My son has got a girl pregnant

[Starling38]

I’m hoping for some advice. My son has got a girl pregnant and we’re devastated.
It’s a long story but I’ll try to brief..
my 25 year old son was in a loving relationship for nine years. He adored the girl and proposed marriage. She accepted, but then a few months later she left him for somebody else.
My son fell apart and had a serious emotional breakdown. We brought him home, looked after him and saw him through. He began to do a lot better and planned himself a new future that includes following his interests at university with the aim of finding a good job at the end.

In the meantime he moved in with his sister (younger by one year) and her housemate as it was closer to his college. He began a casual relationship with the housemate but made it clear he wasn’t looking for a relationship. The girl is now pregnant. She told him she was on the pill (although there’s now some doubt over that) but as I’ve explained to my son, if he didn’t want to be a father he should have used a condom. He acknowledges that and is angry with himself for being so irresponsible.

The girl has told him she knows he doesn’t want this, but she’s keeping it regardless and doesn’t mind if he’s not involved. (Apparently the girl has wanted a baby for a long time despite not being in a loving and commuted relationship.

We’re devastated for everyone concerned, especially the poor unborn child.

These are the issues:

1. My son does not love the girl
2. He does not want to be a father
3. The girl’s life style choices aren’t compatible with bringing a baby into the world. She smokes and drinks heavily and is continuing this through the pregnancy. She is also incapable of keeping a house clean and tidy and lives in messy and unhygienic conditions. My husband and I are devastated as this is not how we wanted our first grandchild to arrive.
4. There are two large dogs in the house. (This terrifies me!)
5. Our son and daughter have always had a very close and mutually supportive relationship, this situation is going to jeopardise that relationship.
6. Our son is saying he will have no contact with her or the child whatsoever. My husband and I don’t know where this leaves us as grandparents.
7. Our daughter is the girl’s best friend AND aunt to the baby. Our daughter is extremely loyal to her friend and we believe she will lose contact with her brother and us if the girl keeps the child.
8. My husband and I are devastated. We wanted better than this for any of our grandchildren and this has the potential to tear our family apart.

We are utterly heartbroken by this situation. Our son has been completely irresponsible and we feel helpless.

We appreciate this is also a difficult situation for the girl, and we know that she’s the one who has the most difficult decisions to make in this matter. We’re just struggling with the fact that our feelings and preferences are to all intents and purposes irrelevant.

I genuinely don’t know what to do. Amy advice will be gratefully received.

Thank you for reading my post.

I'm not posting as if it has been confirmed - I've said 'If' throughout. But give what she has since said about the pg, I do think there's a good chance it wasn't totally accidental.

I think people are being pretty harsh to the op here. I don’t know how long it’s been since you found out but I would imagine everyone is in a total tailspin right now. Clearly your son should have used contraception and taken responsibility considering it was a casual relationship however it’s too late now. I would imagine that he’s panicking about the baby and I would hope that given a bit of time to think about it would want to a relationship with his child, I would personally judge him pretty harshly if he didn’t. Whatever happens he needs to support it financially although if the relationship was pretty casual I would personally suggest a dna test purely to remove any doubt. You need to stop judging this woman and support her, she may not be the person you envisaged being the mother of your grandchild but it sounds like she’s going to be so you need to create a relationship with her. Judging her will not help anyone. Good luck op, hopefully once the dust settles everything will become clearer.

As far as I'm aware, other than abstinence or surgical options, the pill taken properly is the most reliable form of contraception? So not 100%, but as near as dammit?

I think it's about 97-98% effective so for every 100 people taking it 2-3 will get pregnant. If you think of how many people take the pill, that's quite a lot of pregnancies.

I'm shocked at people being shocked! I haven't read anything nasty, just most people repeating that the op's son is acting atrociously, which he is. And lots of people advising the op to make an effort to get to know the mother of her grandchild. I understand that her son is her son but the grandchild should trump him now - he has made the situation and, whether the partner got pregnant on purpose or not, the child is the innocent party here.

I was also in the situation where the father didn't want to know. I made sure his parents were involved with my DD from the start. He came into her life when she was 2 and although her relationship with him is quite strained rn both she and I still have a good relationship with his parents.

Great post OnASummersDay. I agree with all of it.

I would be gutted too, if I were you, OP. However I would do my best to get over myself. Worse things happen at sea. The baby is a new life. It's your grandchild. Congratulations! Do your very best to get to know and love the mother, if she lets you. Your daughter loves her so she can't be all bad, can she?
Your son needs to shape up too, but I'm sure you know that. Hopefully he will.

In a situation like this, Jeremy Kyle would tell him to put a condom on the end of it.

It looks like the OP is not coming back. But
I really hope that what has happened here is a genuine accident and not something she did deliberately

I actually hope she did do it deliberately, because it sounds like she and her child are going to be punished anyway.

I really would have liked the OP to have told us who told her about this comment of always having wanted a child, because I doubt it is even true or else it has been taken out of context.

I'm sure all the negative comments about this girl have come from her charming son.

I'm also a bit shocked at the idea expressed by posters here that using a condom in a casual relationship is insulting for the other person. Having known several people who have died of AIDS, I wonder how many people in the UK are HIV positive, it must be a huge number.

It might depend on how we are defining casual. There is a difference between knowing someone well, (ie sister's best friend) but it is casual in tbe sense that you aren't planning a future together and ons sort of casual, where the person is essentially a stranger to you.

mrsRosaPimento 😂😂😊😂😊

@OnASummersDay great response, agree as well.

So not 100%, but as near as dammit?

How much of a risk should people who don’t want to be parents be willing to take in the name of “as near as”? Because the cost is a whole new real live human being with needs and thoughts and feelings.

No it isn't. I became accidentally pg as a flat sharing young woman, and I chose a termination.

Condoms are never a bad idea, but assuming they'll be the dafault because the pill isn't reliable is a bit optimistic in the real world. I wonder how many posters sons actually do use condoms when their partner says they're on the pill.

Termination isn’t an option where I live so yes, for many the cost is a real live human.

No it isn't. I became accidentally pg as a flat sharing young woman, and I chose a termination

Fine, that was your choice, but she is choosing not to have an abortion as is her absolute right. She does not owe it to the OP's son to have an abortion just because he is not ready to be a dad. She will no doubt be doing all of the work anyway.

I also really doubt she went round saying she had been wanting to get pregnant for ages. Sounds unlikely coming from an early 20s woman living in a flatshare and drinking and smoking a lot. It sounds like the sort of thing the OP's son will have convinced himself of after finding out. If she really told him she was really keen to have a baby before they slept together, then he really should have been a lot more careful than he was.

I don’t think people are being harsh to the OP , in her post she acknowledged that he was irresponsible . The state of the house surely can’t just be down to this one woman , she has been sharing with both the OPs children , are they exempt from cleaning? The OP goes on to say that she is concerned that her daughter will side with the friend / housemate and lose contact with both her brother and the OP and her husband . All this says to me is that the OP has scant regard for other women , including her own daughter as long as her precious little boy gets unending support and isn’t upset .

Hope you are feeling a little calmer today OP, and have had a chance to speak to your son?

It's early days, the dust hasn't settled.

Take each day as it comes and do your best to not pass judgement on your son or the woman.

Encourage him to make his own decisions. Don't let his choices affect yours though as you know deep down. He is wrong to walk away/cease contact.

Drop her a line once every other week or so. just say hi and ask how she is doing. This will let her know that you are thinking of her and the baby. This may open the door for you to have a relationship when the baby is born.

In a situation like this, Jeremy Kyle would tell him to put a condom on the end of it.

The OP actually said the same in her original post that if he didn't want to be a father he needs to wear a condom.

Sounds a difficult situation OP but you have DD as a way into the mother if you want a relationship with your grandchild. Just because DS is behaving like a child doesn't stop you supporting/ behaving differently.