By not telling my baby's dads gf he has cheated

[diamondinterior01]

So, when I was pregnant my then partner left me, wanting nothing to do with me or the baby, no explanation just stay out of my life!
Fast forward 9 months I'm flicking through facebook, I see him in a woman's profile pics I click on it and to my horror, see he has a girlfriend and THREE young children, one is 4 weeks younger than my son.
I messaged him and asked what the hell id
Going on, at first he said they wasn't together when we was (LIE) then he said, well, I never said I wasn't with anyone, what the hell, trying to get off on a technicality.
So my question is, should I just leave the situation alone and get on with my life or should I let his girlfriend know? I'm so torn, do I really want to blow up a poor innocent woman's life and three children's also?

Just tell her. You'll always be waiting for a better time. There will always be an excuse to wait a bit longer.

If you have any respect for her, please tell her.

Coming from someone who has just been the wife in this situation. PLEASE tell her.

Please don't do this.

I'm going to come off this thread now as it's really triggering.

One last time.

PLEASE tell her.

THIS.

If you don't you're allowing someone to continue living a horrible lie. That's really immoral, imo. Not to mention if I were the son and found out about all this, I probably wouldn't be able to forgive my mum for keeping such a secret.

Absolutely tell her. If she does not want to know now that is fine at least she has the information. I dont want to speak about my experience but believe me when I say nothing good can come of keeping your child a secret. Tell her. Let her know. She can make her own decisions once she has all of the information.

Another vote for tell her

I think telling her is the best idea. When your child is small so there is time to work through any animosity, CMS, whatever before he is even aware. She may not want your child to be part of their lives but at least you have been honest with everyone around you. Don't do this crappy man's dirty work for him and risk tripping over yourself, your child discovering by accident. Why should you have to manage a secret? Life is complicated and you can't decide how others want to handle their part but living honestly is easiest.

She won't believe you didn't know he was in another relationship, she will blame you equally if not more than him. That may change over time but certainly you should expect that for the first couple of years. She will not want her children around your child unless their father is having regular contact if they separate and it is very unlikely she will want him to maintain contact if they stay together
I would think very hard about telling her and if it was me I think I would be putting in the CMS claim and take it from there

O you don't he will

What irritates me about threads like these is that when a man commits a serious misdemeanour, and a woman inadvertantly gains knowledge of it, the mere knowledge somehow makes her morally responsible for his partner's wellbeing. Because it is usually a woman wondering whether or not she should talk, and other women telling her she's duty-bound to do so.

She is not.

Added to which, it's very rare indeed that well-meaning intervention of this nature ever meets with thanks from its recipient. There's a reason why that old expression about shooting the messenger became a cliche. You don't owe her respect or otherwise, OP; that is not a fair burden to place on you considering she is a stranger to you. The question remaining is therefore: what do you have to gain from this? You, personally, not his girlfriend.

IMO you have nothing to gain or lose here: he's a deadbeat who has already told you he has no intention of maintaining a relationship with your child. This also means no sibling relationship: as their joint father he is the one who should be facilitating this, but won't. You could therefore legitimately conclude that this is neither your circus nor your monkeys.

If you hadn't seen the images you'd be oblivious. But whether you tell her or not is a matter for your conscience, OP. MN cannot answer this one for you and is rarely balanced when it comes to dilemmas of this type. You'll have to do what you alone think is right, but in your shoes I wouldn't be sacrificing my own peace of mind either way.

Ex is a weapons-grade shit. You deserve better.

Ok but if OP doesn't inform the ex's wife, how does she handle the fact that her child has relatives with her child when older? That's the issue at hand really. Just not mention it and hope he doesn't find out, less likely in this age of SM and 21and me etc. Or be open with him that he is a secret? The ex's wife may or may not want to accept his existence but if his father is willing to hide it from her the only person in a position to make her aware for all the kids' sake as well as the mothers' is the OP.

I think that, when he is an adult, he will need to know he has 3 half-sisters. It his his father's responsibility to tell him that though. Can you give him a chance to tell them?

Everyone needs to know. 25 mins apart, they are likely to come across each other in a big town. What if your son started a relationship with his step sister? It could happen if you don't tell them.

My biological waste of space has many children. Double digits… never more than 2 or 3 with the same women.

and as harsh as this sounds his other children, my half siblings mean nothing to me. I’ve never met them, I have zero intention of ever meeting them it’s the number one reason I won’t do one of those dna family trees because I don’t want them to find me.

We are not family because of some stray sperm. Not all half siblings want to meet even if they know they exist.

EDIT

you should 100% tell her though. That way she knows your child exists and her children may be told there is a half sibling. Just don’t expect a relationship.

How long were you together before you became pregnant? Did you meet his family / friends? What are you going to gain by telling her? Half siblings? Do you really think she will want to go on play dates with you and your kid? If I were you I'd put a claim in for child maintenance and move on with your life. You will gain nothing by telling her and I'm sorry but for him to have hidden this from you: you did not know him well enough to start a family.

She tells her child the truth. There is nothing in the post above that precludes that scenario. There are no mysteries here: the deadbeat father has made his position entirely clear.

But if the wife is aware from the off that there is a child, even if she doesn't like it and doesn't accept it, it won't be for the child to break the news to his father's family when he is older if he wants to make contact. No expectations but the child is not any kind of secret.

Agree with all of this. You should tell her. For both her sake and your sons sake in the future.
She deserves to know what a scumbag she’s with, get her sexual health checked, and have the choice to enable her children a relationship with their half sibling if she/they in future wish to.
Your ds deserves to not be a secret, and to know the truth (which will come out at some point, and it’s better now than when he’s older and thinks you’ve kept secrets and siblings from him (even if you mean well by doing so).

You have done nothing wrong here - he has, so whilst I know it’s difficult, don’t feel guilty.

Don’t focus initially on the children having a relationship, let this potentially follow when things calm down. Just focus on the facts to begin with.

Wait. There is no need to do anything now. Only ever make decisions in your son's best interest.

Do you really want this lot involved in your lives? They sound chaotic and your baby's Dad is a wrong 'un.

Start telling your son the true story of his father early on, in an age-appropriate way. Add details as he gets older. Let him know about the siblings, too. He can see pictures, etc (when older). I'm sure at some point this will all come out -certainly when your son wants to meet his Dad.

It's perfectly likely that your son has quite a large number of siblings out there.

I hope that he pays you CMS without trouble.

If you weren’t prepared to do it alone, you have complicated the situation by continuing with the pregnancy and having your son. He wasn’t planned, and you weren’t in a proper, serious relationship with him. You hadn’t met his family and didn’t know him very well. He even told you he didn’t want the pregnancy at the beginning. Which all should have been taken into account when you were deciding whether or not to continue with the pregnancy. I’m sorry but your situation isn’t the same as an accidental pregnancy that has occurred in an established family unit. You and your children are essentially outsiders now, and not really family. And as heartbreaking as it would have been to terminate the pregnancy, by not doing so you are also partially responsible for the situation you and your son are in, the fact that he doesn’t have a family unit or know his half siblings. The least you could do is try to build a relationship with your son and your side of the family. This will be very traumatic for his wife so don’t push anything, but you could encourage a relationship with her children and your son in the future

@OneShyLimeBird I am more than prepared to do this alone and I don't think suggesting I should of terminated the pregnancy is very nice, considering my son is here, I would rather not share him but I am trying to figure out what the right thing to do is. The pregnancy wasn't planned but right now that's irrelevant and I wouldn't change having my son in my life for the world, I'm besotted with him and have no regrets.
I'm sure it's obvious as I'm asking for opinions that I don't know what the best/right thing to do is.
It took 2 to make this happen hence the not knowing what I should do for the best

I didn’t say you shouldnt of had the child, I said that if you wanted your child to have both sets of parents and family on both sides involved, you had the choice to end the pregnancy and have a child with someone in stable relationship and as such, you are partially responsible for the situation that you are in because you had information at the time

@OneShyLimeBird I didn't have the correct info actually, I was told he didn't have anything to do with his parents which turned sour to be a lie, I am not trying to change the situation around him and what I already knew, I'm not trying to get the dad to have contact, my question was actually around letting his gf know he has a son

I will vote No for that, let her find out from him and don’t involve yourself, or it could put you or your child at risk

Don’t feel bad! You didn’t know; you know now and that is why you asked on mn. But please stop umming and arring what to do! You need to tell her, your son will eventually find out and it would hurt everyone a lot more later on. Imagine him finding out years down the line when he is a teenager / adult that you knew who his dad was and knew he had half siblings and said nothing
please just do the right thing!