There's a major problem with the she should have confessed sooner attitude applied to this situation. First, she didn't lose the protagonist to love like a normal romance story. She lost him to child support entrapment, for children he contributed to in no way to making, to add insult to injury. Normally, the main character would choose someone else, or at least would make a impulsive decision and knock up the girl. Here he had no option or contribution. Now, let's look at this again. Let's say she had confessed, and they were dating prior to the start. Would it make a difference? Obviously not, she would still be screwed. The dragon would still have come with the children. She would be up shit creek regardless. If anything she's lucky, and dodged a dragonsized bullet by not confessing sooner.