I'm pregnant after affair with wealthy man but he won't take any responsibility… should I contact his mum?
A PASSIONATE but short-lived affair with a wealthy man has ended with me now expecting his baby.
I am a 30-year-old single mum. I've been divorced for two years and have two beautiful daughters, aged seven and five.
One night I was lonely at home after they had gone to bed and I set myself up on a dating app.
It was quite encouraging to see the responses I got and it wasn't long before I had arranged to meet up with a guy.
He was 37, single and very, very good-looking.
He told me he was a financial adviser and he was clearly pretty well-off. We went to a bar for a few drinks and afterwards I went back to his penthouse flat.
We used condoms but one night I noticed the condom was torn.
Still, I thought it was safe and put any worries out of my head — until I missed my period. I was pregnant.
When I messaged him, he told me he wanted nothing to do with the baby or me. I was so shocked at his tone and messaged back to tell him I'd booked a termination.
Predictably he replied, telling me it was the right decision and to get rid.
But before my appointment, my maternal instincts kicked in and I couldn't go ahead with an abortion.
I told him I'd had a change of heart and cancelled the appointment. Since then I have sent him updates of my pregnancy including photos of ultrasound scans.
Dear Deidre: Cheating and can you get over it
It hasn't made any difference. He is adamant he doesn't want to be a father or take any responsibility.
He is from a wealthy background and I am certain he hasn't told anyone about this.
He is still on the dating app and acting as though nothing has happened. I know I can cope on my own and my daughters are excited at having another sibling.
I am wondering whether I should contact his mum and tell her she is going to be a grandmother.
Why should she miss out? Is this a good idea?
DEIDRE SAYS:
The decision to tell his family must lie with him. You can't know how his mum will react.
He can't abandon you either. He has a legal obligation to pay towards his child's upkeep even if he doesn't want to be involved in their life.
Take a look at
He may also have a change of heart and want to become an involved dad once the baby is born.
Get in touch with Deidre
Every problem gets a personal reply, usually within 24 hours weekdays.
Send an email to
You can also send a private message on the
HE WANTS ME AS I'M A VIRGIN
DEAR DEIDRE:
AFTER a perfect first date with a lovely guy, he has told me he only wants a casual, physical thing. I am not sure if this is such a bad idea.
I am 18 and he is 20. We met through a mutual friend a couple of weeks ago. I was so excited when he asked me out on a date.
We ended up going for a drink in town before heading off into our local park for an impromptu picnic.
It was so romantic and I thought it was the beginning of something really special. We talked about anything and everything and had loads of things in common.
Then he told me that he wasn't looking for a girlfriend. He just wants someone to hook up with occasionally and keep things casual.
I am still a virgin. He said that because of that he likes me even more.
He has promised to look after me and make our first time special but is it a good idea?
DEIDRE SAYS:
This guy is investing nothing in you emotionally.
He doesn't want a girlfriend, he just wants sex and to be your first.
He has also made that pretty plain.
You owe him nothing, so only have sex when you are ready and when you are with the right guy.
You could be setting yourself up to get very hurt and feeling used.
Tell him being so casual just isn't your scene.
My support pack Learning About Relationships explains more.
SO REGRET FINISHING WITH HER
DEAR DEIDRE:
SPLITTING up with my girlfriend was the worst decision I ever made.
I realised that I'd made a big mistake when she spotted me at a beer festival in town.
I am 34 and she is 33. We split up just over a year ago after being together for three years.
We just seemed to be drifting apart and things were stale – or so I thought at the time.
It was my decision to end our relationship, and I know she was heartbroken when I told her how I felt. We have been able to stay friends and I see her out and about.
She has a new guy now. She seems really happy with him whereas I have not been able to move on.
She told me they have plans to go to New Zealand next year.
It is a place I have also wanted to visit for many years. I know I made a terrible mistake in letting her go.
DEIDRE SAYS:
Please don't beat yourself up over this. You made a decision that felt right at the time.
The chances are if you and she got back together you would soon feel the same way all over again.
She has put you behind her and you have to get on with your life. My support pack Moving On will help you to do this.
Start planning your own holiday now. It will give you something to look forward to.
There are lots of single traveller websites if you don't want to travel alone.
SPITEFUL EXES KEEPING KIDS AWAY FROM ME
DEAR DEIDRE:
MY daughter's mother says I can only see our girl for a few hours in the morning on my birthday, rather than having her stay with me overnight as originally planned.
It means she will miss out on seeing my parents too as they were going to arrive in time for a celebration dinner. I'm 37 and my daughter's ten.
I know my ex is doing it to punish me because I can't pay her this month.
I also have a son by a different woman. He is almost 13 but I barely see him at all.
His mother has virtually alienated him against me so all I get is an occasional text and a visit once in a blue moon.
I am doing my best to provide for both of my kids, but I have recently changed jobs and won't get my first wages for another week, which is why I can't pay my daughter's mum her monthly maintenance until later.
I know she will have twisted it and told my little girl that I don't care about her.
It is all lies but this is what she is like, as we had a bad break-up.
I'm in a bad way. I feel like everyone's against me. Sometimes I think it would just be the easier option for everyone if I ended it all.
DEIDRE SAYS:
This is heartbreaking for you and your children too. It is cruel of your exes to deny you contact.
I wonder whether you gave your daughter's mum the heads-up that your money would be late this month. Tell her the cash will be coming soon.
If she won't speak to you, is there someone such as a friend or relative who can mediate between you? If not, mediation could really help (
For more advice check out Both Parents Matter (
If you continue to feel down, call the Samaritans (
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
RTÉ News
9 minutes ago
- RTÉ News
Attitudes to immigration more negative in disadvantaged areas
Attitudes to immigration in Ireland are more negative in disadvantaged communities, particularly where the proportion of migrants has increased since 2011, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). Research has found that it is not the case that migrants in Ireland are more likely to live in disadvantaged communities. The findings relate to a survey of just over 1,200 adults conducted in April 2023, Census 2022 and additional data on the communities they live in. Last year, applications for asylum in Ireland rose sharply. However, there has been a decline of around 40% in those seeking international protection so far this year. Based on the data used in the research, living in a rural area was associated with more negative attitudes towards immigration, compared with living in an urban area. However, rural areas with high percentages of migrants had attitudes toward immigration that were "very similar" to those in urban areas. This may reflect the importance of "social contact" with migrants for fostering more positive attitudes, according to the report authors. The study found that more segregated areas - where migrants live in clusters rather than evenly spread across the area - show more negative attitudes towards immigration. It reiterates the possibility of social contact with migrants as a means of facilitating understanding. Researchers investigated whether people living in areas with greater pressure on services like health, housing and education held more negative attitudes towards immigration. Using indicators such as the number of GPs per household and housing affordability (high rents and high house prices), they found no evidence of a link. When it comes to pressure on services, it says indications are that it may not be direct local experiences that impact attitudes but "may instead be concern about pressure on services in Ireland as a whole". The ESRI study is the first to consider the role of 'community characteristics' in shaping immigration attitudes in Ireland, which it describes as "a new immigration country" that experienced a rapid increase in asylum seekers and refugees in the year prior to the survey. According to the report author Fran McGinnity, it shows that local communities can generate both obstacles to, but also opportunities for, social integration between non-migrants and migrants. "Communities are spaces where migrants and non-migrants not only encounter each other but can also form lasting social ties," he said. "This could be as next-door neighbours, as parents of children going to the same school, or in community groups. "This kind of positive social contact between migrants and non-migrants can go a long way to generating positive relations between groups as well as building stronger, more cohesive communities in the long run." Co-author Keire Murphy said the report offered an "important insight" into what makes anti-immigrant sentiment more likely. "Echoing international findings, socio-economic factors like community-level disadvantage seem to matter, implying that the broader social and economic context is important for attitudes towards immigration," she said.
Irish Times
35 minutes ago
- Irish Times
People in disadvantaged communities have more negative attitude towards immigration, ESRI report finds
People living in disadvantaged communities in Ireland have a more negative attitude towards immigration , particularly in areas where there has been an increase in migrants, new research has found. The study by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) looked at how different types of communities shaped people's attitudes towards immigration in Ireland. The analysis is based on a 2023 Department of Equality survey on Irish attitudes towards migration and is combined with 2022 census data on the characteristics of communities. The study defines disadvantaged areas as places with higher proportions of households headed by lone parents, the unemployed and those with a low education level or semi-skilled/unskilled jobs. READ MORE People living in these areas are less positive about immigration, with researchers quoting previous studies that found there is a 'greater perceived resource threat' among people in these areas, 'given more economically precarious individuals are likely to feel immigration is a particular threat to their position and resources'. While this negative attitude towards immigration in disadvantaged areas increased when the share of migrants went up, the paper also found that migrants are not more likely to live in these disadvantaged communities. It found the largest increase of migrant share between 2011 and 2022 happened in areas that are the least disadvantaged. The research also found that those living in rural areas had more negative attitudes towards immigration, compared with those living in urban areas. However, rural areas with high percentages of migrants had similar attitudes toward immigration as those in urban areas. The research also found that people living in more segregated areas, where migrants are living in clusters, have more negative attitudes towards immigration. The paper says this may reflect the importance of social contact with migrants for fostering more positive attitudes. 'This has important implications for policies aimed at improving migrant integration, but also indicates that broader economic and social policies and factors play a key role in social cohesion and attitudes towards immigration,' the paper says. There was no link between people living in areas with greater pressure on services such as health, housing and education and holding a more negative attitude towards immigration. This indicates that it may not be direct local experiences that affect attitudes but may instead be 'concern about pressure on services in Ireland as a whole', the paper says. Report author Fran McGinnity said the research 'shows that local communities can generate both obstacles to, but also opportunities for, social integration between non-migrants and migrants'. 'Communities are spaces where migrants and non-migrants not only encounter each other but can also form lasting social ties. This could be as next-door neighbours, as parents of children going to the same school, or in community groups. 'This kind of positive social contact between migrants and non-migrants can go a long way to generating positive relations between groups as well as building stronger, more cohesive communities in the long run,' Ms McGinnity said. Meanwhile, co-author of the report Keire Murphy said the research gives 'important insight into what makes anti-immigrant sentiment more likely'. 'Echoing international findings, socioeconomic factors like community-level disadvantage seem to matter, implying that the broader social and economic context is important for attitudes towards immigration,' Ms Murphy said.
Irish Examiner
3 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Laethanta Saoire: The glories of summer in a West Cork rainforest, by Eoghan Daltun
Over 16 years ago I moved from Dublin city to the wilds of the Beara Peninsula, West Cork. Ever since, the seasons have taken on incomparably more meaning in my life. Every passing year is now measured by cyclical change in the temperate rainforest and other natural habitats on the 73-acre farm I live with, and each period has its own very special charms. The autumn fall of forest leaves, nourishing the woodland floor with new organic matter for all nature's biodigesters to turn into rich soil, and food for new life. A wild eruption of fungi, in all sizes, shapes, and colours: many the fruiting bodies of complex underground mycorrhizal matrices that link the trees together: nature's combined telegraph wires and aid distribution network. Winter dormancy, a time of skeletal oaks revealing their true gnarled, twisting, sculptural forms; of low, thin sunlight raking the sleeping ecosystem. This is the best moment to seek out and remove alien invasive plant species like rhododendron from the forest, their evergreen glossy leaves much more evident when native vegetation has temporarily died back. In spring, carpets of wildflowers bloom in the rainforest: celandine (almost always the first), wood sorrel, dog violet, primrose, pignut, bluebell, yellow pimpernel, wood anemone, enchanter's nightshade, cow-wheat, kidney saxifrage, marsh violet, to name but a few. Up in the canopy, leaf buds begin to burst open, each one a photosynthetic solar panel, transforming atmospheric carbon pollution into rich life. Growth reaches its maximum through the summer months, the plant community working hard to power the entire ecosystem. Another layer of woody tissue is laid down around tree trunks, building on the concentric rings of previous years, each successive width dependent on the productivity permitted by warmth and rain levels. And for me, over the last few years, late spring to early summer is also the time when I'm busy with my Opinel number 12 pocketknife, if a free hour or two presents itself. I'd better quickly explain, before anyone gets the wrong idea. Eoghan Daltun is a big fan of the Opinel No 12 pocket knife. Throughout the years in Beara, I've been engaged in restoring what was a dying forest, and creating the conditions for it to expand in area. The problems were multiple, but at the core was ecological meltdown due to acute overgrazing. Sheep, plus invasive feral goats and sika deer, had been preventing the trees and other flora from regenerating by eating away virtually all native vegetation at ground level. Fencing the invasive grazers out gave rise to the most miraculous metamorphosis across most of the land, as native trees began to seed out profusely, and ground that had been shorn of life began to revert to its hugely diverse, natural state of temperate rainforest. But in some areas amounting to several acres, lifting the grazing pressure wasn't enough. Bracken, a native fern largely inedible to mammals, had taken over and, where especially dense, was smothering trees and everything else. Monocultures of this plant are now widespread across Ireland, and should be considered completely artificial: they arise because overgrazing causes forests to die off and be replaced by the only thing no animal eats. Interestingly though, in my own place I noticed that, where I cut access paths through the bracken, wild self-seeded trees quickly took advantage and corridors of saplings began to spring up: birch, willow, rowan, oak, hazel, hawthorn, and others. That got me thinking. In the spring, I'd often spot tree seedlings here and there, but these would be swamped when a new sea of bracken emerged some weeks later, and so become impossible to find. So I began marking the location of baby trees I came across by hammering in a wooden fencing stake alongside, and periodically returning to lop the heads off the ferns as they came up, roughly between late April and early July. Bracken is very tender at this stage, so a sharp blade slices through stems effortlessly; in contrast, it's much tougher when mature. The assistance I give is necessary solely in the immediate vicinity of a small tree, allowing it to reach the light. And it's temporary: once trees grow beyond the chest-high bracken tops, they're able to carry on by themselves, and will ultimately shade the fern out, returning it to its natural niche as just another component of the ecosystem. Nor do I feel the need to cut around every last tree: those that germinate further from others are prioritised. Slower growing species like oak also get a bit more love, since the pioneers (birch, willow, and rowan) are much better able to exploit any break in bracken cover and rocket up through. My son's collie dog, Charlie, accompanies me on these forays, playing his role as 'wolf'. Again, some explanation is required. This particular area was never deer-fenced, so sika occasionally pass through, and nibble on regenerating saplings. My theory is that Charlie's scent, which I like to imagine instinctively equals predator in a deer's mind, discourages them from hanging around. Despite occasionally finding a few odd droppings or signs of browsing, this approach seems to generally work, and I recently read an academic paper suggesting there's more to this than just wishful thinking on my part. Although at an early stage, the results of this new approach have been just wonderful, with most of the bracken-infested area now reverting to natural, native forest. And, just like the mature habitat elsewhere on the land, the natural regeneration will make for so much better, richer habitat than any planted trees. Here, they grow only where nature, not man, decreed: perhaps from a crack between large bounders, or from the side of a rockface, or two different species wrapping around each other as they develop. The diversity of outcomes is practically endless, in stark contrast to the monotonous uniformity of planting. Growth reaches its maximum through the summer months. Picture: Eoghan Daltun Further, despite its drawbacks, the bracken creates the right conditions for a specialist forest flora to persist – low light and high humidity levels through much of the spring and summer. When the land was grazed by sheep, these wildflowers would have been barely evident, and just about hanging on. They've now been released, and form great carpets of colour before the bracken comes up, in stark contrast to the other side of the sheep fence, which has stayed barren. The presence of this plant life is a massive bonus. As a general rule, natural regeneration of trees can often be extremely fast, but the associated biodiversity far slower to follow, especially if not connected to old woodland. In my place on the other hand, a rich ground flora has been here since the area was last forested, probably several centuries ago, waiting for the trees to return. Some people might consider what I'm doing with the bracken 'highly labour-intensive', but it's really not. It doesn't take long to make my rounds, and I easily manage to fit it in with the rest of my often-busy routine. I'm currently working on a third book (on rewilding in Ireland, again due to be published by Hachette), so spending some time engaged in non-taxing physical activity is the perfect antidote to sitting in front of a computer screen. To tell the truth, I yearn for those moments when I can get away and spend an hour or two at this 'work'. It's a deeply therapeutic time out, my mind dreamily observing what's going on in a self-creating ecosystem, surrounded by birdsong, fluttering butterflies, buzzing wild bees, perhaps the sun and a gentle breeze on my face. It's no exaggeration to call it a meditation, time and space for contemplative mind wanderings, as I physically wander through a wondrous wilderness that only a few years before didn't exist. Working together with nature to heal man-inflicted wounds is one of the most positive things we can do. And that knowledge is there, at the back of my mind, throughout. When the land has, in the future, fully reverted to natural forest, habitat for thousands of different species of animals, plants, and fungi, there'll be an immense satisfaction in remembering the bracken monoculture that I first found there. But there'll also be some regret: that I can't spend an occasional couple of summer hours with my trusty Opinel, helping birth a wild rainforest ecosystem. Eoghan Daltun has documented his rewilding work near Eyeries on the Beara peninsula in two books: An Irish Atlantic Rainforest, and The Magic of an Irish Rainforest: A Visual Journey
