Mom Refuses To Let Ex Meet Their Twins After Keeping The Pregnancy Secret When He 'Abandoned' Them
It's a complicated and legally risky situation.
Maria Moroz / Shutterstock Unexpected pregnancies are complicated enough under any circumstance, but when they happen just as a relationship is cratering, it can take things to a whole other level.
A mom on Reddit was thrust into this situation and is facing a whole slew of other complications now that her ex and the father of her twins has come out of the woodwork.
The mom refused to let her ex meet their kids because he cheated on her and 'abandoned' them.
Things were fraught for the mom, named Rita, right from the start. In her Reddit post, she wrote, "Three years ago, I found out I was pregnant a few months after my ex-boyfriend, Luke, cheated on me with a girl he met online."
When she confronted him about it, "he packed his bags and left the country with [the other woman]." Rita hasn't spoken to him since and has been raising their twin boys alone without support from him of any kind.
She never told him about the pregnancy, but now he's found out about the twins and wants to establish a relationship.
Since Luke and his girlfriend recently moved back to their shared hometown, he heard from a mutual friend about the twins, and now wants to meet his children — allegedly pushed to do so by his girlfriend.
"I was taken aback when I first heard the news because he hasn't shown any interest in our boys for the past three years," Rita wrote. "I was angry, hurt, and confused about my friend telling him that information."
"I honestly don't feel comfortable with letting him back into our lives after how he treated me and abandoned us," she went on to say. She doesn't need his money, so there's little incentive for her to reestablish contact. "The thought of him being in their lives after what he did to us fills me with dread."
Photo: Jep Gambardella / Pexels
She also doesn't want to deal with the inevitable conflict that will arise. "I don't want him to cause a big scene about me not telling him when I had no way to contact him," she claimed. But some in her family think she owes it to Luke to give him a chance.
People online urged the mom to tread carefully — and to not re-establish contact without first talking to a lawyer.
This is, of course, an incredibly difficult moral quandary. Many feel that parents and children have an inherent and inviolable right to a relationship in all but the most dire of circumstances.
Statistics show that children with absent fathers also experience all kinds of hardships as a result, leading many to feel that Rita needs to find some way to let Luke in.
Others disagreed and felt that she had every right to want to keep her distance, especially given the way Luke ended things. But one thing nearly everyone, including readers who say they are attorneys, agreed upon was that the mom needs to consult a lawyer immediately.
Many raised pressing issues like the fact that Luke lives overseas and in some countries he would be able to acquire passports for the children without Rita's consent if he is on their birth certificates. The United States even allows this, albeit only in special emergency circumstances.
Others brought up claims he could make in terms of paternity and custody, and many suggested she talk to a lawyer simply so she could make his involvement in the twins' lives contingent upon him paying child support. But as a lawyer explained, the legalities of that are not so cut-and-dried.
Regardless, Rita is in a truly complicated situation that requires professional assistance.
As one Redditor put it, "Speak to a lawyer. This is between you, him, and the law. At this point, everyone else is just going to create drama, headaches, confusion, and misguided advice."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.