Husband (36M) wants me (35F) to abort an unplanned pregnancy. We have a wonderful toddler. I don’t know what to do.
4KA throwaway account for obvious reasons.
My husband and I have been together for almost 10 years. We have a wonderful 3 year old, let's call him Bowen, who is a lot of work, but whom we both love to death. It was a planned and very much wanted pregnancy, and my husband is a very involved dad. He doesn't want more children though due to the amount of work and stress it brings. I would love to have another, but I respect his stance and have been on hormonal birth control since Bowen was born.
Fast forward to a few days ago when I started feeling constantly nauseous and took a pregnancy test just in case. Positive. I freaked out – not knowing that I was even pregnant, not knowing how my husband would react, not knowing if everything would work out. My husband took the news more calmly. He considered it for a day or two and finally said that while he feels sad and guilty about it, he can't do it (manage two kids) and wants me to abort the baby, as that's the best choice for our family. He thinks that one vote for abortion should mean abortion. I'm very much pro choice, but I feel like I don't really get to choose. I fully agree that our toddler needs two happy parents more than he needs a sibling, and it's unfair to bring a baby into this world if they're unwanted by one of the parents. But we're not discussing a hypothetical baby anymore. The baby is already here, and it wasn't my choice either. I know that continuing the pregnancy against my husband's wishes could destroy our relationship and make our lives much more difficult. As a mom, I also know that I need to do what's best for my kids, not what might be best for me. But I don't know how I can possibly go though the trauma of an unwanted abortion and then be a happy mom to our 3 year old and a good partner. How I can see my baby move on the screen (they always do an ultrasound before abortions here), just like Bowen did, and then take the pills. How I can online with this for the rest of my life, likely not being able to tell anyone in real life, and always wondering what could have been. I don't think that my husband's worst case scenario is very likely, but how can I roll the dice if he isn't on board?
Our local abortion clinic offers free counselling and we have booked an appointment for next week. I acknowledge that this is one of the toughest situations a couple can be put in, so it's not surprising that we haven't been able to come to a mutual decision on our own, or even to understand our own feelings. I hope that counselling will help us think through the choices (or help me accept the choice, as it looks now). But if any of you has been in a similar situation, either as the mother or father, and can share some advice or perspective, I would be grateful to read it. I will show this thread to my husband too.
#TLDR: I got pregnant due to birth control failure, husband wants an abortion, I don't think I can do this, but I feel I must for the sake of our family. Words of advice appreciated.
EDIT: Thanks for your comments, I didn't expect this much feedback. While I tried to describe my husband's reasons not to have another child (and the fact that I agree with most of them) well, I realize that I made him seem irresponsible and selfish, which was not my intention. Firstly, with the “one vote for abortion should mean abortion” he didn't mean that I don't get to decide, but rather that this would not be a good decision for our family (and the baby) if he is not on board. I regretted having written it this way the moment I saw the first comments – but I was away from my laptop and couldn't edit it. Regarding his reasons not to have another child, he simply didn't think he can survive the baby phase, cope with the workload and be a good parent to two kids. And now he doesn't want to take the risk of screwing the child's life. I fully understand that and have similar worries (except for worrying if he would be a good dad), but I simply cannot bring myself to accept the alternative (termination). He thought that he might, just maybe, feel ready to try for another once our toddler gets older, which is the reason he didn't get a vasectomy so many of you mentioned (and which he obviously regrets now). Both of us assumed that if birth control didn't fail for several years, it would never fail.
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