condom wrap was in his pocket and may have fell out when he got changed back home. I don’t know what to do I’m shocked. I would have never ever expected that from him. He has been such a good boyfriend, so loving and so in love with me for all these years. I thought 100% he was the type he’d never cheat. Any advice? Should I leave him and keep the baby? Leave him and get an abortion? Or stay with him and keep the baby despite everything? Thanks x

OP posts:
BloodAndFire · 07/11/2022 13:59

mam0918 · 07/11/2022 13:56

OP asked and I gave my opinion which is as valid as yours, as someone who volunteers with charities that assist with the mental health side of the loss of wanted and long tried for pregnancies my opinion is VERY valid.

OP should not make a knee-jerk perminant choice based on a moment or anger or confusion at a man, this isnt a pregnancy from a one night stand or abuser she actively TRIED to get pregnanct for a YEAR which is classified as infertility teritory.

Your agenda was already perfectly clear.

Tessabelle74 · 07/11/2022 13:59

How realistic is it that you haven't cleaned under your bed for a year? I'm sorry OP, this deed was a LOT more recent and most likely in your bed. I'd definitely be leaving him but the baby situation is up to you, but be realistic, you're going to be a single mum unless you're happy being cheated on again, because it WILL happen again

stuntbubbles · 07/11/2022 14:01

How realistic is it that you haven't cleaned under your bed for a year?
while I think the boyfriend is lying through his teeth and cheated on OP in their bed, I find it perfectly believable and realistic that people don’t clean under their beds. Out of sight, out of mind. The boyfriend clearly doesn’t clean under there either, otherwise he’d have hidden the evidence.

Itsnotallblackandwhite · 07/11/2022 14:04

Pippa0321 · Today 11:03
I'm 29. It's hard because until today our relationship has been very good.

Don't you mean until yesterday your relationship was very good?
Your OP was on 06/11/22.

scarletisjustred · 07/11/2022 14:07

I'd leave and terminate. It's not "killing a baby because of a one night stand". It not tying yourself to this lying unfaithful man who must think you are really gullible. Somehow despite being paralytically drunk he managed to get an erection and somehow got a condon on it. I'd want to provide a better father for a child and not be slogging and scrimping through life as a a single mother by choice.

Hollywolly1 · 07/11/2022 14:08

Why abort the poor baby just because your boyfriend cheated,this is your baby and maybe the only child you will ever have. I wouldn't stay with a cheat because I believe once a cheat always a cheat and it could be years before he cheats again but you know that cheat streak is there and you will always look over your shoulder. Can you afford to have this baby yourself, he may be a brilliant father even if you are living apart and maybe a great support to you to

Mamette · 07/11/2022 14:09

Agree with pps that this story is BS and if this is what he offered voluntarily then the truth is likely a whole lot worse.

it’s your choice what you do with the pregnancy, no one else’s.

@mam0918 I don’t believe for one moment you have anything to do with people struggling with MH as a result of their choices. If you did you would be aware that emotive language like you used in your post above is unacceptable.

stuntbubbles · 07/11/2022 14:10

Hollywolly1 · 07/11/2022 14:08

Why abort the poor baby just because your boyfriend cheated,this is your baby and maybe the only child you will ever have. I wouldn't stay with a cheat because I believe once a cheat always a cheat and it could be years before he cheats again but you know that cheat streak is there and you will always look over your shoulder. Can you afford to have this baby yourself, he may be a brilliant father even if you are living apart and maybe a great support to you to

It’s a foetus, not a baby, and bloody hell, she’s 29. Even if she were 50 and it were a miracle conception, guilt-tripping women about pregnancy choices isn’t OK.

Also how on earth does this serially dishonest lying cheating man have any potential to be a great support and a brilliant father? How low is your bar for men; in Hades?

Rippled · 07/11/2022 14:10

Look under your sofa - you might find a pair of the infamous "Mumsnet Knickers"

BleuNoir · 07/11/2022 14:12

Where were you when this happened? If it's under your bed?

He brought a girl home, had sex with her in YOUR bed and then forgot to tell you?

there are 8 billion fucking people on this planet.

It's not like we're short of humans. That said OP if you want the baby keep it.

But on the other hand youll be stuck with this man for life afterwards.

Personally I'd prefer a clean slate and move on and find someone else.

What a huge shock for you. I'm so sorry.

And the story of I can't remember anything is a classic. Of course he can, he's just covering up the truth. He cheated on you.

RandomMusings7 · 07/11/2022 14:13

Well the forced-birthers are out in swing today with their usual guilt tripping shenanigans... 🤡

Mummbles · 07/11/2022 14:22

Does the wrapper have an expiration date? That'll indicate how old it is.

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 07/11/2022 14:22

RandomMusings7 · 07/11/2022 14:13

Well the forced-birthers are out in swing today with their usual guilt tripping shenanigans... 🤡

I noticed that.

It's not fair to produce offspring in this sort of shitshow. There's plenty of time to find a decent man and form a stable partnership before reproducing.

ZeldaWillTellYourFortune · 07/11/2022 14:24

scarletisjustred · 07/11/2022 14:07

I'd leave and terminate. It's not "killing a baby because of a one night stand". It not tying yourself to this lying unfaithful man who must think you are really gullible. Somehow despite being paralytically drunk he managed to get an erection and somehow got a condon on it. I'd want to provide a better father for a child and not be slogging and scrimping through life as a a single mother by choice.

All of this.

People need to raise their standards for the fathers of their offspring.

XAQ · 07/11/2022 14:40

He is a lier and a cheat. Good men don't lie about where they are and what time they will be home.

I couldn't be with him again. He'd be an ex. As for the baby - I've no idea what you should do because it's a very personal decision.

Me, if I was your age.. I'd terminate.

KettrickenSmiled · 07/11/2022 14:44

OP asked and I gave my opinion which is as valid as yours, as someone who volunteers with charities that assist with the mental health side of the loss of wanted and long tried for pregnancies my opinion is VERY valid.
Your opinion is no more VERY valid than anyone else's no matter how many charities your volunteer for.

OP should not make a knee-jerk perminant choice based on a moment or anger or confusion at a man, this isnt a pregnancy from a one night stand or abuser she actively TRIED to get pregnanct for a YEAR which is classified as infertility teritory.
Stop dressing up your hectoring as concern.
You decided to parade a personal stance as a moral imperative with your 'killing my baby for a man' bullshit. Despite your avowed care for how wanted/unwanted pregnancy affects mental health. Your nasty judgemental comment made no room for whatever's happening with OP's mental health, did it?

workshy46 · 07/11/2022 14:52

At your age I would leave and get an abortion. You are still young enough to start again and have plenty of time to have kids in a committed, trusting, solid relationship. If you go ahead you will be tied to him for ever and being a single mother will limit severely limit your dating choices
Hes a cheat, its definitely not the first time.
It would be one thing if you were 20 years and three kids into a marriage but if he can't even stay faithful when life is relatively easy how is he going to cope when you add sleepless nights and a screaming baby into the mix

i83 · 07/11/2022 14:55

OP, I’m so very sorry this has happened.

The problem is that he’s had time to live with his actions, his intent and his attitude towards your relationship, whereas this is a massive shock for you.
You still love him, of course you do, as the bottom of your world as you know it and predicted it, has only just fallen out from underneath you.

I can’t tell you what to do but I’ll be honest, I’ve always desperately wanted to be a Mum. I’ve always felt like it was the only thing in life that I would actually be good at.

When I got to my late 20s, I would have just settled for anything really. I just wanted to be with someone, be loved and to have a family of my own. Desperate was the word to describe it really.
Every man I was with though, despite being head over heels for me in the beginning, quickly began to have very little respect for me, as they knew I would probably just take anything, to be part of a family. They treated me badly in general.

I’ve had a HUGE amount of grief to deal with in my lifetime and I was just grasping on to anything. Health and people still being alive was the only important thing to me so unkind and in-genuine behaviour was acceptable.

Thank goodness I didn’t end up having a child with any of these people. I’d have not only been having my self esteem bashed but would have been setting that example for my child.

I decided that it was better for me to go without experiencing motherhood in my lifetime, than bring a child into a situation where their parents don’t respect one another and it’s ok for their Mum to be walked all over.
My Dad lived with us but was non existent as a father and that had a massive impact on me. It’s had an effect on my whole life.
I wouldn’t have done that to a child, not knowingly.

Roll on lots more years and I actually met the man of my dreams when I was 37. He’s genuine, caring and kind and values those qualities in me too. We’ve been trying for a baby and I’m now 15 weeks pregnant.
I’ll be a month off 40 when I give birth to my first child. Not ideal timing maybe and not how I thought my life would be (I’d have loved to have had 4 children!!) but my god, so worth the wait.

What I’m trying to say, with all my ramblings above OP, is that you truly deserve better.

I understand how hurt and crushed you are feeling now and how you’d understandably and instinctively want to be in denial about it all and pretend things aren’t that bad to yourself but try to be brave, look at what’s happened realistically and put yourself first.

Its easy to say: “I’d end the relationship and have an abortion” but actually doing it, when having to live with the initial pain, would take great strength.

You're still very young though OP and you honestly do just deserve a much better and more honest man and father-figure for your children.

In all likelihood, you’ve got a choice between a lot of pain in the short-term and for things to then get much better or to have your confidence and self-belief be whittled away over a long period of time/the rest of your life.

I think the best piece of advice on this thread is to get you to think of what you’d be saying to your best friend, if they had come to you with this.

ChampagneBlossom44 · 07/11/2022 15:03

@pinkyredrose in my case my partner was adamant when I found an unused condom in the tumble dryer that it was years old, how did it get there surprise face etc etc. the expiry date was something like 10-2018 so I went on the durex site & learned about the expiry dates & if it could help me understand when he might have bought them. It said this particular style, extra thin or something, lasted 3 years from manufacture (the different styles have slightly different shelf-life). So I worked out that he must had purchased it after October 2015. We had been together since February 2015 & it was Spring 2016 when I found it after a night out with his mates. So I knew he was lying, I didn’t care if he had or hasn’t cheated because to me buying condoms is intent to cheat at the very least. He couldn’t argue with the manufacture dates given on the durex website, they know their own product!

Floralnomad · 07/11/2022 15:12

Nice men don’t get so drunk that they have sex and don’t remember doing it - he’s a liar and a cheat , if that combination in a man is acceptable to you then carry on , if not leave .

Herejustforthisone · 07/11/2022 15:15

He’s a total liar. Everything he’s said is bullshit. He almost certainly shagged her in your bed. He lies every time he goes out, that is extra suspicious under the circumstances.

If I were you, and I fully understand others will feel differently, I’d end the pregnancy and the relationship and move my life on.

He will always tell lies and he will always be a cheater. That’s not someone I’d want in my life, nor to attempt a coparenting relationship with.

Thelongnights · 07/11/2022 15:56

RandomMusings7 · 07/11/2022 14:13

Well the forced-birthers are out in swing today with their usual guilt tripping shenanigans... 🤡

Couldn't the same be said for pro-aborts? I've read through this thread and noticed most have told her to just get rid of the baby despite OP saying it was a very much wanted pregnancy and took over a year to conceive... why is it OK for some to dismiss OP's feelings/attachment to her pregnancy with very blunt language that propusfully overlooks the OPs struggle to conceive in the first place and continuously imply the baby will be a burden/ruin her life? ...

I replied earlier to say if she wants a baby then keep it but get rid of her partner. Neutral, I don't know her so I can't possible try to sway her either way.

Telling her her life will be ruined/burdened or saying the world doesn't need another baby etc. & speaking of her pregnancy as if it has no value is literally no different than telling her that it's a baby with a life, all are extremely emotive arguments for or against termination. Just two sides of the same coin. But if you read the thread there are far more for abortion than those those saying she should keep it. Yet your calling out the minority. OP asked for opinions not an echoe chamber. Nobody on here knows what kind of support OP will have if she carries on with pregnancy as a single parent. OP is a grown woman, and I wouldn't be quick to dismiss her as incapable of raising a child, she wanted, alone if she wanted to continue.

Pasc611 · 07/11/2022 16:28

He fucks about on you (it won't have only been once - it will be many times)
He is a liar.
He is a drunk.
You have been with him 6 years and he has impregnated you but not married you.

I can tell you with 100% certainty that if you "forgive" him, rather than being grateful and trying to be a decent man towards you, he will treat you like absolute SHIT because he knows he can get away with it. If I were you I would start afresh completely. I would not have the baby in those circumstances but that is only for you to decide. It will be a long, hard road where you will be reliant on the state to some extent, and to him, to get by - unless you have a lot of money of your own. I wouldn't put myself in that position. 29 is young enough to start again, brand new, and to learn from this about what a good man is and how to know whether you have a bad one. Lying always leads to disaster.

maggiebun · 07/11/2022 16:45

OP you're a grown woman, only you can decide whether to keep your baby or not but one thing you should be doing IMMEDIATELY is going for STD tests!!! And don't be so naïve to think that it happened somewhere else, in someone elses bed AND that it won't happen again. The dirty little a**hole will do it again, don't be fooled by him.
I hope it works out for you whatever you decide xx

a1poshpaws · 07/11/2022 18:37

Sorry, this'll be long, skip it if you like of course!

I expect that I'll be most unpopular for voicing this opinion, but you asked for advice and mine is as valid as anybody else's.

First off, I agree with everyone who's said your man's sexcapade was recent and in your bed.

Second, you can kid yourself as long as you like, but he WILL continue to be a compulsive liar and he WILL continue to cheat.

Thirdly, your pregnancy isn't at the stage where the clumps of dividing cells are a viable baby, so there is zero need to feel bad if you decide on a termination.

Fourth - this man would make a shit example to a child if you had one and he stayed. (Which I'm not convinced a lying cheat would, once a baby arrived with all the concomitant sleepless nights, lack of money and no longer being the centre of your attention.)

Fifth, you are way young enough to have a baby in the future should you decide on termination - it's not your one and only chance.

And finally, which is the bit where I'm sure the Mumsnet machine guns will come out, have you really thought about what sort of future a child conceived now will have?

We have irrefutable evidence of Global Warming, and scientific predictions of the countries which will become uninhabitable due to it and the millions of refugees who will be the result of that; we have Putin, who's clearly unstable, to put it mildly, posturing about using nuclear weapons; we're heavily reliant on China, a totalitarian state with a horrendous Human Rights record, for every single category of goods I can think of, and so could be held to ransom oh so easily; our own Government is hell bent on turning the UK back to the days of the Poor House and the Filthy Rich; we have new viruses appearing and mutating whilst we can't even get on top of the 'flu ; the seas are becoming so polluted that in the foreseeable future it will become unsafe to eat seafood and to top it all off, society seems to be becoming desensitised to greed and violence so that it's no longer a shock to - for example - read about children committing murder or The Met Police humiliating and abusing a black schoolgirl on her period, or any of the other daily atrocities we learn about from the MSM.

Rant over, but I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for bringing another life into this fucked-up world.

However, whatever you decide, I wish you luck and happiness.