Ya know,
Over the past few days I have been thinking about the "welfare" of the OC. Not necessarily the OC in our situation, but the OC in general.
This is my own opinion and not directed at any ONE person. I just felt the need to share my thoughts.

I don't believe that the absence of any one person is totally the divining factor in a child's life. I believe that it is the PERSON or Persons that are in the child's life on a daily basis.
I believe it is what we teach a child that is in our lives, not what a person that is NOT in a child's life teaches him or her. How can someone that is NOT there teach anything? They cannot teach anything. Only someone IN a child's life can shape and mold that child's thinking.

So, what is worse, a child that never knew his/her father from the beginning or a child that grew up knowing his/her father and that father LEFT?
Both situations are nowhere near ideal. Yet, one is the lesser of two "evils." I believe that the first situation is that lesser evil.

I have known a few people that were OCs. I know 2 in particular that were totally obsessed with finding their fathers. I believe this was borne from the fact that both of their mothers were never completely honest with them about their fathers, yet spoke of them often enough to foster the obsession.
One went on to find his father, who had been kept out of OC's life by the OW. Her choice. Yet, it was her choice to also foster her son's obsession with finding his father, only to be resentful when he went on to find him.
This OC is a troubled young man and he has trust issues with women. He has other problems that have stemmed from his obsession with his father. He has since developed a relationship with his father. But he has since lost much of his relationship with his mother because of her own resentments. Sad situation, really.

The other mentioned OC is a young woman now. She also went through this same situation with her mother keeping her father from her life, all the while keeping his memory fresh within the her mind, yet keeping truths from her. She is also a troubled young person. Following a path of emotional destruction because of her trust issues with men. Again, I believe this is because of the way she was conditioned to believe men behaved towards women.

There are other OCs that I know. Those whose mothers went on to marry someone else, someone that raised the OC as his own. I don't see the same bitterness in these people's lives. I see fulfillment and contentment, yet they have NC with the bio-father.

As I said, I believe it all depends on how the OC is raised and who is in the child's life.

And that reasoning also applies to the children of the marriage. Any child actually. Those people in the child's life are the ones that have an impact, not those who are NOT in the child's life.
And if those people in the child's life continually refer to someone that is absent from a child's life, such as OM/MM, then that may in the long run cause problems.

My stepson was kept from my H by his xW from a young age. My ss is a bitter young man. Though this is not completely my H's fault, my ss has been conditioned to believe it is all H's fault. Thus xW has poisoned any relationship my ss could have had with his father. Also, the effect that my H's mother's death had on ss was tremendous. To have her "leave" his life so abruptly was devastating. A natural occurrence. yet still very painful. Another reason I believe that a child that has become attached to someone in their life is devastated when that person is no longer there. Whether the child is an OC or not.
There are different circumstances to every situation. And there is no ONE situation that is perfect. We all do what we have to do for our families. for our marriages.
There is no right or wrong.

Interesting!

Hello! There,I'm not new and I have posted here before but I keep losing my password? Anyway I rarely post at all because I really can't type well and sometime this place gets me down? Anyway my short story its been 1 year and 10 months since D-Day, I found out about the OW thru the mail, OC born may 99. Since then we been thru marriage counseling, I go to therapy for myself and I also take meds. for my anxeity. Anyway besides all that I myself am the OC also and what I can say for myself is my bio-father was in and out of my life. It really did me no good as a child I was confused,as women I went thru alot with trusting others. My mother told me alot of him and finally I figure I want to meet this man. BOY was I in for it. I ended up wishing I never knew or met him. Not only that but I was kept in the dark about alot other stuff. So I naturally was mad at my mother. Which made me feel even worse. I tried to build a relationship with this man, but I never could. I actually build a relationship with his wife, she was such a loving person and always made me feel special to this day. Time and time again I would think to myself HOW could you be with this man? I don't have a relationship with him now because I choose to. But as for my marriage of course I feel for this child and I told my H it was up to him, BUT don't let this child suffer like I did. He knew he didn't want this child and he felt no connection to this child. So the only thing he could do was pay cs and felt the best thing to do was NC. Anyway I don't think you can make a man be daddy and forcing him to feel this way in my experience is also a <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> dead end. So sometimes your better of with this man not in your life at all.