Partner ended engagement at 22 weeks pregnant and now will not speak

[CharlieBrown123]

I am 22 weeks pregnant and my partner broke up with me a few days ago and now won’t talk to me.

We met in December, and the pregnancy was a complete accident - when I found out I was pregnant I felt really upset as I wasn’t sure how a termination would affect me emotionally, but after talking it through with him he was really keen to support me and for us to have the baby together despite only having known each other a short time.

I was invited to move into his house and we started going to all the appointments together, he would cry at scans saying I was his forever person and he was so excited to have a family with me. He proposed and the wedding was set for the 1st July so that we’d be married before the baby came along. A couple of weeks ago he took me to Norway to meet his family and nephews who were so excited to have a new cousin.

We did sometimes argue, well it was more a case of me just randomly crying, particularly in the first trimester, but I was assured this was a normal part of pregnancy and he was generally supportive.

On Wednesday, on our morning dog walk and quite out of the blue he broke off the engagement, he then told me I had to leave the house that day. When I tried to have a conversation about how I could survive financially through maternity leave he said he would not be providing support as he would get lawyers involved to ensure he had 50/50 custody. I have barely heard from him since apart from a few messages about arranging to have my belongings delivered back to my flat.

I have sought the advice of a solicitor and now know what my rights are, and a lovely lady at universal credit helped me understand how to support myself through maternity leave so I know that from a financial and legal perspective, everything will be fine. Emotionally I am still so shocked and confused by his behaviour, and not sure how someone can go from one day saying how becoming a family is the best thing that’s ever happened to them, to the next not even wanting to know me.

Has anyone else experienced anything similar? Does pregnancy sometimes have this effect on men? I really feel like I need some answers but I know I won’t get them from him.

Her ex won’t talk to her, so your post has no relevance to her situation

The posts are written on the information you have supplied - you said straight up the condom broke. To anyone reading that it's a physical thing that you see after sex that the condom is broken. Then you have retracted that and stated it didn't physically break but it didn't work. There is a big difference to saying the condom failed as our source of contraception to the condom broke.

This post is wild!
'Textbook narc'? 😆

Filing a police report because someone you decided to have a baby with after 5 mins hasn't turned out to be the Prince Charming you wanted him to be, has to be one of the most ridiculous ideas I've seen on here.

Despite all of the "I got pregnant the moment we laid eyes on each other and it's been a blissful 57 years" posters, choosing to have a baby with a stranger because it might be your 'last chance' is generally not going to end well for someone. Often the baby, but either way, there is usually no riding off into the sunset happy ending.

No sympathy for the guy either. Clearly he's changed his mind about a relationship with the OP, and that's fine. Not so fine to not communicate about where you both go from here.

You barely know each other so I'd suggest you keep that in mind and try and maintain a civil and practical relationship for the sake of your baby. If he chooses not to, his loss and you can just forge ahead (with his financial contribution) knowing where you both stand. Saves being constantly disappointed and wasting pointless time expecting him to step up. Just focus on you and your baby and you'll be fine.
How lucky your house didn't sell 😬

My advice is if you can afford it and have support, please please dont count his CM and try to get his support. The years of hassle and stress you will have with him going through court to get custody is really going to ruin your life and stop you from enjoy their childhood. Life is too short, you learn your lesson and move on. You should focus on yourself and your baby, forget about this man, do NOT contact him or answer his msgs/calls it will be much much easier in the long term. You are still young life is full of possibilities you will meet someone else just dont keep any contact with him he is BAD news

Her OP references universal credit that will now sponsor her mat leave.

if only there were options for women too.

OP, this pile on is ridiculous. He sounds awful and manipulative, without a shred of decency. I'd definitely do a Clare's law request.

If you can move on without him financially, I would do that. His threats and the way he treated you don't bode well.

This man is nothing short of a monster to leave you in the lurch like this. He is emotionally immature and this is not something that will improve because he is very unkind with it too. Don’t get together with him again, you cannot trust him. It is you and the baby now, build as much as a network as you can with friends, family, community help and facilities. You will be just fine but I’m sorry you are in this situation.

I had my second child in similar circumstances. Whirlwind romance after being widowed. He accompanied me to have my coil removed then checked out when our child arrived. I couldn't put him on the birth certificate because he didn't turn up to the appointment to register the birth. Almost 5 years on, my child is about to start school and we are doing just fine by ourselves. I did have to go back to work sooner than I was hoping to, which was really hard at the time but we soon adjusted.

There’s whole websites dedicated to helping men evade CM. It’s not always as black and white as ‘not letting him off’.

There’s no way I would share my child with someone like this (and I wouldn’t care about his contribution of DNA).

I would be tempted to move and not tell him where you’ve gone. Make it as difficult as possible for him to get custody.

Wishing you well for the rest of your pregnancy.

Plenty of posters saying that the OP should not put his name on the birth certificate because he is a waster etc. It punishes the child to never be given the chance to find him.

I grew up never knowing who my father was and no way would my mother tell me. When she died I requested a full copy of my birth certificate (I only had the one showing my adoptive dad) and was gutted to find his name was not on there.

I will never forgive my mother for that, whatever he was like I had a right to know and choose to try to find him or not.
The fathers name being left off a birth certificate leaves people such as me always wondering if it was his choice to walk away or if he was pressured to.

Dear @CharlieBrown123

I am sorry you are in this situation. Please make sure that you keep the messages from him about getting your stuff to your house and keep a timeline of how this all panned out. It may/may not be useful if he does take you to court for the judges to see how cold and mean he was to the future mother of his child. Literally throwing her out that day!!. Yes I know you fortunately had somewhere to go but it doesn't really give him a good character does it?

Talk to your mortgage provider and see if you can pay interest only whilst you are on maternity leave, that may help a bit or even take a mortgage break

Talk to your council and see if you can pay your council tax over 12 months instead of 10, it's only a little bit but it all helps.

I wish you luck

So let me get that right…

The OP had sex with a man. They conceived a child.

Because she ‘hardly knows him’, he is now a danger to the child?
Does it work in reverse? Because he doesn’t know tge OP well, it’s clear she can’t be trusted to be mother agd he should get the child full time??

What exactly in what tge OP wrote makes you think he would be a danger to,the child?
Or is it that the idea of being separated from your 1yo is too horrific to even consider, regardkess of how good the father is?

This child has the right to know his dad. There is no reason atm to think the child needs to be protected.
Yes it’s shit for the parent to go 50/50. But then that’s the reality of separation.
It doesn’t mean that the mother can put her wishes to kerp the child with her ahead of the child knowing about his dad, and the paternal side of the family.

This man would have known it was broken, so he chose not to tell you. Red flag.

I think you are glossing over what the other posters are saying here and you seem very fixated on who's "to blame" for this circumstance.

It's not going to matter who's to blame when you have a child to take care of but also share. It's not going to matter who's to blame when they need to be taken to doctor's appointments, or to be fed four times a night. What happens if this man wants to return to Norway to be with his family and insists on your child joining him?

You have made a choice to continue this pregnancy with a man you barely know, who from the sounds of things promised you a lot but was yet to deliver, and who has now rejected your relationship entirely.

It sounds like you've been very naive, OP. It's sad, but ultimately the only thing you can realistically do now is make the best of it. Be excited and be the best mother you can be - leave the blame aside. It will only make you bitter and angry.

OP - tough situation and one where some tough decisions need to be made. Yes, men can just suddenly decide to opt out. I know someone who had a baby with a long term partner (planned). They were at home one evening and he just got up, walked out and never came back. He eventually got back in touch but had zero interest in his child.

So you can decide to keep the child but just plan on doing this solo and keep his name off the birth certificate.

Or consider other options. None of these can be discussed sensibly on an online forum - try and reach out to the relevant services and support groups to make the right decision for you.

Your ex does not get a say - his actions have shown you he has opted out of his responsibilities and anything said point forward is just pointless.

There was no child to keep when they made the decision. She was pregnant and she could have ended the pregnancy. She decided not to. That decision was hers alone. The OP states she is proceeding with the pregnancy because she wants a baby.

She is an 37 year old adult who should be able to process the risk involved in proceeding with the relationship. It was not a remote possibility that they would break up. Most relationships of this length end.

They now have the opportunity as individuals to be the best parents they can. I doubt reporting him to the police is helpful to that.

Accountable to who? You? The other posters who have taken it upon themselves to judge and berate an emotionally distressed woman with autism who is 22 weeks pregnant? Don’t pretend you are doing anything other than piling on.

She has autism. People with autism don’t process in the same way and they can be oblivious to cues in social and romantic situations that might raise flags for other people. It would be nice if posters would consider that instead of telling her she’s tanked her life, should’ve got an abortion etc. The nastiness displayed on this thread towards her is frankly sickening.

But that’s more about lack of ant contact and big hurtful secrets than the birth certificate.

In OP’s case, the guy doesn’t need to be named. Maybe he doesn’t want to be anyway. The child and he absolutely have a right to a relationship though.

I mean while he may not necessarily be a danger to the child (and I'm struggling to see where the person you quoted actually said this), to promise OP the world, cry at scans and basically insinuate he was going to stand by her and support her, before dumping her completely out of the blue and telling her if she tries to get him to pay child support he'll go for 50/50 custody would suggest that this man is mercenary and does not have god unborn child's interests at heart. He seems selfish, cold and not great father material.
The child has a right to know who their father is but that's as far as it goes. The father has shown himself to be a self serving shit and OP doesn't owe him anything.
He doesn't want 50/50 custody, he's using that scenario as a threat to stop her getting money out of him. He clearly doesn't care about this baby at all

Congrats on the pregnancy OP, you'll adapt and do amazingly well I am sure - you are employed, own your house and will be able to provide emotionally and materially for this baby. I agree with other posters WRT this man who sounds like bad news ; he is allowed to freak out but the level of aggression displayed is frankly worrying. Stay well away from him, block him everywhere and try and enjoy the rest of your pregnancy ;)

He could be a danger, he could be the best dad ever. The fact is we don’t know, OP doesn’t know, and an ‘unknown man’ is NOT a person you want to leave your 1 year old with. But he will eventually have a right to this. And she will just have to wait and see if he can care for them properly.

To herself, obviously. No one is berating her; people are asking questions and offering advice. Coddling someone and validating poor decisions doesn't help them. Yes, his behaviour is terrible, especially kicking her out like that. But she also needs to recognise that getting pregnant and moving in with a man she had known for less than six months was not a particularly wise decision.
Both things can be true at the same time: he is behaving badly and she made a series of poor choices that contributed to the situation.

I’ve had the implant & an IUD during my 27 year marriage with my husband, we’ve never not used contraception, currently now on the pill as that’s working best for peri menopause for me & we now have 2 children aged 25 & 12 & 1 miscarriage. We’ve never had sex without contraception however we don’t have any contraception that is 100%.