“Kid Wasn’t Mine”: 50 Men Reveal Why Their Partners Really Became Single Moms

I tried to stay after the birth of my oldest biological child. My ex, however, revealed herself to be a vile human being WHILE in labor.

I dismissed it, of course. She was in pain, had a difficult childbirth, and was understandably anxious and lashed out. I just did what I could to keep her as comfortable as possible.

After she was born (my daughter is a trans woman), my ex insisted she be circumcised despite us firmly agreeing that we would refuse the procedure. When I brought up said agreement, my ex said (using then-current pronouns) "I'm his mother, it's my decision and none of your business".

When we got home, she did more of the same.

To be clear, *I* did 100% of the childcare when I was at home (I was the only person working because, and I quote "I'm pregnant, I shouldn't have to work") and I did so happily. I had wanted to be a dad since I was a little kid myself, and that part was me living my dream.

My little one had severe colic, so I slept on the sofa with her in a bassinet next to me, with my hand on her stomach every night (our pediatrician recommended this, as the heat was thought to be soothing). I did all the nighttime feedings, baths, doctor's appointments, you name it. My ex cared for her for the 8 hours I was at work for 3 of the days I worked. My mother took care of her the other two.

My ex would "save" diaper changes for me when I was at work, leaving our daughter in dirty diapers for upwards of an hour or more until I got home and could "take over" and she sat in her chair, [complaining] about the noise from me playing with our singing to my daughter or the inevitable crying that would happen when the colic would hit.

I couldn't take it. Not the childcare part. That was amazing. It was my ex. She changed from a reserved, intelligent, pleasant person to a [toxic], overbearing monster overnight.

I begged her to get help for what I thought might have been PPD or some other mental health issue and was told to "mind your own business".

After a few months of this, I blew up and told her to call her mother to come pick her up.

I fought for custody of my daughter, but I had very limited funds. I also lived in Kentucky at the time.
Flash forward to now:

My daughter is now in her mid 20s, and has seen what her mother is and has disowned her. They haven't spoken in 3 years.

When my daughter came out as trans, her mother superficially supported her, but as soon as my daughter upsets her mother in any way, deadnaming, "why are you pretending to be a girl?", and the like constantly.

I had a bit of an issue adapting. I never purposefully deadname or use improper pronouns. I [mess] up sometimes. I'm an old redneck guy, and my brain sometimes lacks the elasticity to adjust in the heat of the moment, but like I said, I've wanted to be a dad for as long as I can remember, and that didn't change when my daughter came out to me. It's not my job to weigh in on her sexuality, gender, etc. It's my job to love her. The rest of the world is likely going to treat her like a second class citizen for the foreseeable future, but her mountainous, opinionated, perpetually annoyed father is now and always will be her safe space. The rest of the world can burn, but my daughter and her 4 siblings will always be safe with me.

I divorced because, as soon as our daughter was born, she started to reveal her actual plan, which was basically not to work at all and to have me bring all the money home.

She never mentioned that when we were planning our life together, so I felt betrayed and deceived. I didn’t want to be an absent father, working [hard] so she could post photos on Facebook about what a wonderful mom she was.

That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t the agreement. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life with someone I considered so selfish, so I decided to divorce.

Found out the kid wasn’t mine. He was 4 years old.

That’s easy the baby wasn’t mine. She got pregnant while I was serving in Iraq I was gone 24 months when I returned home her baby was 2 months old. You do the math!

My side of the story is that she drank heavily for months, called me worthless and a POS every day, hit me regularly, threatened me if I ever told anyone, slashed my throat with a metal part of my briefcase while she was swinging it at me, and then finally, one awful night, she strangled me, slammed and held my head against the window frame so I couldn’t move away, and then punched me repeatedly in the face while I was holding our screaming and terrified then-18-month-old and while our then-4-month-old slept 10 feet away from us in his room. Obviously this was not the first time something like this had happened, but I made sure it was the last.

A few days before the birth of our second child I discovered her affair. Bit my tongue for a couple months. Her and the baby’s health was ultimately more important. Used every bit of my human spirit to pretend all was well during this time.

Couple months in I Confirmed baby was mine and then confronted her. This was not her first time. I moved out a couple days later.

Definitely turbulent and hard for everyone. We share 50/50 custody of the kids today and all is well.

She stopped taking birth control because she thought having a kid would change me and I'd want to quit playing music, switch my job from music equipment sales and live music and get a job more like her father. I did all of those things because I still loved her. She then packed all of my things after he was born and had them waiting at the door for me. She had asked me if I was happy and I told her the truth, that I felt betrayed and forced into this, but I would do my best to make things work. Apparently I was also supposed to be happy. She made this major decision for the both of us.

I'll give you one where I am 100% the bad guy.

I wasn't ready at all. I was still an alcoholic, and in denial about it. One day we talked, and realized we couldn't be married anymore. I wasn't great at being supportive, or being a Dad and we divorced when my son was 2. I got my [life] together a few years later, found someone who helped me learn that facing my problems meant more than drowning them. Got sober, learned how to be a good Dad, and have an awesome relationship with my son and am great friends with my ex-wife. My wife is also friends with her, haha.

Kids are really hard. Marriage is really hard. Life is hard. I 100% wasn't ready. Luckily I got my head on straight but it could've gone the other way. My son doesn't remember the years I was a [bad] Dad, but that shame won't ever go away, I don't think.

I think sometimes about how different it could've been if I wasn't such a fuckup back then, but then I wouldn't have what I do now, and I adore the life we've all built together co-parenting etc. I dunno. Life is weird sometimes.

My ex-wife was [toxic]. A straight up selfish, [toxic] woman. Constantly screaming, throwing things, hitting. I shouldn't have married her. The day she hit me and chipped one of my teeth, just before our baby's 1st birthday, I left her. We raised our child through joint custody.

Since then I've been remarried for over 20 years now, and my ex-wife is still single (but has had dozens of boyfriends). It took me a lot of work to ensure she didn't mess up our kid.

I never wanted kids, I know, yes, it was my fault. But she stopped birth control just to catch and marry me. It worked for one year but she was crazy with jealousy that I couldn't take it any more. 20 mins late from work and she was convinced I cheated. She demanded a sniff and taste to make sure I didn't cheat. Crazy to the max.

I personally know 4 guys who bailed soon after the birth of their first child. All of them, without exception, left because they couldn't cope with the stress and the loss of free time. They were simply too lazy and immature to be a father. One of them said it was because he couldn't go out every weekend with his friends anymore, and an other that he didn't have time to play the PS5.

In all the cases the only fault of the mother was to ask them to do their part in taking care of the baby.

Can you imagine giving up being a father to your child, because you'd rather play FIFA Soccer?

Had a friend who married a girl and they had a kid. A few months after the birth of their son, he caught her cheating. Her excuse was she was lonely all day and wasn’t there for her. He was at work while she quit her job to be a stay at home mom.

My former neighbor divorced his wife two weeks after kid was born. It wasn't his. It was her coworkers. She still took him to cleaners in divorce court and shortly after he ended up homeless. That was about 10 years ago and some time ago I was told he died. He was a good man. Tradesmen like me but in construction.

I left just before our daughter was born.
The pregnancy was a nightmare, completely changed the person she was. She became both emotionally and physically toxic to me and I couldn't take covering it for her anymore.

After the birth she seemingly just went back to normal but took me much longer to move past everything.

We spent 3 years with shared custody and eventually got back together. Been a year together now and been the best year we've had together.

We got married, she said she was pregnant. Went for a dating scan. She admitted it was her brothers child when the dating scan showed that she was further along than thought and that conception would have occurred in the middle of a few weeks when I was away.

Lesson? Never date anyone that lives 30mins out of Mackay and all the neighbours are family.

She cheated on me when my daughter was 8 months or so. Divorce finalized after she shortly after she turned 1. I found out from my 5 yr old son telling me about meeting “mommies” new friend during a staycation she did while
I was away for work.

PPD can be really bad...I thought I was prepared but I wasn't. Dealing with those emotions is like walking into the abyss. The baby was the easy part.

We weren't married but were in a relationship for a few years and living together. The realisation that it wasn't a good relationship for me was gradual and slow, and required to build up courage to see myself alone.

Whilst I was getting to that realisation, the relationship existed and life happened, and as a couple in a relationship we didn't always use contraception. Stupid? Yes, maybe. But I was afraid to rock the boat, to express doubt, to indicate that something is wrong. It's a lesson to recognise that fearing your parter's reactions is a clear sign the relationship is broken.

Eventually I decided to end it, after lots of communication and trust problems. I simply reached the conclusion that we are not compatible.

On the day I was going to talk to her and end the relationship she told me she's pregnant.

We tried couple's therapy for a few weeks, but nothing changed. I believed (and still do) that it's better for a child to have parents that aren't together and manage a a co-parenting relationship, than parents who are together and manage a toxic romantic relationship.

Once I broke it off she couldn't handle it and become emotionally punitive. No matter how much I tried to ask to prepare for the future, to figure out how we're going to parent together, to think about our future child; she was spinning out of control in her own turmoil. She preferred to burn the ground on which she stood rather than to deal with reality. I did bring up terminating the pregnancy, but that made things worse.

The months leading up to the birth were an emotional rollercoaster. I was at the birth, I held my son, I was with him at home for the first few weeks. During these weeks she locked me in a room, snatched the baby out of my arms, refused to include me in the birth certificate, and treated me like a servant. She gradually allowed me less and less time with him. I was sitting at my parents' place, glued to the phone and waiting for her to allow me to visit. Then she finally alleged domestic [mistreatment] against me and stopped all contact. I didn't see him for almost 2 months. After that she allowed me a couple of hours per week.

I applied for a court order, and in her response she repeated the allegations, and added that I [hurt] our son. The process was painfully slow. It took almost 5 months to finally have the birth certificate amended, and longer than that for the court process to conclude without any findings against me. No repercussions to her. Since then we've been to court a couple more times for more minor things. In each time she claimed domestic [mistreatment], and each time it was dismissed.

There's now a shared custody order and I see my son regularly and independently and we have an amazing relationship.

My ex calmed down a bit, it may have all been a result of undiagnosed postpartum depression, but I'm still always walking on eggshells around her and I know in my heart we will likely end up in court again. But for the sake of my son I don't want to fight and I'm trying very hard to forgive. Even after everything she's done, I have to find a way to have an amicable and stable co-parenting relationship with her.

She spent months convincing me to take a year off work, to travel, help her and be present with our newborn. I did. She repaid me by having an affair (after one last girl trip before she comes back to work), then blamed me for not working, then continued lying...

It took me years to recover from the constant gaslighting in that relationship, and to rebuild my sense of self. It's been 7+ years of 'co-parenting' and 2 of those years has been spent mediating/lawyers trying to spend extra time with my son because she kept moving goal posts and coming up with nonsensical reasons why she/he wasn't ready for it (all while he was begging me for it). I've made progress... but it's been absolutely emotionally exhausting.

My friend reminded me that I was having panic attacks before our marriage. Somehow, I must have blocked it out of my memory.

When your intuition is screaming, your body will let you know. Don't ignore it. That said, my son is absolutely and without a doubt one of the best things that's ever happened. So in a very odd way, I'm like Sisyphus.

I was not married but after having a kid she became bipolar as [hell]. Refused help, reported the dr to the medical board for saying she had it. She only cared about money would spend 1000s a day in shopping with no care that it was my money or my credit card.
She refused to give my son my middle name and refused to let me have any say in his name.
All she did was treat him like a pay check

It was not fun in fact it was hell for years after I left her. But 16 years later and 1k a month in child support I have 1 payment left in 2 weeks and I can’t wait. (I also have him 43% of the time).