Dear MJ,
My boyfriend, J, and I have been together off and on since June 2007.

We
broke up in the middle of August 2007. Our last night together, we were
not responsible at all. I was really hurt and torn up. It was a month
later and I had a one night stand with a friend and used protection. 2
weeks later, I found out that I was pregnant.

My x-bf and I still hung out
after breaking up and remained friends. I took everything in consideration
and matched up the dates and knew 100% in my mind that it was J’s. At the
beginning of the pregnancy we fought quite a bit because he wanted me to
give it up but I wanted the baby and couldn’t imagine doing that. I was
ready to be a mom, even if I did it on my own.

Around Dec 2007, J came
around and things grew with us. I was preparing myself to be a single
mother at this time but J wanted to be together. Raise our child together.
He was there for the rest of the pregnancy. He was there in the delivery
room and we lived together till recently, my daughter 6 months old. The
last 2 months, I have been going through post partum depression so moved back
to my moms recently. He wanted to do a DNA test, which I agreed to. The
whole time I was 100% sure my daughter was his.

I never told him about the
other guy because it happened when we were broken up and a month later.
Dates didn’t add up and used protection, etc. It just didn’t seem to be a
factor to mention. The DNA test came back negative that J’s the father.
During our relationship, I fell completely head of heels in love with J
and near the end, he said that he loved me too. Now we are officially
broken up and he says that I lied to him this whole time and he can’t be
with someone like that.

He loves my daughter and still wants to be a part
of her life as an uncle or whatever. I understand his hurt and pain. I
just don’t know what to do. Do I move on? Or because I love him, fight for
him? How do I make him understand that I didn’t do this to hurt him, that
I truly believed that my daughter was his and never tried to purposely
mislead him? Can I ever make things right again?

Broken Hearted Now Single Mom

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Dear Broken Hearted Mom,
I am SO sorry to hear this story. Usually I’m dealing with people who don’t like the taste of their partner’s sperm or the noises they make in bed. Getting your question was daunting, refreshing and heart-breaking all at the same time.  

When a lover leaves us- especially as a result of our own wrong-doing, our minds hit panic mode and we begin scrambling to undo the trespass and in that moment of grasping to repair, we tend to lose sight of the underlying truth. IS this person for me? ARE we a good HEALTHY match?

If you’ve ever had anyone try and bash you over the head with apologies and explanations you know that it only adds fuel to an already raging fire and often makes things worse. My general rule on relationships is that you cannot convince somebody to be with you. J is hurt and angry and my guess is he needs some time to accept what his life looks like now that he knows the daughter he thought was his isn’t. If he loves you and you are truly meant to be together, I believe you will be.  

All you can do at this point is be honest. Be honest with yourself and be honest with J. If you are able to sit down in a calm way and open your heart and tell him everything you are feeling inside, pledge to him with all you are worth that you honestly did not intend to mislead him and that you felt in the deepest parts of your soul that he was your daughter’s father, he should believe you.  

If you are going to fight for J, make sure you are doing it for the right reasons: because you truly love him and are positive you want to be with him. Not because you feel you must redeem yourself for unintentionally misleading him or because you may have lost him and are scared to be alone. You need to really spend some time thinking about what it is that YOU want before taking any sort of action. Sit down in the place you do your best thinking (for me it’s the tub. I turn the phones, music & TV off- and just sit there until all the noise stops and my brain clears out and I have my answer… or until I shrivel up completely and have no choice but to move!). Write a letter to yourself, one that nobody will ever read, and let it all out. Do whatever helps you clear out the cobwebs and reach an unclouded decision. 

Sometimes trying too hard to make things right only makes them more wrong. I think you need to say your peace to J and then leave him to . Let him come to you- in whatever form he does. If that’s as an uncle to your daughter, so be it. It may not be what you want but if it’s all he is prepared to give, then accept that for what it is and don’t fight him on it. It sounds to me as though he really does love you and your little girl. With any luck, over time he will get past the hurt and anger and be able to give your relationship another shot. 

And, if the end result is that you have to face your life as a single mother, remember that you were prepared to do that anyway before J stepped up and declared that he wanted to be involved. You have two people to think about now so it’s important that you are as strong as you possibly can be for your daughter’s sake. Just focus on that and on putting your life back together and I promise you everything else will fall into place as it should. 

I wish you the very best of luck.

Yours in hopeful love,
MJ