So my boyfriend 22M and I 22F have been together for almost five months now, but we found out I was pregnant the first month of our relationship. I’m currently 6 months pregnant.
We’re both young but I would say we are in very different situations in our lives. I’ve always wanted to be a mom and always dreamed of the moment I’d have my own children, but my boyfriend he’d always said he would only START thinking about it at 25.
He wanted me to terminate my pregnancy, but I told him I would not be able to because of my dream about becoming a mother and he respected my decision. After many talks, we agreed that we’d try to make this work and he would stay to help raise our child. That brought me a lot of relief and excitement, but once everything feels like it’s going well, he’ll go back his suggestion to terminate the pregnancy and I don’t think he understands how much it hurts me when he says that.
& I understand where he is coming from (he’d like to experience life more and focus on his career) and he thinks having a baby will completely throw that out of the picture. He also worries a lot about the finances (which is completely understandable) but we both have pretty good jobs. & I’m Mexican, so I’ve grown up seeing many single mothers do so much with less, so I feel like we’re going to be fine, but I don’t know how to tell him that.
I want to be able to comfort him and help him through his worries and concerns, I’m just not very good with words or emotions. Does anyone have any advice or can anyone relate? 🙁
TL; DR – I know it’s very complicated since it is a new relationship, but I just wanna know how to make him feel more secure or better about the whole situation.
Comments
You can’t.
He’s told you how he feels and to be honest he will eventually resent you for this.
Start making plans for the life of single parenting.
i’m sorry girl, you can message me if you need somebody to talk to. i don’t have children myself but i’m 22F with friends who have had babies and it can be SO discouraging to have the father of your child be so dismissive or reluctant. i feel like you may be better off relying on your family and raising the baby on your own rather than have somebody who doesn’t want anything to do with your child.
Respectfully, your pregnancy is older than your relationship, you’re both very very young, and he’s clearly expressed that he is not ready to be a parent. I wouldn’t expect him to be comfortable or secure with any part of this. He’s agreed to stay and try to make it work and I truly hope everything works out but I’d suggest mentally preparing yourself that it just might not and he may never fully come around to the idea.
If it’s any comfort, he hasn’t received his dosage yet. When I was 19, I made a mistake and got a girl pregnant. She decided she wanted to keep the baby. When she told me that, my first thought was, “What the hell am I going to do?” I had just enlisted in the Army. I was shipping out in 2 months. It felt unfair that I had no say. I eventually told her I’d do whatever I could to help her, but I really didn’t see myself as a father. I got done with boot camp and went home on leave, and she had the baby. The moment he was born, that serotonin hit. It was the wildest drug I’ve ever experienced. It was like meth and Molly all rolled into one, but better. It made me feel fiercely protective, unexplainably devoted to this woman and this child. When my son was born, I had my answer to my question. “What am I going to do? Whatever it takes. That’s what I’m going to do!”
We were married 6 months later. That was 29 amazing years ago. We have four kids, all grown. What can I say. You can’t just buy serotonin on the street.
I’m almost 40 with a 2-year-old and great jobs and my wife and i have been together for 15 years. And having a kid was the hardest thing ever. I am EXHAUSTED and the guy gets up at 5:30 or 6 am every day and goes down at like 7:30/8. We are tired all the time, stretched thin mentally, and the costs.. omg the costs.
You have a fantasy of being a mother and I guess you are living in fantasyland because “we’re going to be fine” and “single mothers do so much more with less” — it’s painful to read. This is an astonishingly big undertaking you’re volunteering into because you didn’t use protection properly.
I wouldn’t wish having a kid by accident at 22 on anyone. It’s a life-ruining situation. Everything you thought you would acomplish is out the window because you will be full-time parenting 15-24 hours a day for the next MINIMUM 7 years when they maybe start getting more independence.
The great thing about being 22 is you can get an abortion and then… just have a kid later when you’re actually ready.
This is NOT the end of your mothering journey. But having the kid means it IS the end of your freedom. Period.
You are also bringing a child into a broken home, by choice, in a situation with bad income and few prospects, and worse prospects now that all the attention you should be putting into education, career and growing a life will go towards feeding and cleaning a baby.
I’m so sorry things are working out this way for you. It does not sound like this is what he actually wants, so there aren’t really any fears or worries to quiet here… just his own goals and vision for his life that you are trying to convince him are not important.
There is an extremely slight possibility that everything will magically rearrange for him once the baby is here and the hormones hit, but that isn’t something it’s wise to hang your hopes on. He doesn’t just somehow “not know” that it hurts you for him to bring up abortion.
Ideally, you’d have dated long enough before you got pregnant to discover this incompatibility. As it is, neither of you are really going to be able to get what you want. The more excited you can get about raising this child on your own with the support of your family and friends and determine a fair, legal, uncontentious support agreement with him, the better things will probably turn out.
You can decide if you want to keep the baby. And if you do then with support from parents you will be amazing mother.