To feel sad for the guy in the paternity fraud case

[moanymoaner]

Was watching it on GMB this morning and he was teary , I feel sad for him . I can't imagine finding out when the kids were older that they weren't yours! I get that the boys are standing with their mum but surely they must be feeling cross with her lies :( all such a mess for them :(

this is the first ever case of paternity fraud that's been found out in the uk

Untrue.

The sons are adults. They are best placed to critique their parents' behaviour.

People on this thread love quoting someone else and taking what is said completely out of context.

The only information we do have come largely from one source only. It's always worth considering the other side of things. We don't know the full story.

I had previously said had he known the boys weren't his, he could have walked away and had another family. A poster responded saying that he couldn't as he was infertile. I was pointing out that sometimes the tests results aren't that accurate.

He could have had a family with assisted conception.

The only information we do have come largely from one source only. It's always worth considering the other side of things. We don't know the full story.

Rubbish. There is one interview from one ‘side’ one from the other. Only one of those interviews is riddled with inconsistencies and contradictions and it’s not the father’s.

The mother had clearly done a right number on them

Wtaf? Misogynist bollocks that totally contradicts what the son says in interview.

He said the he figured out when he was about 15 that his father was very manipulative and not the kind of person you’d want to be around.

Maybe he’s just not a very nice man.

You seem very involved in this Bejam 🤔

It's financial grooming in one way - having the affair and then telling the one who earns a lot more they're his to keep them accustomed to that lifestyle. There wouldn't have been an issue if she hadn't cheated remember.

he may not be a very nice man, she may be manipulative...(there are enough threads on here to suggest adult children don't always recognise manipulative parents). All we do know is she must have had at least a suspicion the children weren't his and yet she pretended they were and let him believe so.

There already is a form of redress. He is pursuing it.

There isn’t. He has had a tiny proportion of the money she defrauded from him returned.

There is an extremely high chance that she actually committed several criminal offences through the course of this. The authorities would need to know exactly who was the father and how paternity came about to establish that though, and the law seems to be actively preventing anyone from establishing that rather than anything else.

You can't have it both ways....

this story

If he is the dad because he raised them, albeit not genetically related

literally any other thread, ever in the history of mumsnet....

it doesnt matter what his involvement is - if he dropped his seed in her, he is the dad and financially responsible

please, choose one or the other.

I think he's right. The wife was massively deceitful and clearly lied to keep the rich husband. I don't know how people can make excuses for that.

Wtaf? Misogynist bollocks that totally contradicts what the son says in interview.

He said the he figured out when he was about 15 that his father was very manipulative and not the kind of person you’d want to be around.

Go and read the interview again. Go and read the accusations they made against their father when he told them about this initially. They accused him of lying. They accused him of faking the CF diagnosis. They accused him of faking the test. They accused him of orchestrating a con to get money out of their mother.

The mother went through all of that knowing full well that he was probably telling the truth and that she was the one who had dishonestly extorted money and she didn’t say a fucking word, she was perfectly happy for them to think that.

They only found out the truth when they did a DNA test with their ‘uncle’, the brother of their father (presumably because they were trying to expose what they thought were their fathers lies) and it came back they weren’t related.

Her son repeatedly references the financial advantages that his mother has been able to give him via this deception and he minimises what she did (unhappy marriage, infertile husband) at the same time as completely contradicting himself by saying she didn’t know they weren’t his. There are so many inconsistencies in his story it’s obvious that he’s not being honest and that is mainly to protect his mother.

How the hell can you have the nerve to say it’s ‘misogynistic’ to point out she’s done a number on them? By this young man’s own admission they made a series of horrendous allegations against their father when he tried to bring this to light and their mother said nothing even though she knew it was true.

It’s nothing to do with ‘misogyny’, I hold men and women to exactly the same moral standards precisely because I believe we are equal to men. Crying misogyny is a convenient get out and an attempt to weasel out of women being held just as responsible for our actions as men are.

No government in their right mind would enforce paternity tests as the status quo suits society as a whole - if these men aren't cuckolded into raise another man's children the liklihood is that the state would pay the tab.

I sympathise with this man's predicament but he has behaved terribly. He should have put his children first and done what was in their best interests as obviously this news would be difficult for them as well.

Instead he's sued the mother (reinforcing to the children that biology is more important than his experience of raiding them) and splashed it everywhere in the press.

He's caused much of his miserable predicament I'm afraid.

Go and read the interview again.

🤣

In the radio interview with a pretty antagonistic Emma Barnett he was asked why he's gone public...as a wealthy man with media connections he was told that the court case would become open season so he gave the interview to try and have some control.

His predicament arises out of the wife's behaviour

No government in their right mind would enforce paternity tests as the status quo suits society as a whole - if these men aren't cuckolded into raise another man's children the liklihood is that the state would pay the tab.

Very true, sadly--the state has no vested interest in guys finding out the truth in these cases.

I suspect that as genetic testing for everything under the sun becomes commoner, more and more of these cases will come to light.

I don't think it's sad that the State doesn't force everyone to have a paternity test. However you cook the figures, the vast majority of people aren't telling lies about this stuff so why spend a bucket of cash on a problem that doesn't exist for most?

Fuck me. I can't believe some of this.

Let's get right back to basics.
We all agree that absent fathers should pay for their children. Also, we all agree that whoever was there at the conception should have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

This man was not there at the conception and had to deal with the consequences of other people's actions! How any feminist, or anyone else who believes in holding rogues to account, can support this is beyond me.

I just read the interviews and watched a clip on GMB about the case.

Firstly, I strongly believe that the father is a victim of a terrible deception. I think it is easily one of the worst things you can do to a man. I too, as another poster stated, believe that men and women are equal and should be held to the same standards.

His choices were absolutely taken away from him. For those crying adoption, it is not the same because with adoption you have a choice to adopt. What if legacy was important to him? It is not important to my DH and I because we don't want children and couldn't care less if our genes are passed on through the centuries. Some people however, truly want there genes to be passed on, and that choice should be respected.
If he knew earlier that he had CF and biological children weren't possible then he many not want to adopt and just remain child free. It should have been his choice.

Also, this idiot woman had an affair for 4 years and it resulted in 3 children. The affair wasn't revealed until after the divorce. He had a right to know about the affair and to be able to have an informed decision as to whether he wanted the marriage to continue. Also, he had a right to not want to raise his OM's children.

In regards to the son's relationship with their mother, it is possible that she has manipulated her sons to hate their father. I have a narcissistic and toxic mother that I have not gone NC with, so just because I haven't isn't proof that she wasn't a bad mother. Some children gravitate to the more abusive parent. This has been documented.

Lastly, I do not think the father is off the hook. I don't blame him for suing the ex wife. 250,000 is a drop in the bucket next to the 4 million that was spent. It is the principle of the matter. That being said, the father is being to reactive and not thinking about his children and what this will do to them. Of course, it is very possible (if the sons statement are to be believed) that he is not a very good man and he is manipulative and not a very good father.
However, his past behaviour should not in any way condone what the wife has done. They are two separate issues. Bad things can happen to bad people, it doesn't mean that what has happened to them should be excused because that person is bad.

They both look bad in this shitshow, but the ex wife looks works. And, her gender should not exclude her for being shamed in the press. If we want true feminism, that both men and women should be held accountable for their actions.

this is an interesting thread but i don't think you are being unreasonable to feel sorry for the poor chap. I think anyone with with any empathy who didnt have an agenda would. What's the term for that maybe humanist?

There do seem to be common threads that result in ltb. Im fairly new so excuse me if i get these wrong

Partner is cheating on woman. Sometimes DP/DH /STBXH etc .sometimes 2nd husband new partner etc.

He is disrespecting you and your marriage. LTB.

This woman definetely did the same , and as previous poster pointed out while ttc no less.
response from some: at least he got to experience family life.

Cheater says it wasnt physical emotional only happened once. Hes lying/ following script / probably fucking for ages get an std test pronto because men are cunts.

This woman : she says she always used protection for her illicit extra marital affair while desperately ttc so maybe she genuinely didn't know for sure!

Controlling behaviour/ gas lighting behaviour pointed out especially and often even if op didnt realise.

This woman deceived and manipulated her ex husband for 20 years lying to him and his extended family the entire time and as numerous posters have highlighted at the very least allowed her sons to believe their supposed father was inventing lies for his benefit but how many people have called her a controlling manipulative gaslighting bitch?

When women post about problems in 2nd third marriages the response is. Well men are cunts. Nobody says to op well you are on 2nd 3rd marriage yourself so ....

In this case, the response from some is well he is on 3rd marriage so hes probably a cunt anyway.

Now i know a lot of posters have said that boys are adults and maybe he is not a nice chap at all because after all even boys he raised as his own says so. This may well be the case and after all we dont know why the marriage broke down though it would have when this came to light but it isnt it also slighly possible that young adults who were what teens when the divorce occured might be more inclined to side with the primary care giver and being boys protective of their mum anyway were inclined to side with her especially as she is demonstrably a master manipulator, gas lighting controller of behaviour and as young teens may lack the emotional maturity to assess things. As they get older their perpective may change but they know him better than I so it may not.

I try to empathise with a guy who for societal expectations gender norms/ reproductive norms whatever wanted kids and finds out after a presumably acrimonious divorce,and done the decent thing by providing for his "sons", who have largely snubbed him by going nc, that he has been intentionally deceived for half his life when contrary to what some have posted it would have been perfectly possible to have biological kids through assisted conception which is what he would have ended up doing if his ex wife was a decent human being.

Now may be some would say women cant relate to this because there is no doubt over maternity over a person gestated inside you. It is bad enough with a hospital mix up as opposed to a deception but at least in this case you might derive some consolation that you do still have biological children that you can get to know as well as ones you have raised.

I think its bollocks to say women cant relate to this though as any human being knows how strong the urge is to produce biological children and the physical and emotional pain people go through to have them whether that is miscarriages repeated ivf etc. It must be gut wrenching and devastating to find out differently even if you think he should take consolation and more attachment to the (OM's) children that he raised. Small wonder he needed some acknowledgement of wrongdoing by the person who has caused him this pain and lets face it in terms of how different the divorce settlement might have been had the truth come out pre divorce 250k is not a huge sum

people righly speak with scorn about misogynist incel beliefs that women fuck who they fancy then settle with some sap to raise the children that result. This is exactly the sort of case they will latch on to
as evidence for their beliefs yet some posters still cant condemn this womans behaviour.

Isnt it better to believe that the vast majority of people men or women are fundamentally decent who would never dream of behaving like this rather then let judgement or comment's be clouded by whether you describe youself as a feminist or men's right advocate?

FFS. people need to stop referring to him as the father. THE WHOLE POINT IS HE IS NOT THE FUCKING FATHER.

The father was busy banging his wife without protection, and colluding in her deception.

How he has any moral culpability here is beyond me.

Actually if you read the boys stories it seems that their relationship had broken down long before then. The mother had clearly done a right number on them.

Maybe he really just behaved badly within the family? And they formed their own opinions. The son who gave the interview said they’d not been in contact for a couple of years before they found out and he wasn’t in his life so when he found out he wasn’t his father it wasn’t actually that hard to accept. I think the boy was 15 when it all first came out so Dear Old Dad wasn’t even in his children’s lives anyway, when they were young teens.

That’s a brilliant post walksen.

You come across this with both some men and women. They’re incapable of having empathy or understanding for anyone not the same sex as them.

For men, yes, it is usually MRAs/incels. There isn’t a word for the female one, I don’t come across female ones frequently IRL but blimey, they are over represented on here!

Whatever sex they are though, they usually aren’t very bright and aren’t blessed with much imagination.

@CarolDanvers one of the boys is still in contact with his "not dad".