OH 19yo has just made contact with him - is it bad to leave him for it?

[stepmummytoomany]

My OH and I have been together for 2 years. He is 40 and I am 26, we get on really well, he has 2 children from a previous relationship they are 5 and 3. We have split custody of them so they live with us half of the month. I am very involved in their lives and love being their step mummy. I am very happy with our little blended family. I do not have any children of my own yet but I want them.

I recently found out (about 4 months ago) that my OH has another 2 children from a 1 night stand when he was 20, making them 19 now. He has never met them or seen them, he paid CSA for them but the mum didnt want him in their life, they thought another man was their Dad so were none the wiser. This year 1 of them got ill so they found out the truth about their dad being their step dad from a blood test. 1 of them has recently made contact with my OH. I am happy that she has made contact because I know it has always been on my OH mind, but I dont know if I'm strong enough to handle the fact he now has 4 children actively in his life. I dont know if I can be 5th on his love list. rightfully so the children should come before me but I think its all too much for me. I dont know what to do as I am so involved with the 2 younger children. Also does not help that my OH has had a vasectomy, he has always said he would get it reversed so he could biologically be the father of my child/children, but if it doesn't work can I cope knowing im the only one he doesnt have biological children with? Advice needed please. Please dont tell me im acting shallow, I already know that I just need to think of myself for a minute.

You're 26 and you've spent 14 years taking care of other people. Time to put yourself first.

You sound intelligent and capable but resigned to life being very hard in every way including relationships.

I think because of your past experiences you think every relationship has huge stumbling blocks and problems to overcome. I used to think that too. I promise you, it isn't true.

You can have good relationships that simply don't have all this complication or require you to still put others first in every way.

This is a chance for you at a very young age still to carve out the life you really want for yourself. A calm, happy relationship with someone who is excited to become a dad and take that journey with you.

He isn't the one. He isn't helping you heal those wounds, he's perpetuating them by allowing you to have taken a role of carer again. He should set you free. That would be the loving thing to do.

You only being 26 isnt about whether or not you are mature enough to handle it, its whether it's a good plan for you in the long run when you could meet a guy your own age who doesnt have so many responsibilities. You could travel for a couple of years, have babies with somebody for who the process will be new and exciting, and who doesnt have the massive burden of child maintenance.

Its ultimately your choice of course, but it you were my daughter thats what I would be advising you

Yeah I still don’t really get why you’re such an involved step mum at this stage. Imagine you do end up leaving him because you can’t have kids (as in your OP) his younger ones have grown attached to you and that’s really not fair.

That’s not a reason to stay btw, just think it’s a lot to be this involved after only two years. Especially because he didn’t deem it important enough to tell you he had two other kids. So weird. I would be devastated he hadn’t told me tbh.

Like pp have said, I think you’re a convenient babysitter (from your last post sounds like you at least half the care when they are with you dp? Wtf? Why?) for his younger kids - for him and his ex!

Two years is sod all, and at your age there are lots of men out there with no baggage at all and nothing you have to try and explain away like you are with him. You could do much better.

If my daughter settled for an old man with more baggage than T5, 4 kids by 2 mothers including twins he never bothered with, a vasectomy and she was willing to forgo having her own biological children for this Jeremy Kyle specimen that she's not even married to but shacked up with, I'd consider myself an absolute failure as a parent.

Your standards are so low a flea could limbo under them.

newname is spot on. Bringing another child into this shitstorm of his own making is 100% wrong.

He's a shit excuse for a father and a selfish prick to want even more.

Please wake up.

The Facebook part of this story still sounds odd. It was agreed that there would be no contact yet he is in Facebook friend of friends and was found by looking at pictures. 🧐

I don’t think the latest update changes anything. He is too old for you and at a different life stage. Walk away and do not try to keep in touch with SC, move on properly and they won’t even remember you.

My OH the mother and the step father all met and decided it was best that the twins not know who my OH was. The Step Father wanted to remain the Dad and carry on being the Dad for them. My OH hadnt been apart of their lives for 11 years, he did not want to crash and burn and ruin 2, 11 year olds lives for the sake of an hours supervised visit a week. He was getting married he was going to start his own family. No one can say he is a bad person for that.

Aaaah so first the story was that he went to court for access and was denied it even though he wanted to see his children. Now it’s that it was all an amicable agreement for the kids that he kept himself out of the picture. Make your mind up.

If any of this post is true, he IS a bad person because the children still have a right to know who their father is (however much the adults in the situation think they can take that right away) and he has jumped at the chance to use that excuse for his own good by dipping out on his children and starting his brand new family.

He’s lying to you and you are lying to yourself in your desperation to keep everything how you like it.

So he split from his ex when his DC were 3 and 1 and he has 19 year old twins. He has more baggage than Heathrow. He has 2 very different situations here. He has small children he has to attend to and he has adult children who will want evening time, nights out etc. with him. The other twin will come round when they see their twin enjoying the relationship.

What's left for you?

I would leave him. He doesn't have a lot left to offer children of your own. He has to reverse a vasectomy and then what? Will he be prepared to give you more than one child? Also, someone up thread said it is OK to go out with someone older. Well, I disagree. I know a few women with older partners and it is causing many issues with their tweens/ teens. Our DC have reached the age where they have a whole new set of sports and activities they can do with their dads now they have the maturity and strength and these friends are missing out because their dads are not physically able or want to do it.

Find someone around your own age, settle down and have your own DC.

If my daughter settled for an old man with more baggage than T5, 4 kids by 2 mothers including twins he never bothered with, a vasectomy and she was willing to forgo having her own biological children for this Jeremy Kyle specimen that she's not even married to but shacked up with, I'd consider myself an absolute failure as a parent.

I wish I had written this. It's a superb summation.

None of your updates changes the fact he chose to lie to you about his children. He said he had two children. He actually has four.
It's a massive lie.

It's not the age gap that is the problem but the wildly different life stages. People with a 14 year age gap can actually be at similar life stages but you two really aren't.

Also I don't understand why in your OP you said "he has always said he would get it reversed so he could biologically be the father of my child/children" but in an update you say the operation has already been booked. Why didn't you say that in the OP? It sounds odd to add in later that the operation has been booked when the OP gives no indication of such a thing.

Personally, I think, as do a lot of others on here, that you should find someone else at the same stage of life as you. Have some fun and then start a family together. You need some time to have some great experiences. You've been caring for people since you were 12. If you have a baby now you'll be 44 by the time they are 18. At that point your DH will be 58 and heading to retirement but you'll have several years to go and by the time you retire he will be nearly 80 and you may well end up having to care for him.
It's no life.

But I think you've made your mind up to stay and have a baby with him so nothing anyone on Mumsnet says is going to change your mind.

Ditch him. Save some money, and go travelling when we're able to again.
Meet someone closer to your own age.
Think what your life would be like with a 28 or 30 year old man right now - one without 4 children with 2 women, one who didn't walk out on the mother of his younger kids, one who hasn't lied to you or neglected to mention kids.
Think of the freedom you'd have with only yourself and your boyfriend to worry about.
Think about having someone long term, someone who won't be 55 when you're turning 40. Or retiring when you still have 15 years of work ahed of you.
Someone who'll have time and energy to bring up the children you want alongside you.
Someone who only has to focus on you, your kids - not two other families on top of that.
Nows the time to free yourself from this mess.

You're a smite gullible OP but that's ok, it'll come.

If you left, the kids will adapt and you will get over leaving them. Ultimately you may have to choose between being childless (because there's still a chance the reversals won't work, my husband's didn't) or finding someone else to give you a family. The mess he's in you can walk away from. Concentrate on your own future.

You are so young, and if this situation is making you unhappy before it's even really gathered any momentum, you will be very unhappy once these other two children are actively a part of your life.

I'd get out now if I were you, you can leave for any reason you like, you don't have to feel bad about it.

One think I've learned in life is to always follow your own gut feeling. The mumsnetters can help and advise but you will get conflicting views due to situations that each individual has dealt with in their lives. Our own experiences make us biased. You have to do what feels right for you, trust yourself, you know what will make you happy and what will make you sad. You're 26, go and enjoy your life!

With lots of love and luck for the future :-)

At 24 you should have been having the time of your life. Developing your education, building your career, Travelling, having an amazing social life, doing sports, hobbies, hanging out with your friends.

Instead you are working from home ( how boring for anyone young ) and being unpaid nanny to someone else’s one and three year old . All your free time and money is spent on his kids.

I bet you ten to a penny that you live in his house with his name on the mortgage / rent book - is that right ?

If he decides It’s over/ meets someone else , you have no where to live, will never see his kids again and you will have given up your 20s for nothing.

In return for all your hard work and sacrifice for him and his kids, he’s lied to you and your parents for your whole relationship. He’s still lying about being refused contact with his older children.

But you think he’s telling YOU the truth now about wanting to have a baby with you. Except for when he admits he doesn't want another child.

No wonder you are scared to tell your parents the truth. They can Already see what’s coming And this last lie will just be the last straw for them. They must be worried sick for you.

Lying about your kids to your supposed life partner is a really big deal. How can you ever trust him again?

"until the twins turned up everything was good"

Poor twins.

Presumably if they had never contacted him, he would never have told you? So everyone else in your family bubble (ex-wife, her partner etc) would have known but you? That's pretty low.

I also don't really buy that whole chat on how it all broke down with his ex-wife either.

And if he doesn't want any more kids but will have one 'for you' then that's not really a good basis. He has a habit of leaving his children.

I know 26 i still very young but Ive had a hard f'd up life and im more mature than most 26yo my age. My mum had a mid life crisis when she split from my dad when I was 12 and I had to look after my youngest brother, cook, clean and take him to school when I was only a child myself... so looking after someone elses children at 26 isnt a burden for me
I'm not sure that it IS maturity rather than a belief that that is the only value you have. I kinda doubt anyone who says they are more mature than others their age. Sometime's it's true but other times it's just that fact that they (the apparently less mature) are actually doing the things and living the life appropriate to their age and experience. I wouldn't say that tying yourself down with a 40yr old and his children is the most mature decision tbh. Especially considering he doesn't really want more children.
All those years of looking after others..you should be having the time of your life right now, not considering having a child with someone whose only reason they 'want' one is to make sure you stick around. Either way, I can almost guarantee this isn't going to end well, whenever that might be.

He was fathering kids when you were 6 - apart from anything else, does that not weird you out?

You're closer in age to those kids than to him.

You can do so much better

Openlygay,

I loved your post. I am nearly 51 and I am no longer willing to just suck up this and other shit. I used to think my MIL and older women I knew had no filter, but now I get it. They just get to an age and think, this is just bullshit and I am not putting up with it.

Ladies - say what you think. It's time for a verbal revolution.

I may have missed something but why if the stepdad , who they thought was the real dad was staying involved did the mother come after your partner for child support as surely the stepdad was going to support them if he was staying involved . Surely she can’t get support from two dads .

@KitchenBandAid 'He has more baggage than Heathrow' HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! 😂😂😂

when I was 12 and I had to look after my youngest brother, cook, clean and take him to school

Upthread someone said something like what is a 40 year old doing, going after a 26 year old?

Well, ta-da. Her OH has fund himself a young housekeeper who is great with his children plus he gets his leg over.

I beet you any money OP has to do all the work when they are there. She's already said she has a very close relationship with them. I bet she doesn't bugger off for the day whilst he parents his own children.

Get out now before it is too late.

You've had a lot of specific advise on the situation but on the point you've made about being mature for your age- I think a lot of people who've had more caring responsibilities than is usual while young can gravitate towards older people, and can associate being 'mature' with basically having a stiff upper lip and getting on with things like work, housework, running a home, kids, etc. It makes sense to me that you might have had more of an understanding or insight into the life of someone older with kids.

But I'm more then ten years older than you, was also v 'mature' in my early twenties and actually, the main way I've changed is that I put myself first more, and recognise that that is often the more mature thing to do. The whole line about putting on your own oxygen mask first rings true, even more so once you have your own children.

At 25-ish I had two v short relationships with men your DPs age, both dumped me using what I initially thought was a 'line' which was basically, they hadn't really noticed the age difference because I was so mature for my age but they wanted to settle down and they thought it made more sense to do so with someone their own age. In both cases, they did get together with someone their own age soon after and are still with them now, and looking back it was the best thing for all of us.

If you weren't involved in his little children's life, is your first instinct to leave? If you knew of all this before you started dating, would you have stuck around? I think the answers to that are clear from your OP, and I think the most mature and kind thing you could do is to listen to yourself, not get deviated from that by what you think you owe to others or what you wish you felt.

newnameforthis123's post is 100% spot on. It's similar to why women are urged to leave abusive men because you model that dynamic to your children. Not saying your DP is abusive, but ironically you're in your comfort zone shouldering responsibilities that shouldn't belong to you.

Also it can get really fucking hard with stepkids as they grow older. Personality clashes won't be evident whilst they're still this young and as the years pass your dynamic with them might change hugely and you won't have that biological bond to carry you through. It's heartbreaking to put your heart and soul into helping raise someone else's kids only for you to be nothing more than a.n.other adult in their lives when they're grown up. Of course some people are very close to their step parents but you have zero control over that outcome - it's not a linear thing where loving step parent = stepchild loves them. As a step parent myself I'd 100% walk away in your shoes even without the secret DC bombshell.

I do actually believe you can have a happy and solid relationship with a substantial age gap. I also believe you can have a happy and solid relationship with step children.

What I do not believe is that you can have a happy and solid relationship with a partner who chooses the weak and easy solution over the one that shows moral integrity, who sweeps problems under the carpet, who would rather go on and serve up new conflicting accounts than confront his mistakes head on.

Regardless of any agreements reached with the parent of his older children, he had the choice to tell you the truth. He has had the choice of doing that every single day of the 2 years you have been together. He was happy to risk his twins turning up at his funeral, suddenly landing the news on you, he was happy for everybody around to sit smirking or pitying you knowing that you had been tricked, in short he was happy for anything rather than having to deal with uncomfortable situations himself. Is this a man to trust with your future happiness?

So he didn’t actually go to court, he decided not to bother with his children after all, children conceived during his one night stand with a married woman. So he was the OM, fathered two children, and then turned his back on them when he found out they existed. What a prize he is. Not.

And do you think that these children are going to continue to have a decent relationship with him when they find out that actually he’d chosen not to be in their lives? Because I bet they don’t know that yet. Added to which, I’m sure that they won’t be that thrilled when they learn their father is with a woman not much older than they are.

You already don’t want to tell your parents because you know they will tell you to run. Why do you think that is OP?

In your heart you know that it’s wrong. This isn’t about feeling you could be happy as a little family of three with his younger children in the mix, it’s the fact that that was how you thought your life was going to look, and then it transpired that your life isn’t what you thought it was.

You were seven years old when these children were conceived. Just after you started school this man shagged a married woman, had two children with her and then when it came to the crunch, walked away without so much as a backward glance.

And the ex wife was a mug if she married him having found all that out just before her wedding.

Don’t worry OP, if you leave him he will soon have someone else to spin his lies to. Someone who will believe all the bullshit you seem to be desperate to believe.

This man doesn’t have anything special. I’m sure he’s not that good in bed that all this is worth it?