Advice.

[WishIWasABaller]

I'll try to be a clear as possible without gettin boring.
Please be kind, I don't talk about this because I feel like such an idiot, but I'm also attending therapy for PND.

I used to go and work abroad for the summer every year, same place so had alot of friends. Met a guy who also used to go there for summer to work too, he worked in his families business(wasn't really work, more like earn crap money but have fun), he was from that country though, just a different part. We were together for 5 years, spend the whole summer together, we'd rent an apartment together, do lots of things. We used to meet up in winter too in different cities for holidays, but we were both working to save money for summer during winter. Everyone knew us, we were always together, met some of his family, brothers, uncles, cousins, nieces/nephews etc. Just not his parents basically as they lived in the other city and were very old. His family that I met were very kind to me. He was also very nice, treated me very well, made sure I was always happy, and did everything he could to make me happy. He was my best friend. Anyway he hadn't made a move and told me his parents do not agree within being together as we are different religions, so therefore can't get married and he said "I can't ask you to wait, it's not fair"
I decided 2017 was going to be the last year I go working abroad so that meant the last year seeing him too as he wasn't willing to take things further due to his parents. Halfway through the season I fell pregnant while on the pill, i really dont know what happened but it did and I was so upset at first. Told my bf and he was really good, calmed me down, took me for dinner etc he called my mum to let her know I wasn't feeling great (obviously I had already text her at this point). He tldidbt mention the pregnancy for a couple of days, and I had come round to the idea after talking it through with my mum. I definitley felt that a termination was not the answer. I brought it up with him again and he told me he didn't want the baby, he wasn't ready but he said it was my decision. I was upset but wasn't willing to go through an abortion, I told him if he wanted nothing to do with the baby then Ok, we would not have any contact then. I had a few problems early pregnancy in which the doctor told me I couldn't fly home, my bf helped with appointments etc.
A week later I found out he was actually married with 3 kids. found out accidentally through facebook, i had logged into my facebook on his phone as mine had died, and it must have synced his contacts so i had all these randoms in the "people you may know" section. One of the prpfiles was a woman with the same name as a tattoo he had on his arm, he told me it was his sister who died. I looked at the profile and there were pictures od 3 boys... one looked exactly like him. I questioned him and he tried to deny it. I got my mum to dk some digging and she messahed a girl who confirmed he was married since he was 17 years old. I can't Even explain how I felt...every emotion probably. How could I not know this? How didn't I pick up on it? He gave me a bunch of excuses saying he didn't know what love was as the marriage was arranged when he was still a child, he didn't means to fall in love with me but it happened and he didn't want to lose me. Anyway I finally got a fit to fly letter and went home. I told him to leave me alone, especially as he wanted nothing to do with the baby I was carrying, but he insisted on texting me everyday still. I decided to just talk to him as I didn't want anymore stress and it was just easier.
My DD was born, I sent him a picture just so he knew, he didn't say much.
A few months later I went back to place I used to work to visit friends who lived there, 2 of them has also had babies around the same time. I let him know I was going and that if he wanted to meet his daughter he could, but if not then that's fine, all contact would stop if he didn't though as I had no reason to talk to him if he wasn't interested in DD I also stayed in the town next to where he was so that he didn't have to see us if he didn't want. He told me he wanted to meet her. He came, brogubt her gifts, spent time with her. I didn't know if I was doing the right thing hutni thought if there's a chance for him to be in DDs life then I'll take it. I took her over twice more during summer, we had some arguments as he wasn't making alot of effort and I told him he can walk away but he needs to do it now before she's old enough to know. He wanted to be in her life he said.
So this year I have booked to take her to see him, he knew I was going to. I told him the dates and he's turned around and said he is going to a different resort now, but he'll come see her for 1 day. I was so annoyed, I asked him why he didn't tell me? But he just got annoyed because I was angry which made me more angry and j threatened to tell his wife. (His uncles know as they have seen me but they are obviously keeping it a secret for him). Now I haven't heard from him in 2 weeks. Usually he texts everyday to ask about DD, but nothing. I text him to say he needs to decide what he's doing as I'm fed up, he asked me how can I expect him to text when I said all those things (I was quiet nasty when I was angry which I was probably out of order for) anyway since then I've text and he's not even answered.
So I'm taking it as he doesn't want to be in DDs life and fine, at least she's not at an age where she'll miss him and he can't let her down now. But my mum thinks I should tell his family.
I think part of the reason he is going to another resort is because word got out amongst some of the workers what he had done, and they have all taken my side kind of thing. They don't treat him like they used to and he's noticed, because nobody apart from his family knew he was married either . He doesn't feel comfortable and we reckon he wants to go elsewhere so he can live his "single summer life" again.
I think I should just leave him, not text but not block him but just do nothing and move on and concentrate on my DD.
My mum thinks I should message all the people from his wife's family, to let them know what kind of person he is, as she thinks I've let him get away with it.
I don't really know what to do. I'm in a pretty rough place and sometimes I get angry and think I should send the message, other days I don't even want to waste any more time on him. He has wasted alot of my time already. Do I send then message or not? I feel like I'm not really going to gain anything, but then again it may give me some closure? I don't know.

@Damntheman thank you. Alot of the time I'm too scared to saying anything because I feel like it is my fault. I should have been more cautious. But never in a million years would I have thought I would be in this situation, I already feel guilty that DD won't have her dad in her life.
I have typed this post out a few times but always scared people would judge me and call me ridiculous.

@PlainSpeakingStraightTalking DD has my last name, and he isn't in the birth certificate. Mainly for those reasons and also because he has to be there to be on the birth certificate.

Why do they say you should tell his family?

You certainly don’t need to do this until you are ready.

There are a few potential reasons - your child having family medical history, understanding their background and about their siblings.

For me some sort of revenge though isn’t one of them.

You will always have a potential relationship with him as he is the father’s child. Do you want it to be very acrimonious?

You don’t owe him anything. In my opinion though this includes the head space and anxiety that you are experiencing thinking about this.

If you deny access for your daughter to see him he could, of course, petition for it. Cross that bridge if it comes to it.

For now concentrate on your DD. If he makes no effort then wait and see what and when she wants. You can not force him. It just unfortunately doesn’t work that way. He makes he effort or he doesn’t.

I wouldn't tell them. I would walk away. It'll do you no good, and you won't feel better for it. Just focus on your dd and forget him.

@BluebadgenPIP I've googled it and I think so.

@NWQM I would much prefer to have a civil relationship with her dad, hence why I have tried to make things easy for him. And up until now it was as fine as fine could be.
I've done as much as I can to help things go smoothly but he makes me feel like I'm making things difficult. I've tried to be reasonable considering the circumstances, I just feel like I've lost control of my whole life and I need to regain it.

Walk away, you can leave the door open for him to contact his child if he wants to but save your sanity and walk away, I doubt any good will come of telling his wife.

I think you should just walk away, clean break and say nothing, for selfish reasons, not just because you don't want to hurt his other family.

If you do tell them then you are opening a communication line between yourself and his wife, you are also giving him a reason to continue to contact you, do you want these things?

Decide what you want for both yourself and your baby girl then go with it and if that is to just cut him from your life before your DD is old enough to remember him then I think you are well within your rights to do so.

Id also walk away and never contact him again. I would block his number as I wouldn't want to hear an you more of his lies. He is not a good father. He has little to no interest in his dd and you are being foolish spending money on trips to take dd to his country. As she gets older you can tell her who her father is but you cannot force a relationship. She's certainly not missing out by not having that prick in her life. Tell your mother to back off. She doesn't get a say in whether or not you tell his wife. Can you really be bothered with the backlash if his wife finds out. He could well end up being a thorn in your side. Stay the hell away from him.

@WishIWasABaller why do you want to have a civil relationship with him?

• He lied to you for years about his real life

• manipulated you for YEARS

• cost you precious time, energy and money flying back and forth multiple times per year

• and has now caused you so much emotional distress that you’re questioning your own sanity/PND

• is currently abusively manipulating you by giving you the silent treatment.

Ask yourself why you still want to be civil with a person who has emotionally abused you for years. Try to unpack this (with the help of your therapist). Stop giving this man your precious energy that could or should be spent building up a new good life for yourself and your daughter.

Also, tell your mother and friend to just STOP haranguing for a second and leave you alone to absorb things and figure out how you feel. There’s a reason why you’re in therapy and that’s likely to sort out your feelings and defog your brain after going through so much transition over he last couple of years. They need to respect that and you.

They’re putting way too much pressure on you to carry out their own revenge fantasies. I’m sure it’s because they care about you and hurt for you immensely but they need to know their insistence is beginning to hurt you too and not just him. They may back off for a bit once you tell them that because it’s probably not heir intention to hurt you at all. And definitely tell them not to go rogue either and contact the guy themselves.

Thank you for the replies. It helps!

@JingsMahBucket I guess I thought if our relationship was at least civil then my DD could get to know her father a little bit and he could play some part in her life, it's becoming clear that I shouldn't give him any more chances and I should stop contact but leave the door open so if he wants to know about DD he can, he probably won't though.

My mum asked me about him again this morning and I've told her I don't even want to talk about him, so I'm hoping that maybe she'll stop now. When I am kept busy it's better as I don't think about it too much, but then someone always brings me right back by asking if i've decided if I'm going to tell his wife or just by asking if he's messages and then continuing by talking shit about him. Which yeah he isn't nice, butbtalking about him and all the shit he's done all the time isn't helping me to move on. But they see it as they're reminding me of all the stuff he's done so that I can get angry and seek revenge

Also my mum has a habit of interfering, and I'm paranoid she will take it upon herself to tell his wife herself. I asked her not to tell anyone about the whole situation , made her promise actually. A few months later I found out she had told 2 people who weren't even close friends or anything

Firstly, as someone who has a DD who has had a hard relationship with her dad- if she is still young, just chop him out of her life now. Any relationship is not better than no relationship, and it hurts the child a hell of a lot more to have a dad who uses any excuse not to see them. I wish I had done it by the time DD was a toddler, as the sporadic relationship she had with him gave her a lot of mental health anguish in her early teens, and we are seeing some repercussions around her 'relationship' choices now.

Secondly, the wife- I think I would have to tell her. She will be angry, she will probably try to blame you, he will be FURIOUS, but at the end of the day she is raising your DDs half siblings. I would always be open with your DD about the fact that she's got siblings across the world, it's not a secret to find out in adulthood or when a bit of gossip hits her.

Hi OP,

sorry youve been though such a shit time. I think from the moment you found out you were pregnant, he made it very very clear he was not interested. It seems you are a good person and you have tried your best to almost 'force' him into a relationship (please dont take the word force in the wrong way - i just cant think of the word i want) You want whats best for you daughter and rightly so - this man is not what she needs - she has you and thats good enough.. She doesnt need to know her father didnt want her nor made any attempt to be in her life.

If i were you - i would cut him out totally. Good luck.

@WishIWasABaller regarding your mum: in that case I would try to lay down some concrete boundaries with her.

“I know you love me and you think you’re helping but it actually feels like you’re twisting a knife. Talking about it all the time is not helpful and is constantly reopening the wound. Stop talking about it. Do not reach out to them. I have to handle this in my own way and on my own time. I’m working on this with my therapist so I can address it in a way that doesn’t do permanent damage to me or DD. This is a critical time for her developmentally I don’t want to imprint upon her an emotionally distressed mother.”

Or something to that effect. Definitely try to develop boundary strategies with your therapist regarding your mother. Keep going, you’re doing so well, even though you may not feel like it right now. :)

@KnobJockey thanks for your reply, that's interesting because alot of my actions are based from information someone gave me a few months ago. I was told their father was in and out, not around alot and they realised he was a waste of space, but I was told that it the mum had stopped contact then she would've resented her mother for that (she thinks). So I was really worried that if I cut all contact and stopped him from seeing her then my DD would hate me for it later in life
I think I need to cut contact, for both mine and DDs sake. I don't plan on lying about anything to her, I will always be honest but I don't ever want her to feel like she wasn't good enough to make him love her. That's my fear.

@JingsMahBucket I'm going to try and get my mum off my back, she tends not to listen though and feels that, because I'm her daughter, she had the right to do what she wants concerning my life. I often tell her she's overstepping the mark with certain things (in the past she's gone through my messages behind my back, she has taken it upon herself to "fix" my problems Which often made it worse) but she always tells me "just wait until your DD is older and you'll see what I mean" I try to explain that she's losing my trust in certain ways by going behind my back or doing the opposite of what I ask but she won't have it, and gets really offended

There are a few fertile areas to explore with your therapist, OP.
One is establishing some boundaries with your mother. She is rather over invested in your life and trying to dictate your actions rather than support your choices.
Another is emotionally extricating yourself from your relationship with this man. Your head tells you to walk away and cut him out of your life and your child’s life, but I think your heart clings to a romantic fantasy that your doomed love will work out and the chap will be a good (although long distance) father.
You know your DD deserves to have a loving dad, but that isn’t on offer here. You need to choose between a clean break and no dad, or erratic contact with someone who didn’t want her in the first place. I know which I think would be less harmful for the child, but you need to decide this for yourself.
Finally, you need time and space to heal, find yourself, and think about what you might want from a new relationship in the future, with a decent (unmarried!) chap who will genuinely love you and prioritise your needs. But you need to let go of Mr Wrong before you are anywhere near ready to seek Mr Right.
Keep going with the therapy, and let your head settle. You will find resolution eventually. God bless.

The situation is what it is. You cannot change the past. You clearly have no future with this lying, cheating waster, who's family are prepared to lie to facilitate his adultery. You have 2 issues now. You and your daughter. Your daughter deserves stability. Dragging her to another country with vague, changeable plans to suit his secret family will do her no good whatsoever. He's in or he's out. Set up your home where you have support to suit you. Let him know where you are. Stay in touch. But it's time he made some decisions and I suspect you're not anywhere the top of his priorities. He will continue snagging the hired help in season and going back to his wife afterwards. You need to make your life happy and complete without him.

While it's true that DD knows her dad is responsible for his own actions, she still blames me in a small way for choosing him to be her dad. And my regret now is that I haven't protected her from the pain he's caused by being in and out of her life, and seeing her when it suits him. Sure, she might have resented me and believed him a bit more when he came out with the usual lies of 'your mum stopped me seeing you'- which he came out with even though it wasn't the case, by the way- but at least I might have saved her some of the pain and heartache she had.

If you are going to carry on taking her, then try to contain the damage. Don't build it up before hand, have somewhere alternative to go if he doesn't show up or he is late, don't beg him to see her. And start work on her self esteem very young. Have a look at affirming exercises you can do, and do them! Honestly, I cannot describe to you how much a not interested father knocks their self esteem, and unfortunately can mean that girls can chase after boys that don't have much going for them.

I feel you have to think about your own future and stop all this texting every day, and move on with your life. You will be able to see much more clearly and make a life for yourself and your DD. You are obviously still young and it's a waste of your life hanging onto this 'relationship' for the sake of your DD.
You go on about your DD never knowing her father. well if you move on you may well meet another potential dad for her and make a much better life with someone who will be there for you and her, your never going to do that if you are in daily contact and going every summer to see this man.