I’m pregnant, but I don’t want to continue the pregnancy. My boyfriend and his family are pressuring me to keep it, and I feel alone, judged, and emotionally exhausted.

Hi Reddit. I’m 25 years old, Portuguese, and I just found out I’m about 2–3 weeks pregnant. I live in France with my boyfriend, who is 28 and Mexican. We’ve been together for 2.5 years. Our relationship has had many ups and downs — first long distance, and now living together, which brought new challenges: visa struggles, financial instability, personal trauma, and living in a dangerous neighborhood (which I have to stay in due to my job as a flight attendant, so I can be near the airport on-call).

For the past year, I’ve been the only one working, helping support both of us while he pursued his dream of finishing his Master’s in engineering. I really wanted to be there for him, and I admire his dedication. But the truth is, I’ve been mentally unwell for a long time. I’m currently on psychological sick leave due to burnout and depression. I’ve just recently started psychiatric treatment with antidepressants, and I’m trying to rebuild myself.

I come from a very difficult background. My mother was mentally unstable, addicted to sedatives, emotionally neglectful, and at times abusive. My father — although he provided for us — was controlling and part of a violent, chaotic household. Their marriage scarred all of us. Now, my father is dying from ALS, a brutal disease that leaves you paralyzed while your mind remains fully aware. My sister is his full-time caregiver. My mother is also seriously ill and in palliative care.

When I emigrated, I had to leave my cats behind. They still live in my family’s home, and I continue to support them financially. I made the heartbreaking choice not to bring them with me because they bring emotional comfort to my father in his final stages of life. That decision weighs heavily on me every day, and not having them has deeply affected my mental health.

Now, I’ve found out I’m pregnant. I was in shock. My boyfriend immediately said he wanted to keep the baby, and his family stepped in with offers of love, support — but also pressure. They’ve told me I’ll regret this, that I’m confused or just hormonal. They know I’m not okay. They know I have serious trauma to heal from. But they still believe I might change my mind, and they keep insisting I wait “a little longer” before deciding — even though the pregnancy is still in its very early stages, only 2–3 weeks according to my test.

Waiting longer only deepens my suffering. I know that as days go by, the cells that are now barely formed could start to become something more defined. I don’t want to reach a point where the emotional toll of an abortion becomes even heavier. It is already breaking me. I feel like I’m being pushed to carry something I’m sure I don’t want — just to give others more time to hope I’ll change.

What makes this harder is that I know my boyfriend is in pain. I know he wants this baby deeply. Since the moment he found out, he’s stepped forward with emotional and practical support, and his family has too. It breaks my heart to hurt him like this. I don’t want to crush him — I see his suffering. I know he has different values from me, maybe even a different cultural view on abortion. I know this decision devastates him. But I can’t forget that even before this pregnancy, we were unstable. We often don’t agree on even basic things. He’s told me before he doesn’t see me in his future. And even though I know a baby doesn’t fix or hold a relationship together, I also know I never wanted to bring a child into this world under circumstances like these — with love, yes, but with confusion, instability, and pain surrounding it.

Since I found out, I’ve heard some deeply painful things — like “you’re going to kill our child” or “you’d save a cat before your own baby.” And while I understand those words are born from pain and desperation, this has become psychological torture for me. I am not making this choice lightly. I would never end a pregnancy “just because.” I’m doing it because I know it would be me — my body, my mind, my heart — carrying it. I would be the mother. I would be the one responsible for nurturing and protecting this child in a world where I can barely protect or take care of myself right now.

And I’ve been that child before. I had a mother who wasn’t well, who couldn’t care for me properly, and the result was years of emotional damage. I know what it’s like to grow up in a house full of chaos, addiction, violence, and neglect. I don’t want to recreate that cycle. I’m still healing the small, broken child inside me — the one who had to grow up too fast, who lived in fear, who watched her family fall apart while everyone looked the other way.

My sister understands my decision because she lived it too. She knows what it cost us to have a mother who wasn’t mentally or emotionally equipped. And I now understand more about why my mother failed — she had children too young, in a toxic marriage, while mentally and physically unwell, and she too came from a violent home where her own father controlled everything. She never broke the cycle. I want to. I need to.

Some people have suggested I carry the pregnancy to term and give the baby to my boyfriend. But that would destroy me. It’s not just about carrying — it’s about spending nine months connected to something I didn’t choose, living with daily emotional conflict, and then giving birth and walking away. I know that would leave a permanent scar. I’m already broken. I don’t want to add another deep wound.

I have a medical appointment on June 6. I want to make this decision with full psychological support. I’m almost certain about what I want — I do not want to continue this pregnancy — but I’m writing here because I need to hear voices from outside my life. People with no personal stake. I am easily manipulated emotionally, especially by those I love, and I need clarity. I’m suffering already — but the idea of continuing this pregnancy while I’m in this state scares me even more.

Thank you for reading. I’m truly grateful for any insight or support.