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?

it sounds like they both played the field and he went back to her because he wanted to. He abandoned the other woman and his child , first he says the eldest child is not his then he says it might be ! he is just a weak individual who regrets the path that he willingly decided to take. if he loved the other person as much as he now thinks he does he would not have abandoned her and his child in the first place. He has absolutely no conscience and is twisting the truth for his own benefit. TBH I think this is a fake post.

They both played the field? She slept with 3 men. He left and started a new relationship.

How are those situations comparable?

*For 25 years you stayed with a woman who had a child who wasn’t
even you’res yet you abandoned your child and the woman you claim to have loved and missed his childhood

Well, this basically.

You abandoned your own child and had no contact with him for over two decades for the sake of a child who wasn’t yours? WTF??*

This ^

bold fail ^

I'm reading the op as saying that he doesn't know who is the father - it might be him, it might not be - but that within 6 weeks SS were about to get involved.

If that were you would you stand by and potentially let your child be taken into care or would you, possibly misguidedly in retrospect, move back home and care for the child?

There are too many questions here to be able to judge the situation. I can't say that it's all the OPs fault though. Taking his posts on face value I think he tried to do the right thing and now realises that was a mistake.

Yes, ideally, he would have known the true paternity of his first child. He would also have been allowed to have a relationship with both of the children.

DecomposingComposers

Are you actually showing sympathy for a person who thinks he is so hard done by ? I don't care if she slept with 200 men he went back and abandoned his pregnant girlfriend. The situations are comparable as he was having unprotected sex with both of them, unless you think they took advantage of him. He should have done the right thing then instead of opting for the easy option. His post make me laugh what a creep.

But he had left the relationship. Then started a new relationship. How is that the same as cheating on someone within a relationship?

And yes, he left his gf, who was pregnant.

But left her to go back to the wife who had a 6 week old baby and was having SS involvement.

So what would you rather - that he stayed with the gf and let SS take the 1st baby into care?

That makes no sense to me at all.

No decision that he took would have been right would it?

DecomposingComposers

He could have done lots of things differently

1. He didn't have to have unprotected sex
2. Should have been honest with pregnant GF
3. There were paternity tests available at the time
4. He could have stood his ground especially if wife did cheat !
5. He could have been a supportive father to the child he cut out
6. He didn't have to live a lie
7. He did not have to be so pathetic and weak

The whole idea of him trying to blame his wife for his loss . If his wife did cheat he had grounds for leverage and did not have to abandon his child or the other child (paternity unknown) His post is self indulgent and completely selfish.He has supposedly lived a lie and fathered more children with a woman he didn't love and is now having a midlife crisis and feeling sorry for himself, I wonder if he thought she was poisonous the other times he got her pregnant ?

ll be honest-women give a more balanced opinion. - to that I would say you need counselling and not MN and also this:
www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a27259689/toxic-masculinity-male-friendships-emotional-labor-men-rely-on-women

you can't undo 25 YEARS of emotional mess you have been in by with one thread discussing it with strangers

You're still hoping to reconnect with the Mother of your son, after abandoning her pregnant? If I were her, I would tell you where to go

backburner

Our opinions are clearly very different. I shall agree to disagree.