Why is everyone so quick to take nickatnight's wife's word that she had an A and the child is definitely the result of said A? If she was having sex with two men at the time (or more?), either could be the father. And then in the name of "honesty" people are urging nick to reveal the "truth". Good grief. The facts are not in - not by any means, and people are already putting quotes around the word "father".

If nickatnight is so concerned, get the test, get the results and then deal with the information. The real information, not the information that is coming from the poor woman in the psych ward.

Furthermore, there is not a one size fits all policy for honesty, no matter how appealing that may sound. I say, what's your motivation? Look at your motivation for being "honest".

And continue with honesty in all areas of your life. Go ahead. The next time your spouse asks how she looks, mention that she's put on weight, there are wrinkles around her eyes, and her pants are stretching at the seams and not very flattering. You're being honest, after all.

And here where everyone is messing this one up...

I am not advocating that nick tell the boy. In fact, I don't believe nick should tell the boy. I believe nick should tell the boy's "father" and let him take it from there. It IS the boy's "father's" place to decide when to tell the boy. It is nick's responsibility to share this critical info with the ADULT it affects...the ex-H.

again low I can only answer to what I believe applies to this scenerio...this one....

I have heard many many reasons not to tell about an affair...

have never been convinced differently...but there may come a case which does..or I do...

doesn't make me dishonest...doesn't make me a hiprocrite...it makes me open to hearing everyones story...

and I will tell you that I would never ever advise a woman in a violent household to expose or confess to an affair till she was safe...no matter how long it took...
So I do think there are circumstances that apply...

and in this case my opinion remains...
till the child has atleast one adult able to nuture and assist with their emotional fall out from this news...there is no reason to tell right now....and perhaps risk the only reasonable adult there is.....

doesn't say I dont' think he should ever know..
but there are hundereds of steps that need to occur till that happens....

ARK

This is the very truth that should be revealed to the ex-H. Let the ex-H make his own decisions from that point on.

ark,

Of course I don't always tell the truth, or what I perceive as the truth. I don't often know the truth, I usually know what I think is the truth but that is a different issue.

Telling someone that a child they thought was theirs probably isn't can hardly be compared to telling someone that you think they look fat in those jeans. The situations are hardly equal.

If it is alway right to tell about an affair, regardless of the pain it may inflict, even on the children, it is equally right to always inform someone that the child that they thought was theirs might not be.

I am not advocating telling the kid at this time.

I am advocating tell this boy's "father" so he has all the information that he deserves.


OOPPPSSS

I wrote this before I say your above thread. So, you are not always an advocate of exposing an affair.

Not exactly MB, but in the situation you describe I can see you point. I guess it depends upon what the woman in an abusive situation wishes to accomplish. If she wishes to continue being married to an abuser, terrible decision in my opinion, then she will probably have to tell her husband about her affair. Again, she will have to do it in a situation where she is safe.

Not all "truths" should be told.

Should a child be told that the reason it was conceived was as a result of a rape? It's the "truth"; and doesn't the child have the right to know that fact? What if this knowledge could warp her relationships with men forever? Who does that knowledge help?

Two newlyweds on their honeymoon finally undress. They are disappointed at the sight of each other's naked bodies. He has never seen her breasts hanging down without her underwire bra. She is disappointed at the flabbiness of his buttocks, or his back is hairier than she would like. Those are truths. Radical honesty? Would that be right in this instance?

It depends on the situation. If one of the couple wants to engage in sex activity that is painful or repugnant to the other, they deserve truth rather than gritting teeth and lies. If one of them has a contagious illness, truth is demanded.

If their bodies don't rise to the ideal of past lovers, and if there is nothing that can be done to change that, why would telling the truth be right? ("Sugar, my girlfriend Trixie had the highest, perkiest boobs. I couldn't get enough of them. You remind me of my grandmaw. Why don't you have plastic surgery so I can get more excited?") or ("Babe, flabby buns don't do it for me. My first lover had the best behind. I'll just pretend you are him and close my eyes.")

Even telling your lover about hygiene could be handled brutally or with tact. ("I love kissing you when you've just brushed your teeth" rather than "Yuck, you smell like a latrine!")

I think you and I both can agree about that kind of thing.

What I would want to do is examine my reason for telling the guy what you know or what you suspect. Is there some element of revenge - an indirect way to get back at the cheating spouse? Standing on a principle is noble. I've done it myself when I wanted to have an excuse to get revenge for a hurt.

Two more anecdotes:
I personally knew the girl who, at age 16, was told by personnel at an orphanage that she was conceived by forcible stranger rape, that her mother never EVER wanted to see her or hear about her in her lifetime. It was "truth". The truth did her long-term harm.

Next, my girlfriend's oldest son was born before she and her husband married. The father told the boy from the time he was a baby that he was "a little buzzard" and that he never loved his mother. (They DID have 2 more children after marriage.) It was "true" that the boy was a "buzzard". Now that the boy is 17, and his father has moved out, the boy refuses any relationship with the father. "Truth" did not give strength to the father son relationship.

I'm just saying, weigh everything carefully. The situation you are describing involves two innocent people - the "father" and the child.

And while I'm writing ad nauseum, there is just such a situation on the TV show King of the Hill. Dale Gribble is raising the son of his wife's lover. Everybody in the neighborhood knows it but the cuckold, who loves the boy. Nobody tells him. Yes, I know it's a cartoon, but there's a deep message in it. Dale Gribble is truly a father to Joseph, the boy his wife gave birth to.

We could start a separate thread, and debate this idea. There are certainly enough intellects on MB!

Quote"And continue with honesty in all areas of your life. Go ahead. The next time your spouse asks how she looks, mention that she's put on weight, there are wrinkles around her eyes, and her pants are stretching at the seams and not very flattering. You're being honest, after all."End Quote


Dear Penalty, That is just what my xws said to me before I knew he was a w/s and after dd.

I guess he was practicing honesty too, minus that little thing called an Emotional Affair. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Mortarman wrote:
" . . . we left our son with the responsibility of deciding who else would ever know about this (his brother and sister still do not know).

I am struggling to catch my breath here.

Your younger children do not know that their brother is really their half-brother?

Do you think they will never find this out?

And if they do, what will you say to them?

I am stunned by this, Mortarman. Really and truly stunned. I do not know who you thought you were protecting here. I guess you thought you were protecting your wife and oldest boy (from what???) but did it not occur to you to protect your younger children as well?

The first thing they will do is look at you and wonder what else has been kept from them.

Hey, it's your life, but of all the people who post here I would *never* have thought of you to do something like this.
Mulan

cystic fibrosis and knowing who your parents are is irrelevant unless there is a known family history because it is difficult to test for and most people don't know they are carriers of the CF gene.

And, PK...I will tell her the truth...

She knows she's put on weight. She knows she has wrinkles. She knows the old pants are tight. She doesn't need me to remind her that any of these things are true...

She NEEDS for me to tell her this truth:

That she is still beautiful after all the years and all the changes. That when I look in her eyes, I still see that beautiful brunette I married. That all these things she's worried about mean nothing to me.

That's the truth

It is a gag intended to make you laugh at Dale Gribble's own naivete and denial. We are SUPPOSED to think that Dale is pathetic.

No man wants to be the running gag of the neighborhood.

I also have to add...how many people here think that Dale has a right to know that his wife had an affair with his neighbor? How many people think that Hank should tell him?



In both of your anecdotes, both children should have been told the truth. The issue in both of your illustrations was not IF they should be told, but how. I do agree that the truth can be disclosed tactfully and with love. But, in any event, it should be disclosed.

Still though if you find out that your parents have the gene and if you know the parents then you can find out the family history of those parents. Early knowledge helps.

So is the argument really that if the child finds out that his dad is not really his biological dad it will cause harm that will be irreversible down the road? I agree though that the child shouldn't be told until a DNA test is done is proven that the father is not really the father. But who should know anyways is the ex husband.

To say that since the child is 15 he can't handle is frankly an insult towards the teenager is disrespected. Also what evidence do you have to provide that the child can't handle it? Mortman's child handled it fine, now granted the enviroment in which the child was told was different but to say that a child that is 15 can't handle that knowledge is well an assumption and shows how little you must think of the child if you believe that child can not handle it.

I keep seeing this...and I just don't get it!

We're not talking about some obscure principle...we're talking about a man's right to know if his children are really his.

Why do women have such a hard time with this one?

***We're not talking about some obscure principle...we're talking about a man's right to know if his children are really his.***

And the right of children to know who THEY really are and who their SIBLINGS really are.

***Why do women have such a hard time with this one?***
Not me!

Mulan

Nick, may I return to the beginning? You wrote:

“I recently found out that my wife's oldest son was not her ex husband's. She had an affair on him and accidentally got pregnant. She told her husband that it was his. Her ex husband still thinks it's his son. (Son is 15). He pays child support.

During that marriage, she cheated again and got pregnant. She put the baby up for adoption. It resulted in a separation. Later they got back together and had a child... accident. Years later they divorced because she cheated again.

A year later we started dating. 2 months later she got pregnant... another accident. I decided to "do the right thing" and married her. 5 years later she cheated on me and here we are.”

Taking you at your word, DS15 is an OC. But in fact, how reliable is crazy-woman’s word on this? If in fact not reliable, I think you should punt.

Also, what is cuckolded xH’s relationship with DS15 like? Is it strong enough to withstand the truth? Or, is there no relationship other than CS? Note these extremes are equivalent. xH knowing the truth would likely not change anything between him and DS15 in either of these cases.

I think everyone agrees (all of us men, anyway) xH has the inalienable right to know the whole truth about this mess. The problem is one of timing and technique. Knowing where their relationship is between the two extremes above might give you an answer as to when and how to tell xH.

IMO it is xH’s to know and further it is his right to decide if, when and how to tell DS, not yours. (If they have a relationship more than simply CS, that is.) But then, you didn’t ask whether to tell DS, did you. You only asked about telling xH.

I wish life was not so confusing. But it wouldn’t be hard if everyone were ethical in the first place, would it.

With prayers,

That was my point, too. I'm just not keen on taking a disturbed woman's information and using it to upend lives. When she is less disturbed, and if she sticks to her current story, perhaps the paternity issue can be explored. I can certainly understand a man's need to know if children are his; I am not taking that concern lightly.

I have some half-siblings somewhere who do not know that I exist. I'm cool with that - I have enough family to suit me. Should I track them down in the name of honesty? I have better things to do.

Though I haven't seen him since I was 16, my natural father tracked me down through my husband's business to tell me he had a genetic form of cancer. Thanks to that honesty, I had to have a really....ahem....uncomfortable test. So honesty can certainly be a good thing, and I certainly am not going to go around advocating dishonesty.

Low Orbit, I certainly didn't mean to insinuate that your wife was unattractive/gained weight, etc! I was just giving examples out of thin air. I like the way you responded however.

Hi Nick,

Have you decided what to do?

Ladysheep

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