Would you tell your husband if a child was not his? Or would you take the secret to the grave if there was no way anyone would ever find out?

[PalmaBeach]

Lets say you are married and already have one child with youre husband. Say if you cheated on a bussiness trip it was a short fling and the man lives in a diffrent city you will definetly never see him again.

Let's say you get pregnant by the other man. If you (like it's not possible in real live) but if you knew it would never come out that the baby isn't youre husbands. Like the child didn't have any health issues where it could come out.

Would you tell him anyway or take the secret to the grave.

I suppose it depends if you value personal integrity and treating those you claim to love with dignity and respect, or not.

My Mum did something like this.
Four years after she died I did an ancestry test for fun.

Found out my Dad isn’t my Dad. My biological Dad recently passed away and I lost any hope of meeting him.

So far it’s been a few months and I’m still hurt, still furious, still reeling. It’s awful.

So I’d be honest. The truth can always come out - even beyond the grave, it would seem.

I’m the child in this - dna test showed the man who raised me is not my father. Mother refused to discuss and was adamant the dna test is wrong. However my db has also done a test and it turns out he’s got a different biological father as well and it’s different to mine. So she did it twice! Unfortunately she’s now deep in dementia so I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that I shall never know the truth

People have done this for centuries, some for understandable reasons and some with questionable motives. In many cases, no one is any the wiser. Easily accessible commercial DNA testing has obviously made it more likely to discover misattributed paternity.

I always think of this issue when I see people declaring that their love for their children is tied inextricably to biology. What about all those dads who have no biological connection to their children but simply believe they have that link? That rather indicates that it is a psychological connection rather than a biological one.

To answer the question in the OP, I would have to know more about the circumstances to decide whether to reveal the truth or not.

in the age of DNA tests; it’s not possible to keep this a secret

personally , i would not have continued the pregnancy and lied

The issue is that, in real life, you could never be certain it wouldn't come to light. It's one thing ruling out illness, but what happens when the child is an adult?

"Oh, hi mum, no, I haven't been up to much today. I've ordered one of those ancestry DNA tests for a laugh ..."

I've just asked my husband (we don't have children and I'm post menopause so genuinely hypothetical and safe to ask!) and he said he'd rather I told him as soon as I was pregnant, he'd be far from happy but he'd prefer it to finding out years down the line or such a huge secret lying between us.

too much risk of this coming out in the child’s lifetime, and possibly a horrible moment. It isn’t just testing kits. There is bone marrow donation and genetic illnesses that can be screened for. Routinely at eye tests I am asked whether a close relative has glaucoma for potential additional screening.

I have a problem with the number of people on this thread saying that the reason they'd admit to it these days is because they know that with DNA testing etc it's likely to come out anyway. That, to me, says that if they thought they could get away with it they'd maintain the lie and it's only because there's a good chance they'd be found out that they'd admit the truth.

Is that really an ethical standard we should be aiming for? "As long as I don't think I'll get caught out being a liar, I might as well lie"? For fuck's sake - does personal integrity mean nothing to you? Are you really that willing and able to lie to the people that you claim to love as long as you think you'd get away with it?

No, that isn't the reason, even though I mentioned DNA tests. The reason is integrity and being fair to my husband and child. I just wouldn't expect to be able to cover it up in this day and age, so it's foolish to even think about trying, if you were that way inclined. That doesn't equate to thinking it's the only reason you should tell. It is something to consider if someone is inclined to take it to the grave though. No-one can be sure they can take such a thing to the grave these days.

For practical reasons (like DNA tests), I think you'd be a fool to try to cover it up. Moral reasons are another thing.

In that scenario there's no way I'd continue with the pregnancy.

OK @PalmaBeach I have come up with a way to make your 'no one would ever find out' much more robust in the real world, should you want to test this hypothesis in the future.

1. The man you are unfaithful with is not a random. He is the identical twin brother of your husband
2. The day after you have DTD with him, he dies in a tragic accident.

As the child you are carrying is genetically identical to a child your husband could have fathered and the only other person who knows what happened is now dead, you can safely carry this secret to the grave if you want to.

A friend of mine was raped and became pregnant. She doesn’t know for sure if the child is her husbands or the result of the rape. She never wants to know and is never going to tell the child. I worry for her that it’ll all come out one day.

You’d be forever worried about things like blood tests, being the correct tissue type in case of a medical need. Also them growing up without any physical traits of the ‘dad’ plus i can’t keep a secret from DH so would be useless personally about a fling let alone a baby!

I would abort the other child so it wouldn't come about.

My friend found out as an adult that her grandfather isn't her grandfather. Her grandmother had an affair with a Moroccan man.

She now knows why her daughter is unexpectedly dark (her husband is blond haired, blue eyed).

I wouldn't ever do this to my DH, he would be absolutely devastated.

Most people don't do those

This.

Why would there be no way he could find out in this day and age? 🤣

Secrets like this often end up coming out anyway. The child could

• look nothing like his father generating gossip about a potential affair
• have a genetic medical condition that when investigated reveals they have a different father
• or do a DNA test as adult.

I would think about what is best for the child in this scenario and tell the truth.

Also, the child might do a 23& me thing sometime and find a load of close family members they know nothing about

I would absolutely fess up, I'm shite at keeping my own secrets.

However I know of a family of 4 sisters who's mother revealed on her death bed that she wasn't sure of some of their paternity. Turns out not one of them had the same dad!

They're a scream of a family though and all basically thought 'go mom!' about it, had a good giggle and moved on. Not everyone would take it so well 😅

I think you have to look at an other side , I have an old friend , nearly 40 years ago, she was attacked by a friend in her own home , she kept it quiet from her husband then found out she was pregnant, she didn’t know if the pregnancy was by her husband or the attacker and couldn’t bring herself to abort the baby as she’d had previous miscarriages .
She kept her secret and now her husband is dead and has had no contact with her attacker since that day.
The adult has no suspicion that their father possibly wasn’t their father and the mother has never told another living soul . The mother is hoping still that this dies with her .

It's not just lying to your husband, it's lying to your child as well.

The main victim of this isn't the DH/dp being tricked.

It's the child. The child has a right to know who his/her biological parents are.

In this scenario it's likely the bio dad doesn't know so really both men could be seen as victims. One raising the child believing its his and one being denied the chance to know his child.