Gack:



Like I said, rescue mentality. I was trying to detail how I see HER observing you as opposed to how you see YOURSELF.

Most women would see a guy rolling over to accept an OC that is the result of adultery, as being a doormat.

Sorry.

Trust JL. He gives great advice from the heart. If in doubt, contact the Harleys.

Larry

Gack,

Since you've now heard from Just Learning, let me expand on his story a little.

I was where you are now 1 year ago. Granted, I didn't have the pregnancy to deal with, but my world had just been turned upside down and I was confused as he11.

I KNOW you're confused and scared. I'm 47 with a lot more life experiences than you, and I was SCARED, so I KNOW you are too. One thing I've learned from all of my past mistakes, was to seek out WISDOM from those who have experience in whatever it is that is the current problem and LEARN from them.

When I found MB, I was lucky enough to attract the attention of a particular poster who helped me clear away the fog of confusion and see things for how they really were. This guy had a SPECIAL knack for seeing through the fluff and getting to the core of an issue. Although, I've never met him, and don't even know his real name or where he lives, he has had a very positive impact on my life and I have found him to be one of the WISEST men I have ever had the pleasure to encounter.

You probably don't realize it, but we share that same luck, because that same man, Just Learning, has now reached out to YOU.

My ONLY advice to you is to NOT turn your back on his incredible WISDOM. Read his posts to you, and then RE-READ them again and again. They will bring you comfort, as they sink in and your own fog begins to clear.

I'm now 1 year out from D-Day, and I've found myself within the past few weeks going back and re-reading stuff that Just Learning posted to me back in August/September of 2007 and I still find value in his words from 11 months ago. He was right then, and I believe that he's advising you correctly NOW.

As you age, you'll realize that you only get a few opportunities in life to draw wisdom from special sources. You have just been offered one of those opportunities. Please recognize the gift of wisdom that has been shared with you and act accordingly. You will not regret it.

So basicly kick her out and walk away from the marriage.

Dont listen to her when she says she is sorry.
Dont listen to her when she says she loves me and wants to save our marriage.
Dont listen to her when she says she wants to be with me.
Dont listen to her when she says she hates the O.M. and wishes the child was mine.
Her saying that she wants me to come to the sonograms and doctors appt to re-bond with her and bond with the child means nothing.
Her wanting it to have my last name and for me to choose the middle name are to be ignored.
Her wanting us to move to a differant appartment complex so that OM doesn't know where we live as part of N.C. is to be ignored.
Her asking me to find us a marriage counseler and her a phsyciatrist is to be ignored.
Her telling me that she is proud of how much I changed, matured, and calmed down means nothing.
Her agreing to NC with the OM even if he has visitation to the child means nothing.
Any attempt she makes to try to save what has been broken is to be ignored.

I should only focus on what she did and that she is pregnant becouse of it.
That she fears we may be moving to fast to build a new base for our marriage.
That she still has contact with the OM parents
(who she lived with for 2 months)
And that she may truly and deeply belive, becouse of her own past, that the child should know it's biologicle father.

Focus soley on these things and walk away.



Or try to stay, have her loose all respect for me, think of me as a doormat, and she will walk away in a few years becouse I tried to save our marriage after she made the worst mistake of her life. No matter how much she says she wants to save the mairrage.

I am not ignoring anyones advise. But in all fairness I have not really included any of the positive things she has done in this thread. I tend not to include those and just rant.

But she has been more loving, thoughtfull, caring, and patient than she has in years.

I may be completly wrong, it may all be an act. But she claims she is far happier with me than she was when she was gone. Her family, who she has reconnected with say she is happier and talks positivly about me when I am not arround. People even say she looks healthier now.

I belive she is still confused, and maybe a little foggy. But I think the fog is clearing, sure there are patches here and there, but from what I have read on here that is normal.

Am I way off base here?
Should I really only look at the negatives and ignore the rest?

Or did my not including them color the situation in a more negative light than I intended.

Gack,

I said: "Look at the data." I will repeat to you, look at the data.

If you only give the negative aspects, you are not allowing people to know what they need to know to offer advice. THat is YOUR PROBLEM, no one elses.

Explain to me what YOU have learned from this?

Explain to me what she has learned from this?

I don't mean how you feel, or how she feels, I mean what you have learned and have changed. How has this experience changed you? How has it changed her?

Just wanting to be together is NOT ENOUGH.

If she truly wants you to be the "step dad" while OM is the father, you have real problems no matter what she is saying. IF this counselor is saying this, you have real problems. If your opinion and desires are put into the category: Gack is being selfish, YOU have real problems.

She can love you to pieces right now, but Gack there has to be some really deep changes in her perspective on life, marriage, and you. You have mentioned NOTHING about any of those. Nor have you mentioned such things about yourself. What is her plan the next time she gets mad at you? Run to her parents, run to his parents, run???

LOOK AT THE DATA, AND KEEPING LOOKING AT IT.


The way I see it she can remain with the father of her child and suffer abuse and humiliation, or she can return to you and avoid this. It is really sweet if she also gets to be in contact with OM, while YOU are paying the bills, you are trying to make a home and family. You have said NOTHING about her plans for handling this, other than to go slow.

So you can play games with us all you want, but it will cost YOU in the long run. You have been misleading us if what you say is true and I resent that.

You have my advice, do with it what you will.

God Bless,

JL

Gack

Earlier post today didnt indicate this


From your earlier perspective and from the counselor - it seemed that your WW was relunctant and felt she is moving too fast.

Are you sure your WW doesnt want to have multiple partnership?

As JL says - need to look at the data in order to make a solid decision. You need to require full remorse, marriage committment and no contact ( you may need to be the intermeditery) as a bare minimum. The counselor is crazy to think you need to be separated and dating your wife to remain married - think about it.

Why be married ? Get divorced and date all you want (including wife) and perhaps may find someone better.

Personally I think your WW is disrepectful to you (ie the counseling session) and is not showing enough committment to you and allowing you to heal to make your effort worthwhile.

Gack, I've been what your going through.

Whats the difference between my FWW and your WW?

Well for starters, she didnt move back in and expect me to raise OM's child and expect me to consent to contact with OM and the rest of his pyscho family.

I would NOT tolerate being considered the "step father" to a child under my roof, unless the child was born before I knew his mom.

Your wife, is looking out for her offspring and its father, not you. Your posting of harleys article is not accurate to you in that you KNOW its not yours before the baby is even born.

She is on your insurance plan right?

Expect to get your butt kissed until she has no use for you.

The fact that your wife was in lockstep with this so called counselor sounds like a setup... and SPEAKS VOLUMES THAT WHAT THE COUNSELOR WAS SAYING IS WHAT SHE WANTS AND AGREES WITH

don't discount my opinion because its not what you want to hear, but i had 8 months to think about it, my wife was FAR MORE considerate than yours is being now.

I sincerly appologize in missleading you, It was not my intention whatsoever. I have a limited amount of time to post and dwell on the negative. I will attempt to post a more equilly ballanced from now on.

I will make another post later containing the good and the bad and her plans and what she and I both want from the future.

Again I appologize.

Gack:


Of course she is, she is in a world of trouble of her own doing. She wants you to save her, while she maintains contact with OM by one means or the other. It is totally in character for some women to have a child by a bad boy while clinging to a good guy for shelter and stability. It happens all the time, usually without the good guy having a clue. At least you have a clue even if you are ignoring it.

Since you want to believe in her, then go save her. Okay with me. The purpose of my words has been to give you a liferaft when you need it. And I think you will need it. Your life is yours to live. All the best, and good luck.

Larry

T/J

JustLearning, very impressively insightful. May I ask what your story is?

Gack,

When I was your age, I had to learn EVERYTHING the hard way. I knew everything, and everyone else just didn't understand ... you appear to be much the same way.

You are getting some very good advice that you are going out of your way to ignore in your attempts to justify your continued bad decisions.

I'm not slamming you ... I did the same things ... and those decisions basically cost me 15 years of my life, while I dug out of the hole, financially and emotionally, that I created from my bad decisions during the period when I KNEW EVERYTHING.

If you stay with this woman, you WILL live to regret it for a VERY LONG TIME, but none of us can save you from yourself if you are intent on doing the WRONG thing.

Good Luck to you ... you most definately are going to need it.

She doesn't want contact with the other man. She has agreed that SHE will never have contact with OM again. She has spoken to his parents twice in the last month. She called them once to arrange to get her stuff from there house at a time when OM would not be there and his mom contacted her once to tell her that OM father was in the hospital. She did not go see him, just thanked them for informing her and let her go.

She has a T.V. and a bed left there that she plans on getting this weekend (with her brother and father) when we move into the other appartment. Then she plans on changing her phone # and any contact that needs to made with any of them will be via her sister.

If the final desision is to let OM see the child, visitation will be handeled by a 3rd party. Perhaps even a court opointed 3rd party.

If NC between her and OM is not kept then that is a diferant story.

I think I led you to the wrong conclusion in my erlier post. I was a bit emotional and upset. From what I understand we will raise it as our own, The OM will simply be allowed to have visitations with the child. We have not come to a conclusion about weather I will give up my rights as the father, but if I do then he will be gotten for child support.

She may be, I cant read minds. But that is not what she claims. She simply claims that she wants whats best for the child and due to her uniqe situation thinks it should atleast know it's bialogicle father.

Yes my company will not let me drop her unless we divorce. However, she stoped using it when she left. When she found out she was pregnant she applied for social security insurance and our states insurance for low income mothers. She did not use my insurance any untill she returned and I asked her to use it.
(I dont belive in using govt assistance if you dont need it)Her reasoning for not using my insurance was simple. She said there was no reason for my insurance to pay for the child if she was not with me.

This is information I did not have when I started this thread. When her affair began she was still using me for all the monitary support she could. As time went by she stoped becouse she knew it was wrong.

Again, you may be 100% correct, I cant read minds.

That would be a dificult setup to orchistrate. I found the counselor and I made the opointment. My wife did not know the counselers name untill she intraduced herself at our session. Did not know the location of the counseler untill the morning of the session, and did not know her contact information untill after the session when she gave us both a card. All my wife knew was that I had scheduled marriage counseling with a new (female) counseler at her request and the date and time of the appointment.


Again, this is where I may have screwed up in my last post. Wat I was trying to say erlier was that my wife, from the get go, had told me she did not want to move back into the house we where staying at. She IS staying there with me for the moment, but does not want to live there. This is why we are getting an appartment.

When the counseler said we where moving to fast, and asked my wife if she agrees, this is the part my W was refering to. The counseler then took that and started leading my wife. My wife admited that untill we got the new appartment she had wanted to date and see each other daily, but not live in my current (our old) residence. The counseler ran with that and started leading her more. When I went to interject, the counseler pulled her "did you here your wife" crap. She was leading her, and did not want me to interupt her leading questions.

I was flabbergasted.

The part where my wife said we needed to let go of the past and start fresh was mostly from the counselors leading questions and her wish not to live in the house we use to stay in.

My erlier post was me ranting about the counseler and how she was leading my wife. Not so much what my wife said, but how she was lead to it.

I think I peved the counseler off when we first got there. I asked her point blank if she was Pro-Marriage or not. She got rather devinsive with me saying that is what she does and didn't understand what I was talking about or why I would ask her that.

Absolutly not. You may well be 100% right and I may be deluding myself in a BS fog

I understand completly. However, there ar two other things that I may not have mentioned or maid clear enough before.

1. She left becouse she was fed up with me and my yelling and drinking. She did not leave to be with OM, she met him after she left. Being gone, feeling the mairrage was not salvagable, and being in an extream state of emmotional distrees made her extreamly vulnerable to an affair. Her leaving was atleast 50% my foult. I was not only not meeting her emotional needs, I was love busting on an hourly basis. This does not excuse the affair, or hiding it from me, or the hundreds of lies she told me to hide it when it first started. But it does explain how it came to be.

2. I asked her to leave the OM and come back to me. She did not show up on my door step after he kicked her out. She left him becouse she missed me terrably, knew she had maid a horible mistake, had seen and been told by her familly and freinds that I had changed. I had been talking to her for weeks before she left him. I offered this, I asked for it, after knowing for months she was pregnant I made the decission to ask her to come back and save her marriage, she agreed.

Thank you all for your time and input. As I said I have often failed to post the more positive aspects of my situation and my own failures in our marriage. I was not intending to decive or play games in any way. I vallue all your opinions and will not discount them. I also look forward to more input by all of you.

Thank you all very much for your patience with me.

I know I know nothing. I am young, I am nieve, and I may well be making the bigest mistake of my life. The risks are great, and there is a high potential for failure. But I want to try.

Ignore it, no. My only justification for my bad discessions would be foolishness and love.

I know non of you are attempting to slam me. But my poor desissions did not start when she left. My poor decissions are atleast 50% of what got me here. My poor decissions, judgments, yelling, criticisum, and just being a piss poor husband are what got me here. It took me a long time and a lot of IC to realize that.

I locked both hubs, threw the lever into 4lo, and climbed my way out of my financial hole. The emotional hole is one I admitedly am still working on.

Quite possably. Several people who do not know her well, but know of the situation are in complete agreance with you. But those who have been around her since her return, even the ones who agreed with you before, and gave me the exact same warnings you have, changed their tune after being around us.

This doesn't mean your not correct. I may be screwing myself, deluding myself, and be a complete fool. I may regrete this for the rest of my life. But I want to make that mistake.

This is true, and it may well be the worst mistake of my life. But I dont think it is the WRONG thing. It may be a mistake, it may be foolish, I may regrete it in the end. But I dont think anyone can catogories it as being WRONG.

If it is just flat out WRONG, then what is the right thing to do?

Again, I thank each of you for your input. I am not ignoring it, you may all be completly correct and I a fool. But I do appriciate your input and your patience with me.

Gack,

What is wrong is knowingly making a bad decision. I will repeat look at the data and make the BEST decision you can.

What I don't think you appreciate is that when I say look at the data I mean look at ALL of the data and that includes you. It includes your ability to interact and live with your W in a way that enhances both of your lives. If you cannot do this, let the OM pay for the child and leave, because the marriage will breakup anyway, and the child will not be the issue.

You need to decide on what YOU can make happen, versus what you WISH you can make happen. You control only you, and if you cannot modify your perspectives, your reactions to your perspective on things, and your ability to handle life, then what she thinks or does become of no consequence. If her actions drive you nuts, they will continue to drive you nuts. If adding a child to this situation will/does make her actions harder to take, then you are out of luck because you cannot control her actions.

Look at ALL of the data, then make the decision. This is not a soap opera, it is real life and you only get one chance each day to do the best things you can. Wishes don't count. Agreed upon goals have some validity ONLY if they are accompanied by plans to reach those goals, and those plans need to be agreed upon, evaluated, and then addressed step by step.

God Bless,

JL

I don't have time to look it up on your thread so pardon my laziness, whose idea was it to keep the OC and raise it?

This isn't to prove something, I just wanted to know.

Well said JL.

That is what I am attempting to do. I am looking at 12yrs worth of data, not just the past 6 months. I am not ignoring the last 6 months, I am just NOT ignoring the previouse 12 yrs, and my own involvment in tha failure of our marriage.

I am looking at the data, ALL the data. The affair, how/why it started. Why she stayed so long, how she ended up geting pregnant. The things we both did to couse the failure of our relationship. Things I did wrong, things she did wrong and the lessons we have both learned from this.

I know I am the only person who I can controll. I have spent 6 months in IC learning just that. My actions, my rections to others, how I handle things are all things I can control. Before 6 months ago I was not in controll of my own actions, Vadka was.

1/2 gallon every 3 days worth of vodka being in controll. I was angry about everything and instead of working on myself I lashed out at thoes around me, especially my then very faithfull wife.

She eventualy gave up on me, then the mairrage.

Thats when and how the affair started.

I will surley parden your lazieness.
(also it's not in the thread)

Abortion was never an option. My wife is, and has always been viamantly against abortion. She was that way from the time I met her till now, and I am sure will continu to be. I am pro choice as far as the law is concerned, but pro life for my own choices. I would not ask, nor expect her to abort the baby to save the marriage (and she would not anyway) It's not the childs fault.

I offered to take her and the child. So I guess you could say it was my idea. I offered to take her back and rais the child as my own.

Odly, she breifly brought up the possability of adoption several weeks ago. But I dont think she meant it or could go through with it, and if she did I think she would regret it for the rest of her life. I could not, and will not ask her, or any woman to give up there child to save a marriage. Perhaps I am wrong in that, but thats my feelings.

But if she decided to give it up for adoption, I would support her. I am almost positive that she is terrified of the OM taking custody of it. She would probably rather it be adopted then givin soley over to him.

I guess thats kinda contradictory. It's hard for me to explain, and as has been proven I am not very good at relaying information/fealings in a well orginized or easily understood way.

It's your life and you are free to screw it up as much as you want. All I can do is answer this question by putting "myself" in your position and tell you what I would do, based on my own life experiences.

IF I truly wanted to save my M, then I would have to find a way to remove the child from the equation. My first choice would be an immediate abortion (and FWIW, my FWW, FogFree, agrees with this completely, as we discussed this at length over runnerboy65's thread) ... adoption could possibly be an option, but it would require us to seperate until the baby was born and adopted out. I would not put myself through my WW's pregnancy from OM.

You see, there is simply NO WAY in He11 that I would even attempt to raise OM's child ... that would be the ultimate boundary for "ME".

Anything less would require going to Plan D.

I really don't think you've considered the extent of the humiliation you will endure or the "doormat" status this places on you in future dealings with your WW or OM. I just don't see a reason to subject yourself to this type of abuse over the mistakes of OTHERS.

There you have it ... you and others here are free to disagree, but that is simply the reality of the situation as I see it.

Gack, JL asked you some pretty important questions earlier and you didn’t respond. You don’t really have to answer, just as long as you sit down and SERIOUSLY contemplate the answers.


I agree with this too 1000%:


Your wife’s past has nothing to do with YOUR future. It’s understandable that she THINKS the child should know his biological father, but that’s not always what’s BEST for the child and it certainly not what’s BEST for your marriage.


What do you mean “from what I understand”? Are you not the husband in this marriage? Should you and she be deciding TOGETHER what is BEST for the marriage? OM doesn’t get a say.


This really concerns me. Why is she terrified of OM taking custody? Has he threatened that? Seriously? Would he have a chance? But the part that concerns me is that she would probably rather it be adopted than giving sole custody to him. Is this your own opinion of what your wife THINKS as opposed to what she has told you?

By LAW, OM doesn’t have a dog in this race. Quit giving him any place in your marriage. Your focus and your wife’s focus should only be on #1- what is BEST for your marriage and THEN #2- what is BEST for the child (in that order.)

PM has just pointed out some questions you need to ponder.


Glad she pointed the above out.

Why are you not in the decision process? This is a piece of the remorse and committment I was referring to. You are either the father of the household or you are guest / partner in a 3 way relationship. Quite frankly - OM has no say in the marriage and let him go through the court process to gain father rights. My take is that he will slink away like a cockroach.

Gack1

Why is there NC between WW and OM?

You are in a lose lose situation.

Murder the child before it's born.

Have the WW give up the OC for adoption, so you'll stay, forcing the mom to have the heart break of losing her OC.

You raise the OC and have to pay for the OM's good times with your WW.

There is no way that WW can ever even the score for you after she let the OM knock her up.



You have been together 11 years married 5. I'm old fashion. If you were able to live together for 7 years before getting married then there never was a real commitment. You two were in comfortable not inlove with each other.

Living together is only agreeing to date full time to have SF 24/7.

Usually these marriages don't last. Being together was just settling, not wanting to leave the comfort zone, things weren't bad but ok.

You are 31, young enough to find someone that would not make you wait or you make them wait 7 years to get married. You both deserve that.



Thanks to your WW's big mouth. The OM knows that he knocked up your WW. It's now to late to keep him in the dark about him being the dad. OM may fight for custody, visitation. With OM still involved in your WW co parenting with her can cause all kinds of problems. As the Harley's state without NC the affair is most likely to restart.



Lastly the Harley's suggest when their are no COM, children of the marriage, that the BH step aside and D. Letting the WW free to marry the OM. This way the OC will then be raised by both of his bio parents in one happy family. As every child derserves.

However with the OM spending in jail for beating his previous wife. I think that your WW would be better off remaining a single parent for the time being and drag the OM into court to get him to pay CS.