All come crashing down again

[winteragony]

After my H told me about his affair and after several months of talking, crying, counselling, arguing and more talking I'd reached a point where I thought I could get through the pain and move on staying as a family. Then yesterday the OW (who has been warned by the police not to keep contacting my H as she was harassing us) emailed to say she's pregnant. My world has come crashing down all over again and I'm right back where I was 3 months ago when I first found out.

I know it could be a lie, a last desperate attempt to communicate...I know it's not definitely his, although she wasn't seeing anyone else so I'm pretty sure it will be. Just deep down, I think it's true and I feel torn apart.

My H wants nothing to do with her still. He accepts that in the worse case scenario he will have to support it financially, but all I can think of is that that's our hard-earned money. I'm self-employed and work from home after giving up my main career with our first DC. So although I like my job, it's flexible and great to be at home for the kids it doesn't pay that well. He was the main breadwinner with a good salary. He's left his job to sever ties with OW so is now unemployed but desperately looking for work.

And what if it is true? And she 'happens' to pass by him in the street pushing a pram, how will he resist stopping to look? Or the kid may seek out its biological father or siblings when it grows up and then what? Do they get to play happy families? I don't want my kids to ever ever ever know about this. I can't bear the thought that this bitch will force her way into my life or that of my children's without my consent. I'm seriously thinking of leaving the country with the kids and starting a new life under a new name.

Personally, I'd go for the option where you emigrate with your children. I couldn't be doing with your husband putting himself in a position where his girlfriend could get pregnant. I wouldn't want my hard earned money to support him or her or their child.

I'm so sorry Winter.

This must feel hellish. You've just found out though and what seems incomprehensibly difficult to contemplate at this moment, might not seem so frightening as time moves on.

I know, because I felt very much like this about my child's father having contact with him, invading our lives with his poor behaviour and being effectively a threat to our happiness for life. Five years on and he did leave us alone and I can now cope with seeing him, with knowing he knows where we live, with having a chat now and again. He still is not part of our lives but I am no longer terrified of him.

I think my point is that you have raised this person into a spectre so terrifying that you can't cope with her. Or her child.

She is probably not that bad. Almost certainly her child will not be that bad. What is that bad is your fear, and that's understandable and natural. It's greater than the reality of it. Right now, that's normal and it's Ok. It will lessen and you will cope with whatever you need, or choose to cope with.

What I am getting very strongly is the sense that in order to stay with a husband who has made such incredibly poor and selfish choices you have had to shove all of that trauma over onto the OW, so you have got him in your life, that was your choice for your own reasons and you are no longer afraid of him, or what he did. You're not furious with him, or scared of him but instead you're furious with the OW and very scared of her.

The fact that she might now be someone you have to let back IN, while until now you could keep her OUT of your lives, along with all the horrible feelings she represents, has hit you like a truck and stopped you being able to keep all those bad things away and out of the picture, so that compromises your efforts to bring things back to normal with your husband, because it dumps all the fear and anger right back in the picture where it started.

This is extremely unfair. However it is true that your husband caused this. He brought her into your lives. He chose to do this with his lack of care and reckless sexual behaviour. And now you've got no choice but to face that.

I am so sorry this has happened. First of all I'd be looking to establish whether or not she is pregnant, and I'd also be asking him to move out. That way he can speak to her and sort this mess out without involving you. You get your life back, untouched by her or a new child and he sorts out the mess he made himself.

And then once it is sorted out, one way or another, he can come back, or he can't, but he has to leave her outside, as it were...he must take care of the child's interests and to some degree, hers too. But not to the detriment of your own family together.

If you stay it will be really hard. But it will get easier once you start to feel you have some control again, and I think at the moment that's the worst thing, because you feel as though you have none.

Flightty speaks very wise words.

I too think your H needs to leave. He is bringing a real mess to your doorstep and it's not your problem. It's his mess. Make him sort it out. Otherwise it will be on your shoulders. And why should you have to bear that as well as all the misery you've just been through.

Ow may be being difficult - who knows what yarns your h spun her. But if she is pg, you can't blame her for wanting to inform the father who is also responsible.

I think this is too much for you and it's not fair on you. He should leave and really face the mess he's made.

It doesn't mean you will never be reunited. You need time alone without the constant betrayal and mess and hurt being rubbed in your face.

I can't tell my DCs, they're too young. They don't know where babies really come from. So regardless of anything, I'd have to keep that a secret until I think they're old enough to understand. And I don't want to have to tell them at all.

Much as I might want my H out at the moment, we've been down that road before and it affected our oldest DC very badly..she started crying lots, having separation anxiety and trouble sleeping. When he moved back in it calmed down after a few days so there's a definite link. I can't do that again.

I've been backwards and forwards through the whole 'on my own' versus 'back with him' scenario thousands of times already, which is why I knew that I wanted to make a go of it with him. In doing that, I'd stopped blaming him, stopped blaming her, begun to accept it and use it as a positive tool to heal our marriage. The affair itself was analyzed to death and had actually died in my head. That's how I know things were moving on for me.

But as I came to see that I wanted us to work through this and become a loving family unit again, I also know that that unit must be left intact or I don't see how it could work. I know many of you have said that the child should see the father/siblings, but I don't know of any legal requirement for this to happen...only a legal obligation for financial support, am I right? Regardless of the fact that my H was stupid and selfish enough to do this in the first place I don't see why he should be made to have an emotional involvement if he doesn't want to. He doesn't, by the way, it's not me asking him not to. Also my H has never blamed OW in any of this, only himself.

How many sperm donor-conceived children actually get to know of their siblings?

The thing is I wonder if it is the uncertainty which is affecting your DC. You seem to be doing a lot, but I didn't read much about what your H is doing to win you back etc.
Get some counselling for your DD, reassure her that daddy doesn't have to go because of her and that Daddy loves her.
But you H really needs to man up and take control of the situation. He can't just rely on you.
Sorry but I couldn't support a man who had betrayed me in this way 3 months ago.

He'd only be legally obliged to pay money, but that's not the issue is it?

He has to decide whether he can live with himself if he denies his child a relationship with him.

You need to decide whether you can stay married to a man who ignores his emotional responsibilities to a child.

If you stay together, you both need to decide whether you will deny your children the right to know they've got siblings.

As ever in these situations, be careful what you wish for and what that means about the person you're partnered with. It's hard to step outside of a situation when you're involved in it and it's tempting to view this from a self-interest point of view.

But objectively, none of us can approve of someone treating others badly just because it's not us personally, or our children.

I think they are completely different issues.

A sperm donor child can grow up in the knowledge that their mother wanted them enough to go through this to have them and they are still well loved.

This child will grow up knowing it's father is a selfish coward who does not consider it equal to his other children and who abandoned it with a woman 'who would not make a good mother' doing the minimum he has to or allowing his wife to until he gets another job to say he has done his part.

I would not think much of a man who could do that. He may do that to my child he if felt like it.

There is a lot of difference between legal and moral obligations. They legal ensures a child is provided with money for food and clothing. That is all.

Perhaps it seems like I'm the one doing things because I'm actually posting on here. I've found how helpful it is to talk to others about it, so have told a couple of close friends the complete truth. I also find it helps to post on here with the advantages of anonymity and many opinions. My H is also having counselling and he wants us to have couple counselling too...seems not that easy to overlap with individual counselling, although as I said before money is an issue to pay for this.

He has made big changes in the way he is with me and the DCs...another reason why I wanted to work through it with him. Flightty is very wise (!) and part of the problem is me having no control at the moment. I feel as if I'm in purgatory for something that's not my fault :(

It is very easy for us to say what we think.

Not so easy for you stuck in the middle

Thanks Charbon, Xales and Flightty.

You make a lot of sense but I reiterate that it's not something I want in my life, I'm not strong enough to deal with it. I'm a wreck typing this and I know I'll never come to terms with it.

I can't bear to think of a time when he's with his other child rather than with me and the DCs.

He was my H
He is their daddy
It was our life

so I suppose the decision is made.

Unless your friends are honest and truly objective, they might tell you what you want to hear. Sadly in situations like this, even women friends prefer to blame other women exclusively, for men's behaviour. If they too think this woman doesn't have the right to continue her pregnancy and your husband should be absolved of his parenting responsibilities beyond legal necessity, they are perhaps not the best people to advise. Too often women will describe the actions of a cheating man rather self-indulgently - i.e. he was an idiot who made a mistake, but the real venom is reserved for other women.

So you're right to start a thread on here because most posters won't do that.

Another issue would be that if he has contact would OP also have to see the child and have it in her house? I'm sure OP would not want that and the poor child can do without having a stepmother that can't cope with its presence. Its a really difficult situation. I think I would have to leave but thats me.

Just seen your last post.

It's okay to say you can't do that. Neither could I, if it helps. But equally I couldn't stay with a man who walked away from his parental role.

It's not a failing. You did nothing wrong here. They did.

Wait until the child is born.

If she is 14 weeks now she only has 26 weeks left until you can find out for certain. That is roughly twice as long as you have had to get over the initial discovery of the affair and working your way through it with your H. Use this time, find the money for more counselling to explore and come to terms with your feelings.

If she is as deranged as you think she is then there may not even be a child.

You don't have to make a decision now. Not until you know.

Also no matter what we all think if your H wants nothing to do with her or the child beyond the basic ££ then perhaps your relationship will survive.

Then you can make your decisions.

Firstly, I very much doubt that the ow is pg by your h as I suspect that, if this was the case, she would have conveyed the unwelcome news a lot earlier than 14 weeks into a pgy.

Secondly, I would suggest you resign yourself to the the fact that, unless the ow has been cautioned for harassment, it's unlikely that she will get into 'serious trouble' with the police for emailing your h.

As it is possible that she may have become pg by another man since she last had sex with your h and may be playing two ends against the middle, as it were, it would seem to me that until such time as you have proof positive by way of a dna test that your h has fathered a child by her, you are best advised to put this matter on the back burner and get on with your life.

I realise that this may create something of a sword of Damocles situation until the truth of the matter is revealed but, frankly, I can see no useful purpose in fretting, speculating, or otherwise driving yourself bonkers in the interim as the fact is that this is a situation of your h's making, and it is his disregard of the possible consequences of having unprotected sex with an ow that has bought it to pass.

If it transpires that if he went forth and multiplied with an ow, any child that is born as a consquence of his stupidity infidelity will be entirely blameless for the manner of its conception and the sins of its father should not be visited on its entirely innocent head.

Other than expressing the hope that you have not put what you consider to be the needs of your dc above rational thinking, I make no judgement and offer no advice on the wisdom of you remaining in a relationship with an irresponsible man who relies on his dick to guide him as that decision is yours alone to make.

Izzyizin, she was cautioned for harassment by the police 6 weeks ago, which is what makes me think she's not making this up.

You say that she'd be 14 weeks pg now?

I would have thought that she'd have put forward the fact that she was 8 weeks pg in mitigation before accepting a caution for harassment.

If she hadn't come to the attention of the police before she harassed your h/yourself, if she'd said she was pg the chances are she wouldn't have received a caution.

Good point izzyizin...although the police caution was given more like 8 weeks ago, I'm getting my dates muddled up, so she'd have been 6 weeks or so. I suppose it depends on when she found out she was pregnant, if she actually is.

The wording of the message about the pgy was odd with strange misspellings, although I have no idea what state of mind she is in. The other weird thing is that about 3-4 weeks ago there was a voicemail from her that appeared accidental...it went on for a minute or so with background car noise and rustling, then it became clearer and her voice spoke to say 'oh f&*$'. Unless she's a very good actress the tone of voice sounded like she'd just spotted that her phone had called my H and she hung up as soon as she swore...if she'd known she was pg then (would have been about 10-11 weeks) I wonder if she'd have said something?

But then I'm probably giving myself false hope....it just 'feels' as though it's true.

The police would still have cautioned even if she had said she was pregnant. Not to be too cynical, but not much gets in the way of getting an easy sanctioned detection; a performance indicator that is used to measure police efficiency.

Was it the sort of caution OP that precluded further criminal proceedings i.e. a 'simple caution'? Or was it a 'conditional caution', which means that the behaviour that resulted in the caution is admissable in future criminal proceedings? If the former, she's got nothing to lose by continuing to harass you apart from the (low) prospect of you taking civil action. If it's the latter, that would lend more weight to her being pregnant and taking the risk of her informing your H being construed as further harassment. That doesn't necessarily mean however that he is the father.

I don't think she's pregnant. By the way you describe her Im sure she would have said something before.

If she is though, the child should not be punished by never seeing their dad. I realise that's much easier do you and i understand that, but its about the child, not your feelings.

Why did your husband have unprotected sex with her? What was he thinking!

I don't know exactly what type it was, Charbon, in fact they told us it was a 'warning'...'caution' is probably my word. There was an incident number but it didn't go on her record. My H had to report it as it was officially harassment of him so I didn't get to speak to the officer for long, other than to get the feeling that she was rushing me and that it was a bit of a bother. At the time though I was just grateful for anything to put a stop to the tirade of texts and calls we were getting. It certainly stopped it until now.

You are certainly giving yourself false hope....staying with a man who had no regard for you or you two children. He was hardly thinking in "daddy" mode when he was at it with this woman.

A man who is forgiven so easily once is more likely to do it again!

If she is as nuts as you make out, why did he get involved with her in the first place?

I just don't get why people forgive so easily.

Your husband must find out from the police exactly what this was. This really will help to determine whether the OW believes that she is at risk of further police action if she contacts you again. If she received a warning then her previous behaviour can be taken into account in proceedings and she would have been informed of that possibility. Contacting you again would therefore be a big risk and lends more weight to the possibility she really is pregnant.

If it was a 'simple caution' and classified as a judicial disposal, then the only risk she was running by contacting you further is that you will construe it as harassment and take civil proceedings against her.

From what you've said it sounds like a warning and therefore she's taken a big risk. What have the police advised your husband after he told them he'd heard from her?

Id question what sort of a dad would be able to have no contact with a child of his.

Yes it was a warning rather than a caution...we've just phoned them again to chase it but the officer isn't in again till Thursday...even after stressing the urgency of everything they won't do anything until tomorrow. Can't cope with this I have to know now....it would only take them 5 minutes to call