Ok this is gonna be a long one, and a complicated one.
I was married to my husband for 3 years, very happily, at least I thought we were. He left me one day, for another woman he met at work. Our child was 18 months old when he left. As an infertile couple, we had been through IVF for our daughter and it also resulted in 2 frozen embryos being left over.
The 2 years following our separation were spent with him whispering sweet nothings in my ear, he was always saying he was coming home eventually and he just needed to wake up to himself, but he would come home soon.. stupid me believed all this and even tho I had other relationships, I always held everything at arms length so when he came home, I would be there... all the while he was still in a relationship, and living with the woman he left me for. I have spoken to this woman not long after he left me and I told her that he was married with a baby, she said she didn’t know, but she continued the relationship and her and I have never gotten along.
He has always had a bet both ways with both of us.
So during the time we have been separated we discussed the frozen embryos, I decided I wanted another baby, he agreed and signed the forms and I had a transfer and I am currently 8months pregnant with our second child. I told him time and time again to discuss this with his partner as I had done with my on/off boyfriend at the time. Husband said yeah whatever but never took it seriously.... until she went through his phone 3 months ago and found out I was pregnant. They fought, I called her and lied for him and said I made the choice by myself (he was in a bad mental health way and I thought I had to, to save my daughters dad) I have always done this for him as I have always loved him.... anyway she took him back. Now, he will not communicate with me, treats me like crap and he has stated he wants nothing to do with the baby but wants our 4year old every weekend.
We have always co parented amazingly until his gf found out, apart from a few arguments and He only stopped with the sweet nothings about 3 months ago when everything hit the fan, I have since filed for divorce, finally and am moving on knowing we are done, but the baby is coming now so I cannot change where we are now.
My question is this... how do I do this? How do I let one little girl have her daddy but not the other? Do I lie and not tell her who her dad is? Or do I tell the truth and risk her growing up feeling rejected by him. We may not have planned to raise this baby girl together but when I had the transfer he said this baby would be treated the same as our daughter, now this is my new reality! I have all the love in the world for my girls and am very capable of doing this without him but really don’t want the baby growing up thinking her dad didn’t want her, when that wasn’t the case to start with. His whole family are all in and are so excited... they will support her and me, no matter what.
8 Replies
I suspect strongly that once the baby is here and real and old enough to understand that he will come round. He sounds like a total asshole but I a.so think he can’t say no to anyone for fear of hurting them. At the moment it’s easy for him to say he doesn’t want anything to do with it, because the baby isn’t ‘real’.
So I wouldn’t worry too much, you’ve got some time up your sleeve before you have to decide anything. It’s not like a new born is going to care yet. In the meantime why don’t you seek some professional advice from a psychologist? They can help you come up with a way to frame the facts in an age appropriate way, that a child can best cope with.
Sorry but youve been playing a silly game. And i dont know why because at the end hes been the one benefitting while you and her play the game for him.
Raise the bar. If hes eith her hes not with you, you deserve better. Call her back and tell her you lied and you wont lie and play his game anymore. Unless of course you saying it was all you and letting him off the parenting hook was the agreement all along. Have you only just considered the impact of this on the second child?
Normally it would be both or none. Thats his decision to make. You must have in writing somewhere what the plan was for this baby, one of you must have thought about that?
Or were you just thrilled to be involved with him in any way you could be and are now upset because hes cut you off?
Would you get a dog to share with your ex? No. Why do people plan to have babies like this, it sounds so messy. I can completely understand why his girlfriend is having problems getting her head around this. It sounds like you are trying to hang on to him anyway you can, you need to get help for yourself first. Hopefully once all the game playing is over he might decide to be in the new childs life.
Imagine having a partner and his ex does IVF and gets pregnant to him when you are with him....crazy!!!! I agree.....
Go back and tell his girlfriend you lied to save his arse, because he was telling you he was eventually going to dump her arse and come back to be with his family. Tell her that embryos cannot be legally transferred without the other persons consent, tell her the truth and then at the end of it all raise your babies. Tell him he cannot have a relationship with one and not the other. Go to court and get consent orders put in place. Remind him of all the things he said and remind him again of the promises he made. Divorce his lying manipulative, cheating arse and make your life a shit load better. And do it all without him! Do not let him get the better of you again. Do not let him treat you like your second best. And definitely don't let him treat your new baby badly. It takes two to tango literally it took two of you to make the baby and sign the papers at least make sure you get child support out of him.
Far out, how can you do IVF with a man that is partnered to another woman? She must think you are psycho crazy, no wonder he has stepped back, she must be furious. I would stay away from them both for now, keep a very low profile and contact him when bubs is born. She thinks you are a manipulative woman who got herself pregnant to her partner, when bubs is born, I would let her know you got his permission, but it's any wonder she has probably given him an ultimatum to cut you off. He obviously chooses her, always has as she is the one he is with, you really need to accept that and move on. Now it's done and you're pregnant, all you can do is hope he changes his mind when bubs is born. Honestly, I think you have behaved pretty irrationally for the sake of having a baby and holding onto him and I hope your second baby doesn't pay the price.
I think you have to take some responsibility here too, you've made the decision to bring a child into this dysfunctional situation as much as he has. The bed had been made...
Time to let him go and put you big girl pants on and get ready to tackle being a single mum. Forget about him and his new girlfriend - the truth will come out and I doubt she's so stupid that she doesn't know you lied for him (just imagine for a second how fucked up this is from her perspective).
When baby's born get some legal advice, I doubt very much he'd be able to shirk his responsibility to the new baby as it's his biological child, he signed the forms to consent to this. You hit him up for child support and you fight for the best interests of both your kids.
I hope you learn something from this too. Babies won't make men stay...
He'll probably want some level of care once he is paying more child support for the youngest.