First of all let’s admit it, making a baby is absolutely amazing. Now that I have that out of the way, I took a lot of time to write this article, maybe it’s because I’m scared it might expose me to be a hypocritical person. However, I felt I had to have a conversation with three ladies talking about how things changed within their relationship after a baby arrived. From a female perspective we broke it down – it depends on the type of man you are in a relationship with. 

Type 1 – he is merely with you because of fun and has absolutely no interest in you nor does he see you as wife material.

Type 2 – he is madly in love with you and with you only. Meaning when a third person comes along, aka baby, they simply stop loving you and anything that you love. In simple terms, he will love you like hell but, once a baby comes to the picture he literally disappears and doesn’t want anything to do with you or the baby.

Type 3 – he is in-love with you and is the perfect romantic gentleman, a Will and Jada kind of love. Then you have a baby and the relationship changes, then the man stops loving you and leaves you, but will take care of the baby. This is where maybe a majority of women experienced when everything was great until baby arrives and women felt that he changed as a person and constantly loses his tamper for whatever reason.

Type 4 – are the lucky ones, where the man and woman are still together after the baby all because they were psychologically prepared to have a baby with anyone and weather every storm with that partner till death do them apart. This relationship is where we women perceive that the man loves you and any children that come and will forever be your man, married or not. Not the typical behaviors’ of type 1 and 2, who, immediately when you announce that you are pregnant, simply disappear after that. And trust me when I say disappear, in fact the only way you can see them is if you get the detectives at the maintenance court to track him down, issue a warrant so you can catch a glimpse of him at the maintenance court.

This is where the theatrics lie, the absolute hate the man has for you and you wonder when did he actually stop loving you or if he ever loved you at all? Them really not wanting anything to do with you and your baby and you find that he moved on with a lookalike of you or just plain old someone else. You mourn the relationship for the longest time, you become angry, you join the men are trash brigade, you excel in baby mama drama or any drama nje cos you moghel become the Rambo of fights. It’s natural to feel that way because one minute you were madly in love the next thing boom, the guy just didn’t love you as much as you thought he did. Moving on to type 3, this is where the man sticks around during pregnancy right until the baby is born. From a woman’s perspective, this is where while you were pregnant, you start seeing  drastic changes with your man, the man suddenly doesn’t want to spend time with pregnant you, he probably starts cheating on you and maybe also makes another woman pregnant while you are pregnant – I mean he could be on a cheating spree. You end up being that loud pregnant woman that chases him in bars/taverns, or you become depressed while pregnant, but still give him all the respect as the man in your life. The baby finally arrives and the language of the relationship changes, naturally as the woman you put the needs of your child over and above your man. You talk more about things that need to be done and bought for the baby, basically the language is a transaction. You stop making time for each other just the two of you, basically stop doing most of the things you did before the baby came into the picture. Now remember this is from the woman’s side, most of the time we say the breakup was the man’s fault, either they stopped loving you, or you realized that actually you are not suited for each other. The man, though, continues to be part of the baby’s life, there will be disagreements due to maybe differences in culture or parenting styles, but the man will always be a part of the baby’s life just not yours. Well I’m not going to deep dive on the characteristics of a type 4 man relationship because that relationship is just plain perfect and nobody is interested in happy endings.

Now the spin-off is the post baby relationship from a man’s perspective, I had a conversation with a particular fellow who agreed with me that there are type 1 and 2 and 4 men, however for type 3 he had a different story to tell. See, he was also madly in love with the woman in his life at that time and was fully prepared and happy to have a baby. However, after the baby arrived, the woman changed in the most gruesome way. According to him, it started when he was putting in more effort with growing his business because he felt that he now has a family to feed. Now this couple was not even married but, subconsciously he had plans to marry the mother of his child when he was ready and not because a baby arrived. I absolutely agreed with that as I also feel marriage is a huge commitment that you should only embark on it when you are mentally fit. Back to his story, so the baby mamma started being jealous of the time he spent growing his business and also when he always made time he would focus on the baby as much as he could.  Arguments started when more time was given to the baby and the business, then the baby mamma started having excuses whenever he wanted to come by and see the baby since they were not living together. This escalated to the baby mamma literally blocking him from seeing his baby, citing that he prefers to work then spending time with the baby. To set your mind at ease, no he did not cheat on her at any instance pre nor post baby. He ended things with her, and he hasn’t seen his child in months as he decided to go the court route to gain access to his own child legally with a parental plan in place. During the court process, he discovered just how toxic the mother of his child is and how the mother wants to control him and every aspect of how he should have access to his own child. This is what upset him the most, in that he genuinely was in-love with her and now she has turned into a toxic person of which he is terrified of how it will affect his child as she is using their child as a token of control. It got me thinking that honestly, we women can be evil and heartless all because the man didn’t marry us or because we believe he loves our child more than us. I understood his pain as I know how far we women go just to hurt another person. His greatest fear is she might not even be fit to raise his child, however society never touches on the toxic mother narrative, we prefer to rather engage in endless loops of dead beat dad’s and men are trash because that’s where the majority of noise comes from while we forget that equal noise can never be made about toxic mothers primarily because indoda ayi khali they suffer in silence. So basically, not all type 3 man kind of relationships end because the man.

Now here’s another scenario that boggles my mind till today, of an actual story I heard that happened, he is the good guy, type 3 kind of man in a relationship. He has kids from a previous failed relationship then entered into a new relationship however made it CLEAR that he doesn’t want any more children with the current woman he is dating. They agreed to use protection by means of a condom and prevention pills then apparently the woman decided to go off the pill without his knowledge and put a hole in the condom or she slid it out who knows. She eventually got pregnant and he was puzzled how because he is super careful, and they had a conversation that no babies. Fine guy accepted the situation and the baby until he overheard a conversation from the woman and her sister about how she outsmarted him getting off the pill intentionally and poking holes/removing condom without his knowledge. He obviously lost it and ended the relationship, he is a wonderful father to the kids he had from previous relationship, the kids even live with him however he wants nothing to do with the woman and their baby. He went as far as finding out if he can lay a criminal case against the woman for doing what she did but is still today adamant that he doesn’t want that particular child… super weird but like I said the world isn’t quite ready to speak about toxic mothers.

Writer: Mmatsholo Photographer: Adrian McDonald