i can't believe what i have read here......the majority of you claim to have forgiven your husbands but yet continue to make them "pay the price" for cheating. these mean had a part in creating these children - it takes two!!! sure, the "other woman" could have chosen to abort the child or give it up but you thinking that because she didn't make those choices that somehow your husband is relieved of his responsiblity is totally insane. if only you all could see past your anger and hatred. god says that all children are created equal...just because a child is born out of an affair does not make him/her any less deserving of knowing his father. if you believe in making your husband "pay the price" for his infidelity by not allowing him to see/father his child, you will pay in the long run!! it will haunt you and he will grow to resent you...of course he's going to say he doesn't want contact because that's what you want to hear if there is any hope of saving his marriage. if you think for one minute that he doesn't have toughts of his child, wondering how his daughter/son is doing, what she/he is achieving, you are dead wrong!! <P>if there is a win/win, the BS forgives, the WS owns up to his responsiblity and the child lives happily ever after.

Oh Puuuuhhhllllease! This is one wife talking who has visitation, but let me tell you that it is not my, nor my husband's, obligation to parent this child. We do this because we want to and because we believe our marriage is strong enough to take it. Anything the OC gets from us beyond financial support is a free will offering on our part. Every couple here needs to decide what is right and possible for their marriage. Deciding not to have contact has not got anything to do with "punishing" our husbands. We are a group of women with different life stories, different strengths and different tender points. Some can see OC and some can't. <P>What you said is bizarre. The same argument would have to hold that every father who signed papers to allow his child to be adopted are going to suffer everyday for the rest of his life. Just simply not true. He may have thoughts of his child, he might even probably have thoughts of his child. That doesn't necessarily mean that he will regret his decision.<P>So, please don't write about what you haven't lived. We have had enough of Othere Women coming here and deciding that they know what is better for our lives than we know oursleves.<P>Mrs. Job

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by forthechildren:<BR><B>god says that all children are created equal</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Not that I argue with the sentiment, but I think one of us needs to go back to Bible college. Can you quote scripture and verse on that one?<P>Mrs. Job<P>

it doesn't take a scripture quote to support that statement....surely you've heard the song "red and yellow black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world" i don't think i've ever heard "love and parent your children ONLY if they are legitimate/born in a marriage/with the perfect circumstances. mrs. job, you obviously have a moral conviction that has guided you to be a step-parent/god mother to this child. if we are christians or like to call ourselves christians, then we have to ask ourselves "what would jesus do?" i think we all know the answer to that and if we are not following his way, then we might as well be spitting in his face.<P>and ms. job, you are right, you do not have an obligation to parent this child because you did not create it...but your husband does have an obligation.....<P><p>[This message has been edited by forthechildren (edited July 23, 2001).]

blah, blah, blah, heard it all before you can type till your fingers fall off dont matter to me. The only child that my h will ever be a dad to is ours thats the way it is and the way it will stay your not going to ever change my opion or his. That is his choice the one choice in all of this that he can make. Flowerseed<p>[This message has been edited by flowerseed (edited July 23, 2001).]

flowerseed...yes, you are right...i could type until my fingers fall off and nothing i say would ever make a difference to you...you are filled with so much hate and anger...hopefully some day you will be able to let it go.

<BR>Thats right hate that I never asked for so what! So is h also full of hate because he wants no part of sleeze bags kid. <BR> flowerseed

So FTC, how did you STUMBLE on this site? What is your story? Or do we even need to ask? RAMBLE,RAMBLE,RAMBLE...

forthechildren,<P>Unlike you I can quote scripture<BR>** But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yea, I judge not mine own self.** 1 Corinthians.3<BR>Don't you ever make the mistake to judge me or any of these other wonderful people on this board. It is self serving hypocritical people like you that drive me crazy.<BR>Just for the record, NOT ONCE have I ever told my H I did not want him to have a relationship with oc. Right after d-day I even offered to go for custody. I have always left the option for visitation open. My H wants no relationship with this child. He didn't want this child, was given no say in whether or not to terminate the pregnancy or put the child up for adoption.<BR>So if I understand your line of thinking, a man has NO choice or reproductive rights. His only purpose in procreation is to supply the sperm and then do as the woman wants.<BR>And before you give me the tired old lines about how he should have thought about that before he slept with her let me go ahead and give you my answers...<BR>1. He should not have had an affair.<BR> She should not have slept with a married man.<BR>2. He should have used a condom.<BR> She should have insisted he use a condom or she should have used one of the thousand methods of bc for woman.<BR>3. The child is innocent and deserves a father.<BR> She should have allowed the child to be adopted into a home with two loving parents instead of using it to collect welfare disquised as cs.<BR>Woman have been screaming for years about reproductive freedom. Well friend, along with that freedom comes a little thing called responsibility. Unfortunatly some woman seem to forget that.<BR>And one more little thing. OW doesn't want my H involved. ALL she wants is her monthly welfare check from him.<BR>Do I hate oc ? NO ! I have no more or less feelings for it than any other child I have never met. But she is not my problem or my H's problem.<BR>jtigger<BR>

Forthechildren,<P>If you're TRULY "for the children" and for father's involvement in children's lives regardless of how they were conceived, perhaps you should take a different approach instead of the judgemental one you express here.<P>How about you strive to change the laws to something that goes like this: If you have a child out of wedlock, the mother AND father have equal custody rights (true 50/50 - not this every other weekend crap) and there is no exchange of support money at all. If you really believe fathers have such a wonderful influence on their children, then the non-exchange of money shouldn't be a problem. Taking it even further, if you REALLY believe that children fair better with a father's involvement, then why not give full custody to the father and his wife providing not only a father figure, but a true two parent home? <P>What would Jesus do? Certainly, he wouldn't have an affair in the first place. So really, there's no point in asking what He would do after, right? <P>Also, if a wife so chooses to tell her husband he cannot see the OC without it hurting her or subjecting their family (remember, they have children too) he has a choice he can make. He can either subject his entire family and his wife to further pain, which would probably mean his marriage would end in divorce, which means the children in the marriage suffer a greater deal.<P>So if you're "for the children" include ALL of them when you're making knee jerk responses to how people should behave. <P>Having contact and not having contact is a personal issue, one which NOT one person can say do or don't do unless they walk those very shoes. Sometimes having involvement subjects the "marital" family to great financial and emotional hardships. If we're all for "family", how is adding involvement a good move for anyone? Sometimes involvement means divorce. Is this a good move for the children in the marriage? <P>If you think a wife should "BE THE BETTER PERSON", take the high road, subject herself to further anguish and pain, and simply say to her husband "DO whatever is it you want to do" and allow everybody else to make life long decisions for her own life, then you're asking something one cannot humanly do. As a matter of fact, you're asking someone to do something you cannot do yourself. A wife takes the high road many times before affair, during affair and many more times after discovery. Isn't that enough? Or do you expect wives to ignore their anger, pain and resentment and bite tongue and cheek for another person's child? <P>You said: <I>if you think for one minute that he doesn't have toughts of his child, wondering how his daughter/son is doing, what she/he is achieving, you are dead wrong!! </I><P>How do you know this? Are you a father of a child born from affair? Or is this something you just want to believe because it makes you feel better or you feel it's the "right" thing to believe? Doing the right thing has already passed. You're missed your chance at doing the "right" thing. <P>And lastly, forgiveness is different to every single person on this earth. One can forgive but not forget. One can forgive yet still discuss the issues and actually still feel resentment. Forgiveness isn't done in one small swoop. It's done in phases, small steps, forgiving one part of the affair, or one heartache at a time. If you're a big advocate of forgiveness, then surely you can forgive "us wives" for our anger and hatred you seem to think we have. Surely you can forgive these husbands for not taking part in their children's lives. <P>Surely you can forgive yourself for being so judgemental. <P>Take care,<BR>CoR<BR>

jtigger,<BR> You just said it all thank you .I to offered the day we were served the papers to take oc. I just agreed with the hate thing just to give the rerun what she wants. The only hate I really have is for the dogs that bring children into this world that have to deal with this sh**. Any of you that know me here know that. with love flowerseed

Well said, Mrs. Job, CoR and Jtigger.<P>And, Flowerseed...everyone who knows you, knows of your huge heart and your equally huge pain.<P>Well said, Ladies.<P>Love<P>Catnip =^^=

ditto esp COR. Great replies ladies!<P>for the ch, you haven't thought this through as well as you think you have.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by forthechildren:<BR><B>surely you've heard the song "red and yellow black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world" </B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>While we might agree that the Bible is the divinely inspired word of God, or even the inerrant word of God, I hardly think we can extend that believe to children's hymns, nor hold them up as proof of God's thoughts. They are the works of man and as the works of man are as subject to human flaw and original sin as any other thing that comes of man. Again, I do not fault the sentiment and our Lord certainly did say "Suffer not the little children to come unto me." Without a doubt, He has a special place in his heart for children. That still does not hold up your argument. Our Lord said absolutely nothing about "being there" for children that you might have conceived out of marriage. Be careful what you quote from the Bible before one of us comes back and tells you it is Biblically illegal to be around a man when you have your period. <P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><B><BR>...but your husband does have an obligation.....<BR></B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Not going to get me to agree with you here. He has a financial obligation which we meet, but his first obligation is to me and the family we created in front of God and friends 19 years ago last week. If and *only if* being with OC does *not* threaten his first committment to his first family is it OK for the father to take part in the child's life. It must always occur with the full-hearted agreement of his wife. I feel that it is in the child's best interest *if* the father and his wife can be part of his or her life, but I do not feel it is a requirement. And it cannot happen that just the father can participate w/o his wife. Living separate lives is how many of us got in this mess in the first place. We pray that there will come along a good man in OW's life who loves her and who wants to adopt OC to raise as his own. We harbor no bad feelings for OC, in fact we love and miss her. I harbor no ill will towards OW either. I see her for what she is: a very sad, very broken person who doesn't think that she deserves more in life than the 4 or 6 hours my H could spare her a week. I think she deserves more than that; why didn't she? Besides, hating her would be like my taking poison and waiting for her to die. She has already stolen enough of my life; I refuse to give over any more of it to her.<P>What you don't mention is some of the OW who are unable to handle it when WS and his spouse want to be involved in child's life. First rule of marriage recovery is that the wayward spouse and the former lover do not *ever* again spend time alone together. That means that spouse (step/God parent) must be involved in visitation. We are on a visitation hiatus because ex-OW finds it "too difficult" to have to see me. Many, many other women continue with all their might to try and destroy the marriage that they (and WS) nearly swamped under once. Why would anyone in their right mind allow a person such as that to push their way back into a marriage where the never belonged in the first place? Why is it that they are often the last one to pull it together and move on? I guarantee you if we were to get 50% custody of OC and there were no child support changing hands, our OW would accept no contact/no child support in a heartbeat over that situation. Why? You can't argue that my husband is a necessary part of this child's life and in the same breath argue that he doesn't not have an equal right to custody. <P>Without a doubt, my H made the biggest mistake of his life, but remember adultery is a two-edge sword. The married person who cheats is an adulterer and so is the person they slept with--married or not. <P>MJ<BR>

Applause Applause!!!! Whistle Whistle! You ladies have said it all. Absolutley and Amen!

ForTheChildren,<BR>If you believe in God then you must know God IS THE FATHER. <BR>Ow can change and believe in God and trust HE will help her and C.<P>In our case we've had exactly ONE visit w/baby. Ow decided after tons of phone calls and letters to myself and my H that I cannot be the one who sets up visits. We have a new phone line for her only w/an answer machine attatched to it yet she refuses to do anything but talk to my H.<P>If she truly cared about a father for her baby it should make no difference to her WHO sets up the visits, right?<P>She has dug her own hole now and can stay there. We do not plan on doing anything. She can now go to court. Our atty. has written 3 unanswered letters to her atty. to "get things started".<P>Her latest "church bulletin" horror shows exactly what she wants....my H.<P>He now sees what she is and has said SHE will not keep coming between us. If visits happen they happen. If not he will no longer deal w/this situation. She is still not divorced. She has spent this summer in Fla. w/her other 3 kids and the baby. She has wasted too much of our time.<P>So there you have it...a willing dad and screwed up mom....who fears ME!!!!! Geeze!!!!<P>Debi<P>------------------<BR>Imagine....

So NOW what do we have here...an OW singing children Bible songs???. If my memory serves me correctly, the song says all are precious in Jesus sight, right?...I dont think it says ANYTHING about the Wife, or even the H of an adulterous<BR>affair....so NOW SHOO....Let me reach in my childrens book of songs (since this is what is quoted, maybe FTC will understand this) "SHOO FLY DONT BOTHER US, SHOO FLY DONT BOTHER US"....<BR>ftc if you are so concerned about these children, maybe you should enter the "BIG SISTER" program...there are a TON of fatherless children out there...PUT YOUR MONEY WERE YOUR BIG MOUTH IS!!!!...dont toot your own horn until you are ready to DO SOMETHING about it...NOW SHOO FLY...

Well, FTC, I just wanted to say that I am actually for the children. My H has had and I guess is having an affair with a "close" coworker (also married with 2 kids). She became pregant, it seems, when she was worried he was coming back to me.<P>He hasn't come back to me. And he isn't totally with the OW either. He works with her and is still having his "own" difficulties. I guess she is too. <P>But having said all of that. I do feel so much for the child. He is now 6 months old. My kids just found out about him and just met him. <P>Funny thing is that I feel so much for this child. I know how much this event has devasted so many people. Two marraiges, 5 previous kids, families on both sides. <P>I've told my kids that it is not "his" fault. He had nothing to do with it. When my kids met this baby, they felt confused, sad, etc. But I got them to talk to me about who he looked like, (they mentioned other cousins etc.) What he was doing... (crying, falling over) and I began talking to them about what they were like.<P>At this point, his parents (my H and the OW) are so self-absorbed, that I feel for this child the most. How do you describe any of this to this child. I told my kids that what he needs the most of is love. That is what we all need the most of. I just think people tend to look for it in all the wrong places.<P>Whatever is happening with my H and the OW, I do not know. I do not ask. Do I think it is a match made in heaven. NO.<P>It plays out more like a greek tragedy than anything else. But no, it is not the child's fault. <P>It seems that my H is spending time with this child and I am glad. My H was a devoted father to our three kids before this happened. <P>Of course, I am at a different place than many of the people on this particular thread. My H and I are not in recovery... We may never be. But this child is a part of my kids' life whether it was their choice or not. <P>And don't get me wrong. I have no illusions about the OW either. I knew and know how manipulative she is. But she wants something too. I guess my H was "better" than hers, at least in her eyes. I had heard all of her complaints about her H also. I guess my H wanted to be her knight in shining armor. It's hard to be that in reality...when there are three kids to tend to and bills to pay and decisions to be made.<P>But you know, there is no greater hurt.... (and I feel it along with these other women on this thread) than giving your H what you think is the greatest gift of all to them, and having them, in the hazy fog of infatuation, seem to have no appreciation at all.<P>I said to my H early on, "it is one thing to share your soul, but you have taken mine and the childrens along with yours...and torn them to shreads.... and for what".. And I guess that is the question..... "for what????"

Forthechildren<BR>You are so right! They have not forgiven anything. They are simply trying to sweep OC under the rug. Had they really forgiven, they'd accept these children. They cannot even see their own hypocrisy. The sad thing is, it WILL come back to bite them in the butt. Something like this DOES NOT go away! I just keep thinking to myself, how in God's name can a woman agree to stay married to a man who cheated, who created a child, but cannot tolerate his involvement with his own flesh and blood? It makes ZERO sense and it's so childish. The one who said they have involvement because they WANT to, not becuase it's his responsibility is unreal! I honestly think these people are as bad as the cheaters in the first place. They are no better. They haven't forgiven anything, they simply want to stay married. They can sweep the affair under the rug, but if a child is around as a reminder of their husband's lies and betrayal, it wouldn't be so easy to sweep under the rug would it? I have no respect for this attitude. At least I have the guts to say I'll either divorce him or try to work it out so long as he owns up to his responsibilities. I can't believe what a child I was at first to demand no contact. Thank God I woke up.

Flowerseed<BR>What hate you have! The OW isn't the only "[censored]" that made this child Flowerseed. Your husband is the King [censored]!!! He chose to have sex, he chose to betray you, he chose to risk pregnancy, HE did this to you, NOT the OW, NOT the child. In your case I think it's best you and your husband stay far, far away from this child because it is clear what kind of people you are. How foolish you sound, calling her a [censored] and having anger about a child! Look at your husband Flowerseed,you have a real prize there! You are a sad example of people who ruin children.