Considering Divorce and Pregnant with 2Nd Child, Looking to Hear Stories

I agree 100% with CoMoMom and cannot improve on her response whatsoever. Please re-read that answer. She's right on the money in my opinion (and I have some personal experience with divorce).

I'm going to say this all as a woman who divorced when my daughter was 4 after 7 years of marriage and then was a single mom for 8 years.
Divorce is a selfish response to your own poor choices. Divorce is never the answer and it doesn't solve the problem. You are just opening up a whole other can of worms with usually MORE problems. Because now when your kids are with their dad you are not around. So, where will your 3 year old and newborn be while dad is drinking beer and on the computer? And if you think he won't get custody.... you are wrong. he has to be consistently and provably abusive in order to have it affect visitation. Think you can have a say when daddy has women sleep over? you can't. What he does on his time is his business. Even though they are your kids.

As far as the effect on your kids? Divorce and having a newborn in the middle is going to wreck your 3 year old. His world is going to be destroyed. You need to know that up front. Your job, instead of parenting him and teaching him, will be to run damage control. At some point he will need therapy so that he can learn how to deal with what is happening to his world and to get over the anger that he is inevitably going to feel at both of his parents.

Your newborn..... not so much wrecked. Because he will never have known his parents together and he will have always had a brother. What he will have to get over is living in probably what is close to poverty (although when you say 1/3 of husband's income.... I don't know what that is.... if dad makes $500,000 each year... then a 1/3 of that is a fine income for yourself. If dad makes $50,000 a year then you will be in financial hardship.) and not having access to 2 parents who make good choices.

Neither of your children will have an easy time dating. If your newborn is a girl, odds are she will have sex early (often around 13) and often. promiscuity is the biggest side effect of divorce. Both will probably choose partners who don't treat them with respect. Hopefully (and it's really just luck) neither will get involved in domestic violence relationships. Is there addiction in your family? If so.... look out for signs of drug use - often as early as middle school.

Look for them to not be able to make good choices.... across the board. Their grades won't be as high as they could have been... because there is only 1 of you at home at night. And after getting home from work at the last second and then trying to cook dinner they will be on their own for homework. Parental involvement at school? probably can't happen, because you will be using vacation days (if you have a job with benefits) which may or may not be available on the day of the science fair or field trip and you probably won't have enough to split between both of them.

You are going to have to manage your own emotions and feelings AT THE SAME TIME you are trying to manage their feelings and emotions and responses. You are going to be tired, constantly. You are going to be broke, constantly. Even if ex pays on time... there is never enough money. Your kids won't be able to do all the extra curicular activities they might be able to do.... not only do those things cost money, but someone has to be able to pick them up from practice. You won't have very many opportunities to meet other moms so you can get into the trade off carpool routine, so you'll likely be doing it all yourself.

So - what do you do?

You get yourself in counseling and work out an exit plan that you and hubby can live with. You aren't in an abusive situation... so, no divorce until you are back and work full time after the baby is born. THEN you can think about getting a place that is stable that you can afford in a good school district and you work out daycare for your newborn.

You stay in counseling. You work through how to make better choices.

You don't date. For like 3 years. And when you do, you make damn sure you are on birth control. So you need to get a support group of other women who you can call and lean on and share with. That's hard to do if you don't have that set up already. So, while you are still in your house with an environment that is familiar and safe to your son.... work on building a support network that you will still have after you are divorced.

Divorce is not an easy road. For parent or child. Can it be overcome? Sure. But only if you change the way YOU have been doing things. Because that hasn't been working out for any of you. You will have to learn to form healthy realtionships and parent in a way that is different because you will be the primary care-giver to your children.

I wish for peace for all 4 of you with this journey.

I can't tell you how sorry I am that you are going through this.

Your marriage is in trouble - but you obviously have one thing in common - that you are good at - sex! :) (you should be smiling!!!)

What do you mean "usually" not violence? If you have hit him or he has hit you - that's a problem. It shows a complete lack of respect for oneself and the partner.

He was willing to go to counseling once. Maybe he will go again when you find someone who works for BOTH of you. Some people go through several counselors before they find one that clicks.

What brought you two together in the first place? I don't get why you have stayed for 4 years or even married him in the first place if you two couldn't communicate...why do you stay? Please don't say "for the kids" that's the WORST excuse. Unless of course, that's the example of marriage you want your child(ren) to see.

So you want to stay for financial reasons after the baby is born? Are you going to keep making excuses to stay? If so - I strongly suggest counseling - FOR BOTH OF YOU.

What you need to understand? Even after divorce, unless he's going to give up his parental rights? you will ALWAYS be tied to this man. So you will HAVE to learn how to communicate AFTER divorce for custody, etc.

How did I prepare to leave my ex? Communication really wasn't our issue...our issue was he couldn't keep his junk in his pants and wouldn't put a helmet on it. So I told him he wasn't worth my life. Our daughter was 9. I knew I was going to leave so I saved part of my paycheck and started looking for places to live. We were in Germany so I had it a tad different than you.

Make a list of things you need.
Set money aside for rent or prepare to pack him up to leave.
Talk with a lawyer to find out what you are "entitled" to and what the rules/laws are in your state.

Good luck!

I would continue to try and at least cohabitate together for the next 2 years. try some counseling again, even if it is just you.

i'm sure he wasn't always like this or you never would have married him. Try gently coaxing him to see a dr and get a check up, he sounds depressed.

and even if kids don't turn to drugs and act permiscuously, they will still have scars, scars so deep you could never imagine. for your kids, try to find a way to either work it out or live with it.

Since CoMoMom covered everything I just want to ask, if your marriage has been on the rocks for two years why on god's earth did you decide adding another innocent victim was a good choice?

You're poor and pregnant. Child care would most likely be free for you if you applied for child care assistance through the state. I had families that had a couple of kids and both parents worked at full time jobs. They had a minimal payment each month.

That said, that's out of the way...you can work because child care is not an issue if you go apply and get assistance.

Then if you don't have an education where you can get a better paying job go online and fill out the paperwork for financial aid. WIth your income I image you could go for free, child care should be covered by getting assistance. Find a local college that will help you learn about something that inspires you. You can go to school full time and perhaps the financial aid that's left over after you pay your school fees would help pay the bills so you don't have to work too.

I was a single parent when I was in college and I always got enough financial aid to cover all my school costs then enough left over so I could live on campus all bills paid. I got food stamps to buy groceries. I paid my car insurance a year in advance when I had more funds, paid it for 6 months at a time when I wanted to spend it on other things. I put money back for gasoline and any other thing I might need.

I made it work for me. I never worked the whole time I was in college. I did work at a facility when I was nearing the end of my degree because this facility was in my field. I was going for a degree that I could use in developmental disabilities, so the facility I was working at was an intermediate care facility for the developmentally disabled. SO my only job in college was in my field. It was a way to network and make career connections.

I have a friend who was in an unhappy marriage. She got an apartment on a campus that was 45 minutes away from home. She stayed in that town during the week and went home on weekends. Her husband was a jerk and she really started blossoming by having this independence. She eventually was able to divorce him and is very happy in her life now.

The point of sharing her story is this. She stayed married to him during her college days even though she lived on campus for most of the week. She even had her kids with her a majority of the time. They went to child care and eventually school in the college town.

She was able to put a bit of money aside for herself, she was able to grow and become much more strong mentally. This could happen for you too. You could go to college and start getting an education so you can have a better paying job. You could gain independence and learn how to stand on your own gradually.

If you are happy being a sahm then you have to stay married. Judges nowadays are giving the kids to the parent who has enough income to support the kids. The parent who didn't work during the marriage gets to pay child support and see their kids on weekends.

This is a big decision. YOU need to get an education so you can support yourself and your kids. The most you'll get in child support is probably less than $400 per month. Child support in Oklahoma that is based on minimum wage is about $170 per month, that's about 13% of his income.

Although California has better wages I would say that minimum wage is the same all over. If he's working for $20 per hour and you get 13% of that then you could get a little over $400 per child. That's not enough to live on so no matter what....you have to have a job, making less than you can because you don't have an education means living in low income housing on food stamps and child support that may or may not be paid depending on whether he has a job or not.

It sounds way too risky to me.

If this were me, I would go enroll in some classes. Let them know you're going to miss some classes when you have the baby. You can use a carrier/snuggle thing that you wear and take the baby to classes with you. The older kiddo can go to child care that will be very low cost or free if you just go apply for assistance.

Get plans in motion so you can get in a good position to leave this marriage. In the meantime he's going to start seeing you in a different light. He might start paying attention to you in a different way, he's going to start seeing you as others see you too. He may start falling in love with you all over. It often happens they fell in love with a young woman who was what? Independent? Sparkling inside? Happy to her core? Fun loving? What else? He's going to start seeing that person he fell in love with emerge.

If have any feeling for him then you might want to foster that and "date". Taking time to spend time together and get to know each other all over again. It might be that he'll find he is about to lose what he really wants.

Then again he might see his escape too.

All I'm going to add is to please stop arguing in front of your son. That there is no violence or yelling beyond a certain degree does not make it ok. However your fights go, you see that they are affecting him negatively. Walk away, let him get the last word, whatever you have to do to de-escalate the situation until your son is not present. Be the bigger person and don't put these memories into your son's head for the rest of his life.

Loving that people are asking why you got pregnant- how helpful! It doesn't matter why or that you are, you are. What matters now is what you are going to do going forward.

It does seem like a horrible time to be making such a big decision. But you can start to lay the groundwork for what lies ahead.

Have a talk with your spouse. Let him know that you are both obviously unhappy, and that something needs to change. If both of you are wanting to work things out, you need to come up with a plan- together. Ask him what he thinks needs to happen in order to make things better, and listen to his ideas. Then put in your two cents as well. Make a written plan with a timeline attached. As in- begin counseling on x date, or read relationship books by x date, meet with preacher by x date, etc.

If you guys are not wanting to stay together, or he will not agree to finding help, then plan for that as well. Say that you will move out once the new baby is x months old, etc.

If you can plot out your future and set goals either way, he will know you are serious and you both will have a plan. But listen to him as well. You admit that you both have communication issues, so make sure to acknowledge that you are both a part of this problem, don't put him on the defensive. Good luck to you- and congrats on baby #2!

I'm sorry you are in this situation. I agree with the previous suggestions of making a plan. If the two of you together can make a plan, great, if he continues to be unwilling to deal with your marriage issues, then you will have to plan alone. I do not agree with those who are judging and pointing fingers. Pregnancies happen even with birth control and marriages go wrong even when we try.

Divorce does NOT have to ruin/wreck/damage children! Their world is not going to be "destroyed". What can ruin children is living with two parents who don't like each other, are resentful of each other, and show the children that is an acceptable way to live with a partner.

You do have some challenges ahead. I suggest starting with assessing the resources you do have - family, friends, education, abilities. Find a local workforce center/women's center or shelter/community college or other place to get advice about training you can get and fields of work you could get into to be able to support yourself. Ask for help! There is assistance available if we keep looking.

None of us are doomed by the choices we've made so far. You can start making new choices now, even if the plan takes months or years to implement. I wish you and your children well.

The first thing you need to do is start to document your husband's activity. How much time does he spend talking to your or your son? How much computer time, what is he doing while online? Does he ever make meals, or do any of the caretaking for your son? Are you expected to work all day the come home and make meals, clean house, bathe and put your son to bed alone? Clearly document all of his activity. If he is not doing any caretaking and ignores you and your/his child the courts will not look favorably on his petition to have custody of the child.

Since your income is low and he is not taking his responsibility as a parent seriously ask the court to allow you to move to Florida to be near your family who will help you. The cost of living is much lower and you have family to help you. It might not work but it is worth a try.

You can't do it alone. If he has no interest in being happily married, maybe divorce is the answer. If he does at all want it, then definitely stick it out. My husband and I fought a lot early on but it did get better when we had our heads above water in terms of the kids not being so insanely demanding. And getting some more sleep. But my husband also did want to try etc. he can be very difficult and isn't always helpful but also really wanted a family. Does yours? Now things are way better. We make some time for each other and overall are happy together.

Personally, I think your children will be more well-adjusted coming from a divorced family than living in a tension-filled home. You readily admit that it is affecting your 3 year old already. That's only going to get worse.

Your hubby does not have to agree to a separation. If you have made the decision to do that, when find a place to live and move. If you are waiting for him to leave, then you have a problem.

You said you just found a "satisfying" job, but it sounds like you won't be there long. You may have to reconsider the sahm thing unless hubby makes enough money to support two households, which it doesn't sound like he does.

Given your financial limitations, this is going to take some planning on your part. Your first concerns must be for money to move and live on, and a place to move to. Once you have those in place, the rest will be a walk in the park!