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 :(

I'm not surprised that he's lashing out.

Me either. If I were him I would feel that my entire life had been a lie. Nothing would be as it had seemed. Who knows what choices he might have made in his life had he not been raising 3 children? She took the right to make those choices away from him. She's also denied her sons the right to know their biological father and also his right to know his sons (though possibly he does know about them but chooses not to be involved).

There are biological parents and there are legal parents. A child’s legal parent does not automatically have responsibility for that child. And the person with responsibility for a child is not always the legal parent.

He was originally thought to be the biological and legal parent and now he is not the biological parent but he could be the legal parent if he wanted to be.

Well you might want to read back. Bottom line is I am not prepared to enter discussion with a poster who is at a Netmums/Daily Mail level of debate.

Really? Because you seem to be replying to every single one of my posts.

Actually you are exactly the sort of person I’m talking about. You’re determined to kid yourself that it’s fine and he should just shrug and carry on because adoptive fathers and step fathers do it so he shouldn’t mind.

Well women consent to sex all the time, doesn’t make rape okay. He wasn’t given the opportunity to know or consent to bringing up another man’s children.

Why has this touched such a raw nerve for you anyway? Make sure you take all your kids hair out of their brushes after you’ve used them eh? Hide their toothbrushes? Got 23andme blocked on the WiFi?

It sounds like he still is the legal parent. Nobody has mentioned any attempt to change the birth certs etc.

he could be the legal parent if he wanted to be.

How? Is that his choice to make? What if the biological father suddenly appears?

This man did not consent to be in this position and his wife had no right to do it to him. I can't believe the sons are standing by her. I would have nothing more to do with my mum if I found out this about her.

Of 11 of your oosts I responded to 2, neither did I take seriously.

How? Is that his choice to make? What if the biological father suddenly appears?

Because that’s how the law works. For all we know he may still have the status of legal parent, we don’t know if he regularised his status.

Either way to be recognised as legal parent you can acknowledge or adopt a child. In some cases a parent can be declared by a court.

*If you asked the boys who their father was - what would they say?

The fact of biology seems to be less important to them than it is to him.*

This might depend on if he really isn't a nice person or if they believe their mother that he isn't very nice or if they still think that they could inherit from him or not.

If you rape a women in her drunken sleep. And she finds out years later after your WhatsApp group brags get out.

No grey area. No you weren’t both equally drunk and humping and dribbling like half asleep people on too many Valium. All whilst trying to insert a flaccid worm into someone’s belly button (yes I’ve seen this on a sofa but constenting mind ugh)
Your sober. She’s knocked out for the count.

It’s completely ok. She didn’t know so what’s the big deal? She has no right to feel used, abused.

Now let’s say this happened multiple times and each time was under the same circumstances...

Yes it’s not the same but they’re both wrong! So so wrong!

I’m not belittling rape
I’m not belittling long term affairs
I’m not belittling paternity fraud

They’re all wrong wrong!

Yes he has ever right to feel shit about it. I’m sure the taboilds got hold of it. Showed him the story they were going to write and he’s given his interview to get his version of the real story out. Before the ex got her version out.

Otherwise why didn’t he do it years ago when he got the crap payout?

I don’t think he comes across well. But I’m not the one who’s been in his situation. So I maybe I’d do the same?

I’m sure plenty of men have just got on with life
I’m also sure some have gone into depression and possabably killed themselves.

Possibly ugh, last time I’m typing on a phone.

Because that’s how the law works. For all we know he may still have the status of legal parent, we don’t know if he regularised his status.

Either way to be recognised as legal parent you can acknowledge or adopt a child. In some cases a parent can be declared by a court.

So, in essences, there are legal processes for him to go through in order to be legally recognised as the father, correct? In which case, the law is seeing him as being different to a biological parent.

I presume that he also can't adopt adult children can he? So their relationship is what, in law? And say this had surfaced when the boys were children. Could he have adopted them without the permission of the biological father?

What I am getting at is that this man is no longer the father in the way that he would have been had he been the biological father and so things have very much changed. It isn't an irrelevance that has come to light.

I think I'm right in saying that he is legally the father because he and the mother were married when they were born. I think he's still legally the father even though he now knows he isn't the biological father.

I think even worse than the original deception is the fact that the mother continued to deny it after the father told them about his infertility, right up to when the DNA test proved he wasn't the biological father.

So, in essences, there are legal processes for him to go through in order to be legally recognised as the father, correct? In which case, the law is seeing him as being different to a biological parent.

No, the opposite. He is the legal parent, there are legal processes he could go through to change that (if he hasn’t changed it already).

From what the son says, they only stopped talking a year before the tests were done, which would have been about the time his health would have started failing, which is interesting. I wonder if his failing health meant less money was forthcoming?

Anyway, I found it interesting that the son spoke about their feelings about their father surrounding the tests as though those feelings were proven right ‘He’s manipulative, he was lying, he faked the test, he was trying to get money out of our Mum’. It seems like he hasn’t really sunk in that actually they were being very unfair to him because he wasn’t doing any of those things.

I know that psychologically, people who are manipulative and in particular people with personality disorders, they tend to accuse people they are attacking of doing things which are actually traits of their own personality. It does seem like that could be the case here. It really doesn’t seem to have sunk in for the son that all the things they falsely accused their father of, their mother has actually done all of them on a huge scale. Lied, manipulated, gained money from the other parent dishonestly. And although when they thought their father was doing it, it was a sign of what an awful person he was, when the mother does it, it’s fine apparently.

I think it’s interesting that the mother has also apparently bought them properties and spent a lot of money on them. It’s almost like she knew that it might come out and used that foreknowledge to make sure she had sufficiently buttered them up so they’d side with her too. There’s that whole side of it as well, withholding the knowledge would have given her the advantage of ‘prepping’ them to a certain extent. She could have spent years dropping little hints about ‘if he could find a way of getting out of being a parent he would do’ etc, etc.

It really is weird though, the way he accuses his Dad of all the things his Mum has done, lying, conning money, manipulating - and he doesn’t seem to realise his Mum has done all those things and he’s giving her a free pass.

A group of us were chatting about this last night. Here is the scenario that a man in the group put to us.

I am married but not in love with nor do I have any real respect for my wife. I should probably get divorced but we have a good standard of living and I won’t be able to afford such a nice life on my own.

I am also having an affair with another colleague but she won’t commit to me so there is no point in leaving my wife.

I would like to have children but want enough money to bring them up well so I think that I might as well have them with my wife since the marriage works for me, even if she wouldn’t be my first choice.

My wife discovers that we need to do IVF and I decide that that’s fine but I worry that since there is some illness in her family, she will pass this to the kids.

I therefore decide to find a donor so I can get good quality eggs and manage to bribe the IVF clinic to use those eggs, instead of those of my wife.

My gives birth and is delighted to become a mother. We end up with 3 children but the marriage is not great. We are both at fault but perhaps the fact that I have little respect for her as a human being hasn’t helped.

Anyway, the divorce is hideous but I have less work committments than my very successful wife, so I get custody and a good settlement. My wife doesn’t react well to this or my continual demands for child maintenance and extras. I manage to convince the kids that she is just manipulative and unreasonable. They aren’t really that fond of their mother but neither am I so ...

Anyway, it transpires that there is another illness in the wife’s family and the children need genetic screening. I know that the kids don’t have the same genes so I just try to delay the whole thing.

Eventually, one of the kids is worried and goes for the screening. And of course, the whole thing comes out. The wife is outraged but I think she is unreasonable. After all, she has 3 kids and has brought them up. What does biology matter?

When we stopped laughing, we thought that he had a point...

Wasn’t there a case in America about an accidental baby swap, I’m sure it was found out when one child was seriously ill(she died) and the parents decided to get their own biological child back, I’m sure if the other mum had written on here she wouldn’t have just been told get on with it , you were lucky enough to have a child for 12 yrs

I think even worse than the original deception is the fact that the mother continued to deny it after the father told them about his infertility, right up to when the DNA test proved he wasn't the biological father.

Agreed - in fact if I understood him correctly, the ex-wife even continued to deny it after the DNA tests proved it.

The girl above was sent to live with her biological parents plus obviously the other poor parents in the end lost 2 children

He had the chance to be a father to the boys for 20 odd years. He might never have been a father at all otherwise. She was deceitful but he should at least have been grateful he had a family instead of throwing at all away in a
vengeful rage

Their marriage was over by then. He found out he was infertile when having fertility checks with his new wife.

Also, he hasn't had a relationship with his children for over 3 years, before he found out they werent his basically

The girl above was sent to live with her biological parents plus obviously the other poor parents in the end lost 2 children
Which shows that biology does matter in the eyes of the law. The parents that raised the girl (her legal parents) were superceded by her biological parents.

There simply is no defence for what this woman has done. There is no justification for it and I doubt that there is any consolation for the man based on him having been part of the boys lives.

Very very sad for the man and the boys. The mother is certainly not a victim here in my view.

The posters On page 3, sonneedshelp and Augusta, have both summed it up very nicely.

Agreed - in fact if I understood him correctly, the ex-wife even continued to deny it after the DNA tests proved it

I think the boys had an inkling something wasn’t right which is why some of them told him if you do this and try to get money back from mum we’ll disown you

Why are so many people equating this man's experience with adoption? The latter is a choice.

Assume that the sons have made decisions about each of their parents (eg no contact with the man they thought was their father) for sound reasons.