New Mam and Life so messed up

LegacyUser

My head is so wrecked and I have no one I can confide in as I am so ashamed of myself.

Following a one night stand and despite using 2 forms of contraception my little daughter was born just over 6 months ago. This was an extremely difficult decision for me to keep my child and although I had contemplated a termination after speaking to the lady in the UK Clinic I knew that I could not go through with it and live with the consequences as I am complete worryier.

Anyhow background is I am divorced and in my early thrities and have been raising the 2 children from my marriage alone as their father has chosen to walk out of their lives following the breakdown of our marriage. Then one night out I met my daughters father, I knew he was younger than me but that wasn't an issue for either of us as it was all just a bit of fun, he had told me he was 26 so there was only 6 yrs between us. Roll forward 4 months when I was out again and met into him at this stage I was 3 months pregnant, obviously not showing at that stage, he chatted me up again and this time we exchanged phone numbers. He asked me out to dinner etc. and we meet each other a number of times over the following month or so, I still hadn't said anything to him about the pregnancy as I wasn't sure what I was going to do.

Then when things seems to be going well I decided I was going to keep the babs and tell the Dad, I arrange to meet and I told him. My world turned into turmoil when he told me that he had lied about his age and he was only 19, he completely freaked out and wanted me to have a termination, refused to have any communication with me except for a few sent by him asking me to leave him alone, he didn't want the child and refused to believe he was the father, understandable as we had used contraception but i knew there was no other person involved.

Our daughter was born, I text him about it and he said he wanted nothing to do with either of us, although this is not a good situation for my daughter to be in I have had to accept it, he does however support her financially thirty euro a week as we have had dna tests done shortly after she was born.

However I am having a very difficult time dealing with the whole situation, if I had known his real age there is no way I would have told him about being pregnant as I know for sure I strugged when my first was born and I was in my early twenties. What worries me more is that I was attracted to someone so young, I feel like a pervert, I feel disgusting and disgusted with myself. I have gone for counselling throughout the pregnancy and it has not helped me much, I am angry at him for lying about his age, I am angry at me for not noticing his age although he does look well in his late twenties and stands about 6ft 2".

I'm already worrying about how to explain to our daughter when she grows up about her father and the fact that he is so much younger than me. I'm not even sure what I'm expecting from this post apart from other people feeling disgust too when they read it, I am so ashamed I don't know what will help me feel any better about it or how I can learn to accept it, it's taking up so much of my mind I can't sleep.

Lollipops23

OP 19 is not a child.if he was 16 i might ask questions, but it'd be very hard to know the difference between a lad of 19 and 25.
He's old enough to be taking responsibility for his actions and i wouldn't be so gentle on him if i were you.
You seem to be coping really well though,well done. you're not the first woman to have a child with a younger man,and as i say, he's no child himself.

Dors1976

It's easy to say but there were 2 of you involved in making that baby. He knowingly decieved you. Men and women leave relationships for all sorts of reasons. Right now you need to focus on your children, you are doing the hardest, most exhausting and thankless job but you get all the rewards that he won't get. Your LO is only 6 months, I wouldn't even worry about what you need to say to your daughter in years to come because it is years away.
You made a decision, one of the hardest ever, to have your daughter and now just enjoy her and everything that goes with it. Maybe in time your EX will come in to your life again and maybe not but you can't keep feeling bad about 1 night that resulted in such a precious gift.
You are great, and go easy on yourself.

LegacyUser

STOP it right now. Give yourself a break. I think you're doing a great job, fair play to you. Im a single mother myself so I know how hard it is.....without having to deal with guilt of what you just explained there.

As previous poster said, the man knowingly deceived you. You weren't to know that he was 19, and the fact that you said you wouldn't have done it if you knew his true age proves that point: You made a mistake, you accepted responsibility and you gotta give yourself a break.

Talk to someone about it, a friend or family member. Sometimes just talking it through with someone and letting it all out helps ALOT.

Good luck, stop being so hard on yourself!! x

LegacyUser

Hi I'm the OP, thank you all so much for taking the time to reply to me i very much appreciate it and your kindness means alot, I was in fact expecting people to agree with my own views about it being perverted and wrong.

I am going to try another consellor to see if I can work through it, I have had major trust issues since my marriage breakdown and I really thought I was getting past it all, I know it will take a long time for me to trust anything a man says to me going forward, although I'm very sure they are not all the same.

It has helped me to put it down and get views from people who are outside of the situation, no one only one of my best friends know who the babies dad is and I think it will take some time for me to accept it myself before I expect others to accept it.

Thank you all again for your kindness.

username123

Hi OP,
A 19 year old is a man. Not a child. There is absolutely no need for you to feel disgusted with yourself for being attracted to someone 'so young' - sure youre not old yourself - no one would blink if a man in his early 30s had a 19 year old girlfriend. Plus - he told you he was 26. So how were you to know? Age is a difficult thing to judge, he was out in a social environment, acting like any other adult, and so were you - you ended up together for the night and you were both TWO consenting adults.

Would you mind telling your daughter about her dad if age wasnt an issue for you? Its hardly the first thing that you will be telling her about her dad anyway. And at some point she will notice and ask is there an age difference and you will just say 'yes - he is a good bit younger than me alright' and leave it at that!! By the time your daughter is 19 herself he will be pushing 40 - so he is not going to seem very young to her - when youre a child everyone over a certain age seems ancient anyway so its unlikely to be something she will pick up on until she is much older herself.

I dont think you have any reason at all to feel ashamed of yourself. Havent you a beautiful daughter as a result of meeting this man? He is no different to any other man except he is quite young. Would you feel the same way if you were early 50s and you hooked up with a 39 year old man? Age is nothing - its just a number, he is an adult, you are an adult - thats it.

I certainly didnt feel any disgust when I read your post - and I dont think many others will too.

I think your feelings may have more to do with how you feel about yourself and your own feelings of self esteem than how you feel about this mans age.

jessbeth

Stop beating yourself up, he was legal and he lied about his age, not you. One thing I might suggest, you may think this is silly but it could be that you're worrying so much about this because you're suffering from post natal depression. It can take many forms and anxiety would be one of these. Anxiety would be causing you to be fixated on this issue. Anyway if you go to your GP and explain everything you're feeling I'm really sure that they would be able to help you. Definitely don't beat yourself, you're very brave going this alone and your daughter will love you just for being a good mum, it might be a good idea to wait until she is 13 or 14 to explain to her the details about her father so that she would be old enough to understand. Hugs and best of luck.

sunnyside

Unregistered wrote: »

What worries me more is that I was attracted to someone so young, I feel like a pervert, I feel disgusting and disgusted with myself. I have gone for counselling throughout the pregnancy and it has not helped me much, I am angry at him for lying about his age, I am angry at me for not noticing his age although he does look well in his late twenties and stands about 6ft 2".

I'm already worrying about how to explain to our daughter when she grows up about her father and the fact that he is so much younger than me. I'm not even sure what I'm expecting from this post apart from other people feeling disgust too when they read it, I am so ashamed I don't know what will help me feel any better about it or how I can learn to accept it, it's taking up so much of my mind I can't sleep.

I read all of your post and I definitely don't feel disgusted. While obviously not ideal it's not that bad, you still have contact with the dad and he is giving you money so he is assuming a level of responsibility. If you don't pressure him in any way and make it easy for him to keep in touch with you on a friendly basis it's likely that he will accept more responsibility and take more interest as the little girl grows up.

I wouldn't normally advocate you having to make it easy for him but in this case there's a maturiy issue and it's likely that the whole situation has frightened the life out of him.

When the little girl grows up you will tell her that Daddy lied about his age when he met you and because you were a yummy mummy who looked much younger than 32 it was a while before the age difference became apparent. Hopefully everyone will just laugh about it. In 10 years time people will still be lying about their ages so she'll understand. Even if she doesn't approve that'll be nothing compared with not having her Daddy in her life.

Don't be so hard on yourself. You sound very capable and responsible. Enjoy your baby and do everything you can to keep the Daddy in your life. When you were dating him and going out for dinner ye were getting on well, you need to try and get some of that friendship back. There doesn't have to be a relationship but it would help a lot if ye could be friends. From what you've written I really think a friendly no pressure approach is the way to keep the daddy on side. If you are organising a birthday party or similar for any of your children invite him but without any pressure. If you could get him to drop in for 5 minutes on occasions like that and keep the whole thing relaxed he might enjoy it and slowly get more involved.

tbh

even if you knew he was 19 when you slept with him, you still wouldn't have done anything wrong. 19 is old enough to vote, drink and serve in the army. The laws of the land state that you're an adult at 18, so that should be good enough for you. But the fact is that you didn't know he was 19, you thought he was 26, and why wouldn't you? Don't second guess yourself here, OP, you did NOTHING WRONG! Are you sure you are not going through some form of post-natal depression maybe?

cltt97

OP you should be flattered to have pulled a young man, this can only mean that you are very attractive and very likeable! Above all you sound like a very kind and responsible person, your daughter is lucky to have you as a mum. And Dad will come round eventually, it is a bit much at 19, but once he's a bit older he'll love his little girl. My ex was 24 when he found out he was becoming a Dad, again, it had been a short affair and the girl only told him when she was 8 mts pregnant (all before I met him btw). He didn't see her for the first two years but now they're inseparable.

banshee_bones

Please do not beat your self up about this a second longer.

You have enough on your plate without having to waste energy on this guy who lied to you.

Im glad he is not totally shirking his financial responsibilities but you cannot be worrying about the future and stressing over what to tell your daughter now when she is less than a year old.
All i can say is cross that bridge when it comes, but dont spend any more energy fretting over things you cannot change.


Fair play to you for raising two kids on your own.


Best of Luck

BB