It depends on the state. In certain states, the husband is assumed to be the father of the child, and if he does not contest paternity himself, then no one else can claim custody. The OM cannot get the paternity tested. That is the way the law should be. If a man fathers a child with a married woman, he shouldn't have any rights to the child. To he11 with him. He trampled all over the rights of the BH. If OM wants a child, he can have one with an eligible female. He shouldn't be allow to break up a marriage which could possible have other kids involved as well.

Actually, I don't think the law should indicate the husband is assumed to be the father. If there is going to be any law, it should be that if the mother is married, the child is tested to see if the husband is the father, and if not, he's given the truth and a choice right then.

If the husband has no idea he's not the bio father, then either he needs to know at birth, or he needs the right to protect himself should he learn of his wive's infidelity in the future. The worst thing is for an ex-husband to be saddled with support for a child who is not his.

In such a case, protect the child by knowing who the bio father is, and ensuring he pays support should the betrayed husband not want to support another man's child.

But in no way should a man ever be forced to support a child he did not father. EVER.

He can volunteer. But the statute of limitations should never end. If he finds out when the child is 16, then he should be given the opportunity to protect himself emotionally and financially.

Well, there's a difference between what you think the law ought to be and what the law actually is. Right now, the law recognizes the husband as the legal father of any child born into the marriage. The H can challenge paternity if he wishes and ask for a DNA test, but wanthealing's H doesn't want to challenge paternity. He has accepted this child as his own and wants to raise the child, and the law supports his right to do so, as it should. He isn't being forced to support this child against his will. He is doing so willingly.

I don't understand how anything I've said shows a lack of remorse. I've offered to let my BH go and give him everything, but he wants to stay in it and continue building a family together. I do too, but I want my BH to be happy again someday. Maybe not now; maybe not for years. But someday I want him to feel like he made the best decision for himself--whether it's with or without me. I'm not forcing him to stay with me. Despite one year of horrible, we've had over a decade of really good. Maybe that's enough for him to want to stay. I can't get into his head to know the whys, but he's dead set against a D. I'm thrilled with that, but I don't want to see him self-destruct.

As for the OM, we're not concerned right now with how he's feeling. We figure the court will determine the outcome for us. Right now we don't even know the paternity for sure (no real test was ever done, but OM wants to know). My BH feels like OM has no right to demand a DNA test. And if OM gets rights, so be it, but a third party will have to handle all exchanges. I never want to hear from OM or see him again. And my BH may slip and kill him if he saw him, so that eliminates him from any C as well. We've made our decision to stick together no matter what the outcome, and my BH does not see OM in the OC. He actually still believes OC is his own. He hates the thought of finding out otherwise. I don't blame him; I can't imagine being in his shoes. I'm trying to understand so that I can do what I need to do to help him...or point him to help here on MB. I'm still working on trying to get him to post. No luck yet on that.

And I do appreciate getting the "other" perspective, because I WANT to know how to empathize with my BH. That's why I posted here in the first place. I want him to know this will never happen again, which I can't expect him to blindly trust, but I'll do my best to show him the truth of my conviction for the rest of my life. BH has full access to everything. He knows the full truth about everything, reads my posts here, has all access to my phone, and I've even told him about programs he can use to monitor everything I do on the computer. I've encouraged him to track my car mileage and will get a GPS phone if that helps. He's not even the one who wants to do all of this, but I WANT his accountability. I acted like a whore and his mercy toward me was undeserved. So now we're recovering...at least trying to.

Meloday Lane, when you said you would have trouble accepting a DIL who did this to your son, do you have any advice on how my BH and I can handle that? I am VERY close to my in-laws (we see them several times a week) and that relationship is very important to us. I don't know if there's any way to salvage that after all of this, but I want to try. My BH insists on waiting to expose it to them, since we're still waiting on the facts to all come in, but it's gonna happen eventually. Any advice for that talk? Our pastor, who knows everything, is willing to go with us as a mediator, but I don't know what's a good idea and what's not.

Thank you for the help and advice. I want to help my M and my BH. That's all I care about right now.

I wonder why you have not replied to my first post to you on this thread.

Could you do me the honor, please?

Geez, why is the morality and ethics of this being debated? We all agree that WW/OM both behaved with utter disregard for those. They were both also completely irresponsible to do so without taking simple precautions against unplanned pregnancy. Neither one of them can claim any �moral high ground� here. Before anything else, the ensuing practical and legal issues must be resolved.

With all due respect to the moderator, at this point there is no rebuilding or restoration of the marriage relationship possible right now. Why? It comes down to 2 inter-related facts:

Complete NC has not yet been established with the OM due to his paternity claim and...

The BH, due to the unresolved complexities of the OC/legal issues, has zero clarity with regard to the potential future. He is not in a position yet to even begin making a rational judgment on the question of recovery vs divorce because he lacks so much vital info.

The above 2 points are a CONSTANT & RECURRING TRIGGER for the BH here and, while I do not condone the outward physical expressions of his hurt/rage/confusion/violation, we all agree that it is perfectly understandable and normal for him to be experiencing very strong negative emotions for quite some time.

HW, I know you don't control the court calendar or the judge, but I would advise you to do all in your power to bring a speedy resolution to the OC/OM situation, whatever that may be. Your BH deserves to have some definitive factual basis upon which to envision what his/yours/OC's future life would realistically look like BEFORE he decides for sure whether you & he should work towards recovery or go your separate ways. You made this mess so you need to take the lead in bringing clarity and �tying up the loose ends� so to speak.

If there is any doubt whatsoever as to who is the actual biological father, that needs to be proven first. I�m assuming it is indeed the OM.

Will the OM voluntarily relinquish custodial/visitation claims to his OC? I gather he is holding firmly to those via legal channels.

If this remains so, then you have two choices. You can renounce your parental rights (which I doubt you even want to consider but you should if you want to save your marriage) or you can push for a court decision and roll the dice. The latter, unless the OM is somehow legally �unfit�, is�prepare yourself�very likely going to result in some sort of joint custody/visitation arrangement. In other words, Mr. OM is very likely going to be granted the legal right to see/have his daughter part-time.

Your BH, no matter how much right now he loves the OC and wants to raise her together, needs and deserves to know in advance what that is going to entail before he can make a logical decision about your marriage. Right now, he�s still in shock and fighting to hold his life together. The emotional limbo he is in currently is not fair to him one bit. He needs to know if OC is going to be legally �yours alone� (plural) or if OM is going to be involved/have access. I doubt, understandably, if he is going to feel the same way if/when he finds out that OM will be taking his daughter every other weekend for the next 18 years.

If, as I suspect, it is going to end up being a shared arrangement, then TRUE, COMPLETE, PERPETUAL NO CONTACT with the OM will be virtually impossible. MB principles teach us that such NC is absolutely vital to genuinely recover a marriage tarnished by adultery. MB also teaches us that, without it, the BS is repeatedly triggered, trust & intimacy become nearly impossible to restore, and the affair is not uncommonly renewed at some point down the road. Basically, without full NC, there exists no real recovery and divorce becomes all but inevitable.

I would advise you to do all that you can to give your BH the clarity (come what may) he needs so he can make a wise decision. If the OM can�t be �removed from the picture� in some fashion, then your BH should frankly cut his losses via divorce, take time to heal, and then find a woman who doesn�t cheat on him and get herself knocked-up.

Sorry, but adultery has consequences�

wanthealing, whatever you do, DO NOT voluntarily get a DNA test if your BH isn't asking for one. This will just give the OM leverage in his court case. His case was already denied once. There's a very good chance it will be denied again. This could be jeopardized if you voluntarily get a DNA test without a court order. If your BH really wants to raise this baby as his own regardless of who the biological father is, the worst thing you could do right now from a legal standpoint is to have the DNA test done.

WH, my preference would be to see you and your H go alone to see his parents. [when he is ready] If you went with a pastor I would think you were hiding out and that would bother me. I would want to see you man up and face me. That would mean alot to me. That you care enough about my boy and ME to face the music. You should be the one to tell her and when you do, I would strongly emphasize your remorse and sorrow for hurting her son. Assure her that you have taken steps to prevent this from ever happening again. She will be upset that you hurt her boy, so reassuring her will be tantamount.

And be prepared to get a bad response. She will be VERY HURT about this. Just be as compassionate as possible.

And I hope she is not a Texas mama! You might get pistol whipped!

O.M.G. O.M.G. it just occurred to me that his parents know you are pregnant and believe this is HIS natural child.

And you are seeing them several times a week while decieving them.

oh boy.

Actually, I think the baby is about 6 months old now, and the BH's parents do indeed believe that this is their biological grandchild.

wanthealing, is it his goal to deceive them in the hopes that this won't come out? Because I am just telling you that this will be worse the longer you wait to tell them. The longer you deceive them and allow them to think this is their son's child, the MORE resentment they will have.

As a parent, I might be able to overcome the fact that my son was not the father but boy howdy, if you compounded the crime by allowing me to oooh and aaaah over "my grandchild" for months I would be deeply resentful.

I think your H needs to rethink that strategy. If there is any chance of this coming out, he is making a big mistake by deceiving them.

I just don't even know what to say.

In this case, he is making the choice.

What of those husbands who are kept in the dark? Should the law continue to assume they want to support a child who is not theirs?

I clearly said such support should be voluntary. I agree with those who are saying he may not be in a place where he can rationally decide, but he's an adult and it's on him.

So I'm not arguing against his right to do so. However, I think the law should also protect the rights of the betrayed husband who ends up with an OC that he doesn't even realize is not his.

It's that case where I think it's unconscionable to expect the BH to continue to support a child he just learned was not his.

It's at the point where the BH has full knowledge of the paternity of the child should any clock on making a decision begin. Not at the birth of the child.

I agree, if he's keeping this from his parents then this bad news does not get better with age.

wanthealing,

I just wanted to send my support to you and your husband, this is a tough situation for everyone, it is going to take a lot of strength and caring on your part, your husband has decided to stay in the marriage and stick it out even with this situation.........you are one lucky woman, don't worry about whether he will be happy down the road, things will all work out in time. He can walk away now he knows that, he didn't because he is where he wants to be.......
The future will take care of itself, you need to look after him today to make that happen..........
Right now I agree with the your logic, there is no answer for anyone involved, let the courts decide and live with that ruling.........The Om has already lost one court case, let it all play out and just accept the outcome......and deal with what happens together. Either way you two can love that child with or without the test, the true test of a loving parent is how much they are willing to do for a child every day.........it's the day to day life and experiences that make a great parent......If the other man ends up in the picture some way, deal with that, the child is still yours for you and your husband to love.........
Don't let the legal change any of that..............
Have faith in love in your husband and the commitment you share as a couple now and as a family
Good luck

Pepperband, if you are referring to your advice, then I appreciate that and I'm going to talk that over with my BH tonight.

If you're referring to thread discussion about the OC situation, then yes, I would like to keep the discussion about recovering our M, not about OM rights when it comes to OC. We're letting the law figure that out for us right now. And we're not doing anything to establish paternity unless required by law--thanks, writer1!

WH,

One form of contact you cannot prevent is OM/OMs children/ OMs family contacting your OC sometime later in life, or your OC searching them out. Given his need to have contact with OC this will happen in the future.

Your OC may also turn out to be like me, a scouring pad, who hunts down every detail. This is a wild card.

My Adoptive father wanted to keep all the details of my parentage locked away, and to do so he got my adoptive Mother to agree to never say anything and my adoptive brother and various in the know extended family members. But really it was just like any other lie in that you have to get others to lie along with you.

When my adoptive Mother was in her 80s she related how she wanted to tell me the truth for decades, my Brother too unloaded his stories to me along with various extended family members and associates.

One family friend unloaded her story about my babyhood just about a month ago, I was relating the details I knew, and she told me facts I had never heard before, she is in her 90's.

God Bless
Gamma

PS The OC absolutely needs the truth about his paternity, if not now then 3 years from now when the legal smoke has cleared. Should the OM take ill your OC might never forgive you for letting him die without seeing him. This happened with my biological Mother.

The answer is to bring CLARITY to the situation and let the chips fall where they may. That's the only grown-up way to handle this. The involved parties need to have the TRUTH to make reasoned and honest decisions.

Right now, the whole thing is a rat's nest of deceptions, intrigue, and denials. The affair has not been exposed. The family thinks the OC is biologically of the husband/wife. The BH is burying his head in the sand by apparently not pursuing a paternity test although he has the legal right to one. The OM is attempting to enforce via court action his custodial rights as the alleged bio father. And note that HealingWanted in both threads expresses no doubt who is the bio father�she has ID�d the OM and informed both OM & BH of that suspicion. Obviously, she knows quite precisely when conception likely took place, who she was �with� then, and with whom protection may or may not have been in place.

I defer to the legal experts on who can/cannot legally request a paternity test. If it is only the BH, then that is the law, right or wrong. I sincerely hope that this BH chooses to get one and that no one, esp. HW, attempts to prevent or dissuade him from choosing to do so. He has a right to know and would be foolish, no matter how much he loves this OC, to deceive himself and leave lingering doubts in his mind. If his WW cheats again and/or they get a divorce down the road, he could easily find himself saddled with support payments for a child he did not father.

I don't think he's burying his head in the sand. I just think he's dumbstruck and can't bring himself to make a decision. Remember the marine (DRO)and his wife that were here for a short while about three months ago? I think wanthealing should read that thread. I am waiting for DRO to come back and tell us how he is doing but I don't think he'll return.

wanthealing, I feel bad for you because I don't think that your husband is going to be able to deal with this, and the impending fallout once his family knows. You can be the best blue ribbon world class wife from this moment on and it won't matter a damn if your husband cannot get past the fact that his little bundle of joy is not his at all. Like I said, Dr Harley does say that recovery is possible but a BH would have to be really motivated, and I would have to ask you, if the situation was reversed would you be motivated to work it out with yourself and someone else's kid?

That's why I would be asking your husband to come here, he's too ashamed to go to his family and he has no one to work this through to whatever conclusion he arrives at.