I have been counseling a male friend on understanding his first wife's abortion.

[CTyankee]

He is a good Democrat and politically pro-choice. But when he and his first wife had an unplanned pregnancy, after their two daughters were born, she abruptly said she wanted an abortion and would not even discuss her decision with him. He said he would have raised the child, it would not be unwanted. He had been devastated.

What we know now is that she had severe bipolar disorder and she is now institutionalized. I counseled him that we know now that she was developing her disorder and she might have felt she could not bring another child into the world. "Every woman has a good reason," I explained to him. Could he not accept the fact that she made that decision lovingly?

Because of her mental illness he had to get a lawyer and find another place to raise his young daughters. He was afraid that she might try to hurt them.

And what, I said, if his unborn child had been born? I am sure an unplanned pregnancy is a huge stress on a woman in her condition.

Is there anything else I could say to help him understand her position better?

[Warpy]

1. Men think because childbirth is natural it is risk free and easy

I don't think you can make him understand what a combination of physical trauma plus psychic trauma would do to a woman already experiencing the first stages of mental illness.

You can just hope he catches a clue at some point. He has daughters to bring up.

[CTyankee]

4. He is not insensitive. He feels terribly for her situation.

I told him that IMO she made the right choice for him, their other two girls and herself. I want him to see it from her perspective and a time that must have been terrifying for her to face.

This was a time back. Their daughters are grown now but can't bear to see her. She blames them for so much. I don't know if they know about her abortion. Perhaps it would be easier if they knew the whole story.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. I think you've laid it out really well.

He needs time to come to terms with it.

Remind him of this: He was afraid that she might try to hurt them.

[elleng]

3. Right, good point,

'He was afraid that she might try to hurt them.' How much more awful he would have felt if harm had come to any of them, including an infant.

You're doing the right thing, yank.

[CTyankee]

7. I want him to understand that even if he would have raised the child it was not his decision to make

Saying that does not change the facts of the case. I think he forever mourns the child of his that never was born.

[elleng]

8. Very sad, but you are right to help him,

and she was right to make the decision she made, FOR the whole family.

[Iris]

18. He has the right to mourn the child.

But he needs to let her off the hook. It's simply a matter of biology.

[s-cubed]

5. You might suggest he read one of the memoirs about bipolar,

For example by Jane Pauli or Carrie a Fisher.

[CTyankee]

9. You are so right. He has to come to terms with her illness.

He says he thinks about it every time he has to write her alimony check each month.

Am I right that an unwanted pregnancy can worsen bipolar disorder in a woman?

[Freddie]

13. So can a wanted pregnancy

The hormonal changes of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum can wreak havoc on her mental health, especially if she already had issues.
Friend's DIL was a successful marketing executive, happily married, had a very much wanted son. She experienced severe postpartum depression (later diagnosed as postpartum psychosis) and my friend had to put her own life on hold to care for her grandson while her DIL was hospitalized. She never really went back to "normal." She was diagnosed with bipolar that had been latent and was "triggered" by the pregnancy. Thankfully (unlike Andrea Yates) the couple took their doctors advise seriously and their son is an only child. He's in college now and his mother still struggles.

[CTyankee]

14. I have a good friend who had postpartum psychosis. It was horrible. She got locked up in Yale new

haven hospital and they had her husband take care of their new baby. No messing around with them. She had had voices telling her to kill her baby...

[Buckeye_Democrat]

6. I think he should be thankful to have the daughters.

I've worked with men who didn't have custody of their children despite the ex-wife being mentally disturbed or even a convicted felon.

[CTyankee]

10. I think he had to fight to get custody.

I remember when I had do the same thing when I first decided on divorcing my first husband. I felt so lonely and vulnerable...

[Buckeye_Democrat]

11. I knew a guy who fought for custody of his son after his ex-wife...

was convicted for selling cocaine. He was certain that he'd be rewarded custody, especially since he had a clean record and no history of mental illness or abuse.

The judge gave custody to the mother-in-law and stated the ex-wife, upon completion of her counseling sentence, would maintain primary custody because she had been unemployed and would likely be unable to pay child support. He didn't even want child support from her.

He was furious and assumed that ruling happened because the state gets a cut of the child support.

[CTyankee]

12. terrible situation. Nobody is truly happy...

I just want our friend to get his head into a better place when he is reminded of that every month. Perhaps a male friend would be a better counselor than I am. I'll ask him if he wants my husband to help. He also had a girlfriend in college who became pregnant and ended up going to Japan for her abortion -- it was so late in the pregnancy and pre-Roe.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. Given that he was afraid she would try to hurt the daughters,

has he not even considered the possibility she'd have hurt, maybe even killed, the baby?

He needs to think through what might have been the consequences of carrying that pregnancy to term. It could easily have made things much worse for everyone in the family.

[CTyankee]

16. I tried. I hoped I got thru. I know he trusts my opinion...

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. I hope so.

When my sons were in their early teens, I told them that if they got a girl pregnant, in the end it was absolutely her choice about whether or not to have the baby. She might decide to have a baby they didn't want. She might decide to abort, or give up for adoption, a baby they very much wanted. In the end it was her body, her decision, and as unfair as it was (and let's not pretend that it's anything but unfair in many cases) she had the final say.

Even within the context of a marriage I believe that.