Girlfriend careless with mini pill

[concern3d]

I would greatly appreciate some input into my situation so I can try and work out whether or not I'm over thinking things.

My girlfriend is taking Cerelle. I have done a lot of reading about this and understand that it should be taken at the same time every day in order to be ~99% effective at preventing pregnancy.

However, my girlfriend is adamant that the '12 hour window' means she can take it any time within a 12 hour period. She has chosen 7am to 7pm. She therefore takes it whenever she remembers between these hours.

I have explained to her my understanding of how it should be used, but she is insistent that she has been using it for a long time and has been assured by a doctor that her use of the mini pill is fine.

We have had a number of conversations about this, which always end in hard feelings. What should be a discussion turns into an argument.

We have only been using the mini-pill for contraception as I trusted she was using it correctly. However, over the past few weeks as I have got to know more about her attitude towards and practice of contraception, I am concerned that we should be using a second method.

I feel as though I have no control over the situation and am placing all my trust in her. I am nowhere near in a position to have a child at the moment - either financially, or in terms of maturity. Additionally, we have not been dating for long. I would appreciate your opinions on the situation.

[SirChenjin]

Agree HanselandGretel - there are some utterly pointless, snippy, point scoring and snidey comments on here which really don't do MN any favours.

[Mignonette]

Yes I am even being told that the decision we made jointly are not joint ones by MNers who were clearly privy to all of our discussions .

[Offred]

A commitment (of responsibility for) to your own child is completely different to commitment to a romantic partner. Parent and child are not autonomous equals. The commitment you make is to raise the child, unfortunately it is optional and people do opt out of even that commitment, sometimes after some time.

[Offred]

You obviously can make it jointly, as I've said but I think that is unwise because it is something that primarily affects you as an individual.

[SirChenjin]

Ahh yes - the MNetters who appear to have their ear to the ground of every relationship across the UK. Their all-seeing, all-knowing abilities are truly astounding.

[curlew]

I don't understand what's going on here. The OP is unhappy about the contraception his partner is using. He has discussed it with her, and she has repeated that she is happy with her method. If the OP is not reassured, then he has two choices- either use contraception himself or not have sex. Presumably abstinence is not a option- so he uses contraception. Which he has a perfect right to- and which his girlfriend has to deal with- he is taking responsibility for his own fertility. Good for him.

[Mignonette]

Sir

Yes. I thought I heard some heavy breathing in the corner of our bedroom last night.

[SirChenjin]

- it's like having your very own Elf on the Shelf, 365 days of the year

[Mignonette]

It still undermines your point. The autonomy of a child or not is irrelevant to the point of view that you should not make life changing joint decision with a romantic partner because commitment changes.

That applies to all life changing decisions, not just having tubal ligation.

[Offred]

Of course it still applies. It doesn't undermine the point at all. The point simply being that you make decisions based on what is best for you, if you make them based on your romantic partner's feelings you are likely to regret them. Equally if you choose to offload all the responsibility for contraception onto someone else (which is not what has happened in your relationship by your description) then you have to own that choice and not blame/micromanage them whilst they exercise that responsibility.

[JoinYourPlayfellows]

"I would be majorly hacked off if a BF announced he was going to wear condoms because he didn't trust me to take the pill."

So what you are saying is that you would emotionally blackmail a man into having unprotected sex with you and taking your word for it that you are using contraception?

Any man with sense would run a fucking mile from you.

A man who wants to wear a condom should not be browbeaten out of it by some silly bitch who is "offended" that he doesn't "trust" her.

It is absolutely outrageous to insist that another person doesn't use contraception when they have sex with you.

It's because of ridiculous attitudes like yours that we have men in the situation of the OP - feeling unable to assert his own right to contraception within a relationship.

[SirChenjin]

The point simply being that you make decisions based on what is best for you, if you make them based on your romantic partner's feelings you are likely to regret them

Nonsense. There comes a point in any relationship when you make decisions jointly, whether it's where to go on holiday, whether to take out a loan, or whether your family is finished and if sterilisation or a vasectomy is the preferred option. That's not to say that one person holds sway over the other, but equally it doesn't mean that you make decisions in isolation.

[Offred]

I think that's extremely unwise in relation to things like contraception and pregnancy which are things which predominantly affect only one person's bodily autonomy. A joint loan is a joint decision because you're jointly responsible for it and are committing to be jointly responsible for the consequences together. With children you're committing each individually to the child not to each other necessarily although it helps to commit to each other too.

[SirChenjin]

And I don't think it unwise to take joint decisions relating to long term fertility. Each to their own.

[ALittleStranger]

Join it's not unprotected sex, that's the point. And I wouldn't refuse to let a man use a condom if that's what he insisted on, but yes I would be offended and it would make me question our relationship. Trust is essential for me.

And funnily enough no man has run a mile from this attitude. I'm yet to meet a man who isn't very happy to ditch the condoms and move on to the pill.

[Offred]

I agree with join. I can sort of understand where you're coming from on the trust thing but for me I suppose it is not so important to test trust by risking pregnancy which is why I'm on depo because I don't want to make the risk of pg dependent on trusting my bf to use a condom correctly.

He, as is common, has decided not to use them, he's large and normal ones just don't work. He could buy large sized ones or persevere with ordinary ones, which we have used before. I'd be most unimpressed if he tried interfering in my contraceptive choices or blamed me for a pregnancy which resulted from my contraceptive, which has been very reliable for me in the past, failing. Very unimpressed.

This has however made me want to clarify this with him because he may be labouring under some very different views!

[LadyIsabellasHollyWreath]

Depends on his stated reasoning LittleStranger. If it was "I don't trust you to take it reliably because I think you are flaky/stupid/likely to deliberately miss pills in order to get pg on the sly" then yes that's offensive, especially the last one. If it was "everyone's human and occasionally slips up, and the pill sometimes fails even when used perfectly therefore I will take additional personal precautions to be as safe as possible" then you'd be unreasonable to take offence.

[curlew]

"And I don't think it unwise to take joint decisions relating to long term fertility. Each to their own."

I don't either. But if one person isn't happy with the decision the other person has taken, and other person is not prepared to compromise, then it is for that person to make decisions about their own fertility and sexual health.

[Mignonette]

Where on earth did I say I made my decision based upon my partners feelings?

And where was I defensive?

[Mignonette]

Offred

I don't want to alarm you but I was on Depo when my son was conceived. I was several weeks in, wasn't overweight (dosage had been correctly calculated) and the medics were mystified as to why it had not worked.

I had been using it for 15 months approximately, wasn't late with the dose, wasn't early with the dose. Nothing.

He is now 19!

[Offred]

I'm aware depo has a failure rate. I'm not ovulating on it.

[Mignonette]

I didn't think I was either . By the time you know you've ovulated, you're pregnant. You wouldn't necessarily know as many of the indicators of ovulation can be suppressed by the actions (albeit inhibited) of residual administered hormones.

[Offred]

I'm aware all methods of contraception a have a similar failure rate. Depo is better than female sterilisation for example. You can't take all the risk of pregnancy out of sex. You have to accept some uncertainty or you have to abstain. Whilst I don't want another baby and it's be quite ill timed, it would not be the end of the world for me so I'm quite happy with the decision I've made - obviously! Or I'd have made a different one!

[JoinYourPlayfellows]

"Join it's not unprotected sex, that's the point."

It's unprotected FOR HIM.

What you are saying is that you will protect yourself as you see fit and he just has to take your word for it.

"Trust is essential for me."

In the context we're talking about, that is really creepy.

It's like insisting that someone puts their own life on the line to prove that they "trust" you.

Before I was ready to have children I wouldn't have trusted ANYONE to take charge of my fertility.

Even if the male pill had been invented I would never have been happy for that to be the contraception that I was relying on not to get me pregnant.

Not because I thought the men I was sleeping with were untrusthworthy liars, but because I needed to KNOW that whatever method was being used was in place. I needed to see it/swallow it. I needed to take MY OWN responsibility for it.

I would have found it incredibly creepy and controlling for a man to insist that I TRUST my own biological safety to him.

If a man wants to make sure he's not getting anybody pregnant, he needs to be able to take responsibility for contraception on his end.

And anyone trying to blackmail him into giving her the bareback sex she thinks she deserves is not behaving at all well towards him.

That many men are stupid about these things doesn't change how fucked up it is to start "questioning relationships" because men want to make sure for themselves that contraception is in place.

[OctaviusAce]

You can't rely on the pill for protection. Any time a bloke has sex, he has to be aware that a pregnancy can result. Therefore by having sex, you're implicitly giving consent for that to happen.

As people have said - a condom is the way to go.