To be rethinking my 3 year relationship as he never told me he had kids.

[PenelopeDelph]

New account for this as v v outing but need to rant. I'm 33 and he's 45. We've been together 2 years. I knew he was married in his 20s and got divorced at 35 but he has never mentioned his kids before now. Both of his parents are dead and he doesn't have anything to do with the rest of his family either. We had our DD 6 months ago and recently moved into a new flat and have been talking about getting engaged.

On Friday I was suspicious as he told me he was at work in another city (he is a self employed handyman) but got a text from my friend who works at a hospital in our city saying she'd bumped into him in the car park and he'd told her he'd just given an elderly woman a lift to A and E after she fell over. I phoned him to ask why he was still in our city when he'd left for work hours ago and he told me he'd explain when he got home (which was 2 hours later). The sod had me worrying for hours thinking he was ill and hadn't told me.

So he gets home and tells me to sit down and I was feeling sick with worry expecting him to say he had cancer or something horrible. He ends up blurting out he has 3 sons from his previous marriage who he didn't see for years because of conflict with his ex wife but has been building bridges with them the past few months ever since he discovered his eldest's girlfriend was having a baby. They are 21, 18, and 16. He said he didn't want to tell me as they resented him for a while over having no contact and weren't happy to hear he'd had a new baby with a younger woman. But said that he'd always intended to tell me soon. Not sure I believe that. Anyway so half the time when he's been at "work" he's actually been spending time at the pub with his sons and even helping his eldest do up his baby's nursery. Which would be lovely if only I had known about it! He says they are all a lot closer now.

On Friday eldest's girlfriend had a baby girl and my partner was at the maternity ward paying them a visit. Apparently his ex wife was there as well and while I don't feel threatened by her I find it disheartening that he'd told me he was at work while he was at the hospital with her meeting their lovely new grandchild. All while I was at home with my daughter. I feel exlcuded and an absolute mug. Me and DD went to stay with my mum after he told me as I was fuming. We came back today and it has been tense to say the least. I lost my shit when I saw he'd packed all of DD's old baby clothes up to pop round to his son as I had intended to give them to my friend. Another huge row happened and I haven't seen him since. I reckon he's at his eldest's house.

I just feel like me and my DD have been so excluded and disregared. It's great that he's trying to make it up to his son's for not being part of their lives but he should have told me, surely? It's like he wants to keep them and us in two separate boxes because they resent us after he didn't see them for years and had a baby with me. Which infuriates me because it's his fucking fault, not mine and DD's. I'm very hurt and angry by it all and I'm not sure what to do next.

This is awful OP. Such a huge amount of deceit over an extended period of time. It’s like his choices and wishes are the only ones that matter, and yours don’t.

And what is his plan going forward ? To keep you all in separate ‘boxes’ in his life ? Do you truly think he’s told them about you and the baby ?

The lies he told to cover all this and potentially got others to lie to you is something I don’t think I could get over. Good luck with whatever you decide to do x

I don't think I could get past the deceit. Knowing how easily he can lie and compartmentalise his life as he's demonstrated I think I'd always be wondering what else he's capable of lying about. The trust would be gone and I think it would be very difficult in the future not to wonder if he's really working late or seeing friends/his older dc or is he up to something else?

I'd also wonder how easy he might find it to walk away from you and dd without a backward glance if things got difficult, it's not like he doesn't have form.

He's certainly not the man you thought he was, in fact you really don't know him at all. I couldn't stay with him.

Is he even divorces. I wouldn't trust anything he says

Wow that's going to take some getting your head around.

you feel excluded and disregarded because you have been massively excluded and disregarded....im sorry op

he's an absolute dishonest shit...

He's completely untrustworthy and manipulative. Is the house yours, his or joint? He needs to leave for a while, give you a chance to process this.

I hope you took back your dds clothes.

He'd be out on his arse already here op
3 kids he's never mentioned wtf what a low life

And to allow you to have a child with him without knowing that massive information he's a bastard

My suspicion is that he's blamed everything on you too. Given them excuses and someone else to blame for his disgrace.

Wow! His youngest is only 16, and he stopped bothering to see his sons when they were only 6, 8 and 11. What a shit.

He's not a "great dad" he's a deadbeat dad, and now a long-term, committed lier too.

Sorry OP

Actually I'd wonder whether he really never sees the rest of his family or is this what you've been led to believe in case they let it slip about his other three children? For all you know he has family who don't bloody know about you and his DD! Sorry Op I'm not trying to make it worse but you really just don't know that you can trust anything he's told you in the past.

Jesus. He has lied to you every single day. So when you were pregnant he acted like it was his first? Did he pretend to be crap at nappies at first? What an absolute twat.

That'd be the end for me. Sorry x

This would be a serious enough deceit for me to end the relationship. This is a huge thing to lie about, and to do so over the course of 3 years. He’s almost been trying to live a double life. There is no way I could trust a man who kept something so big from me.

Maybe if he’d come clean as soon as the kids got in touch I would consider forgiveness, but he’s been meeting up with them for months pretending to be at work without giving you and your DD a second thought. Honesty is not in his repertoire.

I don’t say this very often but to me this is a very clear ‘LTB’ situation.

The elderly lady he was helping is probably his mother who wouldn’t comply with his request to refuse the existence of her grandsons. So he said she was dead so you wouldn’t find out.

Gosh that's really awful. I would see him in a completely different light now. That's a huge, sustained fabrication.

What an absolutely strange man.
I'd be wondering if the 3 abandoned kids are made up! Are they an imaginary cover for a baby he had with another woman? Sorry to just throw a spanner in the works by even going there. But it wouldn't surprise me if this itself were some elaborate cover story for having a baby with another woman. I am over-thinking this, clearly. But it's just so odd that there wasn't a hint of these 3 sons and now, boom! He's a grandfather. The level of deception is unbelievable. First time father wobbles. All so incredibly strange.
The clothes thing is so odd. I find it weird that he's just tucked into your baby's clothes without any discussion to give them to some, in all honesty, random baby. I mean, it just was SO not his place to do that.
The layers of lies here. Super shady. What an awful way to find out you don't know the father of your child at all.
I'd be making every effort to meet the ex... just to find out if the 'I have 3 sons I abandoned' is true.
Personally, I couldn't stay. The deception is too huge.

Fuck.

This is huge. Strangely enough the thing that seems most painful here is him packing away the baby bits with no regard.
Perhaps it's because it represents how he has dealt with the whole situation from the start.
Just packing stuff up and fucking off without any consideration to anyone's feelings.

It would take a lot for me to consider leaving my husband. I would have to think about the big picture, the kids, could counselling help etc etc
But I don't think I could forgive this.

Packing up the baby clothes 😮😮😮

He took away your choice to date a man who didn’t have children. He also took away your decision to have a baby with a man who didn’t have already have a family. Both very important decisions and not ones I could ignore.

This is unforgivable I’m afraid. He has completely deceived you. You haven’t been together long but have a child and he’s tricked you deliberately to make you feel trapped. Never trust men who want to move at whirlwind speed. If most relationships waited til over 3 years it enables most truths to come out about the persons real nature. You must have got pregnant after about only a year of knowing him ? These type of men like to trap the partner fast and so they feel like they can’t back out. The good news is you can absolutely back out of a relationship with him ( not his DD) but this relationship is sadly over if you want a happy content life.

I hate to be one of the 'leave him' tribe because they tend to come out in force for every marriage or relationship disagreement...but... RUN FOR THE HILLS! I couldnt forgive that. He clearly doesnt value family and puts himself first. If you do decide to stay, you need councelling as a couple and maybe alone too to enable you to completely forgive and not bring it up during arguments etc.
I find it very bizarre when dads say their ex bans them from seeing their kids. Happened with SIL and it turned out (after they had a child together) that he was violent when he wasnt the center of her attention anymore. We now understand hes legally not allowed to see his kids (including my nephew). To me, it seems your DH wanted to restart his life and now feels guilty or knew it would come out at some point so thought he would restart a relationship with them first.

I haven't been able to sleep at all. I've been looking on Facebook and found ex wife. Her profile pic is of her with what I presume is the baby. I can't see the rest of her profile. Suddenly it felt very real. That is their grandchild. I did cry. I'm trying not to make any rash decisions as DD is absolutley my number 1 priority and no matter what happens I have no desire to damage her future relationship with her dad (despite how gutted I am to hear about his abandoning his kids). I can only hope he's changed and feels the same as I do regarding DD. But I'm not sure things can ever be the same. It feels man I knew has been replaced by an imposter but that would be less traumatic than this.

Thankfully I caught him packing up DD's stuff just as I returned from my mum's. So I haven't lost them. He genuinly didn't see an issue which I found so strange.

Yes can you even trust this is the real story now? Is he actually divorced? I wouldn’t believe a word he says.

I'm sorry OP

I went through something similar with my ex, although thankfully I never had children with him so we could make a clean break.

When we met he told me he had three girls with his ex. I met them (and the ex) and all seemed legitimate and I had no reason to suspect anything dodgy was going on. Three years on, we got engaged and were looking to book our wedding and he kept stalling over booking a date. I knew something was going on (whether it was cold feet or more I wasn't sure) and it turned out we couldn't get married because he was married to someone else (and had another two children with her that he hadn't seen or had contact with for years) and that he had another child with someone else that he'd known in high school.

It was like something out of a soap opera. I'd met his parents and his sister and stayed at their house and none of them ever mentioned his wife. My only assumption is that they assumed I knew and therefore had no reason to bring it up - I don't like to think that his whole family were liars too!

After we broke up the number of lies that came out were appalling. Please just count your lucky stars that you're not married and haven't done anything wrong - walk away with your head held high and make a great life for yourself and DD.

Could it be that your relationship just means different things to you both? I was seeing a guy for around 6 months, also did not tell him about my children (and yes, lied a couple of times about what I am doing on the weekend / what my plans are for the evening). For me it was just a casual fling, but it turned out the guy took it really seriously and was planning to propose. Probably there's a thread about me somewhere too.

It's amazing how some men can switch off from the existence of their kids when it pleases them. In this case for decades. I'm not sure how you rebuild trust at this point. What other skeletons are going to fall out of the cupboard?