Dear Tracy, I have an ethical question for you. I always thought the 7-year itch was an old wives’ tale but I learned the hard way that wasn’t the case. One day I woke up to find my husband had left me. He was just gone. I never saw it coming. Sure our marriage wasn’t perfect but I never thought he was planning on leaving me for what I would later find out would be months. I trusted him. I believed in him and he just left. He refused to even discuss getting marital help. He said he wouldn’t even consider it for any reason whatsoever. He was just gone and there was nothing I could do about it.
I was a housewife so I didn’t have a job or even a car during our marriage and now he says he’ll help me out for a few months but I really need to find a way to support myself because he’s not going to do it anymore. He did help the first month and the second he didn’t give me quite enough to pay my bills but he did give me almost enough. In the 3rd month, he gave me less than $1,000, about 1/3 what I would normally need to pay all the bills for the month. Our mortgage hasn’t been paid in 6 months now, we had been having money problems for awhile now. Now that he’s gone things aren’t any better. I have no car, no job, and no way to get a job because I have no car. I had a chance to try and make some money, not much but some on the Internet but I can’t afford to pay the Internet bill so they are shutting that off next week. I asked him for help with that bill but he said no. He said I’m not his problem anymore. I had $1200 in savings but well I had to spend that. The problem is, well that is why I am writing to you today. I had to spend it on going to the doctor. Between taking cabs back and forth, pre-natal vitamins and office visits costs. The thing of it is, I haven’t exactly told anyone I am pregnant. Not my parents, my siblings, or my soon to be ex.
Prior to this, I have had several miscarriages due to hormone problems and to be quite honest with you I didn’t even know I was pregnant until just recently.
I know it sounds strange that a person wouldn’t know they were pregnant but I am overweight, have tons of hormone issues and well all those things combined, I just really didn’t know. I haven’t had a period in months so I suspected I was pregnant, but I took not one or two or even three tests but actually 5 of them and every single one of them came up negative. So I swear it wasn’t like I was trying to lie to him or anyone. I really did take all of those tests and they really did all come up negative. How was I supposed to know? I did have all the symptoms but I attributed all of them to hormone problems, weight issues, and the stress of our marriage, or now our divorce.
So many months have passed now. My doctor warned me that if I’m not careful with my stress levels I could risk yet again another miscarriage so despite all the bullshit my husband has put me through I have through the whole thing tried to remain calm. I pretty much just avoid him at all costs. To be totally honest with you, I’m surprised my ex-husband hasn’t caught on yet that something was up. Throughout our entire marriage, we have never gotten along this well. When he tells me horrible things like he doesn’t love me, I just smile and say ok and then let him go. When he says I won’t help you anymore, even to buy food, I just try and smile and move on. It hasn’t been easy but it is what I have to do, for the baby.
I haven’t told him about the baby, at first because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to maintain the pregnancy and now 6 months into it, I just don’t know if I want to tell him. I don’t know if I want him in my baby’s life. He’s not a good person. What kind of person would do what he has done to another human being? He left me to die with no money, not even money to buy food or to support our pets. If he doesn’t give a poo about our puppy, how can I trust him with a child, my child?
And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. Does he deserve to know? He is after all the one who chose to leave. He made the decision to not be a part of my life so does he deserve to know about this unborn child?
Part of me is scared to tell him because if I have to face him about it, it becomes more real and I risk even more pain and suffering if I lose this baby. 6 months into this pregnancy it scares me every moment of every day.
I really don’t know what to do now. I was taking a renewal driver’s course but now I’m having a hard time even getting behind the wheel. It’s crazy, in so many ways this baby is becoming a reality, but in others, I’m still scared to even acknowledge the pregnancy because I am scared to lose it. But I guess that is another issue altogether. The real one at hand is, what to do about my ex-husband.
I really don’t know what to do about him. He’s a heartless liar. He has made it clear he doesn’t love me or care about me in any way. Those were his actual words. He smokes pot heavily and drinks a lot as well. I just don’t know that I want my baby exposed to a person like him. My baby deserves better. I don’t know what to do so I am writing you this letter in secret hoping that you or other visitors to your site can give me their advice.
That is a very detailed question and to be honest with you I don’t know how to answer it. Clearly you are having some guilt about not telling him or you wouldn’t have wrote to me in the first place. You understandably have some bitterness towards your ex-husband, after all he has put you through so the question then becomes, what if you do tell him? What will happen? What if you don’t tell him? What will happen? How in the heck do you plan on being able to support this baby if you can’t even feed yourself? I think I’ll leave the advice on this one to the others and let them use their own experiences to tell you what they think about your situation. I know that probably sounds like a cop out but honestly there is no easy answer for this one. I mean legally speaking he has a right to know. But I know that isn’t what you want to hear. You don’t want to know about the law, you want to discuss a more heartful answer, about how you feel in your heart and now what the law dictacts you must or must not do. This really is rough. I mean there are so many things that you could do, but the question is, what is best for your baby? I guess that’s what you really need to think about – not your feelings or his. But the baby.
If any of our members would like to chime in, they can post their thoughts on this letter in the comments section down below. I’m sure she would appreciate in any all of your advice.
