My previous post was deleted. Does anyone know why?

Shocked, I don't know what happened. I edited a post on the thread this morning and the system somehow deleted the entire thread. If you have your email to Dr Harley please start up a new thread with that email. I apologize for the error.

Are you willing to re-post the gist of your lost first post? I think it might help people to know the backdrop when Dr Harley replies to you - and perhaps you could post his reply here, too.

While you're at it, would you be willing to tell us the history of how your husband and this woman became involved? When and how did you find out about the affair? Was she already pregnant by the time you found out? Did she ever try to force him to be involved with the baby? How did you decide to be in no contact with the child (good decision, as we said on the lost thread)?

Dr. Harley talked about my email on the show yesterday, however, I was unable to hear it. I tried every way to listen to the rebroadcast and none of the outlets worked. I tried from my desktop, another computer, and tried looking for an app. Nothing, unfortunately, so I missed it all. I emailed Joyce, but have yet to hear back. I wonder if they will archive it soon?

Onto the gist of the series of events - My husband met a woman at a gas station (she was the clerk) in fall 2011. At the time, my husband worked as a mechanic at an automotive shop. The gas station was located next door to my home, so he frequented there often. Through flirting, they exchanged numbers. Soon, she had car trouble. From what I'm told, he went to her apartment complex to look at her van's brakes --- all unbeknownst to me. I was caught up in a new job and caring for our then almost 2 year old daughter. From about August 2011 - April 2012 they exchanged about 400 texts. In February was when the encounter happened (she says multiple times, he says one - she agrees she fell pregnant "the first time"). After she found out about the pregnancy, he cut her off completely according to him. From her side of the story - because yes in the beginning I fell into the trap of falling for everything she said - he was happy about the pregnancy, etc and even helped her pick out names. He said that any reason he even text her back after the pregnancy was so that she would keep her emotions at bay and not come to me. I still didn't know at this point. The baby was born in October 2012. She contacted him the day she was born. He responded that she had the wrong number, so she gave up. Until March 2013 when she messaged him on Facebook. Well, I found the message when I was at work. It went something along the lines of that he needed to begin paying child support and helping her raise the baby. At first I was full of all of the emotions, of course. I threatened her, yelled at her, called her names, all of the things. Finally we had to realize we needed to stop engaging with her. We thought we could form an alliance and co-parent with her. Nope. She was constantly vile and filled with hatred. Throughout the years she would contact me directly. Never him. The last time was 2 weeks after I had our son, wondering if our daughters (his/hers and ours) could meet and begin to get to know one another. I never responded, as usual. We decided on no contact just simply due to the fact that the mother would never step up and be mature.

I really wish I could have heard the broadcast yesterday. Did anyone hear it?

Shocked, we checked with Dr. Harley and there was a problem with the stream yesterday but it should be resolved today. He will be rebroadcasting yesterday's show since it was never aired, and that email was discussed in two segments. It should be available after 1pm CST.

Thanks!

Shocked, here is the link to your show https://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=11165 They address your email in the 2nd segment.

I am listening now and Dr Harley is recommending the OC be raised by the OW's siblings. "I look at the adoption of this child as a trigger for Shocked." He thinks it would be bad for your marriage and said that the decision should be made Shocked and Shocked alone.

Thank you everyone. I enjoyed the show. It helped me understand what questions I need to be asking myself and my husband before we move any further.

Hi Shocked,

Thank you for this account. However, I wonder if you could give the details that were lost in the vanished thread, where you talked about custody.

I believe you said that you were told you and your husband had custody by default, and that if OW's boyfriend wanted to keep the girl, he would have to challenge you in court. Is that correct? Could you clarify who told you that?

I remember asking you where the girl is living now, but I don't remember whether you answered that before the thread disappeared. Could you tell us now?

Shocked, in listening to the show it seems that Joyce misunderstood and thinks you have custody. Even so, Dr Harley felt it would be a bad idea to take in this child. What are your thoughts about taking her in?

Yes... we were told by a number of potential lawyers at this point, including one of the state prosecuting attorneys (child support division). We don't physically have her in our custody, no. OC's Aunt has petitioned in court for temporary emergency guardianship, interested persons being OC'S oldest brother and OW's fiance. They wrote a whole horrible page about my husband, which were a slew of awful lies, except for the fact that he said he didn't want anything to do with her. He did eventually say that to get her to leave us alone. Even then still it was hard, as we lived 10 miles apart. Seeing her around town was a once a year thing. Now I'm just filled with regret for missing her childhood... It's like we're in sync, my husband and I. Maybe I want this for him, so badly. I'm a terrible empath. He lost his mother as well (2009) and I feel he could offer her a guidance of sort. We've both come such a long way since we fell in love 10 years ago. I'm really proud of him. But I suppose I shouldn't push too hard. I just want the best for everyone, this time. Their family life is not the best. The aunt keeps criminals as boyfriends, and an apartment turned frat house with her brothers and OW fiance would not be a good environment. My husband filed for an Emergency hearing. We agreed to be patient and wait to see what the judge says about who custody should fall to. I implored him in the beginning whether or not he wanted custody and regardless of his pause in fear of potentially hurting my feelings...I could see that he did. He's a wonderful dad and it kills him to not be able to be that to all of his children. I feel the same. OW is gone, who will be this child's mother?

Joyce mentioned having pictures of her mother, taking her to the grave site, looking like her, etc. - I thought about making her a scrapbook with images of her mom if she came to live with us. Her images don't really trigger me. I obsessively looked at her Facebook for 5.5 years. I guess I was able to overcome that, as really she was 16 years older than me and well we didn't compare very much. The mother was cremated and they plan to plant a tree with her ashes mixed in, but they are planning to go out of state to do this (per my friend who is OW ExH GF who also has custody of their youngest son)

Did you hear Dr Harley's advice that it would be best to allow one of the OW's siblings raise the child? I am somewhat horrified that you are even considering taking the child, at the risk of your own marriage.

What is the risk to our marriage? What is predetermined to happen if we do?

If I read your story right, your marriage hasn't fully recovered from the affair. You never had real NC and don't know the truth, only his story and hers. No verification by means of a lie detector test.

When your own son or daughter does something offensive, it is easier to forgive then when an OC acts offensive. In the first example you are reminded of bad habits of your own family, in the second example you will see OW. Seeing the OW in your husbands child will make it so much harder to treat her like your own child or even like her. All children can be sweet at times, but imagine OC hitting puberty while you are struggling with menopause.

The prase "you are not my mother" is so much harder to take coming from the mouth that looks like OW's mouth and will most likely trigger memories of emotions you had during the affair. There will be painful conflicts and OC most probably will hate you during puberty (and seek an ally in your husband, what will that do to your marriage?). You will also have to deal with OC's aunt in your family. She will not go NC with OC. You don't just get custody of OC, you get OC aunt for free.

Don't make a life changing decision because it seems like "the right thing" at this moment. Before you decide to do this, imagine the future of your family with and without OC.

Look up an internet forum for stepparents. Read how stepmothers feel about their stepchildren. Imagine those scenarios plus the complication of who her mother was before you make any decision.

If he feels obliged to offer her a guidance of sort, there are other ways to do that.

Iceberg ahead... There is a chance you survive, but please don't board the Titanic.

Did you hear Dr. Harley's advice? He told you the risks. Which is lifelong resentment on your part and the possible demise of your marriage. What will happen to your children if you get divorced over being reminded of the affair every day? Does the OC look like the OW?

I listened to his advice and he recommended having a sibling of the OW raise the child.

It sounds like you had already made this decision before you came here and were looking for validation. Is that correct?

It seems, from the sentences in red, that you really want to take in this child. It sounds as if you want your husband to have the chance to be a good father to her, in the same way that he is for your children and your step-child. It sounds as if you want to be the child's mother. Is that correct?

You say that your husband has filed for an emergency hearing. What is he asking for? He must be asking for the child to live with him and you, because if he did not want that, why would he have filed?

Has this decision already been taken? Are you and your husband trying to have the child living with you?

There was real NC. 5 years worth of phone and location records prove that.

This isn't "real no contact".

Also, when you or your husband saw the child around town, who was she with?

Her mother. "Real no contact" to me means not actually contacting/being in contact with someone. No words were exchanged anytime that happened except for only once and I was alone when she lashed out at me. How do you avoid that exactly? We hadn't the means to move and I wasn't going to become a shut in.

1. Yes

2. Yes

3. Waiting on the judge. It is not up to us at this point because they filed for guardianship. That is the hopeful outcome, however.

Perhaps that is your perception. But I'm still firm in that it is not my decision to make. He went back and forth about it for a while. I knew he'd need to, as he grew up without a father himself. I am not a victim here. That kind of therapy didn't work for me/us.

I don't know. She probably has some of the OW features, but I've been staring at my own children and step son for so long, she looks a lot like my husband and other children mostly. Plus the OW was a lot older and ridden with obesity and cancer. I've never seen her mother's picture as a child. I'm sure they had similar features, but my husband's are prominent.
How can there be resentment if I've forgiven all parties in the situation? Thereafter, isn't it my duty to keep my feelings in check (with comfort from my husband on particularly hard days)? Isn't it our duty as husband and wife to make sure we are constantly an impenetrable bond as we are one? Not one with our children.. That would be no good way of parenting. I mean I don't not see what you guys are saying. I see it, for sure. It would/will be hard, but it's not going to kill me.

What Is the age group on this forum... just curious?

Age 19 to 80.

You feel this despite Dr Harley having told you that this IS your decision to make, yours and yours alone, not your husband's?

You still feel like that after his firm advice to the contrary?

Hi Shocked, I wrote a comment on your old thread too. I am raising an affair child after my husband got another woman pregnant when my first son was two months old. He came to live with us on his fourth birthday. Please listen when the others are telling you that YOU need to make this decision alone. Do not give one second of consideration to your husband's feelings about missing out on this child's life. You are the mother and the responsibility for raising her will be yours (even in 2018). The relationship between you and her will be the most important determinant of yours and her happiness for many years to come. Are you prepared to deal with her playing you and your husband off against each other? What will you do and how will you feel when she causes conflict between your natural children? What if she bullies them? What if she feels you favour them over her? What if she has behavioural problems at school and causes to you have to invest a lot of time and money in her? What if she develops expensive medical conditions which drain the family's finances? All these things happen all the time in families. And any one of them on their own will create resentment.

What if she is not "grateful" for what you have done for her - I think this is the biggest one of all. You will have an unspoken expectation that she will know the life she would have had, and that she will appreciate having what you percieve to be a much better life with you. But she is unlikely to see it that way. You need to be 100% honest with yourself about what your expectations of her behaviour are. And plan for what happens when she does not meet them.

Also, what happens if your husband cheats again and you divorce? Will you be prepared to continue to raise her with your other children? What about paying for college? Will you be prepared for her to inherit an equal portion of your estate with your other children? That is what accepting another child means. It is not temporary. It is forever.

Also, I don't know whether this is a terrible generalisation to make, and perhaps because of the cultural context that I married into, but I don't think you should project the kind of feelings of loss you as a mother would experience at not raising a child that you gave birth to onto your husband. Men have a different kind of relationship with children they are the biological father of. It is not the same as it would be for a mother. So don't assume the sense of loss that you know you would experience applies to him - even if he is using that as a reason to pursue the court procedures now - and don't make decisions based on what you assume he is or will feel in the future. Think only of the practicalities that YOU will be dealing with as mother to this girl.

Even though things have been set in motion, you don't have to feel obliged to follow through. Until documents are signed, you can change your mind.

Having listened to Dr Harley discussing your case, I have the firm impression that the reason he advised that the decision should be yours and yours alone is because you were greatly wronged by the affair, and you should not consider doing anything that means you will need to live with that affair, in your face, for the years to come.

It's true that the child's features, and her eventual difficult behaviour (that all children go through), and the practical changes that she makes to your lifestyle will remind you of the affair, but I believe that Dr Harley was advising against having the child of your husband's affair in your marriage - full stop. I don't think he was saying that it would be hard on you because, as the mother, you will have the primary relationship with the child. I don't believe he was talking about your having to do the majority of the child-rearing, because that's what mothers do. He was talking about the injustice done to you by the affair, and the fact that "just compensation" is owed to you by your husband. "Just compensation" means that the affair is erased from your lives, and that your husband does all he can to protect you from the impact of that affair in the future (and from other future affairs, of course).

"Just compensation" means that the wrongs created by the affair are barred from being a part of your marriage, and that the affair is put behind you and never mentioned again. It means that your happiness is the primary task in your marriage. It does not mean that your husband is punished because of what he did, but it means that he must protect you. "Just compensation" creates a happy, fulfilling marriage for both of you, rather than making the unfaithful spouse suffer for the rest of his life.

According to Dr Harley, there is a price that a husband must pay, in order for his wife to recover from an affair, when he has had a child from that affair. If the marriage is to be successful and fulfilling for the wife that he betrayed so badly by creating a child from the affair, he must have nothing to do with that child, beyond proving court-mandated financial support. If the wife is to feel restored to her rightful position as the only woman in his life, the child, in effect, needs to disappear, mentally - and that includes not seeing her and her mother once a year around town. She needs to not exist, for the couple.

She won't "not exist", of course, because the wife knows that she is out there, and could contact her husband when she's older - and also, because a portion of the family income must be put towards supporting her - but there is nothing that the couple can do about those things. What they can control, however, is having her in the marriage. A husband who wants to rebuild his marriage must be willing to compensate his wife by, in effect, cheerfully volunteering to have nothing to do with the child. He mustn't fret about her welfare, or show that he is sad about not being the father that he is to his other kids. To do those things is to put pressure on his wife, which she does not deserve. She deserves compensation, which means becoming the "first and only" in her husband's mind, and in his life.

It's your duty to protect your children and your marriage. You won't have an "impenetrable" bond if you are divorced. That will harm you and your children. I don't think you are clearly thinking about the resentment that can and will develop from being perpetually reminded of the OW for years to come. That is not fair to the OC, you, or your children. It benefits no one.

Dr Harley gave you sound advice based on years of experience with these situations and you would be foolish to ignore him. He is a clinical psychologist who has saved many marriages using these concepts. You have been handed a gift of sound advice and I hope you don't ignore it.

So, what difference does it make when the child's mother dies? Surely the fact that she will never be in the marriage again, and can never revive the husband's feelings for her, and can never again attack the wife or be seen around town, lays the affair to rest. Surely the couple could, and even should, bring up the child without the affair still being a problem. Surely the hurdles to be faced are the same as they would be with any child being brought into the existing family - not easier, but certainly, no harder.

Well, Dr Harley did not say that. Note that he did not focus in any depth on the problems of having another child that you did not plan, and who might turn out to be challenging because she lost her mother, and is forced to live with another mother whom she does not know. Note that he focused solely on the unhappiness that having the affair child will create for you. Note that he did not focus at all on your husband's desires, or on the needs of the child. Instead. he warned against your focusing on those because doing will just force you into "doing the right thing" - which isn't the right thing, at all.

The welfare of the child is not the concern for you and your husband. There will be relatives that can bring her up perfectly adequately. There are the people that the other kids are living with - for whom this is not the child of the affair that destroyed their marriage; there is the mother's boyfriend, and there may be other relatives on the mother's side. It is not for you to assess these people and decide whether they would be as good parents as you are to your kids; the only thing that should concern you is protecting and rebuilding your marriage.

That was the gist of Dr Harley's advice.

When you first posted, in the thread that disappeared, you seemed to have an instinctive understanding of what Dr Harley advised you against. I remember that YOU raised the spectre of resentment, and that you seemed to feel railroaded into "doing the right thing" and accepting a child that you did not want to accept. And indeed, that was the reason you posted your questions; that other people's pressure, and what you had learned about custody, were pushing you into a direction that was against your will.

However, somehow, that position has been entirely reversed. You now want to take the child, and you have allowed your husband to petition for custody. The emergency petition must have been filed before, or while, you were getting advice from us and Dr Harley - so now I am puzzled as to why you posted.

If you want to take the child, and you feel that you have forgiven all parties and that, therefore, there is no affair-related problem left to deal with since the mother has died, then there is no need for affair-related advice; so what can we help you with?

Have you read this? And also listen to the radio clipsz What is Just Compensation?

I agree with SugarCane, in your first post you definitely seemed like you were very uncomfortable with the OC coming to live with you. But now you seem to have done a 180 and are even a big defensive of it.

Even if you really want to be OK with this, that doesn�t mean you are. Understand the difference and be honest with yourself. This really is a critical moment in your life, the OC, your bio children, and husbands. You can�t really go back on the decision once it�s done. So be honest with yourself. Do not let yourself be pressured into doing something you do not feel right about. Do not talk yourself into doing the �right thing� if deep down you will be unhappy. This could be a disaster in the making.

�How can there be resentment if I've forgiven all parties in the situation? �

But the child has done nothing wrong and doesn�t need your forgiveness, that misses the point. The point is that you would be inviting a situation into your home that is bound to invite resentment and harm your marriage. You can �forgive� the guilty parties but it won�t mean you will forget or that you should invite triggers into your home.

I understand everyone... I think the excitement of potentially getting a monthly social security check for the mother's death excited me. It made me feel justice toward the entire situation and for having to pay child support. For whoever has custody of the child gets that money. I know I am so very wrong for this Sorry for confusing everyone. My emotions are all over the map. Right now there is a motion for custody on my husband's behalf. That was done by POJA. My husband isn't aware of my ulterior motives and I'm afraid to tell him.

No absolutely I understand that. I know he doesn't experience this type of loss. And the only reason I have that feeling is by way of thinking that the OC may live with us and I just can't help thinking that I could have better bonded with her as an infant. It is easier to love a child from infancy, to me. I struggled for years to love and accept my step son (from age 5) and he wasn't even an affair child...

The POJA does not and should not apply to things that are destructive to your marriage. Just so you know. Please tell your husband the truth immediately and stop this train before you make a mistake that cannot be undone. Some temporary conflict with your husband is better than a LIFETIME of conflict.

Please suck it up, my friend, and go in and tell him what you told us and stop this train.

This doesn't explain why you first came here speaking about resentment, and strongly doubting that you could ever be in enthusiastic agreement to taking in this child, and feeling pressured into doing the right thing and not disappointing your husband, and then suddenly flipping to challenging us about Dr Harley's advice to stay NC.

What's really going on here?

I'm not sure I should have posted here. I didn't read the rules apparently. Admin - delete this thread please? I've gotten all the advice I need I believe.

Here is your show.
Radio Show of shocked11
Segment #2