I’m at a loss of what to do a looking for some support/experience.
I’m 34 and am 15 weeks pregnant with my first child. My partner has just ended the relationship and I am devastated/in shock. He says he wants to play an active role in co parenting if i keep the pregnancy but i have no idea what that would look like/how i could do that when he has left me in the pregnancy.
There’s lots of background and it’s not straightforward. We’ve only been together a year. The pregnancy was planned as we wanted multiple children and because of my age. I got pregnant much more quickly than expected so it was still a bit of a surprise. Obviously it’s not recommended to have a child with someone this quickly for good reasons.
Our relationship was incredible and I have never felt so sure about someone., even when things became hard. We always says we’d get through thick and thin together and be on a team even when things got tough.
Things did get tough. Context - I am autistic and I struggle to maintain relationships. I get overwhelmed and have bad meltdowns. I struggle with emotional regulation. Our relationship started suffering before I got pregnant but got significantly worse after I became pregnant. I have been really dysregulated and super sensitive to the hormones. He has felt that I’m being controlling and that I have behaved in ways which are not safe. I have owned that sometimes my behaviour when I’m having a meltdown is controlling and must be scary for him (eg not respecting boundaries and messaging him many times in a row when he starts ignoring me, or panicking when he tries to leave in an argument and trying to stop him leaving) . I don’t think that it’s fair to expand this to the whole of our relationship as it only happens in extreme states of overwhelm but I do own that it happens and isn’t acceptable. It feels very hard that the narrative of his family and friends is that I might not be a safe parent and that I’m not a safe partner. All of my family/friends are really shocked by these suggestions. I worry I’m being too hard on myself in taking so much ownership but I really really want to be honest and authentic.
Anyway, he emailed me on Saturday morning saying our relationship was over for good and that I could terminate the pregnancy or he would be a committed father and co parent.
I don’t know what to do. I wanted to have this child with him, be on a team, have a family. I do not want to co parent with someone who has left me in pregnancy. I also don’t want to terminate the pregnancy.
I don’t even know what it would look like to co parent through pregnancy, birth, and with a new born. I feel like if he’s not open to discussing if we can make it work then I don’t really want anything to do with him.
I am absolutely devastated and it feels like I don’t really have much choice but to agree with him and do whatever he wants. It just feels so cruel to leave during pregnancy without even talking about making the relationship work and then want to swoop in once there’s a child.
Would love any thoughts.
May not have explained it the best so please ask any questions.