Zara Cowcher, 29, shares her real life story…
I stood over my boyfriend Charlie as he lay in bed snoring and gave him a poke.
“Oi, wake up!” I said.
He groaned and rolled over. I shoved a positive pregnancy test in his face.
“Guess what!” I smiled.
His eyes snapped open and he blinked at me in shock.
Blister65!!
He leapt out of bed and started frantically pulling on a pair of jeans.
“Where are you going?” I cried.
“To buy more testing kits,” he replied.
It wasn’t quite the unbridled joy I’d been expecting. He ran out to our local pharmacy and came back with four. They all came back positive.
“No, they’re wrong,” he said desperately. “This can’t be.”
“Look, maybe this is too soon,” he mumbled. “I can’t…I mean we aren’t ready.”
By now, I was really upset. I couldn’t understand his reaction. We’d been together for four years and had spoken about becoming a family.
“Look, maybe this is too soon,” he mumbled. “I can’t…I mean we aren’t ready.”
I realised he was suggesting a termination.
“No,” I said firmly, fighting back hot tears. “I’m keeping this baby.”
I stood my ground. But as my bump slowly grew, I remained furious with Charlie. He’d become distant. I wanted him to grow up and take some responsibility.
“Look, maybe this is too soon,” he mumbled. “I can’t…I mean we aren’t ready.”
When it was time for my first scan, he reluctantly came with me.
As our tiny baby’s image came onto the screen Charlie squeezed my hand and a broad smile grew on his face.
“We can do this,” he said and grinned.
My heart swelled with relief. Finally, he seemed as excited as I was.
One morning when I was seven months pregnant, I suggested we go for a walk to get some fresh air. I held onto his arm as I waddled around town, buying ice cream and chatting about all the stuff we had to do.
As I was peering in through a shop window, a female voice behind us said: “Aren’t you going to say hello?”
I spun round. A woman was standing there staring at Charlie. She looked like your typical girl-next-door, maybe a bit younger than me.
“We can do this,” he said and grinned.
I looked at Charlie and his face was as white as the ice-cream melting in his hand.
I glanced back at the woman whose mouth was wide open as she clocked my baby bump.
“Who are you – his girlfriend?” she blurted out, her eyes fixed on my stomach.
I nodded back, holding a protective hand over my bump.
The woman’s eyes widened as she staggered back a step in shock, and I knew what was coming.
“Well, I’ve been sleeping with him for 10 months,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “We’re in a relationship.”
Before I had time to speak, I heard a splat. We both looked down and saw an ice-cream melting on the pavement where Charlie had been.
He’d legged it.
“Who are you – his girlfriend?” she blurted out, her eyes fixed on my stomach.
Charlie’s mistress guided me to a coffee shop nearby and as we both sat down she burst into tears again. I found myself comforting her as she blurted out everything to me.
“We met on Tinder,” she said. “I’ve been cheated on before and it broke me. He promised he’d never do that.”
As I listened, I felt the anger bubble inside me. How dare he. I was about to give birth to his child – I shouldn’t be sitting at a cafe with his mistress crying on me.
We swapped numbers and then I rang Charlie but he didn’t answer.
After five hours, Charlie finally called back and we agreed to meet in the car park outside his work. I messaged his other woman to tell her.
As soon as he showed up, he confessed.
“We met on Tinder,” she said. “I’ve been cheated on before and it broke me. He promised he’d never do that.”
“Everything she said was true,” he said.
Soon, his mistress arrived. Charlie stood there silently as she fired a tirade of fury at him.
“How could you do this to Zara – she’s lovely and she’s pregnant!” she screamed.
I enjoyed watching him squirm. Eventually she left and I went home in tears. A few hours later, Charlie arrived with flowers and a sleeping bag.
“I guess I’m sleeping on the sofa,” he said.
“Yes, you are!” I snapped.
In the days that followed, I cried so much my nose bled.
I didn’t want our baby to grow up without a father so I decided to let Charlie stay in the house.
In time, I gave birth to a little boy who we called Oliver. Charlie was a wonderful dad and, after some couples therapy sessions, we decided to give our relationship another go.
He had proved that leopards never really change their spots.
But when Oliver was two, I found one of Charlie’s bank statements and saw endless payments to different dating sites. I joined them and found his photo under a fake name.
He was at it again.
He tried to deny it but I wasn’t having any of it. He had proved that leopards never really change their spots.
Now I’m seeing someone new and I’ve never been happier. I should have dumped that cheating lump a long time ago.
Charlie says:
I’d actually been seeing this other person for a little while before I found out Zara was pregnant.
Zara tried phoning me after she spoke to this other girl and said I had to come back and face the music.
So I did and they were both going at me in the car park.
That was pretty awful, but I deserved it.
