Advice please!!

[Paul Williams]

Hi All,

Sorry this is so long but I really need to talk to someone
with some experience!

I broke up with my girlfriend about a month ago.
Infact in the two years we spent together we broke
up about every two weeks!

Yesterday she phoned me to tell me she is pregnant,
and she confirmed that today. I have not seen any results
or paper work from tests etc.

I am prepared to believe the child is mine and that
she is being honest with me about not having seen anyone
else. But of course I cannot honestly say that I am 100%
sure the baby is mine, maybe 99%.

Over the two years that we were together she has had
great difficulty deciding what she wanted out of life (hence
the continual breakups). This has been complicated because:

a) She already has two kids from a previous marriage (16 and 19 years old)
b) She is still married and he still lives with her,
although they are "separated" and just staying together
for the kids' sake for now. He has had a vassectemy by the way,
so it cannot be his child even IF she did sleep with him, which I
doubt she did.

You may think "well why start seeing a married woman?" Well
she told me her marriage was effectively over and that maybe
we should wait for it to be totally finished. But I had previously
lost my wife to cancer a couple of years earlier and was quite
vulnerable so I pushed the relationship forward too quickly I guess.

Anyway, she has been pregnant with my child previously. I started seeing
her in March 2002 and in July she fell pregnant but unfortunately
had an abortion in September 2002. I tried to stop her but she insisted
that this was because of a number of reasons: she was doing a PhD
with dangerous chemicals at the time and suffered a number of accidents
in the lab with the fumes, also she was not convinced I would be fully
supportive of her. She seems to have a different reason for having
the abortion everytime she brings it up. Following the abortion we got
back together and have been on and off ever since. She has always
regretted having the abortion and has been upset for nearly two years.
She even suggested that we had ago at having a baby again, but I was
reluctant because of her instability (and other) issues. She keeps
blaming me for her having to quit her PhD work and that it was my fault
for getting her pregnant in the first place etc. (She has just finished
teacher training by the way,so she has a way of supporting herself in
the future).

She has not been the most stable person to have a relationship with
and I can honestly say that I have gone through hell with her! I care
for her though and I dont want her to have an abortion this time or put
the baby up for adoption.

We were careful in our love making, but she seems to have got her
cycle dates wrong. I hate to think that she may have gotten pregnant on
purpose, and I know I should have been careful anyway; but my problem is
I am too trusting of people! I dont think I could ever live with her
because of her instability and pretty bad treatment of me. I'm looking
forward to being a dad! But it is really difficult being in a separate
house. At the moment she is still living with her ex, I think he will
be moving on after the summer. I certainly don't want my child brought
up by him!

So she is probably 5 weeks pregnant at this time. I really want to start
supporting her, giving her money etc for the future. But should I
be giving her money at this point?

Of course I will support the child, and as I say looking forward to
being a dad (although i'm terrified!). I care for my ex, but I dont want
to live with her becuase I know we just won't get along.

I would really appreciate some advice!
What are everyone else's thoughts?

Regards,
Paul Williams
UK

[Leslie]

You and your girlfriend seem to have made a lot of questionable choices in the
past, but now there is a baby involved and it is time to start making some good
ones.

If you don't plan on marrying her I think you should see a good attorney as
soon as possible and work up a legal agreement regarding support and custody
and other issues. It's admirable that you are ready and willing to support her
and the baby, but I think you need some protection yourself given how unstable
she seems to be.

Does the ex know about you, btw?

good luck.

Leslie

[Paul Williams]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, the ex knows about me. He pretty much has his own life now.
Bad timing too, because one of her kids is going through
important exams in school. Everyone's emotions are up in the air!



Regards,
Paul

Leslie wrote:

> You and your girlfriend seem to have made a lot of questionable choices in the
> past, but now there is a baby involved and it is time to start making some good
> ones.
>
> If you don't plan on marrying her I think you should see a good attorney as
> soon as possible and work up a legal agreement regarding support and custody
> and other issues. It's admirable that you are ready and willing to support her
> and the baby, but I think you need some protection yourself given how unstable
> she seems to be.
>
> Does the ex know about you, btw?
>
> good luck.
>
> Leslie

[Nikki]

Leslie wrote:

> If you don't plan on marrying her I think you should see a good
> attorney as soon as possible and work up a legal agreement regarding
> support and custody and other issues. It's admirable that you are
> ready and willing to support her and the baby, but I think you need
> some protection yourself given how unstable she seems to be.

This would be my advice exactly. I would also get a paternity test done as
soon as it is possible to do so.

--
Nikki
Mama to Hunter (5) and Luke (3)

[Sarah Vaughan]

In message >, Paul Williams
> writes

<snip>
>So she is probably 5 weeks pregnant at this time. I really want to
>start supporting her, giving her money etc for the future. But should I
>be giving her money at this point?
>
>Of course I will support the child, and as I say looking forward to
>being a dad (although i'm terrified!). I care for my ex, but I dont
>want to live with her becuase I know we just won't get along.
>
>I would really appreciate some advice!
>What are everyone else's thoughts?

First of all, congratulations! However iffy the situation, and I do
realise it's not the way you would ideally have wanted things to have
happened, it's still good news to hear you're going to be a dad.

In terms of general advice, I would say - be sympathetic and supportive,
take it one day at a time, and try as hard as possible to avoid
criticising the ex or anything else concerning her. With things as
volatile as they are between the two of you, any criticism is likely to
deteriorate into an argument, and you really don't need that right now.
Staying on good terms as far as you can is better all round. (I know
that means glossing over a lot of stuff, but since you're no longer
trying for a viable relationship with her but just trying to be involved
with this baby, that's probably the best route.)

As for your specific question about the money, I can't see any reason
why you'd need to be giving her money at this point. If she's
self-supporting then she's presumably earning enough for a decent diet,
and there isn't anything else I can think of that she's likely to need
money for this early on. And if something goes wrong after you've given
her money - if she does have an abortion, or miscarries, or just decides
to be obstructive about letting you get involved with the baby - and
you've already given her money, it could be a really sore point between
the two of you.

What I would do is this: Firstly, set up a separate account in your own
name and start paying a proportion of your earnings into it each week.
This means you'll have built up a nice lump sum by the time you do need
to start paying any expenses, plus you'll get used to living on reduced
income.

Secondly, offer to buy/go halves on baby equipment when the time comes
to buy it (I wouldn't actually buy it this early in pregnancy as the
miscarriage risk is still so high - sorry, I know that sounds harsh, but
it's how it is - but make the offer now so that she knows you're trying
to help).

Thirdly, discuss the joint issues of child support and access with her,
so that the two of you can start working on an agreement that you'll
hopefully both find fair. There's a lot of time left to go, so I
wouldn't discuss it in anything more than general terms at this point,
but it would be worth raising the subject so that she knows you're
willing and want to be involved. Later on in pregnancy you can try to
firm arrangements up a bit, though I have no idea how much legal
standing any prior agreements would have if the CSA or suchlike got onto
you, and it's worth finding out as much as you can about this.

Good luck!


All the best,

Sarah

--
"I once requested an urgent admission for a homeopath who had become depressed
and taken a massive underdose" - Phil Peverley