“I’m kind of feeling a little hurt at the moment…” a Melbourne mom began her anonymous post in an advice Facebook group.
Her partner of four years has just told her that he’s planning on going on a camping trip the next day, knowing she’s due to give birth to their second baby this week.
While disappointed, sadly, she isn’t all that surprised, given how he acted the first time around.
“With our first one, he never went to a single appointment and missed the birth as he decided to go out drinking the night before I got induced,” she recalled.
“I told him I would have to go into the hospital at 5 a.m. the next day to get induced and he said he’d only have one or two and come back but never came back that night, ignored all phone calls and even his mates he was drinking with were trying to get him in the car to go but he got blackout drunk and I didn’t see him ’till the next day.”
“I was upset about that for a while, but I got over it. Now I feel like he’s not going to be there yet again, and I’ll be doing it on my own again.”
Upon reflection, the mom has started to think he’s deliberately making these plans so “he has an excuse not to be at the hospital with me.”
“Your children deserve better”
Cue the widespread outrage in the group (300 comments and counting) and multiple members telling her to RUN.
“Girl, that is a sh*t excuse of a man. Missing one child’s birth is f**ked enough, but two?” the top comment with 488 likes read.
A second wrote: “I would have left him so quick after the first child his head would still be spinning…”
And a third chimed in with this firm stance, “OMG, cut him out of your life. He is showing you he doesn’t care.”
Meanwhile, someone else backed this up, urging: “Don’t put him on the birth cert…. don’t give the baby his last name. Leave, leave, leave! The best thing I ever did.”
“Your children deserve better. He’s already shown you the ‘man’ he is when he missed the birth of his first child for alcohol,” a different woman noted.
“You’re practically already a single parent”
The advice kept on coming, with commenters all in agreeance.
“Yeah, no. Who purposely chooses to miss the birth of their child…?” one asked.
Then one member asked the mom if he was an active parent to their existing child and might be to bub #2, but she replied: “Not really. He says he will help, but he won’t. No support at all.”
“Even when I plan days to go out to the zoo or something and pay for it myself, I still have to beg him to go because if it’s not something he personally is interested in, then he doesn’t want to do it. I’m used to doing things on my own with the kids – I raise them myself and plan birthdays and Christmases on my own. He says all the right things, but his actions are starting to speak louder.”
To that, one commenter replied: “I mean this in the kindest way possible, you’re practically already a single parent.”
“I know I have to leave”
In response to all the comments telling her to leave, the mom wrote: “Because of my own stupidity [the first time], I forgave him for it and thought this time round would be different, but I should have learnt the first time.”
“I don’t know why, but I still have hope that he’s going to change. If not for me, then at least for the kids. I know I have to leave and that deep down, I know nothing will ever change. I guess it’s just I’ve invested so much into this relationship it’s hard to let go. When we first got together, he love-bombed me, promised the world and would compliment me daily, and as soon as we got together, all that sweet talk stopped, and he showed his real colours.”
We really hope this mom makes the right choice for herself and her kids, whatever that may be.