I know OM should pay his due responsibility for my child but for the little amount that we can squeeze out of him and he and the fiancee will make life difficult for us, we do not think of pursuing the case. We want nothing to do with them and if they are going to pay for child support, it means there will still be contact and he may even want himself to be named on the birth certificate. They do not want any contact with the child to keep their marriage healthy at the expense of the child.

He is the child's father. He should be on the birth certificate.

What will the child want you to have done in 10, 20, 30, years time? That could be three different answers by the way. Sometimes it isn't until adulthood that a child misses its parent. Still often devastating though.

I don't know the laws where you are, but here, the support and the visitation are two separate issues. A parent may not pay their support, yet they are still allowed to see them. By the same token, if they don't want to see the child, they are still required to pay their support. If they get behind in their support, they may do a stint in jail and lose their driving privileges. I realize that all places do not treat this the same.

Dr Harley says that if you want to save the marriage the OM should NOT be on the birth certificate and shoul have nothing to do with the child.

He is right, IF you want to save the marriage.
The husband doesn't want to raise and pay for another man's child, and doesn't want to stay married. I have heard Dr Harley agree with the husband's point of view many times in similar situations to this ( wife pregnant with OM's child).


What I am actually thinking here is what is best for the child, not for the marriage.

"He shall, wherever possible, grow up in the care and under the responsibility of his parents"
UN Declaration of the rights of the child, 1959.

But anyway I don't think this marriage should be saved. The marriage happened because the husband thought the child was his, and it wasn't. He married under false pretences. Having found out the truth he is no longer interested. The marriage should be ended.

As for the birth certificate - there really is no debate. It is a certificate of birth and should have both parents ( the real parents ) named on it. Anyone else named as parent means it is not a birth certificate but effectively a certificate of adoption. Whatever the law says and however people try to get around it.

I understand that in ( at least some parts of) the United States birth certificates can be changed in some cases after adoption - but that is a legal peculiarity. At that point it is no longer a record of the child's birth but a record of the child's social parent/s.