Dear Prudence, My wife and I have been married for nearly three years. We married shortly after we learned she was pregnant. However, she miscarried, after which she slipped into a deep depression. For months she said she would never be the same until she was pregnant again. I strongly resisted, because I didn’t want a kid, and I thought it was a poor reason to have a child. However, after seven months, I gave in. It was a big mistake. The first year of my son’s life was miserable, and I felt like I was forced into doing something I really didn’t want. While she was pregnant with our son, my wife and I agreed that she would get an IUD to prevent another pregnancy, but she never did. Eventually, we were sleeping in separate rooms and rarely having sex, and I was questioning my marriage. Then she became pregnant again. I begged her to get an abortion, but she wouldn’t. Now our second son is here, and my life is more miserable than ever. I feel completely betrayed by my wife. How can I stay with someone who so callously disregards my feelings on the most important decision two people can make?
—Big Problem
Dear Big, Maybe you and the dad above can go get snipped together. Most teenage boys, even if the purchase is only aspirational, have braved the checkout lines at drugstores and bought themselves condoms. You should have joined them and kept some condoms in your nightstand for those rare occasions of sexual congress. Surely, even if you skipped sex ed, you figured out what caused the arrival of son No. 1. Nothing but your own genitals betrayed you in the making of son No. 2. You have two children whom you think of as millstones. This is awful for everyone, and even if you didn’t come to fatherhood enthusiastically, there’s something deeply off with your inability to find any joy in the arrival of your sons. You say your wife struggles with depression; maybe you do, too. Or maybe your problem is an inability to take responsibility for your actions. This is why therapy exists. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, go figure out how you can make your situation better. That means you must address what’s wrong with you and try to find a way to reconnect with your wife rather than blowing up your family. Maybe if you stop thinking about your own misery, you can look in the faces of those two little boys you helped create and commit to providing them with security and love.
Yea. I agree. Unless she lied and told him she got the IUD, which it doesn't sound like, then he has only himself to blame for kid number 2, since he did nothing to stop it. He consented to kid 1. Time to grow up and take responsibility dude.
Unless a man is clueless (and this guy might be), he can tell very easily whether the woman he's naked with has an IUD.
He had to know that he was probably starting a pregnancy. And "begging her" to get an abortion when he knows she wants more children?
He's living in a fantasy world inside his head.
He needs someone to TELL HIM that HE made conscious decisions that started these two babies, and he should find a way to accept that he might not hate them as much as he's proclaiming. PART OF HIM wanted these kids.
Sure, babies mean loss of sleep and more responsibilities.
I would advise him to spend 30 minutes every day with each child, holding them and rocking in a good rocking chair,
and another 30 minutes reading to them at bedtime.
Then they might stop being all 'diapers and screaming' and maybe become something positive he can hold onto.
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The Principle of Least Interest: He who cares least about a relationship, controls it.
My DBF had this happen to him. Now ex wife miscarried and demanded he get her pregnant again. She moved out thinking he would agree to her terms, but they are now divorced. I don't feel sorry for this guy at all.
What an idiot. Whether he stays with his wife, or not, he is still going to be a <cough, cough> father to these kids.
He needs to quit focusing on what WAS--and start focusing on what IS. He still has a chance to be a good father with a major attitude adjustment--regardless of whether he stays married to their mother.
Plus, if he truly did not want children--he had options available to him that he didn't take.
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I'm not arguing, I'm just explaining why I'm right.
Well, I could agree with you--but then we'd both be wrong.
