Hi guys,<BR> Lots of people in need, no rush on this one. I've been here awhile. I have done my best to make amends, plan A till it hurts, try not to LB, and fill LB. I provide my wife with a nice home, take care of the kids,(Angel too, of course), let her go out pretty much as she pleases, try not to bad mouth OM,(hard!!!), and generally try my best not to upset her. <BR> Whenever I bring up the subject of breaking contact with OM completely, I get the same litany I've been getting for a year. "Maybe it would be better if I was by myself, on my own. Do you think it's right to keep Angel from her father? Maybe I should just leave. Do two wrongs make a right?" Do I have to decide right now?" <BR> Am I making it too comfortable for my wife? I am ready to go to work on our marriage, I don't know if she is. <BR> What do you think?<P> God bless you, <P>------------------<BR><P>Lynton

Hi Lynton,<BR> Don't know what to tell ya man. You sure have a tough row to hoe. Goes to show that no matter how bad my situation is, somebody's always got it worse. I am awaiting the birth of my OC and have decided to stay with my W. However, my W has'nt even told OM about OC and she wants nothing to to do with him. If I ever have the slightest evidence that W is in contact with him....I'm OUTTA HERE. Your situation is much tougher. You have other children with your W, right? I don't.<BR> I guess you have to decide what you can endure to stay in your kid's lives. Everybody says don't stay together "for the kids", but I'm not sure that's right. Depends on the situation, I guess. Maybe stay till your kids are old enough to handle it better.....and then split. I dunno.<BR> Sorry I'm not much help, buddy. I'm new at this s#$@, LOL. You do sound like a good guy though, and I'll pray things turn out OK for you.....<P>Take care, friend<BR>Lou

The OM may be Angel's biological father, but am I right in assuming that YOU are her "Daddy"? If so, if your wife left, she would be essentially keeping Angel from her daddy. Is there any non-LBing way of suggesting that to her?<P>Why not suggest to your wife that someone ELSE handle the visitation between Angel and the OM? Would she agree to that?<P>I don't know what your feelings are toward Angel, but I think that the surest way to your wife's heart is by being the best daddy this little girl could possibly have. And, you know what? I think that you will find great rewards in being the real daddy of this child.<P>BTW, my son is not sure if he's the biological father of his daughter (I think he is, based on family resemblence), but he is definitely her daddy. He adores her, and she thinks her daddy hung the moon. The OM started talking about her being his child, and my son heard about it and told OM that he'd better keep his mouth shut...that there was no way in he!! that he (OM) would EVER have anything to do with HIS (our son) child.<P>As far as our son is concerned, the OM MAY have been a "sperm donor", but nothing else.

Lynton,<BR>I'm sorry that I'm not familiar with you whole story, but have you and your W ever been separated? Have you ever called her bluff? It sounds like she's got you by the short hairs and is fond of the power that gives her. I may be wrong, but maybe she needs a dose of reality and maybe that will cause her to see what a wonderful husband and father she is going to lose if she doesn't straighten up. Has she been willing to get some counceling? I know that it is expensive, but I sucked it up and had a session with Jennifer (Harley's daughter), and I feel like it was well worth it. She said that she was there to just be a coach to make sure I followed the rules from SAA. If she is just a coach, she could make it to the super bowl if she was in the NFL! Think about it and keep your head up high..you are treading water right now and one way or another, you will be fine. You may feel like you will lose if she decides not to work on your marriage, but ultimately you will be fine, because you are doing everything you can to try and patch up your marriage. God bless you and I will pray for you tonight.<BR>Floored

Hi Lynton,<BR>I am somewhat familiar with your story and it just seems as if your W is confused. She says she doesn't want to keep Angel away from her father but in my eyes Lynton you are her daddy. I admired you when you said that it bothered you to call her OC so you said you would call her Angel. YOU ARE HER DADDY!<BR>Your wife as the WS has to make her marriage first priority, that is the only way it is going to work. There should be no contact between her and the OM. Would you be willing to be the middleman in terms of visitation? Can you guys work out a plan so that she makes no contact with the OM and he still gets to see Angel? My concern is that your wife is using Angel to make contact with the OM. Does she still want to be with him? Is she devoted to make this marriage work? If she is then she has to be willing to do whatever it is she has to do to rebuild.<BR>I commend you Lynton, you are really working on rebuilding your marriage. It just seems that your wife is confused and does not fully understand the importance of her not having ANY contact at all with OM. Sorry I couldn't be of more help. But you are in my prayers. By the way, how long have you been in Plan A?

Leelee,<P> You are a great help! I have been in plan A for one year.(one long, long, year.) I very definately think she uses Angel to see OM. I have suggested this to her. Angel is three months old. What can she possibly get from these visits?<BR>I have also suggested that I take care of Angels visits, but she sees this as unworkable, too bizzare. She says we would probably kill each other. I must admit, I've lost my temper a few times and said what I'd like to do to the guy.(Big LB, I know.) I think she may also be afraid that if I took care of Angels' visits, OM would lose interest in her and Angel. She has said several times that she thinks it's a good thing that OM wants to be involved with Angel,that it's commendable on his part!<BR>I think she is rationalizing her desire to see OM, big time! I think your right, she is still confused. I also think that maybe in her own way she is telling me she needs more time. I will just have to be patient, and give it to her. She's worth it.<P> God bless you,<P>------------------<BR><P>Lynton

Middleman, <BR> Thanx. I agree with you, I think children may be one of the best reasons to try to save your marriage.<BR> Sweetpea,<BR> Thank you for sharing about your son, you should be proud. <BR> You asked how I feel about Angel. I love her like she was my own, she is totally inocent. She's part of my wife, how couldI feel any other way?<BR> floored,<BR> Thank you. Your right about Jennifer. Don't know how good a football coach she'd be, but I bet her players would be a lot happier at home! Hope things are going better for you.<P> God bless you all,<P>------------------<BR><P>Lynton

Happy to hear I was of some help . You sound very devoted to your marriage and your family. May God bless you and help you through this and may he help your wife out of her fog. She doesn't even know it but she and Angel have all they need right in front of her face!<P>God bless and take care.<BR>Leelee

Dear Lynton,<P>Things sound rough there. You have my best wishes. I am raising a child fathered by OM too, and can understand some of what you are going through. You sound like a terrific father.<P>However, I don't think that things can go on like you are describing. You need counselling, and lots of it. I will talk some about my own life, in the hopes that my experiences might be helpful for you.<P>In my case, my wife was bringing our youngest child to secretly visit OM. When I discovered the affair, I told her that she could leave to be with him and the child, and that I would seek primary custody of our other children, or that she could try to rebuild our own marriage, and I would continue raising this child as my own. (He was then three months old, which is where you are right now). I sure knew what I wanted - I loved both my wife and this child. But I could not envision any form of a marriage in which OM continued to play a role.<P>Fortunately for me, the affair ended at that point. But it ended in large part because OM cut all contact. My wife tried to stop too, but I have talked to her extensively and know that she couldn't have done it herself. Had he been willing, she would have left, torn apart our family, and tried to make it with him. She tells me now that she is very glad that that did not happen. But it was many, many months before we could begin to rebuild a relationship. And if there were any contact between OM and our child, I think that rebuilding our own marriage would have been impossible. My wife was, at that point, so deeply in love with him that nothing he did could be wrong in her eyes. His complete abandonment of this child was one of the crucial factors in breaking her emotional ties to him, and that took almost a year of no contact.<P>Of course your wife and your situation are each unique. I do not know if my own advice would be helpful to you. And I am even guessing about what might have happened in my own situation. But I feel pretty sure that my marriage would have been completely dead if there had been ANY contact between OM and this child. (Let alone contact between OM and wife).<P>I still agonize about what has happened. By stepping up and claiming the full rights and responsibilities of fatherhood, did I influence his actions? He did have a choice at the time (but he had been clear all along in his discussions with my wife - his primary loyalty lay towards his own wife and children). But looking back, I think that I did the right thing.<P>A child needs a father. A real, dedicated, father. Not the type of arrangement that your daughter is trapped in now. She is only three months old, nothing is written in stone, she will not remember what has happened to date. But she will remember the way that she lives the next several years.<P>Right now, your wife has two men in her life. You are not her husband in the way that you desire. And your daughter has two fathers. And in each case, I think that two is much worse than one. <P>After several months of no contact by OM, my wife was so upset that she wanted me to contact him, to set up some arrangements so that he could know about our childs life. At that point, with my wife's knowledge, I went to see a child psychologist that had been recommended to me as very good. When I described the situation, he looked at me as if it were utterly insane. He said that the last thing that our child needed was OM in his life in any way. What he needed was a stable, loving family, with parents who love and trust each other. (I am paraphrasing here). His clear implication was that trying to make OM a part of the family, even in such a small way as sending him occasional pictures, was extremely dangerous. That no good would come of it. Of course, he is only one therapist, and I have learned to be careful about taking other people's advice. But I do respect his opinion.<P>And what has happened to us? Two events shook our lives to the core. All of the loving treatment and support I had provided (the "Plan A") only set the stage for these events. My perception is that the events turned our lives around. The first was that my wife asked me for a divorce, and wanted to establish, as part of the divorce, that I was not the biological father of our youngest child. I told her that I thought it was too soon to decide about divorce, but that if she wanted one, I would go ahead, and suggested that we split money and custody 50/50, and begged her not to fight about the child. Even if divorced, I would raise him as my son. Don't drag OM into it. That day was one of the most intense of our lives, but at the end of it, we had both agreed to stay married, and rebuild our lives together.<P>The second incident was that OM's lawyer contacted us shortly afterwards, begging and bribing us to go through an adoption process, to make my status as father irrevocable. You can just imagine how my wife viewed that.<P>Where are we today? Tired (but we have lots of wonderful, young children, so what do you expect). Still in some pain, both in therapy for a year, but usually happy now, and watching out for each other's happiness. During the terrible year of withdrawal we learned how to argue without having cruel fights, and now we function together as husband and wife better than we had in the years leading up to the affair. Love? Though it seemed impossible last year, we love each other again. And yet I have a sense that this is a beginning of something that could be much deeper. I don't want to pretend that we have already reached 'the Promised Land'. I don't imagine that one ever really does in the real world.<P>And my youngest? He loves me, he hugs me and kisses me and lights up to see me. He is a radiant child. (Your description of your daughter as Angel startled me with the similarity to what I feel about my own). I am his father, and his only father.<P>I don't know what to tell you. If you push, you might end up with a broken home, and your own children being raised by OM. I thought that would be hell on earth. But at my darkest hour, when it looked like divorce was inevitable and that I would lose my job because of the stress the affair had been causing, I told myself that I couldn't control what would happen to me our my family. But that I could carry myself so that I would be PROUD of the way in which I lost my family and my job. And in the end, after risking everything, I have both. But I will not pretend that it might not have turned out differently.<P>I do think that I can give you a few safe, in fact absolutely essential suggestions.<P>(1) Talk to a GOOD laywer to find out where you stand with respect to your daughter. I suspect that by allowing visitation with OM, your situation is growing more complex by the day. Find out now where you stand. And how your actions and your wife's and OM's could affect things.<P>(2) Talk to one or more GOOD child psychologists about your situation. Get as much advice as you can. Let your wife know that you are doing so, and share it with her if she will listen.<P>(3) Find a good individual therapist to work with you. You have been through hell, and have got to have someone helping you avoid falling apart inside. My therapist was terrific.<P>(4) Encourage your wife to work with a good therapist too. But don't force her or create a defensive reaction against it.<P>(5) Get more help from a marriage coach.<P>I know how expensive these things sound, but at this point in time the money is already lost - it will either be spent on divorce, or on rebuilding your family. There is no cheap way out.<P>There is a basic issue of respect in the situation you are describing. Your wife will never regain her love for you if she does not first regain her respect for you. And I suspect that she will never respect you if allowed to use you in the way she has been doing and is continuing to do. Something has to change. And you have to catalyze that change by being loving and respectful yourself, and by insisting that you be treated with respect as well (right now). If so, she might well come to love you again too.<P>May God bless you and your family,<P>StillTrying<P>

Wow... StillTrying what wonderful advice! Lynton you have gotten great advice here. Wish I could add to it, but ST just really knows more than I do about raising child from OM. <P>I will pray that your wife will perhaps listen to an attorney or mediator about this. She is not objective in all this. Poor Angel does not deserve all the instability that your W is adding to her life. Angel needs this sperm donor in her life like she needs a boat anchor. Keep fighting for her. <P>Take care... Carolyn

Ditto what ST said. It does sound like a huge risk but the pay off could be even bigger.<BR>BTW have you discussed adopting Angel?<BR>Praying for you to make the best decision for your family.

Dear Taking care,<BR> <BR> Thank you. Kind words and encouragement help more than you know, because I have confided in no one. Outside of one session with JH, this forum is my only outlet. I can't talk to my parents, and I can't talk to my in-laws, because I feel like I'm betraying my wife. Thank you<P> Dear still trying, <BR> <BR> Thank you so very much for taking the time to share your story. Sounds like there are a lot of similarities in our situations. The tough part of mine is that the OM is divorced. He has no wife, no children, no family, nothing at risk, nothing pulling him the other direction. He has absolutely nothing to lose! If the relationship is ended, it will have to be my wife that does it.<BR> So far, that doesn't look likely in the near future, so that leaves me.<BR>I know if I implement plan B, he will be ready and waiting. I guess I have to prepare myself for this. Maybe this is what has to happen, for reality to set in, for her to see this guy for what he really is. Maybe only this will clear the fog. It breaks my heart to think what the girls will have to go through if it comes to this. It really scares me to think of how long it might take. Months, years, never??<BR> Again, I thank you for your excellent advice. You have given me a lot to think about.<P> Ladygirl75,<BR> <BR> Thank you, <BR> I have told my wife many times I would be willing to raise this child as my own. Adoption would be a welcome option. I hope it will come to this.<P> God bless you all,<BR><P>------------------<BR><P>Lynton