It has been about 3 months since my d day. My W got pregnant from her one night stand and does not have any contact with the OM. She is very remorseful and wish that it never happened. The OM does not know about the baby and we do not plan on telling him. My W and I are in counseling and things have been going pretty well. I just finished reading "Surviving an Affair" and my W is starting it this week. We want to work through this.<P>Ever since our last counseling session though, I have had this very subtle butterfly feeling in my stomach. We discussed some things at the session that were emotionally draining. My W and I have been enjoying each others company recently and my W is saying she is feeling good about our relationship and our communication with each other. I guess my question is, how do I accept the past and the events that led to the A and move on? I find myself stuck on mentally seeing my W with the OM and it keeps me from moving on and being happy. I tell myself that you can't change the past, but you can make the present and the future better. But a part of me is stuck on the past even though a side of me knows I have to move on. Anyone with experience on this or some words of advice?? Thanks.

hutch, are you saying that you are accepting OC as yours? Or are you going to put OC up for adoption? I understand you love your W, and want to stay with her. I just do not understand what your feelings are for OC?<P>ember

hutch, you said: "She is very remorseful" and "We want to work through this." <P>Waahooo! Those two facts put your marriage about 90% ahead of the game!! You're a success story in the making. <P>You said: "It has been about 3 months since my d day." and "I find myself stuck..." NORMAL!!! It is still early and what you've described is the pain and hurt I've read from every other betrayed spouse I've ever read about in my 2 years at MB boards. Like me, you will probably struggle with this for a long time with gradual improvement... not to depress you, but the timeline I've always read about is it takes 2 years to completely recover from an affair. For those dealing with a child from an affair it might be different since the closure isn't the same.<P>Things that helped me are sayings like: "you get more of what you think about/put your energy into" (nope, don't need more of THAT!) and just focusing on more positive things like how to improve my marriage, my parenting, budgeting time and money for shared goals and dreams. What you are going through with your wife is the grief process: the shock, the anger and sadness, the bargaining... Eventually you'll get to acceptance and you'll be so busy with other happier things you will (temporarily) forget that OM... for longer and longer times until he just doesn't matter much. <P>Hopefully K and tigger/sailorman and the others raising the OC can give you helpful tips from their viewpoint. You might also find something useful in my post to newbies or consider renewing your marriage vows. But honestly I think you're doing GREAT! Congrads! Keep posting and we'll be cheering you on.

hutch,<P>You are early into recovery, and you're going to be living through quite a bit of trauma. It sounds as though you're doing very well at this point, and things will get better if you're using these new skills to build a marriage.<P>One "good" thing about my wife's affair was that it was relatively long, and I knew about it for about a year before "recovery". I had ample time to deal with everything during the active phase of the affair---by the time recovery (and a baby) were coming along, I was just pretty much focused on the rebuilding process. Most of the doubts and questions you have now, I had answered.<P>I hate to say this, but give it time. Continue in the counseling. You will be successful in this!

Dear Hutch,<P>Well, I can't speak for my H, but I do agree with K, in that you need to give it more time. I believe in one of your first posts, you had decided to raise the baby as yours, correct? Well, my H and I decided the same thing early on as well, but it didn't make it any easier to deal with the emotional side of our recovery. I think that one of the biggest helps for us was two phrases that ring so true. They are this "Today is the first day of the rest of our lives" and "God won't give us anything we can't handle, with His help". We used the first phrase on our screen saver, to remind us to not live in the past, and any time we would get frustrated, or worried, we would remind the other of the second phrase. Of course, everyone is different, and so it may not work, but that is what helped us. As for how my H felt about Abbi while I was pregnant, well, he often had a hard time dealing with it, but was always there for me. It really is true that if you are there for the birth, you can't help but love the baby. And, as the baby grows up in your home, you love it more and more, just like your own children.<P>I wish I could give you some more insight, but like I said at the beginning, I can't speak for Sailorman. <P>I hope that things continue to get better for both of you.<P>Tigger

Thanks All!! I feel pretty good and I find myself getting a little more excited each day about the baby. Some days I take 3 or 4 steps forward and then I fall back two. I figure this is normal. My W and I honestly feel that our relationship is already showing improvement and we both feel we communicate alot better. I still get a little uneasy when family members are congratulating us on our baby, but I guess I have to learn to deal with that. <P>K, I have a question for you. I think that I might feel self conscious about how the baby looks. What I mean is, what happens if the baby looks just like the OM? How do I deal with that? I would think the family would figure out sooner or later about the whole event. I know I will love this baby. The baby is innocent and I know I am a strong enough person to love the baby for being who he/she is. I just freak out sometimes. Once again, thanks for all the replys.

Hutch and K...<P>You men bowl me over. Is there no end to your dignity and grace? You guys are REAL men...not those fluffed up shallow types into themselves. Ahhh, for a world full of men like you two...none of us ladies would be here moaning "ain't it awful..."<P>Why can't I be more like you?<P>Blessings<P>Catnip =^^=

hutch<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>K, I have a question for you. I think that I might feel self conscious about how the baby looks. What I mean is, what happens if the baby looks just like the OM? How do I deal with that? I would think the family would figure out sooner or later about the whole event.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>My case was different, in that both sets of "family" (parents, inlaws, and adult brothers and sisters) knew what the score was. My children don't yet---and of course, that's something that we haven't really decided on at this point.<P>The other issue is that Noah looks a lot like our other kids. Your child will certainly look somewhat like your wife. If the OM is of a different race, then it's "possible" that people may suspect. You can choose to handle that in several ways---if you should ever need to handle it at all. With Noah, he has a lock of dark hair on his mainly blond head, and he has a "hairy" back (peach fuzz) that are probably DNA fragments of the OM. All those remind me of is what a terrific gift he is---and the back is a great spot to tickle him... <P>I'm betting that you will completely love this child, and that this love will help you rebuild your marriage. And he or she will be beautiful to you, no matter what the physical appearance may be.

Hi Hutch,<BR>I'm not exactly in your shoes - I am a betrayed wife. My h and I currently have visitation with oc, and we're hoping for eventual custody. I just wanted to tell you that our oc looks just like the rest of our kids do. Put them all together, and you'd be hard pressed to pick out the one who isn't biologically mine. In fact, my second son looks absolutely nothing like me at all. I'm sure you'd think he was the one who isn't mine, but he is. In fact, people often comment about his platinum blonde hair (h and I both have dark brown hair) and I usually joke, "Well, that's because the milkman had blonde hair" But oc actually looks quite a bit like I did as a child, oddly enough.<P>Even if oc looks absolutely nothing like your other kids, people will probably just assume that he/she got the looks from a great-grandmother or something.<P>You're going to see things that other people aren't going to notice of course. I can see ow in oc sometimes. But what other people are going to see is you fathering your child. That's it. Best of luck to you. You sound like a good man.<BR>-cd

Dear hutch,<BR>Sorry you and your family are faced with a most difficult situation. I know that God will bless you for your decision to forgive your wife and move forward with your marriage in spite of all that has happened.<P>I have said this before, but a dear friend helped me with this phrase and it is pretty catchy and easy to remember: Don't nurse it, and rehearse it, disburse it, and let God reverse it. It really helps me forgive in difficult situations because unforgiveness literally ties us to the person we don't forgive!! In your case it's the OM and he is someone you want to completely forget, right??! Right!!<P>So to keep images fresh in our minds of the hurtful acts is to keep the pain alive which we don't want. Anger lives on, there is no such thing as shoving it underneath the surface. It festers and it lashes out eventually. When it comes out, we might even be surprised or wonder where THAT came from?! Oh, it was in there all right! I guess that is why we have to ask God to help us with anger because it can develop into a root of bitterness inside of us, which eventually destroys us!!!<P>Bitterness growing inside of us does what weeds do to good grass--steals all the water--chokes out the life! God's Word is the Living Water that washes us (renews our minds, our hopes, our joy, our faith), but when there are weeds choking the good seeds, we could wind up with a broken spirit, high and dry--which is exactly what the enemy wants! The enemy is after our personal relationship with God. If he can destroy that, then destroying our earthly relationships is noooo problem! This is why we have heard it said that anger is about ourselves!<P>Interesting story about me, not to bore you any further, however, thanks for your patience. I am now married, my oldest, other child (OC) was raised by my husband with no contact from his bio father who was and is still married. OC is a different race from me and did not resemble my complexion nor my hair color and was often mistaken for not being mine. <P>My husband and I are the same race and have twins. One of our twins is the exact complexion and hair color of OC? Go figure!!? So you see, God has a way of smiling down His forgiveness upon us in ways that only we can uniquely and personally see and feel and know. So when we freely forgive, we can receive forgiveness. And sometimes we just need to forgive ourselves. My prayers are with you.