I'm an adventurous guy, a keen sailor & traveler. I came across a like minded girl, got to know her & eventually got married. We made our plans to travel the world & spend a lifetime exploring. Then she had 2 kids & our life came to a grinding halt. Apparently getting married & making all these plans caused her to forget to take her contraceptives... twice! (no she didn't want me to wear condoms). When I married my wife we agreed that we would not have kids. I made it plain what I wanted, to continue traveling & exploring. But now we have kids I am the one who has to look after them. I am a self employed artist, a model maker mainly of naval vessels. I work peculiar hours, some times I need to work into the night when things go well, & had patiently built up a client base. I was well on the way to being master of my own destiny & a comfortable future. Few artists can make that claim & I knew how lucky I was. Now I am grabbing an hour here or there. Deadlines have been demolished & my clients have slipped away. The overwhelming problem is the kids. Even though they are now old enough to go into day care the wife won't agree & we have huge arguments. Last week I did it anyway, but the consequences were terrible with huge arguments. I'm miserable. My wife has kept her career as a sucessful ad copy writer & goes away on regular 'team building' trips. She comes home too tired to care for the kids & wants her weekends free, so I end up doing all the looking after, 7 days a week. I've not been on a trip away for almost 6 years now, since she was pregnant with our first. I'm on anti depressants & can't bear to look at my photo collection or diary. All my adventuring friends have drifted away & I am mainly alone at home with the kids (when not in day care), totally isolated. My wife still introduces me as some great traveler, but I won't let her any more & correct her if she tries. This too has lead to squabbles as she claims it 'Shows her up'. But I am sick of this being covered over & her misrepresentation shows me up. I heard of someone who needed an able hand to help them sail a boat to Australia. At one time I would have called without hesitation, but now I can't. I love the sea, but I can't take off for 3 months because of the kids. I don't resent the kids personally, I do try to make life good for them, but it is out of a sense of duty & nothing else. I had brothers & sisters who had kids & saw how it wrecked their lives, their health, their dreams, & even resulted in divorce & alcoholism. I cannot think of anyone in my family who has 2 happy parents. One or both is permanently tired & unhappy. I appealed to my wife for my adventurous spirit & achievements. I made it clear that I wanted to continue my way of life & she agreed. Not once, but many times. She also agreed to continue with her adventuring. But I've now not only lost my life but the happy soul I thought had found & had hoped would accompany me around the world. I am betrayed & deceived into fatherhood. I am staring down a pit of despair & can see no way out. This is no what i wanted & yet it is exactly where I ended up, not by choice, not by accident, but through deceit. When I found out she was pregnant again with our second kid I immediately went out & had a vasectomy. I wanted to be sure no more 'forgetfulness' has unpleasant consequences. Now she complains about that too. I'd be interested to hear of any other fathrs out there who hav been subjected to the same, dreadful deceit. When there's so many laws protecting women & kids in a marriage it is a disgrace that there's nothing to protect a man from crimes suc as these.