Thank you for your response.

Have you contacted a Christian child counselor yet to help you with the "how to tell them" part?

A bit of my feelings as an OC and what I saw happen to OM's children as well as to my family.

My mother was a staunch Christian - faithful with the exception of this OM in her life for 9 years. The guilt of her violating her covenants with God and her husband created some major problems for her. The situation also created major problems for the OM's children. The oldest son rebelled against the wife's "overcompensation" on the moral training and became lost to alcohol and drugs before he was out of high school. The daughter - my age - didn't marry until she was 42 - so warry of cheating, lying men that she had a hard time trusting anyone. The youngest, born just 1 year before his father died seems to have escaped the path of destruction their father and mother created - he by the action, she by the reaction.

On my family side - one son - my older brother - has totally self-destructed, recently getting cleaned up, but his mental abilities to concentrate, retain information even short term is so damaged by the drugs that he's not employable. My younger sister has rebelled against her faith, gone through a divorce before she was 21 years old (ex has served time in prison), has gone through an abortion at age 22, her oldest son has spent 4 of his 25 years in prison, now seems to be settling down, but who knows; her youngest is in juvenile detention and her middle child is a high school drop out, also bent on criminal behavior. She divorced again before she was 30; now married a 3rd time, doesn't use her husband's last name. But there's evidence of harm that verifies the scriptural prophecy of harm to the 3rd and 4th generation. My sister's grandchildren, born to the oldest son, are now living in the same spiritual chaos that their father grew up in.

I guess the point I'm trying to get across is that you don't get to choose the path's end, once you choose the beginning. So please walk cautiously. You can never choose that first introduction after you act the first time.

I'm grateful that you are listening to your wife and delaying introducing your sons to their sister. Please consult a counselor who can assist you in mitigating the spiritual damage to all your children. Also, healing your marriage will be the healthiest thing you can do for yourself, your wife, your children and your former OW's children. It will get everyone back on the rails and has the greatest probability of the least amount of harm and the greatest possible good as an outcome.

My family is not a good example - secrecy has it's own version of harm - I may be the only one out of 8 children who knows (the OM's wife may have told her children that their father cheated - I don't know), and my mom did the best she could to raise us right; as did OM's wife with her children. I know that openness would have had it's own degree of harm - likely with the destruction of the man I know and love as my father - which you don't have in your situation. And who knows the effect it would have had on my two most troubled siblings - as well as the two which seem to be living pretty balanced lives? I don't know. I know the knowledge has been heavy for me to bear and I spent several years in therapy working to get my own life back...

Call Harley for counsel

don't delay ... further delay is avoidance of a clear PLAN for RECOVERY

ask about the path that does the least amount of FURTHER damage...

in any respect

do NOT trust your own judgement just yet...

you need to earn BACK your self-trust ... and it takes a good year, sometimes more

you ought to be very critical of your own decisions ... at least for awhile

Pep

TH, ah you are getting quite full of yourself....your holier than thou daddy act doesn't quite wash with me.

It IS "to bad, so sad" for the oc. THEY too get a piece of the hurt pie. Or, should your wife and COM recieve more? You are shoving that child down your wifes throat, with no care or concern for what this is doing in your home.

Everyone gets kicked here, oc included. Personally, I have never, ever put the needs/wants of the oc any where near my childrens. MY children came first, as it should be. If you find my protection of my children as mean spirited, to bad. I owed my children protection from any and all who do not have their best interests at heart. You are a prime example of someone who is not protecting his family, but expecting them to suck it up and help fix this mess.

This is not a normal occurance. It is an embarrassing horric pain that is thrust on the wife and her children. Just because there is a baby born, does not make it somehow right. The oc existance does not make this one big happy family. It is what it is. A horrible assault on your wife and children. You can try to paint it anyway you want, but in the end, it is simple. You lied, you cheated, and now an oc is here and you expect your wife and kids to suck it up and make you look like super dad with their acceptance. Not once slowing down and grasping exactly what you have done...to them. In YOUR eyes, they don't count, you would walk out on that family if they don't accept oc......So, you ARE puting the needs of oc above everyone, I don't.

I see it quite clearly, and my sympathies lie soley with the betrayed wives and their children. I let them know it is entirely ok to not want oc around, and that they are not wrong to think that. CAUSE THEY ARE NOT. THEY CAN FEEL AND THINK WHAT THEY WANT.

As for my children, they are aware of oc and are quite happy that we don't have contact. Teens are tough years, and to have to have some oc around would be to humiliating for them. Also, I spoke with many many women who had contact and I can tell you, virtually 100% of them regretted it. THEIR children were angry, and resentfull and EMBARRASSED by it. It was when they grew up that the parents learned of the simmering resentment. Why? Cause the kids were TOLD how they had to feel, and they didn't feel that way at all. I ALWAYS ADVOCATE FOR THE COM cause so many people just disregard them, as you yourself do. Your poor poor wife and children.

As for the birth not being the oc's fault? Well DUH, how insightfull of you. Well, guess what, it was not MY fault nor the fault of MY children either. You need to open up your eyes and see just how hurt your wife AND CHILDREN ARE. Not just the oc. You only seem concerned about the oc and THAT is so wrong.

Love how you, as a newbie sound so "old" on here!!! Makes me wonder....very other womanish......

your poor wife and kids. AND THAT DOES NOT INCLUDE THE OC, since that is the only child you seem to care about. Your COM seem to be afterthoughts..........

The oc is NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE WIFE OR HER CHILDREN. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

So, your wife, according to you, GETS to be part of the issue. How supportive of you..... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> Did she GET asked by you if it was ok to have an affair??? And now you compare credit cards and fender benders to an affair with an oc???? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> You are sick. Yes, your wife should leave you. The poor woman is probably beaten down to death.

However, I believe you are a troll ow. No man worth staying or even marrying would utter the self absorbed, cruel, mean and disgusting, passive aggressive swill that comes out of you. The only ones I know that are so manipulative to come here and play games are the other women types who come here to pontificate on the importance of the oc. Your constant beating with words at your wife and the constant stabs at her are obvious. No man wanting to stay in his marriage and do what is right by his wife, would even consider doing what you have done. No woman would even want a man who acts as you do, or thinks as you do. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Wow!! Your wife has to walk a fine line to keep her marriage! If she makes the "wrong move", your gone.

Let's see. She has to accept the A and the betrayal. She has to accept OC AND take responsibility for her.....because she is your PARTNER (this issue doesn't compare to household bills, you know. That was an insulting comparison). She has to accept that you love her, but are not "in love" with her. I understand this could change, but you sound like you don't expect it.

She has to accept that her children will be very soon involved with OC, whether she really wants it or not. She is not free to say truly what she might think......or you might leave. She has to accept CS payments and health costs for OC for at least 18 years. She has to accept that OC's well-being means more than COM intact family. She has to accept that OW will be part of your life and HERS forever........partnership, right? She has to accept that if OC is part of your original family that she will have to explain who she is and accept sideways glances from others who don't understand. And she has to begin filling your love bank, on top of it, so you won't look elsewhere again.

She basically has to accept it all to keep you. You may be doing something right for her EN's that make her want to stay. But I think it is from fear and uncertainty, right now. If she says she's out, her boys are instantly thrown into divorce world, visitation, OC and OW. If nothing else, that is enough to not make a rash decision. At least for me, it was. Her first priority would be the protection of her children from interlopers in the marriage. Yours should be, too.

You may never agree with a lot of the posts that come from here, but you are courageous to keep coming for information. It is nearly incomprehensible for a FWS to understand how the BS feels.......even if they truly try. You will hear it here and maybe it will apply to your wife, or close to it.

You mentioned there was a plan for dealing with your wife's pain. Is it too personal to ask what that might be? That will make the biggest difference to your marriage succeeding. You know, it could be years before she heals. Hard to believe until you've lived it. She will need much from you for the healing to happen. Are you up for it? For the long term? You may feel like leaving 2 years from now when your wife starts hurting again over a trigger or an event that happens. Will you help her with it? She will need you to, even if it doesn't seem like you can help.

Keep an open mind. Your wife will soften her heart in many ways, but you need to soften yours, too. Then she can feel safe enough to follow your example.

Post deleted by TroubledH

BUT..... she did not go into this marriage knowing that you would cheat on her and have another OC!!!!!!!!! If you had a child before you met her and married then yes she decided to take you and your children as well. She had the choice then if that is what she wanted. This under no way that you look at it counts as that cause it was not a situtation that she had any say so in....... cause if she was so much a partnership in this decision she would of told ya to keep it zipped...... there was NO PARTNERSHIP WHEN YOU CHEATED!!

P.S.-----
My husband told me to tell you thanks, cause you make me appreciate him even more!

Is it just me or does this sound exactly like "fog talk"?!?!?!?

"I don't take divorce lighty, I have put much thought into "when enough is enough" for both her sake, and mine. I do love my wife, but that is not the same as being "in love"."

Dear TS,

Glad to hear I do some good. :-)

I will respond within the next few days.

Post deleted by TroubledH

Call for an appointment with Harleys

You are approaching this family crisis from the wrong end of the runway !!!

To schedule an appointment with Steve Harley, you may use one of two options:

Call toll-free 1 (888) 639-1639
or
e-mail (counsel@marriagebuilders.com) an appointment request by completing the form below.

not necessarily

it is your level of emotional narcisism that sounds foggy

even throughout your protestations that you want to be a father to all 3 of your children ... your concern is all about your needs and your desires ... not theirs


selfishness is your most distinguishing characteristic thus far....

where is your remorse?
where is your penance?

where is your voice of compassion for your wife and your sons?

absent ...

bring those things to the table

until then
you are suspect of being emotionally abusive to your wife and sons

CALL the number and make an appointment

you are not doing well at all <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Pep

Here's the "fog talk". One of the first examples of it if I remember correctly.

Post deleted by TroubledH

TH, I have found there are few truly pro marriage counselors out there. Too bad you got what sounds like a "feminist" as your C. I learned early on not to cut my hair without running it by my H cuz I need him to like how I look. Your C should have been realistically addressing your concerns, not dismissing them. I am sorry for that. I am also sorry that you went the route of an A to resolve your issues. As I know from personal experience, it only makes things worse not better.

Your wife needs a lot of time to catch up to you on the acceptance of what has happened in her life and her marriage. You have held all the knowledge up to recently. Be kind, loving, caring and accountable for your time. Be transparent. Don't push her to heal. Understand the days she is not certain she wants to be with you. In the meantime, YOU make the decision to HONOR your vows. YOU make the decision that for BETTER or for WORSE you are going to stick with your wife. It will go a long, long way with her to see that YOU are there for good.

Dear TroubledH

Please consider this:

You stated that your children are 6 and 3 1/2 with your W. At age six, your oldest boy has seen his Mom pregnant and probably asked her where his brother came from. She probably told him a story that went something like this: mommy and daddy made him.

Now you want to introduce a child that mommy and daddy did not make. That is going to confuse him and the younger brother. Stay with me. I ramble.

When an A is discovered or revealed, there is bound to be much tension in the home. Your babies see this everyday. Now you want to take them to see a little sister that they don't know exists and they will watch the tension you and their mom have disappear. They will think that it is because of them. Because you will no doubt be excited taking them to see her for the first time, it will confirm for little minds that you don't love them anymore but love this new little interloper. Little kids are very self-centered. And they are very perceptive. I think you walk a very precarious and slippery slope on wanting to involve them.

Now on to the OC. Your daughter has it in her mind that she is your only child. When you bring around these bigger kids that are calling you daddy and seem to have had more time with you than she has had, its going to hurt and confuse her. Your older kids, in in their confusion, are going to cling to you. This will not be a playdate - it will be a marking of territory by the COM. Whether or not their mother has told them a thing, they WILL protect their mother's assumed feelings.

Please keep the COM and the OC apart until you and your wife are no longer facing such marital difficulties.

BTW, I speak from indirect experience. My mother and father (who are not together) are BOTH OCs. They have met the COM and were hated. They are in their 50s, and are still hurting over their rejection. What you are aiming for is just not possible given the circumstances, and it seems that your W knows it. NC isn't forever. You can re-negotiate after you have invested some time fixing what is broken.

You don't know the damage that you will inflict - have already inflicted - on all parties.

Peace to you and your family.

Post deleted by TroubledH

Actually, TH I think this is the most important time to keep this journal going. Get your W here too if you can.

Hello TH,
Does your Mom embrace oc? do you know it for sure?

So you love your w even more now?

I do too.
She has experienced the most painful experience of all, hers and your c's playing and interacting w another woman's child.

It had to be the utmost painful thing to her, but being so new to this coupled with fear of losing you, her mate, her husband, her children's father, she sucked up, for you.

I am not speaking for her, I am speaking from memory.

I do hope you get in touch with the Harleys. Hopefully Steve.....

You must let go of this 'loving MY D' thing for now.

TH, your wife is bleeding right in front of you ,from you, the perpetrator, and you are doing nothing but stabbing her heart with swift motions allowing her to die an unnatural death.

It may have been a good day for you, but for her it was agony.

Blessings of peace to that upstanding lady.

I'm going to bleep outta here now, my blood pressure hasn't been so high since, well, never mind!