To be angry at his abortion request?

[Breevandercamp1750]

I'll keep this brief but a few months ago we discovered that I was pregnant again. We already have 3 DCs, youngest is almost 9 months. He was over the moon about new arrival but in the last few days has changed his mind. I'm 18 weeks now and really don't want an abortion.

I don't understand his issue, we live in a large house with spare bedrooms and can easily afford it.

I just don't understand. I feel so empty.

He's not seeing someone else is he? I don't want to add fuel to the fire but imo when a man starts acting like this it's because there's someone else. Mabe there isn't but I'm so not buying the breakdown thing. ''Having a breakdown'' in any case is in no way an excuse for behaving like this. If he was genuinely having a breakdown he wouldn't be so calculated as to suggest you try again for a baby later. In any case, even if he is faithful he's still a twat.

Bree :( so sorry you are going through this, but well done for being so incredibly strong.

His response of things planned in the next 12 months says it all. It doesn't sound like fear of another premature birth to me. He just sounds selfish.

I am so, so sorry.

My heart really goes out to you.

Nothing to say except, please keep posting for the support that I know you will get here.

If you want to say roughly whereabouts you are in the country, I am sure that through PMs you would soon find MNers in your local area. I for one would be happy to get in touch. I don't know whether you have local support - are your family close by? Wll you be able to talk to trusted friends/family about what has happened here? I hope you have someone now that you can unburden to.

That he is still taking the same position on this after your explaining the process, and after a long reasoned conversation, tells you so much. As does his point-blank refusal to come to counselling. I think you are doing the right thing and that your approach to this so far has been spot-on.

You are holding true to the important things - your children, your commitment to the new baby, what you believe is right. No matter how tough things get now, they'll NEVER be as bad as they could have been had you allowed yourself to be bullied or guilted into taking his 'solution' here. So just keep reminding yourself of that.

I don't think the comments are over the top. So what if it's unplanned? He said go ahead thus stirring up false hopes and now he's back tracking at a later stage of pregnancy. Disgusting.

I'm with coldSancerre

It sounds like he sees you as a walking womb. I think you've made the right decision in booting him out.

I am so sorry, bree

I was utterly scathing about your husband last night and your update confirms to me even more it was not misplaced

Look after yourself now and concentrate on your pg and other children. The way you have handled this is fair, mature and in the best interests of your family. Him ? He is the one potentially destroying it and don't let him ever tell you anything different. Good luck xxx

It is drastic to ask him to leave, but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire, asking for an abortion at 18 weeks is drastic, especially after been nothing but happy since finding out, and there been no other reason apart from holidays and what might happen with no medical backing.

Only Bree knows what their relationship might stand, we can only give opinions based on our own experiences and in my experience standing your ground and making sure that my home is free from stress doesn't automatically spell the end of a relationship - not if that's not what either party really wants. They're blatantly not backing down from their positions so why create an unhealthy atmosphere in their and their childrens home??

How was this avoidable, whoneedssleepanyway ?

He was over the moon - they obviously continued with the pregnancy - he then changed his mind once the pregnancy was fairly advanced. I presume a lot of discussion on the baby was had from the moment they found out OP was pregnant and it is only NOW that he is not 'over the moon' anymore.

If the baby was unplanned, a more mature person would presumably have done their hard thinking in the very early weeks of the pregnancy and brought up the topic of termination THEN. It may have been a hard discussion, and ultimately one they disagreed on, but it would not have resulted in this.

The issue here is not even so much that the DH has changed his mind, or that they disagree on termination. It is that he thinks that it is ok to want his wife to go through a most horrible trauma (late abortion, which she does not want) so that he is spared potential trauma. It is that he sees the reality of a pretty much fully-formed baby, which is wanted and is thus emotionally already a 'part of' the family as far as the OP is concerned, as disposable and replaceable -'we can have one next year'. That attitude is sickening. I say that as a pro-choice person - this ISN'T about termination in the abstract, not at all, but what appears to be pure, pure selfishness to the point of sociopathy - 'You suffer horribly, the baby suffers fatally, so I don't have any suffering - that's my choice, can you do that please. Then I expect us to be ok afterwards - I expect you to forget all about it, to the extent that we start all over again with another pregnancy and I expect you to be all happy and joyous about it, slate wiped clean.'

It is an utterly bizarre attitude, positively chilling. I cannot understand how any reasonable person could not see, for a start, that even proposing such a course of action would make them a monster in their partner's eyes. Yet this man is crying about 'I think I'm losing you'. And at the same time refusing counselling - he does not see a problem with what he has said and what that says about him.

If I were OP I would want him out of my house not because of a disagreement on termination, but simply because I would be filled with horror at the thought that my husband could think in such an utterly twisted way.

I do not see how the OP could have done anything to change this situation or how talking at an earlier stage could have helped.

How are they supposed to 'work it out' when a) he refuses to go to counselling b) he still wants her to have a late-stage abortion she doesn't want?

I think there might be something else, too. But that's neither here nor there, he's a selfish prick who wants it all on his terms and throws the teddy out and cries when he doesn't get his way.

I feel that there is more in your husband's life than meets the eye tbh. It's not about holidays or stress or fear at all I don't think. My deep suspicion is that there is something (someone?) else. The "try again in 12 months" thing is just a red herring imo. I just hope I'm wrong and that he comes to his senses and returns to your family with a better attitude.

Bree - I'm glad to hear you've had you're talk and are feeling very strong today :) I also felt this way once I'd had the 'talk'. From the sound of things I think he will come to his senses and I hope that you will keep your family together x

Firstly let me get one thing straight, I am not in any way condoning Bree's DH's behaviour and I really feel for her in this situation, it is awful for her.

My point is I can see how perhaps when Bree's DH really started to think about this he realised he doesn't want another baby now, and he has been honest with her about albeit he is asking her to do something which is impossible for her to go through with and I don't think it is helpful to have people just call him a selfish twat and similar.

My point is more general that I find it really sad when I read these threads about accidental pregnancies or pregnancies where both parties disagree as it is impossible to find a compromise, and having a baby is such a huge huge thing that it is a decision that should be taken between two people before the pregnancy rather than afterwards...but I do recognise that accidents happen (having been there myself) but they aren't always happy accidents.

Wow, you must be really hurting right now.

Is there anyone in RL you can get some support from, someone slightly impartial who you can be totally honest with, without fear of asking them to 'take sides' or whatever.

Not that I'm suggesting anyone in their right mind could possibly 'take' his side, but hopefully you know what I mean.

You don't need anyone to help you make a decision, there is no decision to make (and you've made that clear to your DH). But maybe you need to offload your emotions and reaction to this bombshell?

It does sound possible that he's having some sort of breakdown, can you encourage him to talk to someone who can help him sort that out - I don't think you can expect to be able to support him through that (if it turns out to be the case) as what he is asking of you is too cruel.

Sorry, this is a muddled post, I hope you can make sense of it. I just wanted to echo everyone else's support and admiration for you. Please talk to someone if RL (midwife, gp etc). I would personally be going silently mad if I were going through what you're being put through while at the same time dealing with 2DC and a pregnancy.

Take care of yourself, get some distance from him.

Bree

So glad you had a chat, and glad you threw him out for a bit to allow yourself to cope. Hope the cold, hard shock of that will make let him get what a bastard he was to ask for this just so he could get himself more time to deal with it.

I wouldn't want anyone, especially you, to think I meant to justify what he did. Even PTSD ain't an excuse-what I said earlier makes it clear I suffered from this and I would never, ever have asked my partner to end her pregnancy. But, for what it's worth, I can sort of see why worries might hit him hard and suddenly, and make him into a cunt, and certainly don't think that any of this means he doesn't love you or that he's having an affair (why the fuck throw that in?).

At some point he'll have to decide loving you means to him and get his act together and say sorry for the right thing. And you'll have to decide whether that love is acceptable if he can love you and act like that, once he's tried to explain why he did.

I hope whatever decision you make you, your three kids and the next one (which will be born to term and safely for you and it) find safety and love together. If he can still be part of that from your point of view, I suspect he will be, but you'll be ace whatever he does.

"it is a decision that should be taken between two people before the pregnancy rather than afterwards"

Er, they had always said they wanted 4DC and the husband was obviously happy to have sex without protection, so they effectively had "taken the decision".

In any case, I don't see how that is a useful, or even a relevant, point to make to the OP at this juncture. Can we not turn the thread from supportive to provocative/tutting at OP, please? Please.

apologies

I think NCM's point of view is really helpful, and I'll echo that I don't think anything sinister is going on apart from his bizarre train of thought and the fact he's somehow convinced himself that he's justified in standing his ground after you've laid it all out for him.

Granted, he may logically and rather cold heartedly never come round to your way of thinking, but I would be very surprised if there weren't a lot of deeper reasons for this whole situation, but at the same time I don't think it's right or fair for you to be the one caught up in his issues. You can support him if he chooses to look deeper into his feelings, but you can't be responsible for 'fixing' him, he's asking far too much already considering the solution he's decided will help.

He's scared. He's scared that the baby will be very sick/disabled/not survive at all and he's scared that something might happen to you. Keep talking to him and point out that he wants to kill a child who is only 5/6 weeks off viable life.

Perhaps you should have this moved to relationships Bree?

Just to say that I too think that NCM's posts here have been very, very helpful and particularly well balanced - particularly good to get a male point of view and they certainly don't read as excusing the DH in any way.

You too whoneedssleep - I didn't think you were condoning him either, not at all. Who could? But, messed up or not, 'traumatised' or not, there's a big big part of this that can't be called anything other than selfish twatishness. If he was stupid and immature enough to only really start thinking about another baby 18 weeks into the pregnancy, and only THEN really realised that he didn't want it, a non-twat would know, without even having to ask, that asking at that point for his happily pregnant wife to abort was beyond acceptable. A non-twat would know that the time for that to be an option had long gone. A non-twat would see that imposing that trauma on his wife was not a solution in any reasonable way.

'he has been honest with her about albeit he is asking her to do something which is impossible for her to go through with'

• honesty in this situation is a straw man - nothing to be held up to be proud of. He's asking, repeatedly, for an unacceptable option. That is what makes him a selfish twat. The fact that the unacceptable option is fully acceptable in his world makes him disturbing.

Gosh this is awful.

Are you sure he isn't hiding any money worries from you? That's the only thing I can think of to explain why he may suddenly panic and decide another baby isn't a good idea..

Has he been showing any signs of depression or other changed behaviour? Because it really is bizarre to go from "excited" about the birth of a previously discussed child, to wanting to do a late termination but try again in a year.. WHAT will have changed in a year? It just doesn't make rational sense, which is why I ask about his mental health!

Do you have any reason to think he is scared something will happen to you during the late stages of pregnancy/labour, in addition, which will make him unable to cope? How is your support network?

namechangedman thank you for such balanced posts. Everyone thank you once again.

I think he is depressed but I've tried to get him to seek help but he won't. Very much a man with his head stuck up his ar*e. Unfortunately, for the time being, I can do nothing for him and until he sorts himself out, I want nothing more to do with him.

Bree - this baby is lucky to have you. You are an amazingly strong woman and a wonderful mother.