How did you partner react when you told them?
Here we go. We are diving deep into the responses and reactions of the partner when they hear the words "I'm pregnant".
“My partner and I have been baby planning together for months and all of a sudden when I get a positive test he steps back and doesn’t want to be a dad again.”
“I told my partner and he was like we can’t keep it. Well I can’t handle it on my own. I am a masters student trying to pay my tuition bills while studying in another country with no family around. I took the pills.”
“He basically tried to threaten me to get an abortion. He says I tried to trap him.”
“The worst days of my life turned out to be the day I told him the news and the days that followed. He instantly stopped replying to my texts. He became a completely different person. I got a change to talk to him in person the next day and he clearly said that he was not planning on having a child. I couldn’t believe this was the same person who said he loved me.”
“When I told my husband he didn’t seem too excited even though we had been trying. Turns out he was planning on leaving me and left a week after we found out.”
“He dumped me a week before I found out and when I did tell him he harassed me for an abortion, then blocked me on everything.”
Isn’t it messy? My heart actually breaks reading through those responses. So much pain and trauma manifesting in physical and verbal form. What do I see here? A massive imbalance in the masculine and feminine essence (energy) and lots, and lots of trauma.
Now a few months ago I wouldn’t have understood these reactions because I was still recovering from my own less than amazing experience (to say the least). My previous philosophy in life has always been “just be nice, calm, and respectful before reacting” but when you witness the 100% pure emotional animal come out without control it’s quite traumatic.
When I told my partner it was one of the most painful moments of my life. I had never seen such a scared and horrified look on someone’s face before. He cried. He screamed. I was frozen. I felt alone. I felt abandoned just by the energy I was feeling from him. He comforted me. He held me close and we cried in each other’s arms for hours. I lay motionless for a day or two waking up every few hours just to cry. The sadness inside me swallowed me whole and I felt like dying would be a welcome relief.
What followed were days of running on autopilot like a zombie, days of pretending it wasn’t happening, a few conversations and days of deep, deep depression. During every moment of “normality” I could feel it trying to grab me like a slimy sea monster.
Now through all of this my man still showed up for me, not necessarily in the way that I needed but in the ways that he knew how. He made sure I was eating enough, he made sure my environment was safe and protected. He made sure I knew he loved me and wasn’t going to leave me no matter my decision. Even so, I was missing something that was more important (to me) than what I was getting. The depression and pressure of a decision dug its fingers around my bones crippling me.
Months later, baby in my tummy, still battling with the memory of that first day and that look on his face, I leaned on a male friend for help. I knew that feeling like this about it forever would only do harm to myself and my baby. Resentment in my opinion is a very dangerous feeling. He made me realise that in those first moments he was acting in his masculine as well as acting out from his triggers from his upbringing. Behind his expressions, he was most likely thinking “How am I going to make this work for us? How am I going to provide? How am I going to fulfill my life’s purpose so I can be the man I need to be as a partner and as a dad?”
Can I blame him for these thoughts? Absolutely not. Once you become aware of how the true masculine thinks you begin to admire it for the complicated but beautiful process that it is. And once you become aware of their triggers you can accept it from a new level of understanding. Or at least try to.
I’m not making excuses for anyone here but simply put we are simply not taught how to deal with complex, emotion-filled situations. We aren’t taught how relationships work. Also, and this is a big one, the system has been working against us for so long now. The sacredness of the family unit and parenthood has been slowly programmed out of us. Being a mother is the most important job in the world, and it’s also the only job in the world that isn’t taxed.
Women are “empowered” (aka programmed) from a very young age to grow up striving for equality. What does that mean? They want women to think they can have what men have been rewarded for for years. But when a man and a woman are climbing the ranks of the corporate world, and each of them places a photo frame on their desk of their kids, guess which one gets rewarded for it, and guess which one is regarded as a sign of emotional weakness?
Maybe some women can have it all, the career and the perfect family (and good for them! bravo!) but in most cases something has to be sacrificed to be truly present for your kids. Unhappy, broken families and an absent father (divorce) are the most common factors of mental illness and law-breaking behaviour. We’ve taken the sacredness of the family unit away to “empower” women, but at what cost? We now have generations of women that think being a mother is “weak and lazy” and it’s a terrible thing to rely on a man. We also have men that specifically seek out working women because they don’t want anything to threaten their income or career (and their declining testosterone levels), yet they still want the nurturing around-the-clock care of their laundry, household chores and meals that their mother gave them. It’s messed up!
What’s more, is that the cost of living has become so high that households do actually need a second income. That’s a great plan if you want more taxpayers!
To sum up dear readers, when you increase your understanding of programming and trauma (on a personal, cultural and political level), you might gain a little clarity on the often hard to accept subconscious reactions. In no way am I saying that any of those reactions I displayed up top are acceptable, I’m just saying that there’s a lot more to those responses than meets the eye.
If your own response wasn’t coming from a place of pure love and broke you right away I’m deeply saddened for you, and if it was the picture of a fairytale I am equally happy for you.
Alice Emily oxox