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Original poster

Partner unsure about children with me

115 replies

CatsCoffeeAndBooks · 08/09/2020 09:00

I have always wanted children. This was clear to my partner when I met him. When I met him I also met his four year old daughter. Three years later we ended up in a situation where we were going to foster a one year old boy. We only spent ten days with him but we fell in love. After that time his father returned on the scene and took J to live with him five hours away. After a lot of heartache I asked my partner if we could try for our own and he went mad. He came up with all these excuses, that he has used in the before. “there is no rush!”, “It’s not the top of my list”.

I feel very strange about this situation. He planned to have his daughter with his last partner. He said if it came to it with the young boy he would look after him on his own. Am I right thinking that he’s slightly unsure about me?

OP posts:

LexMitior · 08/09/2020 10:26

This is a story as old as time. A woman who meets a man with children. She takes this as evidence he is good father material and can have children with him.

Him, recently separated and not enjoying responsibility for looking after his own progeny is seeking a new head cook and bottle washer.

I think this man is a disgusting person. What sort of person toys with fostering a small boy to manipulate his partner? I don’t even have words. Vile person and you are better than this.

Look at this, and recognise your part in it.

TorkTorkBam · 08/09/2020 10:30

A common scenario is that the younger girlfriend wants babies and is excited to be living together. When the boyfriend's children are round she goes into super-nanny overdrive and thoroughly enjoys this playtime. The rest of the time she is having fun nesting and being all grown up having the house all beautiful and organised. What fun. What she doesn't notice is the bloke sitting on his arse letting her do all this. He's happy. Then if they do have children, she is shocked that he expects the playact parenting to continue. He thinks she will continue to act like it's her Instagram, even though it is now relentless, no longer optional, and infuriating, while she is astonished that he didn't "step up".

I get the feeling this is you. All ribbon in your hair doing finger painting, baking delightful cookies and planning lovely educational days out with the girl at the weekends. Which is fun. I get it. It is wrong though. That's his job and he is not doing it, not even the easy bits. Step back and see it.

Batshitbeautycosmeticsltd · 08/09/2020 10:33

@LexMitior

This is a story as old as time. A woman who meets a man with children. She takes this as evidence he is good father material and can have children with him.

Him, recently separated and not enjoying responsibility for looking after his own progeny is seeking a new head cook and bottle washer.

I think this man is a disgusting person. What sort of person toys with fostering a small boy to manipulate his partner? I don’t even have words. Vile person and you are better than this.

Look at this, and recognise your part in it.

Spot on!

GilbertMarkham · 08/09/2020 10:33

The other thing that this thread raises is a really common theme on MN when women get into relationships with divorced or separated men with kids .. why did his previous relationship/family break down and what does that tell you about him?

The blokes will.alwsys depict a naggy, angry, unreasonable, demanding, sometimes even psycho/crazy ex, but how common are women like that, really? If they're angry and naggy, it's often because they're being treated unfairly. Or it's just the normal pressures and strains put on a relationship by babies and kids. There aren't that many totally unreasonable, "psycho" women out there but there are plenty of tired, strained, frustrated women dealing with everything from laziness and not weight pulling with kids to infidelity etc.

I don't know why more women don't think about why these blokes are single, at how incredibly reluctant most women who have kids with men are to end their relationships, at the fact that his last relationship didn't survive having a child/ren and what that's likely to mean.

Unless there's some huge backstory with his ex, what you know about him is that his previous relationship didn't survive having one child, he was out single again and getting involved with another woman by the time his DD was four, that he's happy to have you do more than your fair share with his DD when she visits (and that his residence is not even equal). Now you know he's adamant about not having more kids ... Sorry, but does he even seem like a great prospect as a father.

GilbertMarkham · 08/09/2020 10:36

(and this is not a "bitter" ex projecting; I'm still with my partner (at this time anyway), it's just my observation.

Azerothi · 08/09/2020 10:43

I know there is some indication but do you and your boyfriend actually live together?

It is you your boyfriend doesn't want a baby with, He is making a mug out of you.

CaMePlaitPas · 08/09/2020 10:47

Run as fast as you can and don't look back.

ravenmum · 08/09/2020 10:48

I think this man is a disgusting person. What sort of person toys with fostering a small boy to manipulate his partner? I don’t even have words.
I don't think OP said that he "toyed" with it, just for her? Fostering is not the same as adoption; it's often intended to be temporary from the start. This little boy went back to his father when it ended; there's no indication that wasn't planned or that OP's bf did anything other than kindly foster a child for a while.

CaMePlaitPas · 08/09/2020 10:48

You don't make it clear how old you are OP.

GilbertMarkham · 08/09/2020 10:51

What sort of person toys with fostering a small boy to manipulate his partner? I don’t even have words. Vile person and you are better than this.

Let's take the more "open minded" view and say he was willing to give it a go, without intentionally meaning to.manipulate op; but what's notable is that after only 10 days of looking after a one year old (if I got that right) .. his reaction to the proposal of he and op having a baby was "fuck, no".

In spite of apparently (?) pulling his weight and vetting attached, all the ten day foster experience seems to have done is solidify his opposition to having more children.

LexMitior · 08/09/2020 10:53

@ravenmum

If you can’t see that this boy was used to placate her need for children then I think you are naive. Look at her post and see the need seeping from every pore for her to show her capacity for motherhood. He knows that and has let this need fester while getting what he needs.

This man sounds awful.

GilbertMarkham · 08/09/2020 10:53

I paraphrased "fuck, no" obviously but he said words to that effect.

LexMitior · 08/09/2020 10:55

10 days is nothing - she sounds like she treated the experience totally differently to him.

Don’t tell me this man is that callous as to her engagement and desire for kids.

RedRumTheHorse · 08/09/2020 10:55

OP any single father who is a good dad will take care of his child/children himself. He will not need
or want you or members of his family e.g. his mother to take care of his own child/children particularly when he is around.

If he doesn't have her regularly mid-week over night ask yourself why?

I bet he would say work yet both men and women can ask to work flexibly. In fact lots of men get lauded at work for taking their kids to school or taking a regular afternoon off per week to spend time with them.

Even before flexible working was a thing plenty of men - I am related to some and was brought up around others - took care of their children on their own one or more times a week. Most of them did so their wife/female partner could also work, but once they started they realised there were long lasting benefits in taking care of their children on their own without a woman "helping" them.

TorkTorkBam · 08/09/2020 11:00

I think it a bit harsh to say he was fostering purely as a manipulative premeditated move.

Taking a charitable slant, maybe he agreed to foster the child to see if he could handle being a full time parent this time unlike last time. Maybe he thought OP doesn't get how hard children are and this experience would open her eyes and she'd change her mind of her own accord about children.

I presume this wasn't a formal fostering arrangement through the relevant agencies but was looking after a family member or close friend's child during a traumatic period, e.g. illness, divorce, overseas working, prison. It could be that he chose to put himself out to help, say, his cousin for a few months. Though I expect it was OP who did all the hard work.

QueSera · 08/09/2020 11:01

I asked my partner if we could try for our own and he went mad

This is an appalling way to react to you bringing up a perfectly reasonable subject. He is awful, leave him please. He is not a 'partner' in any sense of the word.

ravenmum · 08/09/2020 11:01

[quote LexMitior]@ravenmum

This man sounds awful.[/quote]
I can't see that from this, no. I'm not naive, just not willing to vilify a man who fostered a child, calling him names based on a very sketchy outline of something people do on a daily basis out of the kindness of their hearts. My dad used to foster, mainly as his second wife wanted to do it; that does not make him "vile".

Batshitbeautycosmeticsltd · 08/09/2020 11:07

Please listen to Gilbert here. These men are a dime a dozen. He, like every other garden variety single man with kids looking for the proverbial head cook and chief bottle washer, future faked you because you'd never have progressed the relationship had you known how he really feels at the outset. He knew damn well that the future faking is necessary to rope the woman in, and then he hopes to keep her sweet by hooking her in that she now has feelings for him and the kid, that she falls for the fallacy of sunken costs (tip: don't throw good time after bad), that he's 'not ready' 'next year' no rush', etc.

These men are 10 a penny!

He's not unsure about you, he's happy having his knob serviced and his child well-cared for by others and wants to keep that going.

You have no ties and are free. You could do so much better than this guy with baggage who's a shit father and doesn't want any more (funny how none of these guys ever has a vasectomy).

GilbertMarkham · 08/09/2020 11:11

He planned to have his daughter with his last partner.

And look how that turned out.

I get the impression from the above that you thought because he's planned and had a child with his partner in the past that he'd be willing to do it again; but when he did it in the past he didn't know what having a child would be like.

I'll take a wildstab in the dark and presume his ex isn't the world's most psycho bitch from hell, that's she's not perfect but probably not any "worse" than average .. and he couldn't make a partnership and coparenting full-time work with her, so what makes you think he could make it work - or equally want to - do so with anyone else.

He's actually being responsible - he could be like other men and have more kids and end up broken up with their mum too (after a shitty relationship in which he expected her to do all the work).

LexMitior · 08/09/2020 11:12

@ravenmum

Well that’s your dad - but really, don’t you think that if a woman is of child bearing age, looking after a man’s children for him, and then fostering, this is either incredibly ignorant of her feelings or callous as to the very obvious implication, which is that she wants her own.

This man sounds like a bum.

ravenmum · 08/09/2020 11:38

He said that he would look after the boy on his own if needs be; sounds to me too like it was a relative's child or something. The child needed temporary parents, was he supposed to refuse as it might make OP broody?

baileys6904 · 08/09/2020 11:45

Much as I hate to disagree with the men haters on this forum (I actually don't), has anyone considered that the 2 children that he has both bonded with have been 'taken' away from him so perhaps that would explain alot of the reluctance, especially if you are not married yet? Sharing a child is hard Enough so can't imagine that, and then having a potential Foster child that you get close to, then taken hours away.
How's the rest of your relationship, are you happy? Are you concerned? Have you spoke about how he feels? Did you talk about how he felt after the 1year old left? Perhaps emotions are just abit raw at the moment. You may lose sight of it a bit on here but men do have feelings and can feel just as hurt as women but struggle to communicate them. Not saying this is the case here but it may not just be as clear cut as some are making out

ravenmum · 08/09/2020 11:48

He came up with all these excuses, that he has used in the before. “there is no rush!”, “It’s not the top of my list”.
He's been telling the OP for some time that he's not keen on having another child any time soon.

LadyLairdArgyll · 08/09/2020 11:55

When he leaves... which he will... he would have no hesitation in leaving a 'fostered' child.. as in his eyes it's yours not his... he would not even look back..

a bio child he will pay and stay tie'd to you OP.. hence his reaction 🌺

he wants no attachments with you .. sorry

ravenmum · 08/09/2020 12:02

When he leaves... which he will... he would have no hesitation in leaving a 'fostered' child.. as in his eyes it's yours not his... he would not even look back.
OP: "He said if it came to it with the young boy he would look after him on his own." - he told OP that he would take the little boy if it became necessary. Sounds as if he was the one asked to look after the boy temporarily. How do you go from that to OP getting another foster child and him dumping them both?

I thought I was making quite a leap myself pointing out that some men claim to want a child just to get the woman.

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