Delphi,<BR> I'm glad that you are feeling a lot better since getting into this thread. I also, am feeling better. I still will hope that H will come around, because it may be his only biological child. He should try to be there, and I will be supportive of him if he decides that he wants to.<BR> My attitude toward the child comes from the fact that it is the only innocent in this situation, and should be treated as such. Yes, part of it is a person I do not care for and never will, but part of it may be the man I love dearly. H and OW were the wrongdoers here. You can't punish an innocent for someone else's mistake. I don't care if my attitude makes the OW uncomfortable, I can tell you now with complete honesty, that I don't give any more thought to her feelings than she did to mine. I still know the whole story, and I know the extent of what she did, and how she did it almost to the last detail. And by loving and accepting the child, I hope she doesn't mistake that for my acceptance of her, because I will never accept her. I will never respect her. I will only tolerate her with regard to the child, if it is the H's. This is an anger I will never get away from, simply because of the fact that I have no contact with OW, and am not the least interested in having any. Her presence will be enough to ignite the pain and anger all over again, towards her. If I were strong enough to have contact, and try to talk things through as I am doing with H, it might have been different. I have too much of a temper for that. H and I are working through my anger towards him. I have come so far lately, since we started communicating again, not just talking. We both know what we want, and what we don't. We want our marriage. What we don't want is further outside interference.<BR> Hopefully, I will lose this anger someday for good. I know it does me no good to hang on to it. Hopefully I'll find a place where I never forget it, but it won't hurt me anymore.

Delphi,<BR>Yes, I meant you too did the right thing by chosing adoption and I'm so sorry you were molested/raped. It is tragic and I'm sure painful.<P>It is also tragic that 'our' XOW chose to keep her child when XOW is a damaged person emotionally and in poverty, with 2 other small children. We know my H's child is not in the best situation, but we do not think we could get full custody, and even if we did, the child would be traumatized, as we are complete strangers to this toddler. My H is active duty military and we live on the other side of the planet. What can we do? (XOW thinks my H ought to visit them, alone--how's that for crazy?!)<P>Tragedies come in all shapes and sizes. Very sad. <P>justme, I'm honestly very happy for you and your son. It's great you've moved on. <p>[This message has been edited by Jenny (edited August 04, 2000).]

I cannot tell you how glad I was to stumble onto this site and to find so many other women going through something that I thought I was facing alone. My H has an OC as the result of an affair. I know the OW -- she was flaunting herself and her desire to trap my H right in front of me. She got pregnant deliberately, although she denies it and then wanted my H to leave me and marry her for the "sake of the child". <P>My heart particularly went out to Jenny and Sweetpea when I read the posts because at the time this happened I was in therapy for infertility. I had lost 4 pregnancies through miscarriage -- the last one had been at 5 months. I admit that I was terrible to live with. I wanted children more than anything and I was in terrible emotional pain. <P>My husband was constantly trying to prove to me that having or not having children would not change the love we shared. But, I was frequently in deep depressions. It was during this period in my life that he came to me and told me that the OW was pregnant.<P>You can imagine how I felt. Here was another woman sharing with my H the one thing that I wanted to give him more than anything in the world. But, amazingly, my husband did not love her. He told me that he felt badly because he had used her when he was feeling low, but that he loved me and he had no intention of leaving me for her.<P>That was 10 years ago and we finally went on to have two children of our own. But, he continues to send support money monthly to the OC and he sees her from time to time. Unfortunately, I have never been able to get past the pain of that time. I saw the child when she was a baby until she about one year old. But, then her mother realized that my husband was not leaving me and she refused to let my H see the child. She allowed him to start seeing her again when the child was about five. To stop from causing me pain, he would just take the child out by himself.<P>Although I know the child is not at fault, whenever I think of her those feelings of hurt and betrayal come to the surface as if it happened yesterday. <P>My H tries to re-assure me even now of his love and his regret that the whole thing happened. He tells me that he chose me even when we were not sure that we would ever have children of our own. But, I still have so much hurt inside me that I can't bring myself to welcome the child into my home or my heart.<P>In all other ways, my life has been blessed and I am a devout person so I am constantly tormented by feelings that I will be punished for my lack of forgiveness. But, after reading your posts, I realized that perhaps I am asking a lot of myself by forcing myself to offer forgiveness. Sometimes, maybe it is better to let things lie and walk away.<P>Thank you to all of you who shared your feelings so openly. I read every one of the five pages on this issue and even with tears streaming down my face I can't tell you how much relief it gave me to see my own feelings being said by so many others.<P>

heavenlybody26,<P>all i can say is welcome. hope you can maybe offer some of us who are new to this advice and maybe some of us can help you too. sorry you had to be in this situation to find us, but glad that since you are, you did.<P>welcome!<P>happy_girl<P>p.s .you might want to post your story as a thread of it's own so we all can read it. take care.

Like Happygirl, I also welcome you here. You are among people who are going through the same thing, and we may not always agree on totally everything, but we all can understand what you are feeling, cause we are or have felt it too. You'll find lots of good advice here. Also some friends. Once again, welcome, and do post your story, and read through ours also. That way you may feel more comfortable, talking about your problems.

Heavenly:<P>Welcome to our infamous little group.<P>How did you ever get through those first few years without the MB Forum? I can't beleive you have lived this for ten years. So far, you are the only member, I think, who has had this issue the longest. you will be very valuable to us here with your experience and wisdom. The OC in most of our lives are under five, I think, and mostly have either just arrived within the last year or so or are about to be born.<P>I, for one, am very glad you are here. there are so many issues being batted around here, so many questions...<P>I have one. Do you spend a lot of time (and money) in court situations and does the OW keep having your husband's income reviewed?<P>Is this the one and only time your spouse strayed? has he stayed faithful to you these past ten years?<P>We are here for you, Heavenly. I don't know how you survived through this without the support we all find here. I am impressed. <P>Catnip =^^=<P>

Heavenlyb,<BR>Welcome! It is nice to know my story has touched someone in a helpful way. (I do wonder if my posts do any good at all.) I can relate to how your miscarriages affected your marriage for the worst, and the devastation of learning of the affair child at such a hurtful time. It multiplies the pain, and no wonder you still have a hard time. (Though I am so grateful for the two beautiful healthy children I've been blessed with, having lost 4, I still struggle with envy/resentment. How are you doing with that?) <P>Catnip is right in that I think you have been dealing with this longer than any of us. Please share how you've gotten through this. It is so hard for me to have few people to discuss it with. Do your families know? Have you had support from family or friends? Are you concerned about contact between your H and the XOW when he picks up the child or makes the arrangements? Do your kids resent the time your H is gone with the OC? How often does he see her? Do you think it is helpful to the child, or just so token...?<P>Jenny,<BR>who is expecting another "update" from the XOW any day... (This always sets my emotions in an uproar for days... God give me strength and faith; I have not "gotten over" XOW's betrayal.)

Jenny:<P>You're in my thoughts and prayers, old friend. I hope the XOW's update is short and to the point. I, too, have had an update from the XOW in the sense she had me served by the Sheriff yesterday for violating her phony OFP against me. <P>I was in compliance with the Judge's request to answer/appeal his judgment on the child support verdict/decision to write an appeal and send it to XOW via certified mail and a copy to him. She used my mailing her a copy as a violation of her libelous OFP and had the Sheriff come harass me yesterday. (sigh)<P>I am supposed to appear in court in NY on Thursday...uh, I can't make it. I'm having my nails done.<P>Catnip =^^=

Thank you happy, ktgirl, catnip and jenny for the warm welcome. I will gladly post my whole ugly story for all to read. But I wanted to respond to at least some of your questions. I also don't know how I have made it through these 10 years alone. Although there have been bad times, I must give you hope that there have mostly been good times. I still believe that my marriage was worth saving.<P>I am blessed again catnip, since there is no court involvement. My H agreed to give OW monthly payments for child and he has completely honoured that agreement. However, she continually calls him for "extras" - she wants her child to have the best of everything - and he guiltily complies. It drives me crazy to see hundreds of dollars being spent on extras for OC while I juggle my household bills.<P>After ten years of faithfulness, my H recently had an Internet affair. Very explicit graphic written sex which I found on the e-mail. He immediately agreed to go to counselling and we have been dealing with that just fine. But, it brought up all the old feelings about the OW and OC and questions about how solid our marriage really is. This has been a very difficult time but we are getting through it.<P>Jenny, I wanted a big family more than anything. I had planned on 5 children. Although I love my two, I am full of envy and resentment over the life that I feel I missed. And, I also feel that a good deal of my married life has been spent dealing with OW and OC rather than concentrating on my own family. Yes, the experience can make your marriage stronger. But let's face facts -- if we had a choice, not one of us would choose this route for marital improvement. We simply want our lives back and there is always that anger under the surface over the fact that our lives were taken from us and things will never be the same. <P>My H's family knows the whole story because the OW was a friend of his sister. No one in my family and none of my friends know. It is embarrassing enough that his family knows. I never felt that I could talk to anyone about this -- it was a situation that should be hidden from other normal people. This has put an added burden on me because in front of family and friends we must be the "perfect" couple.<P>I worry all the time about what kind of contact he is having with the OW when he sees the OC. Remember, she took him away from me once, I keep feeling that it can be done again. I wonder if the OW accompanies them sometimes on their outings. Or, if she takes those opportunities to remind him of some old fond memories, etc.<P>My kids do not know about the OC -- my H did not want them to know. This terrifies since I fear that one day the OC will appear at my door or my H's family will tell them in a nasty way that will hurt them. They are very close to each other and they adore their dad, so I worry about what effect this news would have.<P>I feel the OC has no real bond with my H. Although I must say she has already learned the art of asking him to buy her things during his visits. The visits are more to satisfy my H's guilt than they are to bond with the OC.<P>I have so much to say to all of you. I hope I haven't overloaded you with this post. I will sit down and write the whole story. Meanwhile, I am so very glad to meet all of you. I wish you all the best and I hope that I will be able to give you all some hope that you can and will survive this horrible experience.<P>Take care everyone.

HB26,<BR> I am glad you found this place. If it wasn't for my favorite angel "Happygirl", I wouldn't be here either. She found me somewhere else, and brought me here. It's helped me a lot to get through these feelings I have had, and given me a lot of the information I needed to start the healing of my marriage. It's an ongoing battle, and some days are better than others, but I can see us making it now. When we first seperated, I was so angry. I still have anger, but we are working it through. Now we can talk about it, and the more we talk about it, the less hold it has on me. I doubt I'll ever forget it, but hopefully I can just leave it behind. I'll stand by H, through whatever we have to go through, and this thing which could of killed us, will actually make us stronger. Take care.