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.

I'm of the belief that we all 'know' everything or, at the very least, have access to a fount of knowledge or wisdom that we may not suspect that we possess and, on that basis, what you 'feel' may indeed be the case.

However, it seems to me that your feeling that it's true may equally have arisen from the fact that a child born of your h's affair with an ow would be the realisation of one of your worst fears.

O what a tangled web your h has woven by his deception.

What's coming across to me is that as well as being an untrustworthy twunt, your h is also an abject coward.

While continuing in his marriage to you he chose to lead another woman, a work colleague no less, on to the extent that most probably believing the age-old spiel that he'd leave his wife for her, she had unprotected sex with him.

How long this affair continued is not apparent from your post but on his deception being discovered by you, or perhaps by her becoming insistent on him making good on his promise to leave his wife otherwise she'd spill the beans, he dropped her like a ton of bricks.

He then completed the washing of his hands by leaving his employment despite having no other job to go to, and got the police to deal with her emotional fall out.

I can only hope that another child doesn't have the misfortune to have your h as its father but, other than that, my earlier response stands and I would urge you not to put your life on hold while you wait for the truth to be revealed.

I know it's easier said than done, honey, but to my mind you've already expended far too much energy on indulging this selfish manchild and it's time put your emotional welfare and wellbeing first.

Then you're being fobbed off. It doesn't need the officer herself to verify this, because she will have updated the Police National Computer (PNC) in the case of a first instance warning.

I would bet my bottom dollar she is lying. Agree the course of action now, if she contacts H again is to respond with contact me after the birth so we can arrange a DNA test.

So sorry you are going through this.

What 'urgency' are you referring to? Your 'need to know' is hardly the stuff of crimebusting, is it?

Even if the police are able to establish that the ow is pg (jeez, having written those words I can't believe that anyone would consider wasting police time on such a matter), this will not go any way to determining who the father is.

As for the 'warning' the police allegedly gave to the ow, I suspect that it didn't amount to much more than kindly advice to stop sending texts/emailing/calling your h otherwise they'd have to take a firmer line.

It seems to me that diddums just ain't much of a man and if anyone's going to throw their toys of the pram, it should be you and you should chuck him out with them.

I'm beginning to feel a tad sympathetic towards the ow. Words such as used, abused, demonised, and criminalised, come to mind.

If all she's done is phoned, texted, emailed him, wtf didn't he block her calls or change his number and consign her mail to junk?

Izzy it's a bit of a sexist assumption that no woman would have unprotected sex unless she thought a relationship was for life and there's no evidence that the H made any promises to this woman. She might simply be hurt at the ending of the relationship and being cast aside, but that does not give her the right to take her anger out on the OP, who is blameless. Waging a war of harassment against the family of married man you chose to have an affair with is the action of a woman who is not taking responsibility for her own behaviour.

In my view the H has also done the right thing in leaving his employment and therefore cutting contact with the other woman. It's entirely possible that continuing to work together would have been untenable for the OP, so I won't criticise him for sacrificing his career for his marriage. Ultimately though it's his fault that his loss of job means there is less money to go round. It's also completely acceptable for the couple to take police action against someone who is harassing them, especially if they felt their children were at risk.

IMO it's what he does now that is key to this. He either takes full responsibility for the consequences and supports a child of this ill-advised union, with or without the support of his wife. Or he puts self-interest first and fobs the child off with money and nothing else.

izzyizin you've sussed it out almost perfectly. She thought he would leave me and became increasingly insistent so he realised that he wasn't going to be able to end it cleanly with her. I don't want to go into all the details about the affair and why it started, I've moved on from that and was in an OK place. Not happy, but able to see a time I could be again.

What matters now is this bombshell. We're going to drive to a police station that's still open as soon as grandparents can arrive to put DCs to bed. Hopefully if we twist their arm hard enough stand there long enough they will call her.

We did change our numbers after getting enough evidence. She threatened to come round to our house/sit outside school/ruin lives...

She emailed us this latest news although I have no idea where she got the email addresses from. H didn't give them to her.

From what the OP's said, Charbon, I can't see that the ow is taking her 'anger' or whatever other emotions she may be feeling out on the OP as it would appear that her communications are directed to the weak, lily-livered man that made promises to her that he reneged on.

Other than a display of unity which may serve to further convince you that you are once again a couple united against a common foe the world, what exactly are you hoping to achieve at the police station wa?

OP

Your justified anger at this women is deflecting anger you should be feeling towards your H.

So, acording to your H she is an awful person? She would be a dreadful mother? But she was ok to fuck????

Sorry to be blunt but that is basically what your H is saying to you and gives you a pretty good idea of your importance to him.

She may well not be pg. If she isnt, does that make everything suddenly ok?

You say he "had to leave his job" to get away from the OW. Sorry, but he had a choice from the start, to begin this affair, continue it for as long as he did and lie to her (ask yourself, what did her promise her??) you and your children.

I am very sorry you are in this position. But you are in this position because of your H, not just the OW.

If she is pg then of course your H should contribute towards the child and I'm afraid you may have no control over whether the child contacts your dc and whether your dc choose to have a relationship with them.

Its a bloody mess and I am sorry for you

It seems to me that your h has done a very good job of ruining lives.

Was he man enough to tell the ow face to face that her trust in him had been misplaced?

Do you know, I don't know any more. I don't know anything. It's all a complete mess and I have no idea why I'm even here. There seems to be no way out and I just can't do it.

Oh winter you poor love.

What a mess he has made Not just for you and your dc but also this OW and (possible) child.

Its up to you whether you help him clean it up.

You DO have a choice.

xx

What can't you do, honey?

It seems to me that ow presents no threat to you but, no doubt with encouragement from your h, you've fallen into the common trap of believing that she is the root of all evil.

Of course this suits him because it deflects at least some of your righteous anger from the person who is solely responsible for betraying your trust and dissing you.

To this extent you've both fallen victim to his headfucks.

I read your OP a few minutes after you posted it and decided not to comment

I feel very badly for you and understand how your emotions must be running high but in short I agree with what Becaroo said , its your H that your ire should be directed at

It's becoming increasingly directed at him actually. I always said that this would be the last straw.

How would the police know if she was pregnant or not? They won't be entitled to see her GP or hospital records.

She emailed us this latest news although I have no idea where she got the email addresses from. H didn't give them to her

Really? You know this for an absolute fact?

I remain bemused by as to why the ow would belatedly impart the news of what, to the best of your knowledge, would be a 14 week pg in what sounds like an email written and sent when she was not fully compos mentis.

Can you say with any certainty that after he had her warned off by the police some 6 weeks after he abandoned her, he didn't go see her and had one for the road?

My sincere apologies if I'm putting fresh doubts into your head, honey, but the problem with liars is that whatever they tell you always raises more questions than you'll likely to get answers to in this life.

Your h has been devious but that's no reason for you to be disingenuous about the games he may still be playing.

If the OW still works for the company where she met your husband OP, she could have easily got his home E mail address from someone there and besides that, a simple google of someone's name will often find an email address of an individual, so I don't think it helps to inject fresh doubts about his continued contact with her.

Threatening to camp outside the childrens' school is harassment of the family and was not contained to your H alone, so I can see why you went to the police. They will only be able to confirm what action they took of course, not whether the woman concerned is pregnant or not. However, if they confirm that they gave her a warning and left her in no doubt that any further contact with any of you would lead to a more serious intervention, then it means the risk she took contacting you about a pregnancy, real or otherwise, was greater. That's all.

"some 6 weeks after he abandoned her"

He didn't "abandon" her.

She was knowingly having an affair with a married man.

Your sympathy for this woman is entirely misplaced and completely inappropriate on a thread written by the woman whose life she contributed to destroying.

The OP is not foolish for wanting to work on her marriage after her husbands affair.

Trying to defend a woman who has received a police warning for harassment on a thread written by the innocent victim of her harassment is appalling.

OP - I agree with the advice you got to wait and see what happens with this. A woman capable of harassment is certainly capable of inventing a pregnancy or lying about paternity.

This really changes nothing about your relationship with your husband. If there really is a child then you will have to decide how to deal with it. But don't let this destabilise you if you were finding equilibrium.

If she's lying (and even if she's not, TBH) you can be sure that this kind of upset was exactly what she was after.

WA, it's ok to simply walk away and leave him to this mess of his own creation

I wouldn't still be there, battling away against what exactly ?

it's never really "over" is it, when a man has unproected sex outside of his marriage

it leaves your marriage vulnerable to this

this is his fault, and I am actually uncomfortable with all the vilification of this woman

"bunny boiler" she may be, but he invited the rabbit into your marriage, and there she stays right in the middle of it, due to his behaviour

make him leave and see if he goes to her

make him leave and make a life that doesn't have his fuck-ups in it

that is what I would do

Agree completely with af

I am glad that your anger is being directed at the right person OP.

Its so easy, isnt it? To think of this OW as some mad "bunny boiler" but her behaviour (which I do not in any way condone btw) could be the actions of a desperate woman finding herself pg by a married man who is refusing to communicate with her?? Just a thought.

You only have his word for what happened after all, what sort of person she is etc. Can you trust his word OP? I am not sure I would.

You seem to be doing all the running...is your H going to counselling to address his adulterous behaviour? Is he showing signs of real remorse/regret or just trying to put distance between him and the situation?

Oh god i'd get rid of him, this is going to hang over you for the next 18 years if you stay with him.

I could have chosen to use different words, but it seemed to me that if the OP's h didn't man up and tell the ow in no uncertain terms that their affair was over, it's likely that she felt abandoned Thing.

While not excusing her subsequently plaguing him with calls/texts/emails threatening to cause him public embarrassment which she has not acted on, it may go some way to explaining her behaviour.

After all, from what the OP's said, this wasn't a one night stand or a casual fling but an adulterous relationship of some duration wherein, presumably, her h told the ow that he loved her, that they'd set up home together, he'd divorce, they'd marry, etc etc, and, if he didn't make his excuses apparent before he left the ow' s bed for the last time, it could reasonably be said that he abandoned her once she ceased to have any attraction for him.

This is not to defend the ow but, as the behaviour of one person, and one person only, has destroyed the OP's trust and belief in the sanctity of her marriage, this particular ow is incidental in that, if it hadn't been her, it would have been another.

The OP has not said whether her h walked out on his job or was pushed, or whether the ow may have lost her job as a result of their affair but, in any event, it seems apparent that he has not behaved with consideration for anyone other than himself and this does not bode well for the future of their marriage.

Many marriages have weathered the storm of a dc being a by product of an adulterous liaison, wa, but I would suggest you think the painful but necessary unthinkable before walking on any new foundations as you may find that they are laid on the shifting sand of your h's oversized ego.

Look, I really don't think she's pregnant. Which is obviously a guess... but having been stalked for a bit don't assume a warning from a copper is going to work. In my view, she's desperate for some - any - reaction from him, and she thinks this will work. It's probably as simple as that.

As far as your marriage is concerned, however you felt the day before this happened is where you need to get back to.

I think you should consider a letter from your solicitor, saying you are in receipt of his email, and saying until the baby is born and a positive DNA test is established all contact should take place with him/her.

We're going to drive to a police station that's still open as soon as grandparents can arrive to put DCs to bed. Hopefully if we twist their arm hard enough stand there long enough they will call her.

Eh? She hasnt threatened to come and kill you.. she isnt saying she is going to harm you... the police have far more bloody important work to do than go around checking scorned women! I am sorry, and like I said right at the start of this thread, it must be horrible, but involving the police seems completely OTT.