Ending my marriage but wife doesn't know yet

[anotherbloodynamechangeagain]

NC for this as massively outing.
I've been married for over 25 years to a woman who I know I should never have married. She was pregnant with what I though was my child but subsequently it came out she had been sleeping around. Child was born at a time we were t together (we'd split up due to her infidelity). While we had been split up I'd got back with an old girlfriend who'd been my child hood sweetheart. 6 weeks after the baby had been born it was clear that all was not well as SS were becoming involved. As much as I didn't love her I felt the right thing was to go back to her as she wasn't coping. Timing was awful as on the day I was about to tell my girlfriend that we had to split she also discovered she was pregnant. I didn't tell her that day but a few weeks later I I did. She was devastated even though I told her my reasons-it wasn't love it was duty. I knew she had strong family and could cope whereas the other girl couldn't.
Many many years passed. I paid maintenance but had no contact. My wife told me she'd take our children away if I had contact with him.
Last year I met my son for the first time. He's a fine young man and a father himself now.
It hasn't been a happy marriage as wife is a functional alcoholic and not a good mother. I've kept my head down and worked hard to provide for them all. I'm now at the point where my children are adults and I can't take any more of this woman. She's poisonous and even told lies when I visited my son.
I also saw my ex-DS mum. I'm still every bit as much in love with her as I ever was. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I don't know if there can ever be a future for us after how I've behaved. But I know I can't keep on with the lie I'm living now.
AIBU to just tell her our marriage is over and I don't even want to attempt to sort it out?

So if a woman posted on here that her husband is an alcoholic, that early on in their marriage he slept with 3 other people and now 25 years on, after the children have left she wants to leave, you would all say that she's unreasonable, alcoholism is an illness that he needs help and support for and she's no doubt caused it by being such a shit wife for 25 years? Yeah right.

I'm your quest to present this as sexism issue, you have conveniently ommitted the rest of the story, where the woman had a child with another man and she abandoned them both and hadn't seen her oldest child for decades. And the part where she decieved her husband into thinking she loved him for the entirety of their life together (for decades after his infidelity), choosing to bring two more children into a loveless marriage with an alcoholic.

If you told the whole story, the woman would get the exact same response as OP has.

In your quest...

That doesn't explain/excuse the posters who are blaming the OP for his wife being alcoholic or insinuating that he should stay in a marriage that he isn't happy in because the wife needs help.

Regardless of who has done what to whom if anyone is unhappy in a marriage they should leave.

Does the wife hold no responsibility for her parts in being unfaithful or not telling her son that his paternity is uncertain?

That doesn't explain/excuse the posters who are blaming the OP for his wife being alcoholic or insinuating that he should stay in a marriage that he isn't happy in because the wife needs help

I don't think anyone has said he should stay with his poor wife. In fact we suspect he may well be at least part of her problem and have made it clear he should let her get on with her life as much as he wants to get on with his! We are however suggesting he is a coward for abandoning a child and pretending it was his wife's fault

Well that’s a totally different point to your previous comment with the ridiculous sexism agenda

Anyway, I don’t think anyone has actually said that OP should stay with his wife. On the contrary, most of us think she deserves the chance to be free from this marriage with a man who loves someone else and has done for nearly 3 decades. And it's certainly not too much of a stretch to wonder whether a man who is in love with his ex and talks about his wife the way that OP does, may well have contributed in some way to creating the kind of toxic environment in which her alcoholism has taken hold.

Of course the wife bears part of the responsibility for hiding the truth surrounding her son's paternity. Absolutely nobody has suggested otherwise. As for the cheating, again of course it's wrong, but if you choose to forgive and build a life with someone then you don't punish them for 25 YEARS! You don't use it as part of some weird, convoluted excuse not to see your son. You don't trap someone in a loveless marriage. His wife's infidelity 25 years ago pales into insignificance compared to everything that OP has done to all of these people. His wife, his ex and four children all living with the fallout of his actions.

@pk37

I agree with you. He's a man, therefore he must have driven his wife to alcoholism.

I repeat that the harshness is everything to do with him being a man.

Ridiculous double standards on here.

Nah, it's the fact he got one woman pregnant, left her, got another woman pregnant, abandoned her and his son for his sons childhood although he loved her, went back to the first woman, got her pregnant twice more even though he didn't love her. Stayed with her despite not loving her for twenty-five years and now blames her for everything, even though he made the choices.

Only a man could do this - true. Women can't impregnate willy nilly, our contribution to reproduction lasts nine months, involves our wjhole bodies, and usually ends up with us holding the baby. It's the facts of life letting him down, not anti-manism.

oh poor thing. All those bitches trapping you and stopping you telling truth and making you abandon your children.
Grow up

Ridiculous double standards on here

A couple of posters are taking this daft "poor menz" stance but nobody has been able to refer to, or actually link to, a thread where a mother abandoned her child in similar circumstances and was treated any differently than this OP by people posting. Saying "it would be different if it were a woman posting" with absolutely no shred of evidence to back this up is just meaningless.

I don't think I can actually remember ever reading a thread where a woman had walked away from her child without a backward glance, leaving her ex holding the baby without any support. I've read two in the last week centering around men who have done this.

You want men and women to be treated the same then maybe these men need to show the same commitment to their offspring that women generally do.

Nah... your re writing history.

No one would choose to leave the woman they loved and had a blood related child with to go with some one you didnt even like who had just had a baby from some one else out of doing the right thing.

You thought she was the better option, thought you loved her..was more exciting... what ever but dont make out you was trying to do a good deed.

You dont need permission to leave your wife. Do it for her. And I'd prop leave ya ex alone.. she escaped you once dont try to trap her again.

A couple of posters are taking this daft "poor menz" stance but nobody has been able to refer to, or actually link to, a thread where a mother abandoned her child in similar circumstances and was treated any differently than this OP by people posting.

Why does the situation have to be exactly the same? In fact, I've seen this argument used a lot - you can only compare if you can find exactly the same situation occuring. That's rubbish.

We can compare wanting to leave an alcoholic partner. If a woman posted that her husband was an alcoholic and would she be wrong to leave him no one would ask why is he an alcoholic. What could have happened to make him alcoholic. There would be no excuses made for him. The advice would be to leave him. Yet here, posters are blaming the OP for his wife being alcoholic yet you have zero proof of this. For all you know he has been a good husband and father and has kept his feelings buried for 25 years.

Wrt him staying with the wife and not the gf OP says that he decided to stay with her because she was pregnant (with possibly his child) and that she had no support (alcoholic parents) and that his gf was more able to cope. In a terrible situation - 2 women pregnant - clearly he had a choice to make and it makes sense to me as to why he chose to stay with his wife.

Whatever the rights and wrongs he has stayed and raised his children for 25 years.

I don't get why you are all so quick to brush off what the wife has done - affairs with 3 people, lied to her son about who is father is - and she certainly hasn't been trapped in a marriage for 25 years because she could have left had she wanted to.

So yes, double standards.

MN had a huge problem with double standards because of the gender demographic on here. I have said before that I have no idea why men post on here unless they actually want to have all their motives and actions examined in a negative light. I can only presume that the men who post these kind of issues are either looking for that response as a counterpoint to support they are receiving elsewhere or are too desperate or naive to have understood that mumsnet is not a 'safe space' for them.I

Why does the situation have to be exactly the same?

It doesn't. But to compare two situations that are barely alike except for one common feature, and attempt to use it as a "gotcha!" when you've removed the part of the story that people are actually focusing their comments on is just meaningless. People are commenting on the alcoholism more or less in passing, as it is part of the backdrop to the child abandonment, marrying a woman he didn't love, having more children in this awful situation etc. If you take all of that away and leave only the alcoholism, of course responses would be different. That's really not difficult to understand surely.

For all you know he has been a good husband and father and has kept his feelings buried for 25 years.

Not even going to argue with this nonsense.

In a terrible situation - 2 women pregnant - clearly he had a choice to make

Why? Why did it have to be one child or the other? Why couldn't he have done everything in his power to maintain relationships with both of his children? It would have been messy, granted, but for any decent person it would have been the only way forward. His relationship status should have been secondary to that.

Some things are just indefensible, abandoning your own child being one of them. It's shocking to hear anybody defending this, and even more shocking to hear women presenting this sorry tale as proof that men are victims of sexism. Internalised misogyny is real.

How could he have maintained a relationship with the son when his wife forbade it? Yes, of course he could have refused to do that but then that might have ended the marriage and maybe his wife might have prevented him from seeing her child. So that was a no win situation wasn't it?

And no, I'm not only picking one example. The posters berating the OP aren't only commenting on the aspects where he was at fault but are also turning the whole post around and blaming him entirely whilst exonerating the wife - so he has become responsible for the wife being alcoholic, for trapping her in a loveless marriage, for raising a son that might not be his, for not getting a DNA test.

Why not comment on the things that are his fault rather than blaming him for everything?

Yes it is shocking that he abandoned the child. Equally it is shocking and indefensible that the wife banned him from seeing the child. It is also shocking and indefensible that she has neglected to tell her son that she doesn't know who his father is.

It is also shocking that posters here are making the OP responsible for his wife's alcoholism. In that case, women who post about their husband being an alcoholic are also responsible, right?

How could he have maintained a relationship with the son when his wife forbade it? Yes, of course he could have refused to do that but then that might have ended the marriage and maybe his wife might have prevented him from seeing her child. So that was a no win situation wasn't it?
Is this an attempt at devil's advocate or something? I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe that this is a genuine set of opinions but on the off chance....yes he should have ignored the fact that his wife "forbade" him to see the child, even if that came at the cost of his marriage. Obviously. If his wife had attempted to prevent him from seeing the child he shared with her, then he would have had to go through to courts to gain access. It is ludicrous to suggest that a man would choose NEVER to see one of his children, because to do so MIGHT mean that it would be harder for him to see the other.

It is also shocking that posters here are making the OP responsible for his wife's alcoholism

Saying that somebody might have contributed to something isn't making them wholly responsible for it.

As for all the other stuff, of course he bears responsibility for it. The fact that his wife may be responsible for some of it too doesn't mean OP isn't.

this is complete and utter bull.......If the post is true he is complete prick .

Not playing devil's advocate at all. I'm just refusing to blame only one party when clearly they both are responsible.

I think you are underplaying the difficulties that the OP faced when deciding which partner to stay with. Maybe he could have applied to the courts for access but this was 25 years ago so how easy was it for a father to get access if the mother refused to comply? Imo he is likely to have not seen that child so would be in the same position as now ie in contact with one child and not the other.

And people aren't saying OP may have contributed to the alcoholism - they are saying that it is entirely his fault for trapping his wife in a loveless marriage etc etc etc.

What is the other stuff that OP is responsible for? And why all of the sneery "you should leave your wife so that she can be free to at last enjoy her life"? Again, I've seen many threads where the wife has posted asking if she is right to leave a fundamentally ok marriage but where she is just not happy. The replies are always "you don't need a reason to leave a marriage. The fact that you are no longer happy is reason enough". Same applies here surely? The OP isn't happy and wants to leave. End of the story surely? Of course he should leave if he doesn't want to be married.

"And why all of the sneery "you should leave your wife so that she can be free to at last enjoy her life"?"

Because he doesn't love her, never loved her according to him, and holds her in complete contempt. Of course he should set her free. One of the vows you take when you get married is to love your spouse, so he was either lying at the time or lying now. Neither looks good does it?

Equally one of the vows the wife took was to forsake all others - except she didn't when she slept with 3 other men.

So why shouldn't the wife have to set OP free? Clearly she didn't love him enough to remain faithful did she?

Didn't that happen before they got married? Who is confused - you or me?

I can't see now. In the OP he says that they split due to her infidelity, then while he was with the new gf the baby was born and after 6 weeks, when SS became involved he decided to move back to support her.

Can't see when they got married or when he found out about the multiple potential fathers. Regardless, she wasn't faithful clearly.

And maybe he did love her when they got married but finding out about her unfaithfulness and alcoholism has caused him to fall out of love with her?

No matter, no one is obligated to remain in a marriage.

Not really regardless, if you're trying to use marriage vows against her.

He didn't love his wife when he married her - "I told her my reasons-it wasn't love it was duty." - so I'm not sure why you're trying to speculate now that he did love her after all.

You are unbelievable, you abandon a child that you know is your's, to care for a child that your not sure is your's and marry a woman you didn't even love, yet you have another child with her!! Your lucky your abandoned son even want's to talk to you, your ex had a lucky escape your a bit of a dickhead, your abandoned child was the victim not you.

Erythronium

Well we don't know when the infidelity occured, whether before or after the marriage. Either way do you think it's ok to be unfaithful?