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I am new here. H had affair, ow is pregnant due July. We are married 8 years we have 3 children 7,5,2. Our marriage is intact. H has extreme guilt over ow and oc and the situation he has put them in and us as well. We are trying to decide c vs nc. Please tell me your story. Do you have c and it works or doesn't. Do you have nc and your marriage is intact? How does H deal with nc? How do com deal with c? Does anyone have com that have grown up with c with oc and how have they dealt with it?
Thank you Please keep us in your prayers. I am so greatful for having found this forum.
Last edited by Hoping29; 05/21/11 12:05 AM.
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Hi Hoping....so sorry you are here but are in the right place.
Dr. Harley of Marriage Builders has been very successful in assisting in the rebuilding of marriage after affairs. Our situation (with an OC) makes things a bit more difficult.
There is no right or wrong answer in this sitch. You will find folks here WITH C and WITHOUT C and that are both married and divorced. You will also find those that will try to overwhelmingly persuade you that C is the ONLY option. IT IS NOT!
HOWEVER, Dr. Harley recommends NO CONTACT with the mother OR the child. Then ONLY contact with the child when he/she reaches 18 years old. This recommendation is b/c the chance of the affair rekindling is TOO great and the pain heaped upon the betrayed spouse continues. In fact, I know of at least two women on here who's husband continued contact and now they have 2 OCs!!!!!!!
If your OW isn't due until July, you don't even know that it's your H's. Sure, she says it is, but you don't know. He MUST remain in NC with her PERIOD from here on out. THEN, when and if she pursues custody, you MUST insist on a DNA test. Until you have that proof, THE CHILD IS NOT YOUR H's. PERIOD. End of discussion.
Take the time between now and July to focus on your H and your marriage. OW is not important and will never be.
Just in case, however, you need to start thinking of a plan to financially protect you and your COMs. OW will try to rob you of all that she can and OC may end up getting more than your COM.
Please feel free to ask questions and vent. We are here for you.
Me: BS age 35 POS-eX-the SORRIEST, CRUELEST, LOWLY WAYWARD SCUMBAG out there Married 14.5 years, together almost 16 DDay: 7-5-09 OC born: 7-23-09 no COM: tried 6 years  D filed 5/05/2011 D final 11/10/11 I was gaslighted for 2 years. "You were not built for a safe story. Take risks and feel what it is like to actually be brave. It's worth it." Carlos Whittaker
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Welcome Hoping,
You will find many stories in the archives of this forum both C and NC. We are C now. My stance is with Dr. H that NC for life with OW and NC with OC until he/she is of age and can form a relationship with your H without the OW involved. Please get the book "Surviving An Affair" by Dr. Willard Harley.
I also highly recommend you get the on-line program which gives you private coaching from MB and access to the private forums which Dr. H posts on.
If you have questions about C please feel free to contact me via the email address in my profile.
Faith
me: FWW/BS 52 H: FWH/BS 49
DS 30
DD 21
DS 15
OCDS 8
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Dear Faithful follower,
Why are you with Dr. H on this, what has your experience been with C? Thank you so much for responding.
Last edited by Hoping29; 05/19/11 09:21 PM.
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Dear Failful Follower,
Also how do I get the online program?
Thank you
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Dear Failful Follower,
Also how do I get the online program?
Thank you
Faith
me: FWW/BS 52 H: FWH/BS 49
DS 30
DD 21
DS 15
OCDS 8
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Dear Faithful follower,
Why are you with Dr. H on this, what has your experience been with C? Thank you so much for responding. I don't have time right now to answer, I have to get ready for work. I will get back to you in a bit. You can click on my profile and click on read posts. Look for my thread about NC.
Faith
me: FWW/BS 52 H: FWH/BS 49
DS 30
DD 21
DS 15
OCDS 8
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Dear Hoping:
While my situation is a little different in that I am the one who had the A and got pregnant by OM, I can tell you from a wayward's perspective the issues at hand. First, I agree that until a DNA test says otherwise, that OC is not your H's. If you can avoid taking a test, fight it. My BH and I battled in court to keep OM away, and it's worth fighting for. I'm curious the context of your situation:
1. Is OW married? If so, has A been exposed to her family?
2. If OW is not married, and she pushes to take you to court, you could perhaps threaten to fight for full custody of OC based on child's best interests (to be with a "family" rather than single mom) in order to keep OW at bay and to keep her from fighting for child support.
Different situations call for different responses, so we'll be here for you the whole way through.
Now, since your H hasn't had a chance to bond with the OC yet, I strongly recommend NC until OC can develop a relationship with H without OW. Here's a few reasons why:
1. Any C with OW will put temptation on your H to rekindle A.
2. You, or a mediator (that will likely cost $), would have to handle all pickups and dropoffs--are you sure you want to have to face OW all the time?
3. OW may only want your H as part of OCs life with the hope that H will leave you. If you can cut all C and even consider moving, that may help prevent this from going further.
I know your H may have guilt about a possible child of his out there, but until a DNA test shows otherwise, you should not assume anything OW says is true.
If things turn out where COM must find out, there are ways to explain this--which my H and I will likely face at some point. But one step at a time. Keep that in mind. You'll get the grace you need to deal with each situation as it arises.
My prayers are with you, Hoping!
Me: WW
BH
DD(4)
DS(2)
DD(1)
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)
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If there has not been a DNA test done yet then I suggest you two put money away each month as though you are paying CS. Let her make the first move. I would consult a family law attorney to see if your state makes you pay back support all the way to birth or just to the date of filing. If she files then the court will order DNA, your H does not have to see OW or OC to do the DNA test. If you decide NC, not court can force the man to see the child they can only require you to provide support. Some states are ridiculous and require the father to pay for life insurance, the child's health insurance, half of day care etc. I would be prepared for the worst.
Faith
me: FWW/BS 52 H: FWH/BS 49
DS 30
DD 21
DS 15
OCDS 8
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My family is NC with OW and OC. My FWH pays CS. I chat often with others in our same situation. Some with C some without. C can lead to OC #2. Most of those with C did it because the OC was endangered overall or the WS "had to be involved". They live with a much higher amount of stress than those of us that are NC. Especially if the OP is a pot stirrer or feels that they and there OC aren't getting everything that the COM or the BS is getting.
I would not have been able to handle the stress of the OW. There would have been no benefit to our COM by introducing this to them. We packed up and moved to the other side of the country to save our marriage and our family. It was the best decision we ever made, and I didn't even know about MB's then. I totally agree with Dr. Harley's suggestion that when the OC turns 18, if they come looking for the other biological parent, then the WS needs to be forthright with the mistakes they made being involved with OP and the decisions that were made. At that point, if the BS and WS can POJA about C, then great. The OP has now been removed from the equation.
As Faithful said, go online and calculate for your State what you think the child support will be. (If you do not file for CS for your 3 COM first, the OW will get first claim rights on your H's income). Set aside the expected CS amount monthly until everything is decided. Do not admit to anything, do not do a DNA test unless it is court ordered. If she sues for paternity and child support, then you have the option, if you decide through POJA together to seek visitation using a mediator to prevent interactions between OW and your WS. You must prevent interactions between the two of them to prevent the A from restatring.
Good Luck
FTS
Me BS
D Day 4-2-2005
OC born 12-2004
DS 21, DS 12
Married 1993
May the love hidden deep inside your heart find the love waiting in your dreams. May the laughter that you find in your tomorrow wipe away the pain you find in your yesterdays.
Recovering....it's a long road, even with a dedicated FWH
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sorry you found yourself in this situation
like the others have said the child is not your H's until a dna test is done. doesn't matter what ow says. she wouldn't be the 1st one to tell that lie.
plan ahead but make her push the issue. with teh way the courts are today i wouldn't put much hope on threatening ow with you getting full or primary custody. you would have to prove her unfit, abusive or a physical threat to the child.
i would take steps to protect you and your com financially. file for cs from your h
no matter what, your h does not need to have any contact with ow. she can get thru all the child bearing stuff without him. she wouldn't be the 1st to to that either
you and your h need to take this time to reconnect and rebuild your marriage. you 2 need to focus on each other. find out what went wrong and work to correct it
my w had the A and we do have c. the om has learned to be an every other weekend father. it did cost him his marriage tho
there were a lot of potholes along the way and it definately made our recovery longer
me-59 ww-55
married 1979 - together since 1974
6 kids together 15,19,21,23,29,30
my oldest son 37
d-day (confession day) memorial day 2001
oc born 12/20/01
now 8 grandchildren
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I am new here. H had affair, ow is pregnant due July. We are married 8 years we have 3 children 7,5,2. Our marriage is intact. H has extreme guilt over ow and oc and the situation he has put them in and us as well. We are trying to decide c vs nc. Please tell me your story. Do you have c and it works or doesn't. Do you have nc and your marriage is intact? How does H deal with nc? How do com deal with c? Does anyone have com that have grown up with c with oc and how have they dealt with it?
Thank you Please keep us in your prayers. I am so greatful for having found this forum. Hi Hoping, <My situation is a little in the reverse, but in case it helps:> My nowExww got pregnant with another man's baby 10 years ago. We established NC with OM right away and he has never been involved at all, thanks to God and a very strong legal document keeping him away. I thought our marriage was intact, but it was in an incomplete recovery for years after that where the focus was on the kids, work, the house, individual interests...everything but "us." I had an RA, but it was short lived and our marriage looked from the outside like one you read about. Eventually though, there was more adultery, ultimately leading to Divorce, which I REALLY didn't want because I love my OC (now 9yo) more than life itself and I thought the least I could give her was a two-parent household. However, due to my wxw's behavior in the last year, I couldn't go on because the example I would have set for my kids would have been one of....being a doormat. How does this relate? Recovering after an affair is extremely difficult and must follow a very specific path, Dr. Harley's is one known to be the most successful; but it is not guaranteed. Contact with Other Anything makes it even more harder. optimism
Me: 43 y.o. BFWH, D-day 11/11/09 (NC since 9/01) Divorce from WW final 9/16/10. Current Status: MB-based Marriage to Nature Girl 12/8/12 (first date on 12/11/10) Mine: S(16), D(11) NatureGirls: S(23), D(21) Another EA Story
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I am new here. H had affair, ow is pregnant due July. We are married 8 years we have 3 children 7,5,2. Our marriage is intact. H has extreme guilt over ow and oc and the situation he has put them in and us as well. We are trying to decide c vs nc. Please tell me your story. Do you have c and it works or doesn't. Do you have nc and your marriage is intact? How does H deal with nc? How do com deal with c? Does anyone have com that have grown up with c with oc and how have they dealt with it?
Thank you Please keep us in your prayers. I am so greatful for having found this forum. hoping, I am so sorry you are here. You are in a huge mess and I completely sympathize. If you do decide to stay with your H, it would have to be under the condition that he NEVER contact the OW in any way, shape or form again. That is NOT NEGOTIABLE. Unless you want your future to have OTHER OC and a wrecked marriage. If he stays in contact with his OC, visitation would have to be facilitated through an intermediary. And you will have to first decide if you can even live with him having any contact with the OC at all. I would not. The point is that your marriage has to come first and you must set it up in that way. Please follow Dr Harley's advice. First listen to this radio clip: radio clip about pregnancy from an affair And Dr Harley's post: I am revising SAA and it should be in print sometime in 2011, and the problem you raise will be included in it. But it's particularly difficult to address because of our no-contact-with-the-ex-lover rule on the one hand, and the need of a child to have contact with their natural parents on the other. Our radio archives have more on this subject than anything I've written so far, because we've had several listeners call in with this problem, and I describe the approach I take.
As you probably already know by now, I tilt toward keeping the marriage healthy at the possible expense of the child not having adequate contact with the OM. I recommend that at the time of birth, the other man not be mentioned on the birth certificate unless he demands it. That makes your husband the legal parent of the child. If he does demand being on the birth certificate, I recommend that he pay child support until the child is 19. If the OM wants visitation, I recommend that it be done with transparency, so his own family knows what's going on. A mediator, paid by him, is to pick up and deliver the child so that you and your husband never have to have any contact with him.
In almost all cases that I've witnessed, the OM isn't willing to be named on the birth certificate, pay the child support, or make the situation known to his family. Under those conditions, I highly suggest that he not be able to visit his child until he or she is an adult. If an attempt is made, I suggest getting a restraining order. While that policy seems very rigid and uncaring toward the child, the alternatives are usually disastrous. Having an old lover around, the cause of your husband's greatest sadness, has such an devastating effect on the marriage that few survive.
Having heard from some of the couples who have followed this way of thinking, and others who have done the opposite, I am confident that it is the best approach to your situation.
Best wishes,
Willard F. Harley, Jr.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Dear Want healing,
OW is not married, she hasn't told anyone that my H is married with a family. She is trying to convince my H to be with her. She hasn't tried to make a plan with my H about OC's future she just keeps trying to convince him to be with her. My H doesn't want to be with her and has told her this and has been faithful now for many months. Do you hav guilt about cutting OM out of your child's life? I am worried that it will be very hard for my H to walk away from OC without a lot of guilt, and this will hurt our recovery.
Thank you
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If you do decide to stay with your H, it would have to be under the condition that he NEVER contact the OW in any way, shape or form again. That is NOT NEGOTIABLE. Unless you want your future to have OTHER OC and a wrecked marriage. If he stays in contact with his OC, visitation would have to be facilitated through an intermediary. Hoping, I'm just reposting the above to highlight it as it relates back to your latest post. Your Marriage can survive guilt. It can even survive your resentment that he fathered a child outside your marriage. It can survive a lot of things. It can not survive WH's continued contact with the OW. As Melody has said, your marriage must be the priority. Furthermore. It is really not up to you to decide what kind of guilt or any other feelings your wayward husband has about anything. You can't continue to be dictated by his feelings, or potential feelings, or what his feelings might lead to. His feelings have already lead to adultery and yielded an extra child that isn't yours... What does Hoping want? What are Hoping's feelings? opt
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Well, said opt!!!!!  Hurting, please take it from those that have walked in your shoes. It seems that you are more concerned about OC than your marriage. YES! Your H is going to have guilt. He should've kept his pants zipped. He can have guilt over OC or he can have guilt over OC AND LOSING his COM and marriage. Please take care of your marriage FIRST and FOREMOST. OC doesn't matter. You DO NOT EVEN KNOW that this child is your H's. Forget about it until you have DNA proof!!!!!
Last edited by migsamac; 05/25/11 06:53 PM.
Me: BS age 35 POS-eX-the SORRIEST, CRUELEST, LOWLY WAYWARD SCUMBAG out there Married 14.5 years, together almost 16 DDay: 7-5-09 OC born: 7-23-09 no COM: tried 6 years D filed 5/05/2011 D final 11/10/11 I was gaslighted for 2 years. "You were not built for a safe story. Take risks and feel what it is like to actually be brave. It's worth it." Carlos Whittaker
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Dear Want healing,
OW is not married, she hasn't told anyone that my H is married with a family. She is trying to convince my H to be with her. She hasn't tried to make a plan with my H about OC's future she just keeps trying to convince him to be with her. My H doesn't want to be with her and has told her this and has been faithful now for many months. Do you hav guilt about cutting OM out of your child's life? I am worried that it will be very hard for my H to walk away from OC without a lot of guilt, and this will hurt our recovery.
Thank you Oh no, guilt is the least of your worries. What will destroy your marriage is continued contact with the OW. The best thing for all involved is no contact with the OC and especially the OW.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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P.s. And yes your H will have guilt no matter what he does. Unless he is a sociopath. Your H has done a horrendous, despicable thing to do. He should feel bad.
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.." Theodore Roosevelt Exposure 101
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Hoping, I do understand the guilt issue. Certainly I've gone through that big-time. But I feel more guilty about what I did to my BH. Did OM ever feel guilty about what his actions did to my BH? No. We're still in the middle of fighting OM in court, but in the case that OM is part of OC's life, we will have to ensure I never see or speak to OM again...EVER. For life. Even if that means I have to miss things because OM is there. My future is not with my children; it's with my husband. Same with you and yours. Children will grow up and move on. But you will grow old with your spouse. Keep that in mind as you make decisions together.
If it does turn out that you and your H decide together that you want to find out if OC is H's and be part of OCs life, then you'll just have to take extreme measures to ensure that H never sees OW again. And H must be willing to do anything and everything to ensure he never sees OW. In my case, my BH has handled all contact with OM and it's allowing true recovery to maintain strict NC. And eventually the guilt does pass.
Me: WW
BH
DD(4)
DS(2)
DD(1)
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)
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