My wife just told me that whe's been having an affair for the last six months. Having only the last week found out that she was pregnant, I am assuming the child is mine as I am statistically infertile.

I know that about the time she began the affair - which she claims she has now ended - that her stepfather died, her nephew made an almost successful suicide attempt while on the phone with her and a long standing friend told her that she wanted to end their friendship. So, it was a really bad time for her, she was nearly suicidal herself.

Before that, I knew there were some problems, and, after reflecting after her disclosing the affair, can see where it really went bad. I had no idea an affair was involved, I assumed it was extreme depression only.

I find myself unable to be angry with her; extraodinarilly hurt, but not angry. I am angry with "him" and I despise the existence of the [censored] child.

I see the only way we can reconcile our future is if the child is aborted, something I can understand her reluctance to do. However, if she were to bear the child, I could not stand to have a living, breathing reminder of my humiliation around... or her with "it."

I want to make this work, I know the odds are stacked against me. Am I being unrealistic?

Ferruz,

I know that I may be a little "prejudiced" here, but there are many more options than abortion for this child. The child is the true innocent here, and all your emotions are still very fresh! I myself have an OC that my H and I are raising as our own, in fact the only way that she is different from our other two children is her DNA! She is loved by all in our family, even by my inlaws! We never told xOM and he will never know as far as we are concerned. Of course, everyone's situations has their own unique aspects, but ultimately the end result is basically the same. A BS has to deal with an OC and the WS has to live with that very painful result!

Now, for the other options, the biggest one I can see here is adoption. Yes, it can be very painful for your W to give a child up for adoption, but this child didn't ask for this any more than you did. This way, the child can have a happy home, and you can work on repairing your M with your W. You can also consider letting the xOM raise the child. Finally, you mentioned being "statistically infertal" by that do you mean that you have a 0 sperm count, or is it just low. I know, a pretty personal question, but I know of many who have been told by doctors that they can't have kids, and low and behold, there are one or two kids after that, w/out any help! I ask this because if it could even slightly be your child, would you want this child to be aborted?

Now, before you say that you couldn't do any of the above, especially the adoption, let me tell you that I have given a child up for adoption, 16 years ago, and I know that she was raised in a much better situation than we could have provided for her. I was VERY young, as was my H, with a job that wouldn't even pay for myself, let alone a baby. My H was still in HS at the time, and there was no way he could get a job to pay for a family, apartment, food, bills, you name it. We knew that the best thing for the child was adoption. All of this is possible, if you are working together.

We've done 2 of the hardest things you can imagine, and we are surviving, and happy! The xOM in our situation threatened to kill my H, in front of a neighbor even, and was basically stalking us till he was discharged from the military and sent home. Trust me when I say that my H can understand your loathing, if not more so, and he loves Abbi with all his heart, just as much as our older 2 kiddos! It can be done, you just need to get past your initial discovery phase! You need to examine if you really want your M to work, and read up on this site about surviving an A(there's also a book by that name offered on this site), policy of joint agreement(POJA), Love bank and Love busters(both referred to as LB's). There are many here to help. Post when you need to and read often!

I always hate to say it, but Welcome to the MB site!

Tigger

I'm running up against the learning curve, here. Is there a faq on the lexicon? xOM, WS, BS, etc?

Thanks.

Hi Ferruz~

I stink @ inserting links. However, til' one of our more computer savvy posters comes along, here are a lot of the common abbreviations used in the forums, hope they help.


MB = Marriage Builders
WS = Wayward Spouse ("betrayer")
BS = Betrayed Spouse
FS = Faithful Spouse ("betrayed")
WW = Wayward Wife
WH = Wayward Husband
OC = Other Child (born of WS & OP)
CS = Child Support
NC = No Contact
A = Affair
EA = Emotional Affair
PA = Physical Affair
EMA = Extra-marital Affair
D-Day = Discovery Day
DV-Day = Divorce Day
OW = Other Woman
OM = Other Man
OP = Other Person
X-OP/OW/OM = Former
OWH = Other Woman's Husband
OMW = Other Man's Wife
OPS = Other Persons's Spouse
S = Spouse
SO = Significant Other
W = Wife
H = Husband
DW = Divorced Wife or Dear Wife
DH = Divorced Husband or Darling Husband
SAHM = Stay At Home Mom
SAHD = Stay At Home Dad
MLC = Mid-life Crisis
MM = Married Man
MW = Married Woman
SF = Sexual Fulfillment (in context)
EN = Emotional Needs
LB = Love Bust(er)...also can be used for "Love Bank"

POJA = The Policy of Joint Agreement
SAA = "Surviving An Affair"
HNHN = "His Needs, Her Needs"
G&T = "Give & Take: The Secret to Marital Compatibility"

Relationship Acronyms:
DD = Darling Daughter
DS = Darling Son
MIL = Mother In Law
SIL = Sister In Law
FIL = Father In Law
BIL = Brother In Law
GP = Grand Parent(s)
STBX = Soon To Be Ex

Ferruz:
I can't answer your questions about your feelings and what you want, but I can tell you that I am infertilte. It took xh and I 7 years and 4.5 years of major drugs and treatment for me to concieve then once I did I had several miscarraiges then with the medication I was able to hold my pregnancy with my twins whom I had 5 years ago. Low and behold I found myself pregnant with xmm out of the blue without any help from any doctors or planning or anything. I too was told I could not get pregnant without the help of drugs and treatment. You may want to have a sperm test count done before you make any major decissions. Just a thought. I am sorry for you pain.

Adoption still means the child is out there, somewhere; still a reminder and an insult. I've thought of this and its marginally better than the OM having the child. I don't think I have the capacity to love or care for a child born by my wife of which I'm not the genetic father.

Which brings me to the infertile comment: I've got good swimmers, they're just very few in number. If we were going to have our own children, we would have gone through a medical harvesting and implantation procedure.

I have much reading and thinking to do.

Ferruz,

My wife became pregnant from an affair, and I am happily raising this child. However, it's much different situation than yours. My wife and I had two children already, and I would not have been able to "tolerate" an abortion.

You have no children with your wife. You've been married only two years. My first suggestion to you would be to offer your wife a divorce. I have a hard time recommending an abortion as a good idea---if your wife wants to have an abortion, there's little you'll be able to do to change her mind. If you can't deal with adoption, you really don't have a lot of options left.

I'm sorry that you find yourself in this very difficult situation.

ferruz,,,,,,, sorry to have to say greetings. please bare with me with this reply. it is not meant to be arguementative or even as a sermon. just to maybe help you refocus your thoughts a little.

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the [censored] child
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i have known a lot of [censored] in my dat but none had anything to do with their parentage. they all became [censored] without consideration of WHO their parents were and NONE were children.


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I could not stand to have a living, breathing reminder of my humiliation around.//and// Adoption still means the child is out there, somewhere; still a reminder and an insult.
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the living, breathing reminder of your w's A is your w.. you have to look into your own heart and see if you can ever look her in the eyes again and not see her as an adultress. the child didn't do anything to deserve being considered an insult.


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I don't think I have the capacity to love or care for a child born by my wife of which I'm not the genetic father.
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i understand how you are feeling here. i felt the same way about this even though my w and i had 6 kids together. you can read some of my past posts about the pain that i felt about her having om child. like k my situation is different then yours in the length of marriage, history together and size of our family prior to her A. i am however raising grace as my own and i love her the same as any of my other 7 kids. our om is paying cs and has visitations.


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. I am angry with "him"
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understandable and justafiable. i felt the same way and can tell you had some very evil thoughts of what i wanted to do to him. the truth was that he was not worth the effort or the consequences had i gone thru with any of them. also i realized that my w was equally if not more to blame for the heartaches i was having. so what ever i did to him i would have had to do to her. after all it was her that broke OUR wedding vows not om.


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I see the only way we can reconcile our future is if the child is aborted
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i too felt this same way when i first found out of my w's A. as i stated above i now love this child as much as any of my biological ones.


again you need to take a deep look inside yourself and deside if you are the type of person that can le go of your anger and move on after something like this comes into your life. only YOU know your own heart.

some things to consider are;

- i would suggest the first thing you do is get a dna test done at the earliest possible time. this child could turn out to be yours after all.

- it is your w's decision whether she will keep this baby or abort it. you can let her know how you feel but the ultimate choice either way is hers. for she to knows her own heart and what SHE can live with.

- you have been married for a short time with no children and are still very young. to start your life anew would be an understandable choice. (to all i know that this is mb's and the priciples taught here)

- what are your w's ideas of how to resolve this and are they choices you can live with?

- please remember that you need to make sure that your decisions are made thru careful thought and not raw emotions. you don't need to rush your choices. this is all very new and you are in a state of shock right now.

- you might want to seek a marriage counselor so that you and your w can sit down with a nuetral medeator and possibly come to some resolve together whichever direction the 2 of you decide to go.

- this is going to be quite a rollercoaster ride of emotions you wll be on. find yourself a trusted friend or family memeber because you will need someone to talk to as it will eat you up trying to keep all ths inside you.

<small>[ November 01, 2003, 11:02 PM: Message edited by: pops ]</small>

Pops very well written.
Fruzes: Trust me when I say this baby could be yours. I was doomed to have any children without drugs and treatment. I read every book on it, looked up everything on the internet, I mean I knew it from a -z. Also, if it's not.....even though it's from something that really hurt you, maybe it was meant to be. Right now you are in shock. You are angry. Do you love your wife? I know the fact that I could not have kids on my own devasted me to no end. I was lucky in the fact that through many years of treatment and drugs I was able to carry my twins and have them. They are now 5 years old. Then boom out of the blue 5 years later (after haveing a normal active sex life for 13 months straight) I end up pregnant. No drugs no treatment just pregnant. It just takes 1 sperm to attach to that egg. A dna test I recommend highly. She can have that test done with CVS or amino before the baby is born. Listen to POPS he has been where you are now. He truely is a man who has overcome alot and loves his oc dearly and raises her as if it's his. I admire this man. Well good luck to you. You are in my thoughts.
Mary

I think the shock is wearing off; reading what I wrote earlier, I see the raw emotional response and the lashing out from pain.

Therapy is in the works, maybe this marriage can be saved; it's what I really want and (I think) what she wants. Either way, we'll find out and move on from there.

Thanks to all for the input and serving as sounding boards. I'll be sticking around for a while.

Ferruz - Sorry for your pain. I am praying for you guys. Please be aware that abortion is the taking of an innocent life. Part of your innocense has been taken, imagine the life of this baby and that he/she would never have the chances in life you have had. Adoption is the way to go, but I believe your feelings may well change after you hold the child, cuddle the child, kiss the child. The child should not be sacrificed due to your W's foolishness. I encourage you to do the right thing so you can live with yourself and heal your M. God bless!

Dear Ferruz,

I am a formerly betrayed wife. I learned of my H's affair and child a few months after the baby was born. I can't tell you the horrible things I wanted to do to the child. I am shocked and sickened at the thoughts I had and spoke out loud one time. I wanted to kill that innocent child in a hideously violent manner. Why I wasn't taking my anger out at the two adults involved, I have no idea. My anger was obviously misplaced and I might suggest that yours might be also. You seem to (right now) not be able to be angry at your wife (who richly deservers it). Maybe over the next few weeks the target of your anger will change as mine did. For those of us who want to try and save the marriage it is easier to redirect the anger at the child or the affair partner who wrongly inserted themselves into our lives. The God honest truth is that the one most at fault for this is our spouse.

BTW, we have gone on to rebuild our lives happily, we have visitation with my H's child of the affair (but not very frequently due to geography). I now care very much for this child. Feelings change. We have adopted two elementary school-aged boys from Russia and have a happy, peaceful house. We would be happy to adopt again and I know a ton of infertile couples who would also consider it the greatest blessing of their lives to adopt.

Shalom, God's Peace,
MJ

Maybe it's my mentioning abortion, and maybe I'm going to get into a hornet's nest of problems here, but I'm really interested in advice/input/comments from people with an agnostic or atheistic viewpoint; that's a bit more from where I am approaching this mess.

I appreciate all your comments, but some of them I can't consider as they are not part of my viewpoint.

ferruz,,,,,, it is interesting that you are looking for an anti religous viewpoint. may i ask were you were married? church, justice of the peace, etc.?

maybe one reason your w had her A was she feeling of your lack religous support.

i don't consider myself an anti-abortion person. rather a pro-choice person. i also don't consider all anti- abortion necessarily Christian. just pro- life.

let me tell you how i felt and feel about the abortion issue. "I" am of the belief that in cases like we all here are dealing with the easiest way for a bs to move on is thru abortion. however in my case my w being the mother of 6 was unable to go thru with one. she did go to the clinic, paid her money, and went into the waiting room. thn she just left. so here i am wanting to save my marriage with a w who can't bring herself to do what i feel is best. ok we go into plan 2. adoption. same story she can't do it. so now were do i go. my choices are very limited. either i throw my w out and tuck my little girls into bed each night with tears in their eyes or i give this thing a try.

the delivery of grace was a very solemn day for us. it was by far the hardest thing i have ever gone thru. that includes the death of both my parents and my mom died before i was a legal adult.

it was very hard at first as everytime i saw my w holding the baby she was holding the om.

now i can't imagine life in this house without grace being here.

you see as has been said before your w is the only one who can make the final decision on aboption or abortion.

if you force into one of those choices and it is not in her heart to do so she will resent you forever. either that or you will be living with a shell of a woman for a w.

which is where you need to look inside yourself to see if you can live with her if she chooses to carry and keep the baby. if not then your only choice is to move on.

<small>[ November 03, 2003, 06:29 PM: Message edited by: pops ]</small>

A view of abortion with out the religious point.

When I told my H of my pregnacy with my youngest child by XMM, his response was like yours, get rid of it. I did look into the options of abortion. Then I thought back to a previous pregnacy. I had a scare at 9wks along with my 3rd. Had an U/S done. At 9 wks I seen my sons heartbeating, his tiny arms and legs forming. You could also see his eyes. How could I look at myself knowing I killed a child? At this start the baby already had a heartbeat, arms, legs and eyes.

My child with XMM is now 2. As for my H. He loves him like his own. And what makes what I did worse, this is my second child with XMM. My H loves both of them. This past weekend my H was holding Alex and fell. He cried for almost an hour thinking he might of hurt him.

You need to take a step back and really think about this. If you really love your wife and want to make your marriage work, it can be done. Good luck.

I'm not an atheist. I consider myself a "spiritual" person. I also believe in abortion. I am the BS. My exWS had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy. We talked about reconciliation. I wasn't sure I could handle the reality of the OC, representing a very visual reminder of a loving act that I thought was special to us. The OW chose to have the baby. My exWS says he asked her to get an abortion, but she refused. I don't know. I do know that my exWS and I got pregnant at one time in our relationship and made the decision to abort our child, due to alot of personal reasons that I don't choose to share or defend here. (We were both in our early 40s, not young teens.) It was not an easy choice, or an easy way out for me. I can't speak for others. Having said that, neither of us have ever regretted our choice.

Anyhow, my WS said he could not abandon any child that was his. The baby was born. He had Down Syndrome. That floored me. I wasn't sure I could or wanted to deal with a child that might need life long care. I finally asked to see the baby. I ended up falling in love with him, but still struggled with ambivalent feelings. My WS and I ended up not reconciling, but it wasn't because of my not accepting and loving the OC.

Having said this, I still wish the OW would have aborted the OC. It would have made things a lot less complicated and painful. So, I have no answers for you, but sharing some of my thoughts and choices. Good luck to you in whatever you decide.

Talked it over with my W, she told me that she can't have an abortion; that it would end up killing her figuratively and cause her to committ suicide literally. She's not sure she wants to have the child adopted, either.

Which leaves me at the place that if I want to save our marriage, I'd have to consider raising the child as my own. Something I'm considering, reluctantly. I told her if this is the case, then I would want the OM to give up all his parental rights and to agree to NEVER see the child under any circumstances. If I'm going to raise the child as my own, that type of interferance would be all but intolerable.

My W has reason to believe that th OM's W would be amenable. That's right, I found out also that the OM is married. Moreover, his W is expecting a child herself.

I do find a bit of solace knowing he's placed his own marriage at risk and, if possible, is in a far worse position than I.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by Ferruz:
My W has reason to believe that th OM's W would be amenable. That's right, I found out also that the OM is married. Moreover, his W is expecting a child herself.

I do find a bit of solace knowing he's placed his own marriage at risk and, if possible, is in a far worse position than I.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Does the OM's W know about her WH's affair with your W? If she doesn't then you must tell her (but withhold the evidence of your W's pregancy by him) for she has a right to know what he did and whether she wants to continue with her marriage to him. Exposure of his affair with your W, will help you by letting him know that he cannot continue to hope to hit on your W again without your knowledge and it will help his W to her keep an eye on him the next time he starts acting suspicious.

you imply that om already knows of your wife's pregnancy. if he does not, then i'd suggest not telling him. if he does, in most states it won't matter. as the husband, you are the legal father of that child and any born within your marriage or even up to 10 months after a marriage ends unless you deny your paternity. in most states om has NO rights to give up. this is your baby, your choice. i realize that your choices are more limited based on if you want your marriage, etc but legally it is this cut and dry. Either YOU want to be father or not; om has no say.

note: if you pursue child support, then you automatically give om some rights because this includes you denying paternity.

regardless, allow it to sink in before you make decisions. i am a female betrayed spouse raising two children from my husband's affair. i assure you that i had no desire to have two little reminders around me. i only wanted to do what i felt was right. we've had them (with no contact from their mother) for about 1 1/2 years and i have grown to love the kids over time. feelings change. i did see them as innocent victims all along and it did help to mentally put me and them on the same team. but that didn't mean i wanted to be the one dealing with them. my attitude has really changed though. give it some time before you make decisions. work on your marriage with a vengeance and let the baby simmer for awhile. good luck.

I left out that the OM knows of her pregnancy, he wanted to my W to have an abortion, too. His W knows of the affair, not of my W's pregnancy.

If I raise the child, it will be without CS. Don't need it and don't want to leave any door open to them to further insert themselves in our lives.

I plan on having the BC say "unknown donor" or "unknown" where the father is; or perhaps my name, even.