My fiance doesn’t want the baby I’m expecting
DEAR BEL
I’M 36, happily engaged (due to be married but lockdown changed our wedding plans), and have two beautiful boys, aged two and four. My fiance works hard full-time and I work part-time.
We’ve always wanted two children; he says how complete the family is. He talks about when the youngest is out of nappies and dreams of when both boys are at school and I can go back to work full-time without the financial stresses of childcare.
He likes to travel and just feels our lives have been put on hold while we raise our boys. He struggled with the baby stage, the lack of sleep and constant crying. Now they’re getting older, he is much happier and enjoys them more.
However, yesterday I found out I was pregnant and told him. He can’t accept it. It’s an accident, I was taking the Pill. I did tell him to get a vasectomy after our last baby was born but he didn’t want to and wanted me to take the Pill.
I never liked the idea, but I did it to please him as he wouldn’t use condoms. When I told him about this pregnancy, he said he could see his life flash before his eyes.
He wants me to ‘sort it’ as soon as possible. He is feeling so stressed.
I guess lots of women are in this position but I know he won’t come round. I can’t abort my baby and I can’t bring myself to tell him this. I don’t know what to do. ZOE
What would I have said had your partner written, ‘ I can’t bear this?’
Exactly the same as my message to you: ‘ I totally understand how you feel, but this is a life- changing issue which cannot be “sorted” without serious, mature conversation.’
this does not hinge on the fears and wishes of one man or one woman.
Five lives are involved here and the good of all five must be considered.
Let nobody doubt the stresses of family life — or the blunt truth that every additional baby’s adorably pudgy paws can seem like fierce fists when times are hard.
Some men and women cope beautifully and relish the demands of toys, meals, bedtimes. Others yearn quietly to be free. It’s how we are: some more robust than others. I completely understand your fiance’s panic and wish to limit the family to two children.
But no relationship can thrive if one half compels the other to act against his/her deepest wishes.
You state categorically, ‘I can’t abort my baby and I can’t bring myself to tell him this’ — yet you must know you have no choice. the discussion must be had.
there’s no avoiding the choices each of you have to make — bearing in mind that you carry a life within you and your decisions will also affect the life chances of your two boys.
the worst- case scenario is surely that your partner breaks — and leaves. that possibility must terrify you.
If you were to take the ‘easy’ path and have a termination to please him, there is a risk of a fatal wound to your relationship. Guilt (if you feel it — and you may not) could breed resentment.
On the other hand (and I must say this), you might feel profound relief at a decision taken for the good of the whole family — and here I will include the unborn, who does not deserve to be unwanted.
how you continue will depend on the strength of your moral/emotional objection to abortion — but you
cannot delay. No woman
should be afraid of real conversation with the man she is about to marry. No man should enter a sacred bond having (in effect) browbeaten his wife.
It must be obvious that you and he need some time alone to talk this through.
Do you have family members/ close friends who could help with the children — now and also in the future, when you will need help with childcare?
Lockdown must have made family life feel pretty claustrophobic, so you and your fiance need to stretch your legs and your minds and talk, talk, talk.
Me, I’d love to tell him that our lives are like stepping stones before us, and the hops between stones come quickly enough. Too quickly.
The other day my son (who once swore he wanted no children) looked at his eight- year- old and bewailed the speed of time: ‘ It’ll be a blink before they grow up.’
Empty- nest time hurtles towards you, it really does — and then you can do what you wish.
With luck, you will be sustained by the love of the children you raised in a happy home.
So I pray you and he can clasp hands and say, ‘We can do this’ — and give each other love and strength.