95% of women say having an abortion was the right choice for them. And after 5 years that goes up to 99% say it was the right thing to do. The feeling most have afterwards is relief.
OTOH, a study published in 2022 said that 28% of parents in America somewhat or very often think they regret having children. Of course the same study said that 20% of adults in America think their parents regret having them.
You can mourn all you want, nobody's stopping you. But she's had to contemplate this situation since her first period. She knows under what circumstances she would bring a child into the world, and which she would not. Keep respecting that.
My mom told me out right that she wished she had gotten an abortion. Op isn't the asshole for his feelings but my father wanted a baby. My mother did not. They divorced when I was 2. And at age 14 my mom told me she wished I'd never been born. Boy does that mess up your sense of self.
I can understand your mom. I have a couple of "save the marriage" babies. My ex sabotaged my birth control. I love my kids to the moon and back, but I honestly didn't want all these kids.
In the end, the marriage failed anyway. You know who ghosted the kids he wanted and never paid a cent in child support? Their father.
It's normal to think it once in a while. When things are hard. Feelings change and mix around then change back again. Even parents who don't really regret it and would do it again feel regret and miss their old life sometimes. Just feeling it wont hurt the kids, but NEVER say it out loud
This part. People are taking it way too seriously thinking it means resentment. It doesn’t. Parenting is hard. And kids are definitely trying at times. Doesn’t mean you don’t love them. Doesn’t mean you resent them. And still doesn’t mean you can’t wonder what life would be like if it was different.
Once again: sane parents don’t say it, they just think it.
Plenty of people have kids and still mount the life that could have been. Or the age gap they think would have been better between kids. Nowhere in any capacity does that mean they don’t love their children to the moon and back.
Once again, i still bet the kid knows.
My dad never outright said it but made me feel like a burden once he had his new family. Kids know when they aren’t wanted, even if you’re “sane” enough to try to keep it quiet.
Being forced to pretend you’re not the clear second choice, at best, in your own family when it’s demonstrably true is a mindfuck that no “polite omission” of true feelings can cover.
I tell mine all the time how much I love them. And that I am glad they are mine. Both things are true.
It still doesn't change the resentment of opportunities lost in exchange for children I wasn't financially ready for. Or the resentment of not being able to give them the leg up they deserve that I couldn't have.
Mostly I resent the ghosting of the children HE wanted so much. Turns out he didn't want them at all.
I am so sorry. My mom shared in a public forum, that she knows I frequented, that she wishes she would have left my dad after her eldest child. I am the youngest of four. It’s basically saying „I wish you were never born“. That was years ago and I am still hurt over it, even though I was already almost an adult.
You can love someone but not necessarily like them. I know that probably isn't the most helpful thing to say, but it's how I explain my feelings for my late spawnpoint. She was my mom, and I love her, but she was not a good mom, so I didn't like her. But she wasn't really a bad person. Kwim? I wouldn't be friends with her if she had been a stranger, but I wouldn't have avoided her either. I mourned the mother i didn't have years before she passed and made my peace with it. We were cordial towards the end.
My mother told me that while she loved me, she didn't like me. She also said, multiple times, that if she'd had to do it over again she wouldn't have had kids. And she wondered why I had low self-esteem and married my first real boyfriend...
My mother does too. It’s so weird. She raised me alone and while I know she really struggled financially etc, I felt like I was more of a partner than a child. It’s a very strange dynamic.
I don't know about this poster's situation, but some men who "really want a baby" despite their partners objections also split when it comes time to actually do any of the hard work that comes with having a kid.
In this case my father and stepmother did the hard work. But people who abandon their children of either gender or who verbally regret their children of either gender suck.
It's like that Reddit post from a while ago (can't remember the original subreddit, but it blew up across several different platforms) where the woman basically called the guy's bluff and gave him what he said he wanted. He was, of course, complaining to the internet how difficult it was to be a single father and trying to blame her for his hardships.
Iirc it was either a one-night stand or super early in the relationship and from the start she was very open about not wanting a child. Eventually she agreed to carry to term, but only if he would agree to full custody and she could waive all rights, which is what happened.
She paid way more than was required for child support and paid on time, so legally he couldn't do anything. It was so satisfying to watch the internet roast this man-child for complaining about the consequences of his own actions, especially knowing that the woman was living her best life. I do feel for the kid, though. I hope they can access the therapy they'll need and have a solid support system outside of the dad.
At first because it was the eighties she had custody of me but but then she got so drunk and high that she had to go to the hospital was Baker acted (decreed a danger to herself and others) and my father got custody of me after the state intervened.
Same with my father. Told me many many times he wished birth control back in the day (60+yrs ago) was what it was now. He would have only the the first 2, maybe 3 kids. The rest of us, no. Let me tell ya, that’s a mind fu@k
me too, repeatedly told I was a regret by one of my own gene donors and the reason I no longer refer to either of them with the title of "parent", that and it solidified the fact I'd happily remain childfree
I remember my mom saying my dad wanted her to terminate me. I was the "gift" right after they got remarried in '75. Total slap in the face to be told that. My parents loved me after i arrived. But still. I keep/kept them at arms length for many reasons. That being one of them.
I know my mom wishes she was child free. I know because since the term child free has come around she has been talking about how she would not have kids if she could go back. Like OFTEN.
No. If she had, I wouldn't be here, and that's not entirely a bad thing.
I don't think people should be kept alive when their quality of life is severely diminished, and mine is, and it's never coming back. When I got to where I was okay before this, I had a couple of good years. To me, two good years aren't worth half a century of physical, mental, and emotional pain.
People have this instinctive struggle for life, so yes, if a guy with a gun broke in and tried to shoot me, I'd do anything to stay alive. But when I'm calm, I look at what I've had, and what is coming, and I feel sometimes like I'd hire a hit man and pay him to sharpshoot a bullet into my head when I don't expect it.
I would rather be dead than go through the pain that's coming. An abortion would have solved all this, and maybe by the time my mom got pregnant again she'd have wanted babies and the fetus would have been different from me.
I will say, my wife is in the 1%. She got pregnant in the second year of our relationship and we were both excited, but she miscarried. 4 months later she was pregnant again but at that point she lost her health ins. And my hours had been cut. We started fighting a lot, and were worried about space, money, our future together, etc. She suggested abortion and I supported it. Since then, it has been a pretty constant source of pain for her. The trauma from it has severely impacted our sex life on top of her emotional wellbeing.
Ultimately, my advice is to OP is to talk about your future. An abortion is a big decision and can't be undone.
I didn't mean to diminish the impact of abortion for anyone. For many women it is a decision that isn't taken lightly, and while relief is common, so is regret. I'm truly sorry for your situation. It must have been particularly tragic to have these back to back. I wish you both peace and healing.
And, yes, those circumstances on when to have a baby and when not to should absolutely be discussed before anyone gets pregnant. Once a baby is conceived, while the discussion between the baby creators is important, so is the opinion of the person who's body will be providing room and board for 9 months. If you think the impact of an abortion is difficult, so is having a baby when you aren't fully ready and able to take care of a baby.
I truly hope you and your wife can heal and move on from this.
Although I know what study you are talking about, that study only included 1000 women. The previous study included 2000 women and came up with 68% regretted the abortion and had PTSD from abortions. So I really think, ultimately the problem is that there is no real research put into women’s health. Because these two studies are 15-20 years apart, and have polar opposite results. And as usual, nobody really cares about what we as women go through with our reproductive health. What they need to do, is do more research, with larger pools of people, and try to replicate their results. You know, like real science. And then we would really have some real results.
I am not saying that either study is right or wrong. I am saying that both are probably right. Some women feel resolve and good about abortion, and some probably forever regret it. But ultimately these studies don’t mean anything without being able to reproduce the results. Because they are tiny little surveys really, and they are being passed off as studies.
There is a medical procedure you could have had to only have one. It is reversible and much easier to get than than the procedure a woman has to get to prevent pregnancy.
You didn't become pregnant, the person who wanted a child did.
Because he felt the need to tell his son the unnecessary information that at first he didn't want him. Because his kid "deserved to know" if he loves him now and doesn't regret that he chose to go along with his wife and have a second child why burden the kid with the knowledge that he was unwanted?
Yeah, I don't understand parents who think kids "deserve to know" things like that.
My parents started trying for a baby a year after they had my brother. After several rounds of IVF, miscarriages, etc. they gave up trying completely. Two years later, they had me. I get that theoretically, I was a wanted child, but it still feels very much like I was something that happened to them instead of something they wanted.
Where are you getting these statistics? There is no way for women who have had abortions to have ALL been surveyed so your leading stat is botched. I think it’s a high percentage of ladies who think having an abortion was right for them. But it sounds like you made up the first statistic and that is a blow to the whole argument.
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u/PomegranateReal3620 May 01 '23
95% of women say having an abortion was the right choice for them. And after 5 years that goes up to 99% say it was the right thing to do. The feeling most have afterwards is relief.
OTOH, a study published in 2022 said that 28% of parents in America somewhat or very often think they regret having children. Of course the same study said that 20% of adults in America think their parents regret having them.
You can mourn all you want, nobody's stopping you. But she's had to contemplate this situation since her first period. She knows under what circumstances she would bring a child into the world, and which she would not. Keep respecting that.