Hi, Forum Members:<P>This is my first time posting a message in this forum. I have been browsing the messages for a while which have been very comforting to me to let me know I'm not alone. <P>My husband of 21 years had an affair of which a child was born. Paternity has not be established yet and he is in the beginning stages of establishing the paternity of this child. <P>What I want to ask you all is if anyone knows of any resources that deal with boundaries in dealing with the OW and the OC? I have read a series of books called "Boundaries" but they don't specifically address this topic. I have also read "Surviving an Affair" and it also does not specifically address how you deal with that OW other than to sever any contact whatsoever. <P>What are some guidelines you all have put in place to keep your sanity and marriage intact in dealing with this other person if the child is indeed your wayward spouses and what measures have you taken to enforce them. I know a lot has to do with the WS and his being behind you 100% for any measures to work. I welcome all comments and suggestions. <P>

Softly,<P>There is no right answer for everyone. All of the women here have different situations, different husbands, and different OW. It's a decision that comes from deep down inside your soul knowing what you can and cannot deal with. The spectrum is broad, from no contact & just paying the child support to full contact with joint custody which involves dealing with the OW on a regular basis.<P>How you figure out what is best for you is by serious soul searching and that means yours and your H's. <P>I personally knew my H could never deny his child. With his love and support I am able to accept the OC into our lives. At first I was the go-between for all visits and calls. Then I realized that our marriage still needed work and I couldn't concentrate on what was going on inside our home and worry about OW/OC and talking to OW on a regular basis. For now I'm not having anything to do with them. H sees OC infrequently. My OW has tried soliciting H several times and he has shot her down (and told me right away).<P>I don't worry about OW now. I know H is here to stay and loves me. I don't worry about OC, when the time comes I will embrace her and welcome her into my life. But for now I have bigger issues to deal with. <P>I know I haven't been much help to you. I am sorry. Usually I feel like I can help and guide some of our new members. Today just hasn't been one of my best days.<P>Please continue to post. Some of our more veteran members will surely give you the advice you need. And perhaps in a couple of days I will be more spirited and better with my words.<P>Best of luck,<P>------------------<BR>Zebra Baby ...<P>Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Softly, I too have not found any professional guidelines for this situation and it IS frustrating. There are several ways to look at it and no one way for everyone. <BR>First, I'm assuming you and your H want visitation with the OC? Visitation is not required and if you don't want it, there is no need for contact!!! <P>If you and H want visitation, you and H can either designate you the "step-mom" as the XOW's ONLY(!) point of contact (POC) for arrangements re:OC, or you and H might POC jointly (as in both of you when on the phone, signing letters or emails or whatever to XOW, but that could get impractical if contact is frequent), or you might get a third party (grandparent, aunt, counselor?) to act as a go-between; some people have said to me, let your H take full responsibility for what he did and do ALL the work (solo), but as you've read from counselors, it is NOT healthy for the marriage for the 'affairees' to continue solo contact!! How could we ever rebuild trust that way?!?!<P>In my situation, we're longdistance from OC, so what little contact we have is done jointly and H has agreed never to visit XOW's state alone. We are open to visitation if the child is interested when she's school-age. I would NOT want ANY of my family in the XOW's home, (no solo contact between H-XOW!) but the OC may visit mine.<P>Whatever you and your H agree upon, I'd run it by a good counselor first and then write the XOW jointly informing her of your position re:contact/visitation. Legally, if your H wants visitation it can be court-ordered and the XOW must comply. Don't put up with XOW adding things to it like it must be at her house or in her presence: wrong! <P>That's all I can think of for now.<BR>So sorry for your pain. <BR>Best wishes and keep posting,<BR>J

ZB, I feel as you do. I met my H's OW and OC's in person for a week-end. My H and I have had no contact for 5 yrs. If either of OC contact their father on their own, they will be welcome. ember

Ladies:<P>Thanks so much for your replies. You have confirmed all the things that I have been thinking and planning to do. Your advice is what I needed to here.<P>Zebrababy, don't feel sorry thinking you weren't being much help, you were a tremendous help just by replying to my post and letting me share with you. <P>Jenny, to answer your question about visitation, my husband would like to see the child, if it's his, occasionally through a third party. He wants nothing to do with the mother. And he wants this to take place after the child knows who a father is. Right now, he's only 12 months old. <P>In response to your suggestion about being the go-between (POC) for the XOW, she wants no part of that. She wants to be able to contact my husband whenever she feels like it. She feels she has the right. She will call him when I'm not at home, usually during my work hours. He's occasionally at home when I'm at work, but I have blocked her phone number, so she calls from pay phones. I have tried to discuss this with her, but she does not understand. She feels she has every right to continue contact with my husband in hopes of his leaving me and returning to her and using the child as an excuse to call. She has absolutely no respect for my husband, me, my kids, herself or my marriage and thinks this is a tug-o-war. She told me this has nothing to do with me because her relationship with my husband and the baby is between the two of them, but she's wrong. So I told her if she won't deal with me for the sake of the child, which she claims is the only reason she calls, then we won't have anything to do with the child at all.<P>I want to give you all a little more detail into this situation in hopes of getting further help.<P>My husband and the XOW met at a drug rehab (she was in the program, and he was a past member who attended the same meetings she did). She was immediately attracted to him and commenced her pursuit, although she says he did all the pursuing and she did nothing to encourage him. He befriended her and told her things in confidence about our marriage (typical) and she saw a window of opportunity to start an affair. As the affair started to fizzle (it lasted for 8 months and then she got pregnant), she became desperate and became pregnant and blamed it on my husband for not using a condom. (It takes two to tango but she doesn't think so and takes no responsibility for any of this) (Something she told me. That's another part to this story where I confronted her and asked her why she wasn't using birth control.) <P>Anyway, the affair began in the beginning of 1999 around February or March and she informed my husband that she was pregnant in November of 1999 and gave birth in April of 2000. I didn't learn of the affair until July of 2000. In January 2000, my husband relapsed after several years of sobriety because he started this relationship with this active addict. And because he learned that she was pregant and felt this information would end our marriage, he decided to move in with her and was living with her when she gave birth. I didn't know he had been living with her or had a child until July 2000. <P>After this bombshell, I tried to accept that my husband was choosing to be with this woman and child and filed for divorce. As soon as I did that, he left her and came home and we have been trying to rebuild our marriage. I have had the OC in my house several times in the last few months because she had abandoned him and the people she left them with called us to come and get him and as a child that grew up with a stepfather and never knew my biological father and the deep love I have for children and my not wanting to have the child suffer, I chose to accept him and grew to love him. However, the XOW is unreasonable in the care and welfare of the child and all she wants is my husband. She threatened to drop him on our doorstep, at one point when I had the confrontation with her, because I had the child before she asked if I would keep him on the weekends and then ultimately asked if I would take him off her hands and raise him and I said no. And now that I've told her no, she doesn't want to deal with me and feels she can X me out of the picture and go directly to my husband to get what she wants. She's a user, still on the drugs and our having anything to do with her and the child will be a detriment to my husband, my marriage, etc., etc., etc. <P>We are also moving to Texas in July so there will be no contact at all. I guess I'm feeling bad for the baby, but there is no way we can have anything to do with her or him. I just hate to see him grow up with a crack addict mother (he was born with crack in his system and has many medical problems now). I have also learned that he may end up in foster care because of her addictive behavior. She has four other children that were taken from her. I guess that was her reason to have us take him. <P>I'm searching my soul on that one, but my baby days are over and my husband doesn't want to raise him in our home either. We have three kids, ages 20, 16 and 10)and now that our kids are not babies and almost out the house, we see time for ourselves. We had children at the age of 19 and we've been raising children all that time. Now it's our time and she wants me to give all that up because of her mistake. Sorry. <P>Thanks for listening to me. This post became longer than I expected, but I wanted to give more detail of my situation in hopes of getting help in dealing with this. I think I'm on the right track and I'm very grateful and appreciative for all advice that you all may have for me. God Bless you all!!!<P><BR>

Dear softly,<BR>Sorry that I didn't reply to your first post - I have been in a bad mood the last couple of days.<P>Have you thought about suggesting to ow that she puts the baby up for adoption to a loving couple? It sounds as if she really doesn't want this baby at all, and maybe if she and your h would both sign off it could be adopted and you wouldn't have to worry about everything anymore. I think adoption now would be much better for the child than years in the system.<P>Good luck, keep posting.<BR>cd

Goodness! Softly, she's a LooLoo!! I too feel badly for the baby. Adoption would be GREAT!! Do you think your H could talk her into it (with you on the other line or with him or something)? Given the XOW you are dealing with (that she thinks this is tug-of-war and manipulates with the baby) , you'll have to make your boundaries BRICK walls, if you know what I mean--not just hedges or a flimsy picket fence. She'll run all over you guys if she can. I hope your H is supportive of taking hard stances against her because she's the type looking for an in. <P>I'm so sorry you're dealing with it. Wish I could think of something more helpful.<BR>Later,<BR>J

I somewhat know how you feel except I am the one who had the affair and 2 children. I kept in contact after the first baby was born which was a mistake, moved in with him and got pregnant with 2nd, then went back to H. The OM is only interested in these children as a way to get to me and it is putting these children in a bad situation. I have seen first hand their suffering. My H is the POC along with a psychologist as a mediator on any conflicting issues which there is a lot of. Usually, the OM is the onw causing the conflict, I can be totally innocent and he will start something just to have contact with me either at the psychologists office or court.<P>Good luck. Try to keep in mind the best interest of the OC.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by cdcollins:<BR><B>Dear softly,<BR>Sorry that I didn't reply to your first post - I have been in a bad mood the last couple of days.<P>Have you thought about suggesting to ow that she puts the baby up for adoption to a loving couple? It sounds as if she really doesn't want this baby at all, and maybe if she and your h would both sign off it could be adopted and you wouldn't have to worry about everything anymore. I think adoption now would be much better for the child than years in the system.<P>Good luck, keep posting.<BR>cd</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I had thought of of the idea of her giving him up for adoption, but I know if I mentioned it to her, she wouldn't consider it because then she wouldn't have anything to use to get to my husband. When the child ends up in foster care, which will probably be happening soon, she won't have the child to use and she won't be able to go after child support money that the child will never get because she'll use it all on drugs and this won't be an issue anymore unless the State goes after him for child support when he becomes a ward of the state. We're moving to Texas anyway, so I won't have to worry about dealing with her anymore anyway. <BR>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Jenny:<BR><B>Goodness! Softly, she's a LooLoo!! I too feel badly for the baby. Adoption would be GREAT!! Do you think your H could talk her into it (with you on the other line or with him or something)? Given the XOW you are dealing with (that she thinks this is tug-of-war and manipulates with the baby) , you'll have to make your boundaries BRICK walls, if you know what I mean--not just hedges or a flimsy picket fence. She'll run all over you guys if she can. I hope your H is supportive of taking hard stances against her because she's the type looking for an in. <P>I'm so sorry you're dealing with it. Wish I could think of something more helpful.<BR>Later,<BR>J </B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>She wouldn't consider adoption then she wouldn't have a weapon to use. Yes, this woman is selfish and in her own demented world. You're right about the brick walls. That's exactly what I'm doing and so is he. I told her I'm not playing with her and if she continues to harass me by calling my house, I'm going to contact the authorities and file a harassment suit against her. I have been so tempted to call the Department of Children and Family Services and report her for child neglect and endangerment. I threatened her once and told her if she keeps messing with me, I'm going to have the State take the baby away from her, but I don't need to do that, she'll do it on her own.<P>You're right. She is waiting for any sign that she can start this up again. She went as far as to tell me that my husband was confused and that he will see the light and come back to her. She is a real lunatic. As an example, she told me that the reason my husband chose to be with her was because she reminded him of me. <P>A month before I found out about the affair, my husband was acting peculiar on a visit to our house. This was the first time I started suspecting something was up and he said that since we can't live together we should get a divorce. An argument ensued and he made me angry and I packed up all the gifts, letters, tokens of his love and gave them to him. I talked him a few weeks later, still unaware of his secret and asked him what did he do with my stuff. I had cooled down and wanted it back, but he told me he had thrown it away. I later learned from my son while my H was still living with XOW that she had all my gifts in her house on display. I had some really beautiful stuff. My son said that he noticed the stuff and asked her what she was doing with it and she said since your dad loves me more than your mother, she should have it. Now, if that isn't nuts, I don't know what is. Talk about a fantasy world. There's no dealing with her. She's insane. I have since retrieved all my stuff. I had to pray over it to remove the demons. My husband said he kept the stuff to remind him of me.

Softly... so very sorry for your pain. I can completely understand the craziness of your H meeting someone in rehab. Too often folks who use are just self medicating to keep from looking at their own flaws. Then they go to rehab & all the flaws are still there & wham... you know what happens. What a heartbreak, to not only have this happen, but to also have the issues of your H lose sobriety after all that time. Again, I am so sorry.<P>As for your original question... I can state most confidently that there are no written materials on how to proceed when an OC is produced outside of a marriage. But the good news is, the bounderies only need to be set IF you are going to maintain contact with OC. If not, then the boundary with OW is clear... NO CONTACT. If she continues pursue legal action. I am glad you are moving. That should help a lot. <P>If you do maintain contact with OC then you need to set boundaries with OW (if she still has custody of child at that time). That is also potentially simple. If your H wants no contact with OW, then just run everything through a third party. Who gives a rats butt what OW wants or thinks. She will just have to accept this.<P>Sorry about all your personal items. That is very bizarre. But perhaps you and you H can start over... as part of recovery. Build a new set of memories. Just consider the old stuff a loss (as if a fire or theft had occurred). <P>Take care and best wishes in your recovery of your love and marriage. Carolyn