I regret having my son – my ex pushed me into parenthood

Divorce, once rare and stigmatised, has become mainstream – 42 per cent of marriages now end this way, meaning nearly half of us who get married can expect to experience it in our lifetime. Just as every marriage is different, so is every divorce. In this column, divorcees reflect on their life-changing experience. Helped by the benefit of hindsight, they share advice and reflections.Jack*, 45, from Cornwall, is the father of Ronnie, four. Since his marriage to Ronnie’s mum, Jemma, ended in 2023, he says he regrets becoming a father. When I first met Jemma*, we had the chat all couples do about plans for the future and what we both wanted. We wanted a family but we were young and in our twenties, so I thought I had plenty of time. Looking back, I’m not sure I was 100 per cent on board, but Jemma wanted them and I wanted to make her happy. We had a great few years adventuring and travelling together, but after building our own house in 2014, we decided to start trying for a family in 2017. We were unsuccessful but both put it down to stress and the fact we had difficult jobs. After a year of trying, we sold the house we bought and decided to take a break for a while. We did the health checks needed and they all came back fine so we thought it was just a matter of time, and maybe reducing our stress levels. A few years later, we started trying again, and while we’d talked about IVF we both had been told everything worked, so were loath to go down a route we didn’t have to. We’d done all our research and were close to qualifying for IVF on the NHS – in our postcode we needed two years of unprotected sex to qualify for it. Shorts It was around then, though, that things started to change for me. Jemma had changed over the years of trying, and I suppose I had too. It seemed like we’d have six or eight months of every year or two where things were normal and we’d be fine, but once we were in a cycle of trying, things would go downhill and Jemma would withdraw and our whole lives would revolve around getting pregnant. I hated it. There were apps, ovulation kits, urgent calls and messages that meant we had to have sex straight away; I realised around this time that I didn’t want a baby. With hindsight, I’m not sure either of us thought through the realities of raising a child. We wanted children; we struggled to have them, so we focused on that bit rather than thinking past the conceiving and giving birth. It’s almost like I wanted a child more than I wanted to be a dad forever. I just grew more disenfranchised with the idea of raising a child, and also with Jemma, with every passing cycle and month. I realised I wanted to leave the marriage. I was trying to find the right time to have the conversation with Jemma when one day in 2022, she messaged me from work with a picture of a positive pregnancy test. I’m aware of how awful it sounds but at that moment, it felt like my whole world caved in. It’s weird because it was a huge sense of relief that things were working physically like we’d been told, and I could see how delighted Jemma finally was, but I wasn’t excited at the prospect of becoming a father in a marriage I’d seriously considered ending. I felt trapped – there was no way I could tell her I didn’t want a baby and no way I could leave. She thought it was something we both wanted and had been working towards for years; it would have shattered her if I had let her down. After wrestling with those thoughts for a couple of days, I decided to give fatherhood, and the marriage, my best shot. After all, at one point I’d loved Jemma enough to marry her and we had both started off both wanting a family. I wondered whether my reticence was just fatigue and that would all change once I held my child in my arms. Ronnie* was born later in 2022 and while I love him, I knew the second he was handed to me I didn’t want to be a dad and my marriage was over. I didn’t bond at all. Yes I could take care of him, but there wasn’t a shred of excitement about his birth. I tried for another six months but left Jemma just after Ronnie was seven months old. I don’t know whether I’d have felt the same if we’d got pregnant right off the bat, but I won’t ever know. I honestly think the delay to parenthood and the pressure it put on me and us was a slow, creeping nail in the coffin. Our marriage ending wasn’t acrimonious; in fact, we split on decent terms and still get on pretty well. Ronnie’s four now and thriving with joint custody between the two of us, but a part of me really resents Jemma for making me a father when I didn’t really want to be one. I’ll never ever tell Jemma, though; it would undo things too much for her. I often wonder how many people make the mistake of striving for something, then regretting it when you get it. I’ve confessed how I feel to one friend who says I’m wrong to blame Jemma and that it took both of us to become parents. I know he’s right: I should have spoken up earlier. I should have said I wasn’t sure – I guess a bit of me just figured it hadn’t worked all the other times, so it wouldn’t work this time either. I look back on that period really sadly – why didn’t I say anything? Why wasn’t I honest? Why did I just go along with it hoping it wouldn’t happen? It seems idiotic now but back then I was on the conveyor belt and just went with it all. Ronnie’s a great kid but that doesn’t remove how I feel about becoming his parent. We get on really well and of course I love him, but that sits in a separate column to the fact I didn’t want to be a parent. It’s nothing to do with him at all: I’d decided I didn’t want to be with Jemma – which meant I wanted a fresh start and a new life without her in it. As we now have Ronnie, she’ll always be in my life and I guess I resent that a bit too. I’ve moved on. I have been with my new partner for a year and she gets on well with Ronnie, which is great. I’ve been told I’m a good dad and I adore my son, but I’ll never feel truly at ease with the circumstances that brought him into the world and the fact I had a child when I really didn’t want one. Of course I won’t ever tell him how I feel, and I’d never ever have the conversation with Jemma about it either because we have to co-parent for the rest of our lives and that’s not a wound I want to open. I have Ronnie 50 per cent of the time and we have a great time together. He loves a lot of the things I do – like football – and I’m proud of the little boy he’s becoming, but it’s really difficult knowing I’m a parent now and will be for the rest of my life – I guess it’s mostly my fault for not speaking up; it’s just that the consequences back then seemed so huge. I should have thought about the future, though, because the consequences of having Ronnie are far bigger and longer-lasting than the consequences of upsetting Jemma. I should have just said I didn’t want children. * Names have been changed for anonymity