amibetrayed, great post! And you are right, no one has condoned what he did. However, his adultery does not entitle her to dictate solutions to him or to the OW. Her dictator act will only further harm her marriage. It will get her nowhere.

Her marriage is already in major trouble because of the affair, the child and due to her serious strategic mistakes.

She clearly wasn't looking for solutions but for validation of her very bad, unworkable plan. But that's ok. She is free to employ any plan she chooses. She is the one who has to pay the price, after all. If she wants to ignore the advice of one of the top psychologists in the US, who has saved thousands of marriage using these principles, she is perfectly free to do so.

She should email the radio show and get the same advice straight from the good doctor. My guess throughout her marriage she has been a dictator and that's the reason, not an excuse her husband had for his affair. The DJs and AOs are strong with this one.

Butterfly,

If you want him to take a DNA test, set up partial custody, etc. then go for it. But you might as well file for divorce at the same time or you are going to condemn yourself to a life of having OW in your life forever. That's torture. Every time a child support payment goes out, everytime this child comes to visit, will be another stab for you. Death by a thousand cuts.

You don't have children with him. If you want him to take responsibility for this child fine, but I would not recommend continuing your marriage.

I get the impression you think that he can take partial custody and you can be some sort of mother figure during his time, because OW is a trash unfit mother. Unfortunately, you will find that this child will grow to learn that you hate his/her mother and will be yet another source of contention in your marriage, leading to either a miserable marriage or straight out divorce. The choice is yours.

FWIW, Dr. Harley has NEVER seen a marriage succeed where there was contact between affair partners. NEVER. Does your pastor have more experience at saving marriages???

And while she may be the child's whore mother, you will be considered dad's nasty wife. You better believe that child will be told that you are a nasty person by the child's mother. And you know darn well that this child will not take your side over their own mother.

Is that really the life you want to live? Try and use some logic instead of emotion and imagine how this could possibly end in anything but daily struggle for you???

Did you not see the sign on the door when you came in?


We are only here to share in support & implementing MB in saving your M. Did you not see the links that were provided to you by ML and others?

We can't really help you if you don't care much about the marriage and instead want advice on forcing your H and whore OW to be good parents to the OC.

So maybe you need legal advice on how to obtain full custody of the child? And then if the affair resumes when the OW is visiting you will then need advice on how to keep the child for yourself since you are the only responsible one to take care if it? Is that what you are looking for? We obviously can't help you with that.

I guess I was looking for a more moral approach, and definitely did not find it here. I'm more focused on doing the right thing and not what some Doctor teaches. I definitely do not take the approach of burying my head in the sand & if that's an approach taught here then it's not for me. If the "Good Doctor" teaches to abandon an innocent child then I sure don't want anything to do with that. A dictator in my marriage? No ma'am... If anything I took too much crap for too long & there is actually nothing wrong with standing up for yourself and not letting your husband or anyone for that matter walk all over you. Good luck to you all. We will have to agree to disagree.

butterfly, we have given you the moral approach. There is nothing moral about sacrificing your marriage for this child. I don't think you understand that you will lose your marriage. The child has a mother to take care of him and doesn't need you and your husband to give up your marriage for his sake. As I said earlier, having your H hanging around will make it much less likely that the OW can find a good father for the child.

Your marriage cannot survive having the OW in your lives for the next 20 years. You will be competing with her for your husbands attention. Do you want that? Do you want to go through more affairs? More children from your husband and the OW? Because that is the path you are choosing.

And you are not "standing up for yourself," you are bullying your husband into doing your will at the expense of your marriage. I don't predict your marriage will last long and believe me, that is not something I enjoy saying.

May God help you.

I'm not sure what your idea of 'moral' is. How do you think our advice is not 'moral'?

The right thing is to honor your marriage, the covenant you and your husband made in front of God. What part are you having a problem with? I am assuming that you understand that YOUR MARRIAGE is a priority over all other relationships, right? I would suggest to you that you are putting your primary relationship in second place in order to take care of a child who IS NOT YOURS.

Where is this innocent child being abandoned???? That child has a mother. Did she abort the child? I'm not seeing where the child has been abandoned. Please point that out to me. Sounds like a separate issue, which we would be happy to help you with if you would like.

Butterfly, here's what I think: you want to raise this baby and have control over the child's upbringing. That's up to you.

Let us know if you need help when this falls apart.

Why don't you write the good doctor and express your moral attitude to him about his program?


Email your questions to Joyce Harley at mbradio@marriagebuilders.com. When your email question is chosen to be answered on the radio show, you will be notified by email directing you to listen to the rebroadcast. If you would like to consider being a caller, include your telephone number. You will be called by us to explain the procedure to you. Every caller will receive a complementary book by Dr. Harley that addresses their question.

I just don't get it, you keep going on about doing the "right thing", but I have no idea who you are claiming to be doing the right thing by.

The kid will be better off without your involvement in his /her life

The kids will definitely be better without your cheating husbands involvement in his life, who on earth wants a father like that???

The OW could certainly benefit from being left alone without having to deal with either of you for the rest of her life despite her hoe status.

And your marriage would certainly stand a better chance without contact with the OW or the child.

So who exactly are you claiming to be doing the right thing for?? It's certainly not you, your WH, your future children, the OW or this unfortunate soul that she is carrying.

And if you really want to get moral here there could be an argument for you divorcing your cheating husband as you have no kids with him and letting him marry the OW so he can support her and the OC. After all that would be a real consequence for his actions. While your so set on sacrificing your marriage for the sake of high morals you might as well go the whole way and let your WH set up a family with the OW by divorcing you and marrying her.

I would hate for the above to happen and would rather you took onboard the MB advice here but you are being so blinded by some warped moral idea that I want you to see how destructive your actions are going to be to everyone involved.

You will feel resentment to the child, it will be your 'daily' reminder of your husbands unfaithfulness. You will see the resemblance to your WH and the OW. The happiness they had together while they shoved you to the side and had no consideration for you.

How is that fair to the child? It will feel your undercurrents, that is human nature. It will damage the child forever.

To never know is better then to feel the unconsciously not really being wanted.

While it may seem heroic what you intend to do, it will backfire and more people will be more hurt.

I can't remember, but are there children of the marriage? If so, how come the OC is more important then the COM?

If there are no COM, then eventually, the draw of family life will pull WH away from you.

It is such a bad plan all around, I can't wrap my head around it. I always wonder if when BW's suggest this, that they unconsciously are going into competition with the OW. See, I'm the better person, the better mother, while they are really undermining all relationships.

Ah, no kids, then divorce. The draw of family life for you WH will outwin your marriage.

Every stinky diaper you will change will remind you that this is the result of your WH having sex with OW and you're cleaning up the dirty mess.

Want to raise other people's kids? Then go foster some, at least you won't have a negative association with them. That would be moral.

Do you realize that 'Full custody' does not mean termination of parental rights? It takes A LOT for parental rights to be terminated.

Full custody in this day and age means usually, 1 week with Mom, 1 week with Dad or other 50/50 arrangements, where only 1 parent has the final vote in decisions. Other parent can still fight in court to have certain decisions overturned.

My point is that the 'decision' making part of custody has little or nothing to do with access/visitation.

*******************EDIT********************

Sure didn't mean to be rude to anyone.....especially board host. I just wanted to offer encouragement to the OP. I hope she finds a solution to a very serious problem.

Have you read or listened to what Dr. Harley has to say about this very issue?

Oh I have. I have been on these boards since 2007. This board saved my life....they helped me find a keylogger...find my now xh was cheating on me...walked me through divorce.

I know how dr. Harley feels about marriage, affairs, other children......I was only telling this poster to stop spinning her wheels with her ideas in how to handle her husbands infidelity, because THIS site has very specific ideas . And I offered her a hug for her plight. I really feel for her.

Sorry SW, but I saw your post before it was edited (thank goodness it was) and you didn't say anything close.

What you said was very disrespectful to the posters who were giving her Dr. Harley's advice and very, very rude to Dr. Harley.

Well since it was edited I can't say otherwise....but I disagree. I do not think I was disrespectful in any way, I pointed out this is Dr. Harley's board and he gets to make the rules. He has a very specific way of dealing with children of affairs. Not everyone agrees with him but hey that is ok and he doesn't want those opposing ideas discussed here. Seems reasonable to me that he who pays makes the rules. I thought I was repeating what Melody lane says all of the time...that the purpose of this board is to support dr. Harley's teachings.

I just wanted to offer support to a distraught poster. I don't want to cause trouble.