I am so glad i found this board. I found out my husband had an affair about two weeks ago when his cell phone inadvertantly called the house and I listened to he and the ow talking about the oc. I confronted him and he admitted that he fatherer this child and that he had slept with her once. She did not inform him of that the child was his and instead said it was her boyfriends. Boyfriend requested paternity test and found out he was not the father. My husband thinks he's the father because he and the child have the same complexion and the baby has a birthmark like my husbands. I was livid, depressed, maniacal and out of sorts for about two weeks. My husband and I are now separated and at first, I thought I could not handle this, but I realized that I love my husband and we have a nine year old. I don't want my family to disentegrate without trying to remedy the situation. At first, my h was confused saying he wanted nothing to do with the child then saying he should give financial support. I insisted that he have a paternity test of his own and he claims he doesn't want to involve the courts because they will make him pay. I told him she can involve the courts anytime she wants and is just playing games because she wants him. We are in counseling now and my therapists says when we come next week, I have to give my h my bottom line: tell him what I want from him in the relationship. He says that my pattern has been to always cleanup my husbands mess and that I must allow him to be a man and stop mothering him. My problem is I don't want him to have a separate life with this woman and the oc, if in fact the oc is his ( I still have my doubts). What do I do? I know I'm rambling ....Sorry....

woundedone,<p>Welcome to the board. I am so sorry that you have had this happen to you, but as you will find you have found a great group of people that are very understanding and compassionate.<p>I have been on this board now for about a month. I found out about my h's A and the coming OC in March of 2001. I also separated for a short period of time. If you want to read the whole mess... you can read my thread entitled "A little background..."
It is not as "little" as it sounds... it actually is quite long... 4 full posts are there with my story...<p>I know what you are going through, and I am glad you are in counseling. I, however, have yet to go to counseling. MaryJanes has graciously offered to send her Affair books and I plan on reading each book cover to cover... And this board has been a tremendous self-therapy tool for me... <p>I am sorry that I am not much help right now... but hopefully someone else will post something much more helpful...<p>Again, Welcome to the board! [img]images/icons/smile.gif" border="0[/img] <p>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<p>God will lead you to
No waters He cannot part;
No brink He cannot cross;
No pain He cannot bear.
~~~~
Unknown

This Harley Q&A column may give you some helpful suggestions on how to deal with your situation:<p>http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5063a_qa.html<p>p.s.I'm glad you found this site too!

Hello,
You have come to the right place. I found in of H affair Feb. 2001.<p>We klnd of have similiar situation.
We do not know if OC is my H. While OW was not officially going out with her boyfriend last year at this time. They were caught together by my H. OW claims it is my H and told everyone it was his. I believe OW stopped talking to H in April 2001 and has not attepted to contact my H for a paternity test. My H tried to contact her she hung up on him and he left a message on her machine to get a paternity test done and take responsibility for his actions.<p>Well, she has not called yet. I do not know if she will ever call. My H says he does not want to get the courts involved yet because he does not know what he wants and he does not want to pay CS.<p>I know she can file at anytime for CS. I just do not know what is going on in her head.
I am torn right now as to what to do. We have three kids of our own.<p>Dawn

Wounded,<p>I just wanted to wlecome you to the board too. No matter what your H should have a paternity test. The courts do not have to be involved for him to establish paternity I looked up information on the internet and had someone come to our house. If he gives her CS in some states it can be considered a gift and she can still sue for back CS. Good luck.<p>Unsure

I think that if there's any way to get the OW to cooperate with the paternity test, you should absolutely do it! Not knowing whether the OC is your H's is huge! There's always the possibility that it's not his and even if it is you will be able to make informed decisions. My H had paternity test done (with cooperation of OW) without any involvement from courts.

WO,<p>We did a paternity test in an even more informal way. My H was pretty certain that OC was his child. (He remembers the broken condom night as the worst of his life.) We have visitation with Precious 4x a year. She was about a year old and we contacted a genetics lab and got a do-it-yourself kit sent to us. We swabbed the inside of her cheek with 6 Q-tips that the lab provided and did the same for Mr. J. We sealed everything up in the appropriate enevelopes and
sent it all back to them. We had results in less than 2 weeks.<p>Now, the test wouldn't have held up in court because there was no observed collection of the samples and no appropriate chain of custody of the evidence, but our plan was that if the test came back positive (it was 99.8% positive) that we weren't going to pursue anything legally. (So far H and exOW have worked everything out between them. They use online resources to figure out how much child support should be and then they write up an agreement.) If the test had come back that he couldn't be the father then we were going to go to court and demand a legal test without ever revealing that we had done the testing on our own.<p>MJ

Wounded, <p>Please don't feel the need for apology, I have used this board for rambling and support for the past 9months now.<p>Like others we also did the paternity testing without involving the courts. Even though H and OW knew what the results would be, I needed to be sure.
As for C/S payments like MJ we also used online calculations to come up with an agreeable amount. We had a paper drawn up by an attorney stating our intentions of C/C, visitation, and what happens in the event of H's death. This paper was signed by H, OW and myself. Even though I am sure its not legally binding, it is our attempt to bypass the court system.<p>Tina

Thanks for the info. While in counseling the other night, my husband said that he now wanted to go forward with the test but he gave no specifics ( it was a pretty heavy session and we I felt like we were doing some emotional sparring at the prompting of our counselor). The funny thing is I assumed that when I said I was ready for him to come hime, he would jump at the chance and that did not happen. He said he wanted to come home but wanted to complete our contracted sessions and feel a little more certain about doing the right things. I guess I should be happy about his honesty, but I must admit my feelings were a little hurt and I felt like I was slipping back into a depressed state. Any thoughts on this???????