How serious is your relationship? Are things just casual or is this a long term commitment? No matter how you feel about your relationship status, when you are sexually active things have the potential of getting really serious really quickly.
It’s not some big mystery where babies come from. (If you’re still a little fuzzy read our article More Than the Birds and the Bees). Pregnancy is always a possibility as long as you are having sex. You may be using birth control, or you may not. You may even be using condoms, or some other form of protection against pregnancy. Even if you are, and you use it every time (which, let’s be honest, a lot of people don’t) there is still a failure rate which could lead to pregnancy.* If you are sexually active and haven’t talked about what you would do if your relationship was faced with an unplanned pregnancy, it’s time to have that conversation.
Some good questions to discuss include:
- Do you know what all your options are?
- What are your views on parenting together, abortion, and adoption?
- Which of those options are you personally comfortable with?
- If you don’t agree on which options you are each comfortable with, would he be supportive and stay with you no matter what you wanted?
- Would your family and friends be helpful and supportive?
This is a heavy topic for any relationship to face. If you can’t imagine discussing (let alone experiencing) an unplanned pregnancy with your current boyfriend, it may be time to re-evaluate your choices.
If you don’t feel like your relationship is ready for a pregnancy, then you may need to think about whether your relationship is ready for sex.
Because anytime sex is involved things can get REALLY serious REALLY quickly.
