When is it acceptable or not acceptable for a wife to allow pregnancy without her husband's consent?

It’s her body, but it might not be her marriage after that, I don’t know.

Unacceptable how? Like, a problem in a marriage? Deception in a marriage is almost never not a problem. But unacceptable like he should force her to have an abortion? Not so much.

A marriage relationship is based upon mutual trust (or should be). This is such a betrayal of trust and so unethical.

It’s also terribly unfair to the child as well since some of the resentment he feels toward her could spill over (even if subconsciously) onto the child.

What an utterly selfish woman. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they eventually divorce.

What she did is not acceptable. Though it’s her body, the baby is of two people and no single one of them gets to decide when it’s time to bring it into the world. I feel the same way about abortion, btw. Barring fear of physical violence or retribution for pregnancy or some other psychological trauma, no person should abort a baby without telling their partner.

@Simone

I agree with you on that issue as well. Marriage is a partnership and issues should be negotiated between the two of them with equal votes.

I think that if it was not an accident, it was wrong of his wife to have surprised him with a pregnancy.

A mistake is one thing, but to actively get pregnant without your partner’s consent? I can’t imagine any scenario in which that’s ok.

Should she had told him? Yes But whats to say they didn’t discuss it years ago and she agreed to hold off till he graduated. Or maybe originally they agreed to having a certain amount of children and he kept holding off and she wanted to be done with having children by a certain age. Its easy for a guy to say, lets hold off till you are this age. He bears little physical consequence of releasing sperm at any age. However, on her part age and physical fittness will play a larger role on her and the baby. I’m sure this was all spoken about early in the marriage and he figured because he changed his mind that should’ve been the end of it.
Maybe she felt he kept coming up with too many excuses and may delay it to the point where she didn’t want any more.
Especially if the first kid was 8 years ago. Many people don’t want a huge age gap. It feels like starting all over again.
But she should’ve told him her reasons before.
Some people also feel a baby may bring them closer together. Maybe in all his studying, he grew distant from the family. Not saying this would be the right reason to do it.
My brother didn’t want any kids. His wife got pregnant (not on purpose) and now he can’t imagine his life without his son. If he really loves his wife and his first kid than he will love the second.
Is your friend really upset about her doing this because he wasn’t ready or is he upset because he used her for the last 8 years to get into a good financial place and now he has a young little thing on the side and doesn’t know how he is going to break the news to her?
He wouldn’t be the first.

Trust and respect are the foundations of marriage. Once those things are gone, the marriage is is a loss. By manipulating her husband into having another baby without his mutual consent, she just destroyed those two things.

It may be her right as a woman to have a baby or not. However, it is his right as a husband to leave the marriage for that kind of betrayal should he decide to.

@Pandora there is no doubt my friend loves his new son and IMO eventually will get over
his wife’s action. He is that good a guy and I really think that’s the reason she did it. She knows him best. But personally I don’t agree ( and maybe because I’m a guy ) that even if they had pre-plans on when to have another child and he keeps holding it off, that it’s justifiable to pull one on him. But that’s just me.

@mazingerz88 I think for anyone to think ‘they know their partner best’ is ridiculous, personally. And I’m glad he loves his son, could have been worse, I guess.

If she stopped taking the pill and didn’t tell him, she decieved him into at least trying to have another child. That is pretty low.

That she secretly stopped her birth control in order to get pregnant, when she KNEW he didn’t want another baby yet… just so wrong on so many levels.

I have joked about tampering with my husband’s condoms because I desperately want another baby and he doesn’t, but I could never bring myself to do it.

My former sister in law did that to my brother and though my brother loves my neice to peices that deception caused such a rift in their marriage that is was unable to survive it. They are divorced now. I aways believe in being up front and honest and you don’t do things to deceive. If an accident happens then that is one thing but when a woman does it on purpose that is a whole other matter completely. I hope your friend is able to forgive his wife eventually and move past this deception she did otherwise it may always be there between them.

A kid should be always wanted by both at the same time [ meaning they both have to be ready for it ]

Though it should not be such a big deal since it’s not she did it with someone else.

As above, that very thing happened to a buddy of mine. He did not think it was acceptable. Obviously she did.
They are divorced now.
Interestingly, my ex wife did that. Ironically, and tragically, she miscarried. We are divorced. (probably not for that particular reason, but stuff like that never helps)

I think it’s incredibly deceptive to do this to someone. It’d set off alarm bells and is the sign of an unhealthy relationship in my opinion.

@stardust My point exactly

When the abortion debate gets thick and heavy around here, someone always makes the point that “sex always has the possibility of leading to babies” and “it takes two to tango” and “the woman should have kept her knees closed if she didn’t want to accept the consequences.”

Most of the responses I’ve seen on this subject also include a heavy blame on the woman. Personally, I would find her actions unacceptable – but I’m wondering why the same condemnations are not being heaped on the husband. Birth control sometimes fails. Babies are a possibility even when using contraceptives, although the chances are much, much lower.

To sum up: Deception bad. Deception very bad. Also, man should understand that babies come from sex.

@laureth
Nature is what it is, to be sure. Deception is a calculated choice. Often enough with sinister intent. There is a manifest difference.

Acceptable or not, it’s at the very least deceptive and selfish. When you agree to a partnership, a coupledom or whatever you want to call a comittment between two then you work as a team, plan as team, your futures and livelihood count on agreeing for two, even unpleasant things or unpopular/worst choice things.

This type of behavior by women I’ve always felt is horrible, sabotaging, embittering and destructive. It’s the type of crap that fuels soap operas and catfighting miniseries tv. I’m a woman and this type of thing embarasses me almost as much as women who seriously believe if they get pregnant then the man will learn to love them because by golly he’s got to love his child… and the mother of his child. Yeah right.

@laureth I’m sorry but birth control failed this time because pills were deliberately not taken.