I'm not sure this really belongs here, since this relationship ended over 6 years ago. But, I couldn't find another appropriate place to put it.
I'm trying to write a piece for the Teen Mama: Perspectives thing, and it's just brought up a lot of weird feelings for me. Writing about my son's bd is really getting me down. I've realised that I have a lot of feelings about the whole situation that I've never really allowed myself to experience or deal with.
I've always felt like I'm the bad guy here. We had a relationship, but I didn't love him. I pretended to. He was in love with me. We were using the "pull out" method, which I knew doesn't exactly work and it was just annoying. I led him to believe that I wouldn't get pregnant, so he didn't even bother pulling out after that. I feel like I tricked him, so he is not responsible for me getting pregnant. But, a 20 year old guy should know to use condoms, even if he doesn't think the girl he's with can get pregnant. There's always a chance, and even if not, you have to worry about STIs. I now realise that it was both of our responsibility to practice safe sex, and I shouldn't have put the weight all on myself. Even before my son was born, I had absolved him from any responsibility.
We were together for a couple of months after I got pregnant. We had decided to have the baby and move in together. When I realised that he was extremely controlling, and was coming dangerously close to becoming abusive, I left the relationship. When I broke up with him, he asked me to have an abortion (or, more acurately, threatened that if I didn't have an abortion there would be consequences). After that, I felt like it was my decision to have a baby, and that since he wanted an abortion, he shouldn't be responsible for that child.
I took him to court for support only because welfare made me. I didn't feel that he should have to pay support, since I had tricked him, and then not gotten the abortion that he'd wanted. He didn't show up for court, so he didn't end up having to pay support anyway.
He's never seen his son, and I've never held that against him. After all, it was all my fault, I was the one who should bear the responsibility and the burden of raising a child alone.
The way things worked out is definately for the best. If he had a relationship with my son, I know he would have used that to get to me, to control me. I have had the freedom to move on and raise my son the way I wanted, with nobody else getting in the way. He always had the option of being a part of his son's life, he just never bothered.
In six years, I hadn't realised how much resentment I felt towards him and the whole situation until now. I've never allowed myself to think of him in any context other than "S's biological father". I've never allowed myself to feel the hurt that I should have felt, because it was all my fault. I feel guilty if I even think of him, or any part of the relationship, good or bad. But, I was half of that relationship and I have a right to feel however I do about it, don't I?
I finally understand that while I made mistakes and did some things wrong (pretending the relationship meant more than it did, leading him to believe sex without a condom wouldn't have consequences), he also made mistakes and did some things wrong (not taking birth control seriously, asking me to have an abortion only after we'd broken up after months of me planning for a baby [he was very anti-choice before we broke up, abortion was not an option in his eyes], threatening me, not being a father to his son).
Life is what it is, what happened has already happened, and I deserve to not beat myself up about it anymore. I need to accept my feelings and move on. I can't change the past, but I can admit that what happened in the past made a mark on me.
i can relate to what you are saying, and i feel for you because i believe me getting pregnant was mostly on me because the month i got pregnant i wasnt as careful as i should have been with my birth control, and i am not even able to admit that to anyone. i never have, and i think im too ashamed to ever admit it, except just now. but i also think that he should have known not to come in you, as well.
When I got pregnant, my boyfriend and I used to mess around, but we didn't use condoms because they made me sore so we made a rule that he couldn't stick his penis inside of me at all. We were stupid and sometimes got so into it that he would stick it in for a second and that would be enough to get him ready so he'd quickly pull out to come. I wish we had both been smarter at the time, but I know it wasn't all my fault or all his, we both should've been smarter. I should've been on BC and he should've not stuck his penis inside of me.
Don't blame yourself, it didn't take just one.
I think there is sometimes an underlying blame in society that the woman got herself and her bd into this situation. I know nowadays, the guy is often blamed for getting a girl pregnant, but he still doesn't always have to live with the consequences. I know that S's bd's parents, as well as L's bd's parents felt in at least a small way that I had taken their son's youth and innocence when I became pregnant. Yet, neither of them have any responsibility to my children. Both of them were older than me, and were perfectly knowledgeable about how to prevent a pregnancy. They live their lives there own way, and who knows if they ever think of their kid. I'm the one raising a family. I don't necessarily feel that they took anything away from from me, so why should I feel like I took something away from them?
I think that there is a lot more shame placed on a girl that "got herself pregnant" than a guy who "got a girl pregnant", kwim?
Girls are taught that we are responsible for birth control, and not to just trust a guy if he says you won't get pregnant. But if a guy doesn't want a baby, it is his responsibility to take measures to prevent it. In other words, anyone who's having sex, male or female, should be taking their own precautions to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, or an STI.
I felt that way too when I was pregnant with my first child. I remember one of my friends screaming at me at the top of his lungs that I should have been on hormonal birth control. My 1st bd has had nothing to do with my daugthers life. I have never asked him for anything and never will, but now that is more because I fear him then any other reason.