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AIBU?

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Original poster

to ask if having a secret second family is that common?!

170 replies

trob22 · 12/12/2018 13:04

I've seen a couple of posts in the last few days about men who not only have a long-term OW in their lives but also have kids with the OW - and somehow manage to keep this a secret from their wife (and kids from that marriage) for YEARS while still seeing the OW and other child fairly regularly?

Is this really that common? How on earth do they keep the secret? How does it work with the man paying child maintenance etc?

I've only heard of one person in my life who had a secret second family but judging by MN it seems fairly run of the mill!!

OP posts:
Iloveautumnleaves · 12/12/2018 13:49

it was just something that happened

Fucking someone doesn’t ‘just happen’. Lying about it doesn’t ‘just happen’, bring up another child doesn’t ‘just happen’. People make choices.

I can see how you could have an OW (and children) without too much difficulty, but having two women (& children) who think they are the only family...unless they’re in two different countries and you ‘work away’ a LOT and can justify Christmas and birthday etc not ‘at home’, I really think it would be more of an absolute fucking nightmare than pleasure.

MiseryLoves · 12/12/2018 13:50

I know of 3 men who have done this - my mums best friends husband, an extended aunts husband, and a girl I went to school with.

All ‘shocked’ but surely you must have some inkling that something’s not right?

TemptressofWaikiki · 12/12/2018 13:50

Yep, this does seem to go on a lot more than you might expect. I know of two examples. One did involve a distant family member. We lost touch because my parents refused to lie and partake in the deceit.

ShadowHuntress · 12/12/2018 13:50

We found out my uncle (dads brother) has a second family when his other kids were teenagers. Apparently he starting cheating when my aunt was pregnant with their second child and he met this lady at work who knew he was married. Ow was fine with it as she got a council house and benefits as a single mum and didn’t have to put his name on the claim. She actually said that when my aunt finally confronted her. She said it was a win win for her Hmm. What’s worse is the other family only live about 10 mins away and my aunt bumps into them all the time

MasonJar · 12/12/2018 13:51

Some men seem to manage to keep secrets amazingly well. Am watching Mrs Wilson on BBC, one more episode to go, based on a true story of one man's very complicated life with two separate families. Maybe even three families, don't know how it ends yet.

JingsMahBucket · 12/12/2018 13:51

This happens or happened quite a lot. People were a lot better about keeping secrets than they are now.

A friend mine found out about 6 years ago that her father had a whole other family. There are 2 or 3 kids in my friend's family and I think another 2 or 3 children from the second secret family. I'm not sure if her mom knew about the affair or not the whole time because I didn't get a chance to really discuss it with her before moving away.

A couple years after finding out, she made some kind of peace with it and went to go visit the new set of family she had over a major holiday. That is a whole lot of healing that I'm not sure I would be ready to do. I tipped my hat to her.

YouSmellOfBeefAndCheese · 12/12/2018 13:51

A close friends dad does. She is one of three children with her mum, he had another long term partner with two more children and a third with another two children! All at the same time and a few of the children were born at the same time.
My friends mum found out eventually and told the other two women.
Her dads not nice looking at all. He’s fat and hairy and short and he’s not rich either so what they saw in him I don’t know Confused

Dimsumlosesum · 12/12/2018 13:52

What the fuck is wrong with these men?

jessstan2 · 12/12/2018 13:53

The person I talked about, above, kept it a secret from the children of his marriage but his wife did know because at one stage they were going to split up and he live with the OW. However, he stayed with his wife and the child was never mentioned! When she was grown up she wanted to meet her siblings and they were told, became friendly too but all the kids were down on their dad - the ones from the marriage because he'd had a mistress and the one with the mistress for letting her mother down. He ended up on his own but he was very good to all his children, I'll give him that. Though they were hard on him, they loved him. As they got older they forgave him, more or less.

Oh what a tangled web we weave. Makes my life seem quite simple by comparison.

Iloveautumnleaves · 12/12/2018 13:56

Bigusbumus. I wouldn’t be taking my child to him. Surely there’s another PP in the Mids?

decentwoman · 12/12/2018 13:56

Happened to me but I only found out after my partner died very suddenly!

The baby was 6 months old so he hadn't got away with it for long, and I don't know how long he would have been able to cover it up!

He was paying the childminder instead of maintenance and we had seperate bank accounts anyway so I wouldn't have known what he was and wasn't paying!

It was extremely distressing & worse because he wasn't around to give me any answers to any questions! Some of his friends new bits of the story, his family knew nothing about it so nearly 20 years later I'm still no wiser about any of it!

problembottom · 12/12/2018 13:57

I know three. One a good friend of mine who is the product of the secret relationship. It got her dad sacked from his very high profile job as it was all over the papers when it came out. Another friend’s father had a family in the Far East where he travelled a lot on business, it destroyed her mum when she found out. The one that shocked me the most was when I was about 13 and I found out the husband in a couple my parents knew had had an identikit family literally streets away for ages. It was in the News of the World! This bloke was just so ordinary.

BigusBumus · 12/12/2018 13:59

ILoveautumnleaves We don't really go anymore as my son is now 16 and managing things OK by himself.

But in hindsight, I should've "shopped around" more, (private patient), but he came so highly recommended from a friend whose daughter had seen him that I just went along with it. Also I was slightly desperate about my son at the time).

JennieP77 · 12/12/2018 14:00

Good god, this seems quite common! It must be exhausting to lie all the time, and all those people who get hurt!

JennieP77 · 12/12/2018 14:00
Angry
LadyinLavende · 12/12/2018 14:00

I have a friend who was the OW... she even ran her own business for 30 years with the help of her child's father: I'm sure his wife turned a blind eye. He's dead now but I didn't like to ask her what happened at the funeral!

Someone mentionned hospital visiting: when I was in hospital a few years ago the woman in the nent bed had a visit every afternoon from her husband and two kids (aged under10). And in the evening her lover came to visit: and I acquired the beautiful red roses that he brought her (fortunately my boyfriend understood what was going on!)

RomanyRoots · 12/12/2018 14:02

I don't think it's common but agree with a pp that it happens more than people probably think.
I've heard about 2 cases via friends, who weren't directly involved, and of course the Ian Botham case.

LadyinLavende · 12/12/2018 14:02

Flipping heck, it's staring me in the face - my own sister-in-law had a child by another bloke and only divorced her husband when the child was two. He went from being a father to being childless when they left.

Original poster
trob22 · 12/12/2018 14:05

Unbelievable stories. I just can't understand how these men can make it work unless they're extremely rich (supporting a second family without wife noticing money is going missing) AND their wives are either incredibly naive, or in denial, or just don't care????

OP posts:
Brainfogmcfogface · 12/12/2018 14:05

Happened to me.

GreenKangaroo · 12/12/2018 14:07

I know someone. I can't believe that she didn't know. We had speculated for years as he worked abroad for 10 months of the year and they never visited him. He came home 4 times a year for about 2 weeks a time.

I found out when someone in a hotel in Asia (we live in the UK, he worked in Asia) told be they worked for XX company and lived the in the place abroad. I said oh I know yy who used to work for them. They said, yes, we still him sometimes as we have children the same age and at the same school.

brookshelley · 12/12/2018 14:07

Happened to my aunt, her now ex husband had a job working several days on shift in another city. He was a terrible
partner for many reasons so it didn’t work out. Then she found out during the divorce that he had another woman and a child over there. My aunt out of the goodness of her heart has built a relationship with tOW so that their children can know each other. The OW was lied to by the way and hates his guts as well.

milkmoustache · 12/12/2018 14:08

We bought our house from the wife of such an amoral bastard. Both families lived close by, the married couple were teachers in local schools, so absolutely everyone heard about it. I felt terrible for the wife and her kids.

Armchairanarchist · 12/12/2018 14:09

I know of two such families. One was a friend's dad. A slightly younger girl approached him in his late teens and told him she was his half sister. She'd found out about and knew he must be the result of an affair because her mum and dad had been married for twenty five years and she had a full brother older than . ** always knew his dad but not that he was married and had a whole other family living within ten miles of him.

GreenDinosaur · 12/12/2018 14:10

I've never understood how you could keep it a secret from both familes unless you were incredibly wealthy.
You'd have to pretend to be working twice as many hours and somehow explain how, instead of twice as much pay, you were somehow getting half as much as you originally were as it was being split to support two families. Confused

I like to think I'd definitely notice if my DH started doing twice the hours for half the money!