Choicesmade, <p>I have a few questions. You are a little further down the road than my H and I are. There are, of course, a couple differences, but mostly our situations are the same. I had an A which resulted in a C. The major difference is that the xOM doesn't know, to the best of our knowledge, about Abbi.<p>My first question is that I noted that you have explained, in a small way, about your C's paternity. How and when did you do this? Abbi is only 8 months at this time, but we do want her to know that her Daddy chose to be her Daddy. We don't want any involvement from xOM, ever. He turned very violent on D-day, and even threatened my H's life, so we hope and pray that he never hears of this result of the A. He left about 1 month after D-day, and I wasn't showing yet, and had no contact with him. The last time I happened to hear from him was while my H was on AOL Instant Messenger. He just happened to be on at the same time, and from what he said, he still didn't know. My H, of course, didn't respond, and blocked him from being able to send us any messages. After that, thankfully, nothing from xOM.<p>My second question is, have you told your other children about their sister(right?)? If so, at what age, and how? We also want to let Abbi's brother and sister know, just don't know when the best time, or how to go about it.<p>Last, but not least, is about your current situation w/xMM and his W. I wish I had better advice, but, have you talked to an attorney about what action you could take to possibly have him give up rights so your H could adopt? Maybe point out the fact of the 4-5 yrs of no contact for your D, then they come back wanting that contact again. It just seems that if your H has had such a major influence these past few years, that a judge would look to that? I don't know. Just a thought.<p>Tigger

Tigger,<p>I have read your post and though I don't have time at this moment to answer your questions I wanted to let you know that I will.

Tigger,<p>Sorry I was unable to reply yesterday.. In answering your questions and also using hindsight as my guide be glad that you never told the om about your daughter. I guess what you and your husband need to decide is if you ever want to tell him whether now or 18 years from now as this will be your starting point with your daughter.
I was given some advice awhile back and it makes so much sense, I was told that if you tell, tell it all, if you chose to lie (in regards to your daughters parentage) be prepared to lie until you die. I wish I would have chose the latter.
With my daughter the om knew when I was p and he did keep in touch with her/me until she was two then he bowed out till last year. In helping my daughter understand we started with the nightly ritual of prayers and who loved her by having her say my mommy loves me, my daddy loves me, my 'other' daddy loves me, my sister loves me.. etc and I love them. So she always knew there was another daddy out there, yes she would ask questions but we only answered with as little info as possible.
As for your other children, again you and your H need to decide if you are going to tell all or live the lie. My other daughters were older when they learned the truth and it was hard on them, my oldest is now 20 and my middle one is 18, we didn't tell them at the same time we waited until we knew they were each at a stage they could handle it, I think my oldest was 15 and we waited until our middle one was also 15 so they didn't know at the same time. They have each dealt with their anger, 1st at mom then at the om, they are now doing pretty well with it and I am extremely proud of how polite they are when he is around. They don't like the fact that they are now missing out on time with their sister due to his intrusion and they don't like him but they have behaved beautifully and never say a cross word about him in front of their little sister.
As for adoption in my case it's not a possibility now because visitation has started and even though it's hard on us it wouldn't be fair to my little one to have him leave again nor would he ever agree to it either.
Hope this helped you understand how we handled it and I do wish you the best... [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img]

Choicesmade,<p>I have a few questions if you don't mind. They are really just curiosity so if you don't feel like answering them please just say so.<p>As you know many of the people posting here are women, however, as you also know several are men with the issue that your H had/has. You have never really mentioned the status of your marriage to him. Is it fully recovered? Have you found your love for him (obviously, that must have been gone at some point)? Has or does he still have a hard time with this situation and the presence of OM?<p>What happened to his relationship with your older children?<p>I ask these questions because occasionally I find myself in discussions on this board for which I have no direct information. When that happens I find it helpful to send people to posts and threads that might help. I have this feeling that your experiences and your apparent recovery would be something many people on this site would like to know about and learn from.<p>In any event,I don't mean to pry into your private matters, but if you are so inclined I suspect your answers would be very enlightening.<p>God Bless,<p>JL

choicesmade, i may be wrong and if i am i appoligize but from what i can gather you and tigger are the only ones here whose h's have dealt with a child from your a. i know tigger's h is away at this time so i will turn to you and ask these questions. how has your marriage endured as far as your h's learning to trust again and has he been able to find the same deep loving feelings for you that he had before a? i feel that i love fh and can't imagine being without her yet at the same time don't feel that deep passion for her that i once had. i also feel that i am not the one that should be holding her, that it should be the father of her child and that is the last thing i want. am i going crazy here?
in case you were unaware my w is fullhouse and is just starting mo 9. i am having some real difficulties trying to visualize raising anothers child. i have asked her to consider adoption and she has thought about it but i can see how much it pains her to think on those terms. seeing her anquish about this hurts me deeply but never enough for me to just say ok we will keep this child and move on. i guess i am feeling somehwhat selfishness in this way. let me say this that i know and believe her when she says there are no feelings for om. i know and believe her that she wants our marriage to heal and work. i can't help feeling hurt by her a when i see and feel this child move in her. i have not been able to make a bond with her little girl just because she is part of my w. om does know and so far has choosen to just stay away and actually ignore my w the couple of times they have seen each other around town. i am feeling that he needs to be responsible. i also feel that i didn't do things when i saw a starting for fear i would interfear with her friendship with om (it was supposed to be just a working friendship) and lose her (i wanted to trust her to make the right decisions). i feel for lack of a better term this was cowardous on my part. anyway i feel now there is no other way then to either have her place child for adoption or if she keeps baby face everything head on. and i mean telling om and to repeat myself allow him the choice of whether he wants to be involved with his daughter or not.
i know this all seems contradictory but my mind just seems to back and forth. if your h can offer any input i would be very greatful.

Just Learning,<p>No I don't mind answering questions and if anyone can benefit from my trials and errors then all the better.
Has my marriage recovered? Yes it has but it will never be the same either, we have been married now for 21 years. You know, I never "didn't" love my h but I was very selfish at the time and nothing really mattered. During our healing phaze (which by the way is an ongoing process) we both learned a lot about the meaning of love and we are there once again in full.
As for my h the pain will always be there but it becomes something that isn't the focus point anymore, just as the pain I experience from my guilt of the pain I caused others will always be there.
My h does have a hard time with the om coming every other weekend to get my d and since his re-entry a year ago into our lives it has opened up some wounds again that we have had to deal with and probably will continue to deal with over the course of our lives.
My h relationship with our older two has not changed, he is a good dad and always has been, if anything they admire him more at how he has dealt with all of this and with them being older they are able to realize and understand the situation and have been able to empathize with their dad.