Does having a baby ever help love to develop?

[Henriettala]

I’m in the dog house for telling my long time best friend not to have a baby with someone she has been in an ‘on off’ relationship with.

She’s been seeing him every few months for the last year. She’s said they’ve talked about kids and so she thinks it’s a way to solidify then and bring them together and that the on off thing was more about distance than anything else 🤔 I said absolutely it wouldn’t bring them closer and they wouldn’t magically get along and be in love just because of a baby.

Cue silence from here for the last 48 hours. The longest we haven’t spoken :(

I've just had a baby with my OH (my third, his first). We never have any time together and our sex life is now non-existent. I resent the fact that he always falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow every night and doesn't wake until 8.30 while I sleep next to the baby and feed her on demand throughout the night, taking her downstairs around 6 am as she is ready to start the day!

Apart from that it's all good!!!

She sounds thick as mince, OP, and it’s close to the dumbest idea I’ve ever seen on here. Babies rock the foundations of the most secure, happy and established relationships.

What she’s suggesting is a bit like deliberately crashing a plane on a remote Andean mountainside with your new boyfriend to ‘solidify’ your brand new relationship by eating dead fellow-passengers and trekking hundreds of miles with frostbite for rescue.

will get tested to the limit if the baby is a poor sleeper or eater or gets colicky or a hundred and one other things. Teething, reaction to jabs, picking up endless colds, puking...God, the list goes on forever

This.

Myself and my DH have gone from hysterical/giddy (sleep deprivation) to exhausted, irritable, frustrated, scared/stressed ... and have had two of the worst rows we have ever had in a 16 yr relationship since our child arrived.

She'll probably end up.a single mum.

If you can't reason with her, forget about it. She's too silly and irresponsible to have a good friendship with.

Is she actually even that bothered if the relationship doesn't work out though? It might her wanting to a child that's the driving force, and not really anything to do with the relationship. If they 'get along well enough', and she feels he'd be a good dad regardless of if they split. Possibly she's thinking it will be the chance to have a child now vs waiting to meet someone new?

Nah, leave her silence be.

Otherwise, you will become the babysitter when it all goes to shit. Which it will, one hundred per cent.

How can you be friends with someone so stupid that they will get pregnant in an attempt to save a relationship? Very selfish person and I hope she doesn't get pregnant.

One of my friends had a baby in similar circumstances. It was a casual relationship. She always claimed it was an accident, but I've always suspected she did it on purpose to force him to commit to her. She had another relationship before this that was on/off as well and I think she enjoyed the drama of it all.

It didn't end well. It involved the police, the CSA, a DNA test and eventually she moved away to live with her parents to get away from him.

Your friend is an absolute idiot for even considering it. My marriage nearly imploded from having DC and we've been together for 19 years!

Jesus Christ, no! Just no! It puts a massive strain on the relationship. The sleepless night, the sleepless days, the exhaustion: it ain't pretty! Then there's how big and gross you get, then there's the glorious bloody view of your lady bits during birth (the put my partner off me, he would heave just thinking about it)... I could go on.

It's a beautiful thing but it puts a tremendous on any relationship. And if they're not fully committed, don't expect them to fully welcome you as the hot mess you'll become during and after pregnancy. For that reason alone, they could up and leave. I've met so many men who have abandoned ship after the arrival of a baby. Very sad for the child involved.

My situation was getting pregnant to an ex. He was a complete dick about the pregnancy (tried to bully me into an abortion) and a shit boyfriend when we were together. Then when I was in labour he decided he wanted us to get back together. It was fucking awful. He'd had a fling with one of the auxiliaries in the maternity hospital and she asked if the baby was planned. I digress. Once we were properly together he was mostly still a shit boyfriend but it felt even worse as by then I felt trapped and like he was only there because he loved the baby. Eventually when we split up I was the bad guy and now I have to co parent with a total dick who has no respect for me and makes himself out to be a victim of me for my cruel loss of interest in him. So in my experience, even if the pregnancy turns out to be an epiphany for the on off parter he is still the same dick and you still have the same resentment against him for his years of shit treatment and emotional neglect. Only you then have to watch him being emotionally neglectful to your precious beloved child which is like being stabbed in the heart!!!

I've met so many men who have abandoned ship after the arrival of a baby. Very sad for the child involved.

Yep. You have to be the kind of person who believes in the greater good of it all and can keep reminding themselves that you brought this baby into the world - it didn't ask for it - so you have a responsibility to put your needs to the side and make it the priority. This goes as much for men as women.

I've known too many people who've felt resentful after. Who resent the child getting all the attention. In some ways I'm sure it feeds infidelity. It feeds the notion they're "entitled" to the attentions of someone else, because they're "needs" have been shelved in favour of the child's. Like "it's my turn to be selfish now".

It doesn't just take a strong bond. It also takes emotional maturity and I'm not sure your friend is displaying either.

Why would you want to place that burden on a child? Oh we only had you to see if our relationship could work. And if it doesn’t? Then the child feels like a failure. Yeah great plan.

Of course it won’t work, babies aren’t a sticking plaster. They test the very limits of your relationship. And babies grow up.

She sounds like an idiot.

Reflecting on my own experience of having kids, I would say it is one of those profound tests of any relationship between two adults who share this parenting duty. The exhaustion, the not wanting so much sex, the lack of couple time, the lack of me time, the body image thing from birthing babies...it could test the best of relationships, and will kill any relationship that is faulting at the start line. Being a rubbish father was one of the major reasons I divorced my husband...being a mum changes your thinking and perception of other people.

I will go against the grain here and say that if your friend!’s boyfriend is a decent man, reliable, responsible etc, then having a child with somebody will most likely bring them together and solidify a joint future.
Will love grow? Possibly but unlikely.

An old male friend of mine had an on/off brief relationship with someone. She, at 37, got pregnant. Accidentally on purpose presumably. He is a wealthy man, about ten years her senior. He is obsessed with the child and has told me he doesn’t and has never loved her, he will never leave as he is afraid he will lose their child. They bought a big house, kid in private school, a good lifestyle but there is no love for her other than as the mother of his child. However the child has certainly cemented their lives.

@Alongcameacat Is she happy with that though?!!

Nicknamegoeshere I don’t know her. My friendship was with him. I always veered between feeling sorry for her and half admiring her for going after and getting what she wanted.

She is aware of how he felt and told him she would take the child away from him if he ‘really’ felt like that. He begged her not to do that.

From what he told me, she is happy to live the lifestyle and if he doesn’t want to go along with it, she will go, with the child.
He adores the child and will do his best to give her the best life he can.

@Alongcameacat But how can he do that if he doesn't love her? Does a "nice lifestyle" trump everything else for her?

But how can he do that if he doesn't love her?

For his child. He is terrified of losing the child.

@Alongcameacat Personally speaking (as a divorcee) it's probably not in the best interests of his child long-term to stay with the mother if he doesn't love her.
I lost my kids half of the time when I left my ex-husband (they were just three and six at the time) and as heartbreakingly painful as it was (and still is) for me, it was the right thing for my children. They knew Daddy didn't love Mummy.

Nicknamehoeshere I don’t think they dislike each other. He was never good at relationships, found it hard to be himself with women. He doesn’t believe in abortions. He says the best thing in his life is his child. What will happen when the child grows up is the mystery but by then he will be in his seventies and probably quite content to amble along.

@Alongcameacat I'd say fool on him to be honest. He was obviously quite happy to have sex with her and I'm pretty sure he'd equally know the chance it could result in a pregnancy. I'm never quite convinced by the 'woman scheming to get pregnant' arguement. No one should willing hand over sole charge to one person to prevent pregnancy when it takes two to have sex. Especially if they then set up the cry they were 'duped'.

Having a baby is one of the most stressful things to do in a relationship; I think she is being very hopeful to
Imagine it bringing them together

Catsup In fairness to him, he never said he was duped. He didn’t use protection. He thought she was taking the pill. Either way they were both responsible for the pregnancy.

He didn’t want a baby but they were both happy for the pregnancy to proceed. He is more than happy to bring up the child. The child has given meaning to his life. Previously he had a very extravagant lifestyle. He still has a lovely lifestyle. He is far happier. He is sad he doesn’t love the mother of his child but he does not regret having and rearing a child which is the OP’s question.

@Alongcameacat Well of it works for both of them then I guess fair enough. Although I'm doubtful it will be best for the child in the long term? I'd rather have love than money every day of the year but there you go, guess we're all different.

A baby won’t fix a troubled relationship.

She will be a single mum. How does she like that idea?

Generally a bad relationship gets worse when a kid comes along 🤷‍♀️