This is my first post. I've read many boards trying to gain insight to see if there are any situations close to mine, but it's obvious every situation is different.

I found out my husband was having an A 2 years ago. Our marriage had really fallen apart. He was having an exit affair. He'd gone as far as getting an apartment and nearly draining all the bank accounts. I left him and filed for divorce in January 2010. We had been married 14 years. It was a very difficult time. Through some very ugly knock down drag out fights, somehow or another we ended up discussing not throwing the towel in at the end of February. We started off very slowly. He ended things with the xOW who was then his girlfriend. She was quite livid when she found out he was going back to his wife after waiting for him to leave me for a year. When I left him, she just assumed they would continue on with their lives.

Right before we moved back in together in May, he received that fateful phonecall that she was pregnant. He told me right away. He wanted me to make my own decision as to whether or not I still wanted to reconcile the marriage. His stance on this was that he just wanted to pay child support. He didn't think our marriage could handle having any contact with the child. It took me several weeks to work things out in my mind, but I knew that if my husband decided he didn't want to be a father to his own child, he wasn't the man I thought he was.

We didn't hear anything from her until after the baby was born in December. At first she tried to use the baby as a weapon. She wanted my husband to come see the baby, but he had to come alone, and was not allowed to take the baby anywhere. Well of course that didn't work out.

We went for DNA testing, didn't fight the amount of child support according to the state. Did she get a lot of money? Heck yeah. He feels bad about that, as he should. That's a lot of money a month being taken from our household funds. But it is what it is.

We have regular visitation now with the baby who will be 10 months old. Is it hard? Sometimes. But when the baby is here, I just know we are doing the right thing for us. Our marriage is strong enough to handle this. I won't babysit my husband. If he wants to sneak around and have an affair, it's obvious I can't really do much about that, he's done it before right? It's his responsibility to do right by me, while also doing right by this child. We shop together for the baby. We enjoy the baby during our visitation. My feelings on this are everyone finds out eventually. I didn't want the child showing up on the doorstep 15 years from now wanting to know why my husband wasn't around. It wouldn't be fair to that child. Being married, is a choice. Biology isn't. And that's just how I feel about it. Someday when this baby is older, the story of how the child came about will be hard enough to handle, but if we can provide love and support, it shouldn't matter. The child is an accepted member of the family, even though we have grandchildren older than the child.

Overall, I found out a LOT of legal stuff I didn't know when this ordeal started. Particularly regarding fathers rights, which I was totally prepared to fight the good fight with him had xOW not finally realized her child had an opportunity to be loved and accepted by this side of her family.

The bottom line is I'm happy, my marriage is better than it's been in many years. I can look at my husband and respect him for doing the right thing for everyone. In part, I think it's my willingness to accept this child into our lives, that's made my husband love and respect me more than he has in a long time. I would never want him to resent me because he abandoned his child, whether or not his reasons sounded good at the time.

Welcome to MB. No your situation is not unique. None of them are. Affairs are ugly and having an OC in your life is difficult no matter how you paint the picture. Are you interested in working the MB program to help improve your M and affair proof it?

Who does the pick ups and drop offs? Who communicates with the xOW? Do you have COM?

We don't have COM, but I have a daughter from my first marriage. My H is her stepfather. She was part of the decision making process as to how we were going to handle the OC in our family. She was upset about the A, she was upset about the OC, but was always on the side of OC. She didn't think the OC should pay for my H mistake. My daughter has children, so I am sure this played a big part in how she handled it as well.

Pick up and dropoffs are done together. Contact with xOW is limited. There have been times that I had to say, that's not a reason to contact you. We were basically NC for the first several months because it was clear she wasn't looking out for the best interest of the child and was going to great lengths to try to cause additional problems between my husband and I, using the baby as the pawn in her game. Any chance that my husband would harbor feelings for her were really blown by her actually. She kept the baby away from him, made sure he knew he had no legal rights, and pretty much dangled the baby like a carrot. Those were difficult months for all of us. The saddest part is a woman can get all kinds of help when it comes to filing for child support. It costs her absolutely NOTHING, even if she isn't on any kind of assistance. Most states have programs that even file the paperwork. But when it comes to fathers rights? There lots of advice but not any programs to help him. To be honest it was going to cost us $4000 to just file for visitation and paternity. Any contempt issues would have drawn us back to court. I'm not promising it will not get to that point, because I'm pretty sure it will. But my husband stood firm. He said he wanted to be a part of the baby's life. But it wasn't going to be on xOW's terms.

Yes, affairs are ugly. Having an OC is very difficult when I let myself get caught up in how we have an OC to begin with. Communication between my husband and myself has never been better. We discuss everything, and we do nothing unless we are both in 100% agreement.

Well unfortunately, this is a not a plan for recovery. Good "communication" is not the secret to a loving, sustainable marriage. Even the best communicators end up divorced. All the "communicating" in the world will not affair proof your marriage and will not restore romantic love. The basic issue I see here is that you have not affair proofed your marriage and have no plan for recovery. You are just winging it. Having no plan is a plan for failure.

The fact that your H has not ended contact with his former lover means that recovery of your marriage is impossible and you are at risk for a SECOND OC. Just because you are along for the visits, does not negate the fact that he is triggered. Is an alcoholic any less triggered if someone watches him drink? Of course not. Recovery is impossible under the conditions you describe.

I am very surprised that you have not done more to recover your marriage. Do you want some help?

GoMyOwnWay, Dr Harley has salvaged hundreds of these marriages over the years and here are his suggestions about saving your marriage: radio clip here

I would strongly advise that you take his advice if you are really serious about saving your marriage. Just good "communication" is not recovery. And it won't compensate for the continued contact with his OW. You are playing chicken with your marriage.

I'm wondering if you or your H have contact with xOM. If so, I'd say that needs to stop immediately, especially for your H's sake.

There is no question that your acceptance of the OC as a member of your family is laudable and courageous. It's strange, however, that you don't seem overly concerned if your H cheats again. Believe me, if you don't respect yourself enough to not endure infidelity, you can be sure he doesn't respect you enough to be faithful (if he hasn't already relapsed). I'd say you need to decide if you want marriage in the traditional sense or an open arrangement of serial infidelity. If you don't act fast (complete NC with OW for life and work the MB program), I'd say you're going to get the latter.

"GoMyOwnWay" is an interesting name to choose. Essentially, you have come to Marriage Builders to tell us that you have no intention of following the programme. Why go to those lengths?

So, OW did not want her ex married man - your husband - involved in the child's life. From your point of view, this NC with OC would have given your marriage the best chance of recovery, had your husband's primary commitment been to your marriage. Instead it has been to his OC.

Rather than being being glad of that opportunity to rebuild your marriage, your H was willing to go to court and spent thousands of dollars to keep the child - and by extension his OW - in your marriage.

You support him in this. Your words underlined above show that you are more angry about "fathers' rights" - i.e. the lack of existing support for your H to gain legal rights to his OC - than what his determination says about your H's attitude to your marriage.

He was/is willing to choose his OC over your marriage. Do you see that? And you support that?

If you read my first post, it clearly outlines that my H's first choice was our marriage and provide financial support for the child. We didn't come to these decisions over night. We talked things through. There have been many times that he's again suggested it would be better to just pay the money and leave it alone, but when we sit and talk things through, we come to an agreement together.

I promise you that I could wake up tomorrow and say to him, you know what, this isn't working the way we thought it would, perhaps you were right with your initial assessment to just pay support and leave it alone, and he would.

This child wasn't a parting gift. This is his child. Nowhere in my posts did I ever indicate that my husband was or is willing to put anything above our marriage, that's a presumption you came to on your own. We HAVE talked about the money factor when it comes to attorney fees and such.

Is it a surprise to you that the xOW did not want my H in the child's life? Like a punishment, if he didn't stay with her, then he chooses not to be a father to his child? I don't agree. And neither did he. But as I've said before, nothing in any of my posts have ever indicated that my husband has or will make any decision without my direct input and/or full agreement. This was part of how we decided to reconcile our marriage. That every detail would be discussed until we could discuss it no longer, and only when we were positive the actions we were taking were the right ones, did we act on them.

This is NOT easy. We take every single factor into consideration, our marriage, our family, the OC, financial and emotional tolls on all.

Am I angry about father's rights? Heck yes I am. YOU assumed that my H had a different attitude towards our marriage, when in fact I never indicated that. do YOU see that? I can sit up here and without a doubt have full control over this entire situation. Without a doubt. But I decided for me to make the rules, isn't really about my H and I doing what's best for our marriage as it is about making me happy. Do I deserve to be happy? Absolutely I do. But so does everyone else in our family. We have decided that OC is part of this family.

I do like a lot of the marriage builders programs, but I also know that NC is favored. Which is fine. I guess it was a mistake after all to post anything. I supposed I just wanted to let anyone else caught in my position know that you can be okay. Even when it feels you won't ever be okay, you will be.

Go,
I don't think anyone is necessarily questioning your H's level of commitment to your M. What IS being questioned is his continued contact with the OW which is strictly forbidden as a principle of MB.

Yes, NC is favored, but it is definitely different strokes for different folks, works for some, and not for others.
However, Dr. H DOES recommend NC with the OW and OC until the OC is 18.

No one will judge you for having C with the OC (well most won't). What will cause you problems here is your H's continued C with the OW.


Of course, you know your H and I don't, but I don't think this is possible. Once C has started with the OC, you can't just "leave it alone". He isn't going to walk away from his child, now. Is this his only child? Or does he have any kiddos from previously relationships (other than you DD, his SDD)? Just curious. My POS stbxH was DESPERATE to be a father (I couldn't have kids) and thus readily tossed me aside. I think if these men DON'T have kids and WANT kids, it makes NC a near impossible option (for them).

Just my two cents....

I apologise and take back some of what I said. I did not acknowledge this part of your post:

It seems that you wanted the OC to be part of your marriage. Your H didn't. How do you feel your marriage has benefited from regular contact with OC? Why would you have thought less of him had he followed his instincts, and Dr Harley's advice, and simply paid child support?

I am amazed that you feel that your marriage can withstand contact with OW. From what I have seen in my own marriage and on this board, repeated contact with OP is a cast-iron guarantee of the rekindling of the affair.

You describe yourself as happy, and your marriage as better than it has been in years. Why do you feel your marriage is strong enough to handle this? How has it changed since it fell apart two years ago?

migs, I did question that, but this was based on my sloppy reading of the first post. I have apologised for that.

It's not that "NC is favored" but that NC is the first step towards recovery. Recovery is impossible without that first step. So no, someone else caught in your position will not be okay if they follow your bad advice. We have marriages that experienced SECOND OC's doing exactly what you are doing. That is not "okay." That is stupid.

The fact that you and your husband agreed on this poor plan does not mean it is good for your marriage. My H and I can agree to smoke Marlboro cigarettes; our agreement does not negate the damaging consequences of smoking. It is the same with the poor judgement demonstrated in your case. I don't believe you are recovered at all, and that you will probably be facing a resumed affair in the future. Your idea of a good marriage, after all, is "communicating." Unfortunately, you are going to have to learn the hard way that your plan was one of very poor judgement.

It seems her husband had the wisdom and foresight to understand the right thing to do but she vetoed it and supplanted it with her very poor judgement. She doesn't understand the dynamics of infidelity or what it takes to recover a marriage. Saying her marriage is "strong enough to handle this" is like bragging that I am "strong enough to go drunk driving."

There is no "strength" in taking foolish risks. Only stupidity. Her marriage has suffered adultery and a separation and now has an OC and she calls her marriage "strong" enough to subject it to foolish risks. That is some serious delusion coupled with very bad judgment.

You guys are a really tough crowd and a lot of assumptions are being made.

Contact, let me clear this up. I mentioned there was a situation that she contacted him and I said it was inappropriate. She called about a rash. She didn't need to call my husband about a rash. This isn't her first child, and she's not a young mother. It was inappropriate and I spoke up. Beyond that contact, the only contact we or he has had with her is court, pick up and drop offs and I am present for all of those. That clears that up. I'm being insulted for allowing contact and risking another OC.. when I never indicated there was contact with xOW in the FIRST place. I went back and reread what I wrote, and I'm positive I never even implied that was happening.

So many questions, I'll answer them the best I can, but I can't promise they will be in order they came.

This is my H only biological child. IF the situation became a threat or problem to my marriage, I am confident we would do what we needed to do.

Personally, I think my H would have regretted making the decision to have NC with his child. I think no matter how many times he would tell himself it was the right thing to do, I do believe he would feel bad about himself.

I resent having my judgement questioned. But that seems to be okay somehow.

How has my marriage changed? Well before the A, for years I would say, we were both miserable. I hated to come home from work. We barely spoke other than what bill was due. When I found out about the A, it almost felt like a relief to me. It wasn't until after we seperated with my full intent to divorce him that maybe years of a bad marriage lifted itself. We started really talking, something we hadnt done in years. This still holds true. There are no more nights of just tv or internet. We actually enjoy being together. We are best friends again. We laugh together, and we are there for each other.

Someone mentioned I was the one that wanted OC as part of my marriage. Not at all. There is nobody in my marriage except me and my husband. I just know my husband. The guilt would have eaten him alive. He went through his life not wanting children. It wasn't his plan, but now there is that little person. Despite the fact she is my OC, I love her because she is part of my husband.

I'm not foolish or naive. I used to let this consume me to the point that I stopped living my life. It's heartbreaking. Knowing there is someone that shares something with my husband that I never will, cuts to the bone. But I choose to try to work past that. We have OC at our house one day on the weekend every week. When she gets a little older, we will do every other weekend, but keep her for the whole weekend.

I don't understand how so many things can be misunderstood in my post and I can be judged so harshly. I didn't force my H to have contact. I personally made NO decisions. Not ONE thing has been said or done without us mutually agreeing on what we think is best for us.

I don't know what the future holds. It's obvious that nobody does. I can choose to follow marriagebuilders principals to the letter, and there's no written guarantee that my husband won't have another affair, or rekindle the same affair. We can't control the other person.

I feel like we hit the bottom of the barrel. This had the potential to destroy our marriage. It didn't. I think we feel a bit more connected because it was harder to stick it out together.

I never said my H chose to have contact with the OC above my marriage, I never said he had contact with xOW, yet all those things were assumed and I was insulted.

I think it's better for me to move on. One of the issues I was able to identify is I spent way too many hours on the internet and neglected my family. I am probably not in a position to offer advice to anyone because apparently my view on things is jaded and misguided.

It's really a shame. God forbid I DID need advice, or wanted advice now or in the future.

Do I think 5 years from now I'll still feel the same? Well hopefully. But in the meantime I'm glad my marriage is surviving this.

Actually you did say there was continued contact and you just affirmed it above again. He is in contact with her when you pick up and drop off the child. That is contact. Any time he sees her is "contact." The fact that you are there is irrelevant because that does not negate the trigger. If an alcoholic has a drink, are the effects mitigated because someone watches him take the drink? Of course not. Every time he sees her his feelings are triggered and you are back to day 1 of recovery. Pretty soon the temptation will collide with opportunity since he is being continually tempted. And believe me, you won't be around when that happens.

But you don't understand that because you don't understand the dynamics of adultery and have even less of an idea what it takes to recover a marriage.


Let me assure you that your confidence is ill founded. I say this not to be mean, but because you do not understand the first thing about what it takes to recover a marriage. Your H has much better instincts about recovery but you did not listen to him.


More evidence of bad judgement. The greater risk is the continued threat to your marriage that you don't seem to comprehend.


Yet, no mention of a romantic marriage, which is true recovery. Your focus is on communication and being "friends," neither of which will hold a marriage together. You likely did all those things in the early years of your marriage and look where it led you? It did not protect your marriage from an affair before and it won't now. The best communicators end up divorced. You have no plan for recovery here. A marriage does not repair itself magically. And just being good communicators is not enough to recover or sustain a marriage.

GMOW, we are not being mean to you, just trying to point out that you are playing chicken with your marriage and are surprisingly unaware of that. You don't have experience in this, so it is understandable that you wouldn't know what to do. Please try and keep an open mind and listen to those who have been through this and come out successfully on the other side.

Dr Harley is a clinical psychologist with 40 years experience and he knows what he is talking about. What you are doing is a disaster to your marriage and is very likely to lead to a resumed affair and/or a second OC. And it certainly will not result in a recovered marriage.

Did you listen to Dr Harley's radio clip I posted above?

Your H seeing OW at pick ups and drop offs is contact. Dr Harley has found with his clients that even brief contact like this is detrimental to the marriage. It does not allow the WS's feelings to fade, and it very often leads to a resumption of the active part of the affair.

Your H had strong feelings for that woman once, and these have the potential to be rekindled every time he sees her. When he decides one day that he misses her badly and wants to speak to her again, he won't tell you about the phone call he makes to her. Your being present for pick ups and drop offs is no reassurance of anything. Your H is triggering his memories of their times together every time he sees her, and your being there makes no difference to that. His seeing her is needlessly risky behaviour.

This board exist so that posters can offer each other Dr Harley's solutions to their marital problems. If you came here seeking advice, you would most certainly be given it but it would be Dr Harley's Marriage Builders advice.

If your original post was ever the basis of advice to other people, then you are right; it would be challenged here. Those of us who have read case after case here, and those of us like me who have had repeated false recoveries and resumptions of the affair, will challenge anyone who suggests that contact with OP can work. Even brief pick ups and drop offs, with the BS present, are contact, and many of us have learned the hard way where that leads.

Go,
Can your H END ALL C with the OW? Since you are willing, can you and only you do all the drop offs and pick ups and all communication with OW?

Do you have complete and unrestricted access to your H's cell, email, etc?

Just curious......

Here is Dr Harley's recommendation: