I was deeply in love with her alone. When you know – you know. A near year of love and lovemaking directly lead to our pregnancy. No man ever forgets being called ‘Daddy’. My only instinct was to protect my woman and child. Even with deliberate birth control, we both knew being a father and mother would someday happen. It was my first and most important lifelong calling – to protect and provide for my family. Yet this need ‘to father’ was taken completely out of my control. The continuance of my existing family was the woman’s choice only. But Cindi (alias) was making her decisions under hormones, emotions, and social pressures she couldn’t face. Thus, rationalizing began, with abortion being merely the postponement of our parenthood to a later date. After all, we were a loving ’naturally wed and married in God’s eyes’ couple that could always start a family later. Just a trip to the local clinic, a medical ‘procedure’, and our lives will return to normal. Her brothers pressured her choice and all I could say was “I love you”. What I couldn’t say is that I told her brothers I wanted to marry her. Separately, each told me – word for word – that Pete (Dad) would annul our marriage and I could be jailed (she was nearly a year underage). The words were Pete’s, my someday father-in-law. We learned that human nature and the subconscious do not rationalize. Her live child is now a dead child. At the deepest level, Cindi felt this and no amount of love could change this. Our prior openness with each other became guarded. Yet this was imperceptible initially. Publicly, the end of pregnancy stress left our prior dating appearances. The pregnancy rumors faded. We would get it right ‘the next time’. This was particularly true of me. I went from college dropout to degreed electrical engineer My love would overcome her sad moods, especially those when she was around babies. She has carried my child. No one else in the world can say that. After all, first pregnancies often don’t come to term and natural miscarriage is quite common. We faced the worst life could throw and remain together. I would one day make our ‘natural marriage’ a legal one. A season passed and she “Had sex with S.L. and others at a party”. Perhaps it was post abortion stress , PAS, or it was to punish the partner who didn’t protect their child. It was to punish the mate who couldn’t feel her deep abortion guilt. It’ was to punish the partner who was a living reminder and witness of the most heinous act a woman or couple can commit – the murder of the child inside her. I didn’t initially understand and was stunned. As long as we are a couple, we could have our child (children?) back. Her abortion of my (?) child was bad enough. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. Now, she’s scraping me from inside her – just as she did my first child. What kind of man can’t keep his mate or child? Her actions had shattered and continue to shatter my self-confidence and ability to be a provider or husband to any woman. Once burned, twice shy. She even stated ‘it’s like we never existed’ to ease her guilt (or increase mine). I was left to determine whether ‘we’ means ‘her and I’ or ‘I and my child’. In either case, any new partner – without the guilt of abortion – had a better chance of marriage with her then I did. We broke our engagement. Yet we shared much and still loved each other. We had many rebounds. But the closer we drew together, the further we pushed apart. Finally, our trust was as dead as our aborted child. We couldn’t marry. The final death and hopelessness of our love, after our best six years and efforts, left scars and tears that have never healed. Once we aborted our child, we aborted our relationship, it’s ultimate purpose, it’s validation, and it’s existence. These are my unspoken abortion truths.
