Pregnant after fling.. what to do?

[teardrops]

I have just found out I'm pregnant after a brief relationship with someone who lives a long distance from me. He is engaged to be married to someone else and I suspect he won't want anything to do with the baby if I keep it.
I feel so stupid and have no idea what to do.

Do you want to be a parent?

This is not an easy question to answer. Think it through really carefully. You will have a total human being dependent on you for the rest of your life. A responsibility that is yours and yours alone. You cannot depend on the father. Is this what you want right now?

Don't worry about what the man might want or think, he's out of the picture (though you did nothing wrong in having sex with him. It's not wrong to have sex with someone you have just met as long as you are both consenting adults). You have a few weeks to think over your decision. I would also mention because no one else has so far that, if you have religious beliefs opposed to termination but also don't feel capable of raising a child alone, you could continue the pregnancy and have the child adopted. Best of luck.

OP You said in your second post that you had spent a huge amount of money to go and see him. Why? Where? How did you meet him?

He may have left other women in exactly the same situation as yourself and told them the same story about his engagement!

I think she said she didnt know, which is fair enough.

I think asking her if she used him as a sperm donor is out of order. When people have sex they can get pregnant , nothing 100%.

And tbh aslong as you have them means to provide you can be a single mum, all these people bleating on about having 'the father' in the life. Pop over to the realtionships section and you'll see you can cope on your own, sometimes better.

I didn't know he was engaged until after we had sex the first time.

In retrospect I should have walked away as soon as he told me and that's what I planned on doing but he pursued me and told me he wanted to be with me.
He didn't mention the girl anymore and so I didn't either because it hurt too much to even think about it, let alone be with him and talk about her.

Funnily enough I met him through his brother who is married to an English girl he fell in love with. That's why this arranged marriage thing doesn't quite sit right with me.

We don't live in the same town but we carried on talking to each other every day on facebook, texting etc. We both visited each other and at the end of november I went to see him again for a few days.

I chose to stay in a hotel because he lives with his younger brother (different one to the one mentioned above) and I wanted us to spend some time alone. I called him the day before to let him know I was coming and said I needed to see him. He dropped everything and took time off work so he could see me. We had a great time, went out for dinner and drinks, spent a lot of time talking, it definitely wasn't just about sex for either of us.

He told me he was happy I had come to see him and that if I wanted to be with him then he wanted to be with me too. I told him I did. He asked me to send him a message when I got home to let him know I was home safely. That was the last I heard from him.

Still haven't checked my mobile to see what his response is (if any). Shall I be brave and turn it on?

you are playing games. with the mobile phone and with facebook. You are hoping he finds out that you are pregnant and he comes running, just like you did with booking the hotel, ("I called him the day before to let him know I was coming and said I needed to see him. He dropped everything") only this time for good.

I don't know if you mean to be but I'm sorry you are. I do hope it works for you, but it as a dangerous game cos pitting yourself against family loyalty is likely to be very dodgy indeed.

If you want to stop playing games turn the phone on and talk to him. Whether it works out or not he is the father of your unborn child and, as you have told him, should be involved in the decision process. I wish you all the best.

Did you turn it on teardrops ?

I agree with the posters who have suggested counselling, this is such an emotionally difficult time and whatever you do has to be right for you.
With counselling you can be guided through separating the issues: if you were to continue the pregnancy would you be pining for this guy? If you were to choose not to continue, would you still pine for him? If you were not choose not to continue would you grieve for the pregnancy?

These are not questions for you to answer, just factors to consider.

I'm a single parent to a wonderful boy whose father refuses to see him. We are fine! My son has been through some difficult times as a result of the rejection he has suffered, but the difference is that his father has seen him and has since rejected him, which my son understandably took very personally.

If I could wave a magic wand and make him be the man you deserve I would, but he isn't x

I do hope the pregnancy was an accident, and not in your mind as a way of solving your predicament.

You are very right if you have the baby and things do not work out as planned, I think there is a good chance of him not seeing the baby, or possibly worse

playing games? I deleted him off facebook because I sent him messages on there and he ignored them so no point still being friends really. The last time I went to see him he had been asking me to for weeks, sending me messages saying he missed me and he needed to see me.

I hate what he has done but I still love him. I don't think I'm kidding myself that he's going to come running to me though. I'm pretty sure he will want nothing to do with me or the baby if I keep it.

It wasn't planned but then we didn't use protection either apart from the very first time. Why would he choose not to use protection if he knows he is marrying someone else? Things like that make me so angry.

I think you have to put emotions aside and face up to the facts: either you have this baby in the full knowledge that you will have to raise and support your child alone, or you consider other options (termination probably the simplest at this early stage of your pregnancy).

You are in a very difficult situation and I really feel for you, but you do need to get real now and put aside any feelings you have for this man. It isnt going to happen in the way you want it to.
Good luck.

i know that tactic very well. If your main source of communication is through facebook you tell him your're pregnant which, given you're feelings towards the man, means you will be hoping and indeed everyone would expect him to do so; for him to reply. However then you turn of your phone and delete him from facebook. you are looking for him to coming running, you have left him little option than to do so in person. Dp and I used to do this when we'd had a tiff, it almost became a joke. There are better ways to communicate hurt and frustration.

If he already has ignored your messages despite knowing you are pregnant, you have your response as to how he feels about the pregnancy at least at the moment.

Refriend him with an apology and leave the door open to talk

I deleted him before I knew I was pregnan. My periods are a bit irregular so I didn't get concerned or take a test until it was quite late.

I have only sent him one message since I found out, it was before that that he ignored me.

I'm going to turn it on now and see if he has answered me. I suspect not.

pregnant that should say

turn it on, under the circumstances refriend him. right now you want all forms of communication available. If this is going to work out of you you need to know

you need to think very hard about this. The problem is having the baby of someone you very clearly love deeply. Something noone talks you about is how having children binds you to someone.

I'm not going to talk about from the childs perspective now but yours. Option 1 is that is works out and you have your happy little family and for your sake I really hope this is was happens. Option 2 is that he doesn't have anything to do with you and the child. you have to live with the fact that he probably didn't love you as much as you loved him, but you will have your little child to remind you of a happy moment in time and that might be enough. Option 3 he doesn't back out entirely, decides he will see the child on a scheduled contact arrangement but goes along with his plans of the arranged marriage. you will have to see him on a regular basis for the next 16 years, knowing that you love him (which may or may not fade) but that he did not love you enough. Can you live with that?????

I hate to be so blunt. But I have children with a thoroughly unpleasant man, not that I knew that at the time, that through the kids I am tied to being pleasant to. I live with the guilt that I have given my children an awful father that I can do nothing about. the children are bound to him for as long as they choose to be and through them, so am I.

I cannot imagine the sadness of being bound through children to a man I loved but couldn't have.
x

In answer to the question, you didn't use protection because you sincerely thought,given time he would back out of the arranged marriage. The idea of pregnancy didn't seem horrendous because somewhere in your mind you assumed it would simply hurry the decision.

He didn't either because somewhere in his mind he felt the same or because he simply didn't care for you at all to consider it worth his while wearing protection.

This is one of the reasons you are hurting so much right now. You are desperately hoping for the first case, but are deeply suspicious it's the later.

Hi everyone, I have joined today and this is my first post after lurking and liking what I've read.

My take is that the op made a few mistakes and was niave and is now in this boat and I feel for her.

OP -

I think you liked the man and chose to ignore signs that came up. Now they are staring you in the face.

No contraception sometimes equals a baby. As the woman, a share of that burden falls to you. and I was sorry to see you say about him and his choice of contraception. You cannot rely on others to make choices that affect you so deeply. I certainly have learnt this the hard way.

With the whole arranged marriage thing, I wonder what he will do. If you have the baby, it may well be a struggle for your child to be recognised by his family. Buit let's see what happens with him. I would definitely take the others' advice and turn on the comms to let him talk to you. And I would not take offence if it took him a while, with a possible few different emotions coming up before it really sinks in with him and he settles on his stance. You have time to wait.

But the main thing is that I am 37 and by the grace of god this has not happened to me, and probably not because I have behaved perfectly either. So I wanted to put a bit of a sisterly arm around you while this all plays out.

Go and have a think about what the people are saying here. Let it all sink in. Don't beat yourself up either. Bless your heart x

Well there are no messages from him..

Lunar you are right, I was thinking he was going to back out of the marriage and the worst case scenario of getting pregnant didn't seem so bad. Now I'm fucked and he doesn't even seem to care.

I quite agree. You love the man and have been nieve. I think we can hand on heart say we have all done that. Some of us with far worse consequences!!!

But your next decisions mustn't be nieve, for your sake and for your child's if you continue with the pregnancy.

xx

you are most certainly not fucked, but you are going through a tough time and you do have some tough decisions.

Neither choice you have will be easy.

I hope you don't think I have been to tough on you,I just really think it's important to be honest with yourself over what has happened and why before you get any further. It's important because you have a second chance at the decision as to whether to have a baby with this man, without the rose tinted spectacles on, something I certainly wish I had (unfortunately the spectacles came off after the children were born in my case).

Having said that I love them and always will love them dearly. But always look at people askance when they say "you can't regret something because you have two beautiful children", the reality is so much more complicated.

There are even more complications to think about. He comes from a culture where fathers can take automatic precedence in custody/residence cases. If you had the baby, he might come calling one day and although the law in the UK is not the same - this should be borne in mind. Not saying that every man brought up with that norm will behave to it and I am sure there are many MNers who are married to/partners of guys who have the Western view. You simply don't know.

I expect I sound hard - I have immense sympathy for you but clearly he was using you. His parents had a finacee lined up and in the meantime he amused himself with you. I am a lot older than you - it definitely does not give me a monopoly on knowing what to do but I do know that when I was young I went for pleasure that I should have known would result in pain. I just don't put myself in that position these days.

There are actually three choices, all of them very difficult (to put it mildly) - to have and keep the baby, to have a termination or to have the baby and give it up for adoption. I am not recommending one about the others. Can only wish you the best that can come of it, whatever you decide.

I agree with Lunar Rose and ThompsonTwins. Let the next decision be made wisely. You can do it. xxx Also I didn't want to bring up the whole cultural thing. But it is relevant. My addition to that is that when young people such as yourselves decide to go for it, one of them loses their family and that is awfully hard to cope with as family and cultural belonging are extremely strong pulls. In that scenario, I would say that age is a factor against you two. :( He is young, he may bury his head or stay and then find he has to go. Poor you.

Anyway enough of the pitfalls, what are you thinking here?