DH and OW's baby. Can he see the baby without seeing OW?

[Lovelytea]

Husband cheated and got somebody pregnant but i decided to work on forgiving him to keep my family together. Would it be possible for him to have a relationship with the baby without having direct contact with the OW?

He confessed what he'd done himself I suspect because she was going to tell me anyway. We split for 6 weeks whilst i decided how to proceed. During this time I had conversations with the OW and I do believe it was just a one night stand that culminated from an EA and that he was no longer in touch with her. He has been transparent ever since.

He bitterly regrets the affair and cut contact with her before he told me what they'd done. Eventually I agreed to stand by him and we're now going through counselling to work through the problems we were ignoring prior to the EA, of which there were a few.

After coming to terms with the reality of the situation I realise the baby needs it's father. As far as our family goes I'm prepared to facilitate a relationship between our DC and their half sibling, I'm prepared to have the baby over our house and for our DC to slowly get to know them. It will be painful but I'd never begrudge an innocent baby a relationship with its relatives on my watch.

The babies mother has told DH in a series of rambling texts that the baby will have nothing to do with our DC and she won't allow them to come to our house. She wants him to spend time at her house with her and the baby if he wants to know him and that our family are to have nothing to do with him or be involved in discussions.

Unfortunately that doesn't sit right with me because she's made it very clear she wants to be with DH. I've seen messages where she has said as much and she's been particularly vile about me and our DC. I don't think I should have to put up with such vitrol after what they've done and if anything it should be me lashing out which im not. Although he has been unfaithful she isn't entirely innocent and is a manipulative, spiteful and so herself.

She isn't interested in being civil and adult about the situation and has done nothing but cause trouble since it became apparent I'd be standing by him. She was expecting me to leave him and for him to go and be with her and the baby. He has said he wants no contact with her whatsoever but does want to see his baby which I think he should.

So my question is, is there any way he can have a relationship with his baby without having to have direct contact with her?

We're trying to repair after what he did and quite frankly I cannot stomach the thought of him spending any time alone with the woman. I don't want to break up my family so please don't tell me to LTB as for now I've decided to try to make it work. It's been a long and painful period of deliberation but for now I'm satisfied that I've chosen what's best for my family.

A relative dealing with hand overs? A contact centre perhaps? If he took her to court would they support his stance of not wanting to speak to her? Is that even possible?

The baby is 2 weeks old now and he's yet to meet him.

Oh OP, what a nightmare, I really feel for you.

My suggestion is that your H sticks to no contact for the foreseeable. Let you heal, let OW heal.

The baby needs to develop his primary attachment to his mum and being separated for contact from her might disrupt that.

Your H could start contact at some point in the future, which might give you a better chance of resolving things with him, for OW to move on from H, and I think might be better for the baby in terms of attachment.

Good luck and be kind to yourself and your little ones - you sound very caring and you don't deserve this awful situation.

I do feel the OW is being written off as some kind of terrible person here. Let’s not forget he has probably been promising her the world, telling her how unhappy he is and maybe even they he would leave his family for her. She has gone through pregnancy and birth and those early newborn days without a partner, she is probably in the exhaustion stage, full of hormones and feeling pretty angry that this man lied to her and now his wife is contacting her suggesting that she hand her baby over to go and play happy families.

Not to mention the baby boy is now two weeks old and hasn't even been seen or held by his father.

Oh, and it was Christmas, the little boys first Christmas, and again nothing from his father.

This is a sorry situation. Is it possible he has seen them without you knowing OP, it's just so shitty not to even see them after he was born or for Christmas. What an awful person he is!

Why are you so attacking lookatyourwatch

@Cassie85 I've reported the attacking post that's well out of order

Thank you. I’m pretty new to the forum so have no idea how to report a post.

He needs to get a court ordered dna tezt, then court ordered visitation if he is the father.
There is no need for him to visit with the child until it is older.

If the ow thinks she can lure him back using the child as bait, her plan won't work. Maybe he can tell her he wants her to give up her parental rights and you and he adopt the child? If nothing else, it may shut her yapping for a bit.

OP do you think part of your problem is you want desperately to believe the BS your H is spouting when deep down you know it is all crap?

You are mentally tying yourself in knots to try and make some sense out of his nonsense.

If you could get to the bottom then your mind would be a lot clearer/calmer but that means facing what your DH really is.

Just do your best to take care of yourself and your DC for now. Let what you can wash over you

First of all, I'm so sorry you're going through this OP. It sounds like it absolutely sucks.

But to be realistic, I don't think I see any way that your DH can realistically have a relationship with this child and no relationship with the OW. I have no idea if the courts could order her to express milk so he could take the baby away for her for contact centre time (it seems like it would be an awful call if they did - stomping all over a woman's bodily autonomy, not great for the baby - unless there were massive child safety concerns, which there aren't), but regardless of that, think of the next 18 years.

Your DH will need to talk to OW about contact times, when those change because of holidays or other commitments, about the child's medical appointments and illness, about which nursery and school the child goes to. Then there will be parent's evenings, school plays, birthdays, Christmas pick up and drop off. Expecting all that to happen through intermediaries would be madness, and also not a reasonable life for the poor kid to live with! Kids need their parents to be able to parent in sync and you and your DH are (quite understandably, as you're all clearly in trauma) banking on a future where that couldn't happen.

I don't think this is a sensible plan at all. I guess the best scenario would be that he drops demands for contact until he and you are ready to manage some kind of relationship with OW (while paying maintenance etc) or you break up. But this weird tug of war over the baby just seems to be doomed to failure.

It's entirely possible he's seen them without me knowing as it's commonplace for him to work overtime and be home late. OW lives a ten minute drive from his work place so in theory I'd never know unless he told me or she wanted to drop him in it.

That thought has crossed my mind more than once.

If I were him could I stay away from my newborn? Absolutely not

The only thing that allows me to believe he hasn't, to an extent, is the fact I'd absolutely go out of my way to catch him out and then he'd have to deal with the ramifications of that.

No I completely think ow needs settling into her own life with db absolutely absent of any of this shit stress, which can easily disrupt her bond with her db, her milk supply, and her ability to cope.

No-one has any idea about what she was told by him, undoubtedly lied to, like sadly you were, OP.

It's cold, and its a helluva lot of work for him to sort out the clusterfuckery of his creation.

He has a wife who deserves to be made to feel absolutely secure after what he's put her through, that's he's going to do everything conceivable to be worthy of her trust again. To do this he needs to leave ow be, with her nb apart from making maintenance payments to her without fail, regular reliable amounts, and say he will be in touch to set up contact further down the line for the sake of everyone's sanity, or no-one is going to fair well.

Please get all the support you can OP. Do you have good family support and friends too?

It would be unfair on the baby to be without its mum. A newborn baby has instinctual need to be close to mum- not dad and not anyone else. Mum is comfort and safety, that's why babies often stop crying when they are back in mums arms. It would be mean and wrong to take baby away when there's no real need to. I really feel for you, such a hard and horrible situation - but I think you need to put your feelings aside and agree to your dh seeing his baby in the ow home for the first few weeks.

It doesn't matter if you were lovely t9 her. It doesn't matter that you will welcome the child into your home. You are not the parent.

Your husband is dad. She is mum. You be decided to stay with so that means accepting those statement.

Baby needs to bind with mum and dad right now. Not with step-mum and half siblings etc. If he really wants to know the child, then he needs to go over there and start making an effort. Staying with him means trusting him not to cheat on you again, so him seeing his child at the child's home is not something you should stop. If you can't trust him then leave him.

He needs to hurry up and meet his child. Build a relationship. Once that is established, he can start having access at your home. If she refuses at that point, then you get the lawyers involved.

You can't say that you feel so bad for the child and don't blame it at all and call those 2 selfish, whilst also saying he cannot visit the child because you don't like it... all 3 of you are being selfish. But the child should come first.

Make a decision. Stay with him and accept that he will be round there with his child until it's old enough to come away or ĺ3ave him.

Even if paternity is proven then hes put on the bc and a third person is present when he visits the baby- will you trust him not to see the OW and the baby at other times without you knowing? This is what I would wonder. This alone would be enough to ask him to leave. If its about the pick me dance then unless he doesnt have contact with the baby then you havent won.( again you wont know if he does or not. You cant even be sure he hasnt now) If you split and he went to live with her at least you would have peace of mind. She wont ever be able to trust him either. Every time he visited yr dcs shed wonder etc etc it goes on and on. Think about if you really want him or is it because you dont want her to have him( which I can understand but its not the best reason to stay with him) Read most not all of this thread so sorry if Ive repeated/ missed anything. Hope you can get some support in rl. Its a really shitty situation. I hope you get sonething sorted out so that you and yr dcs will be happy.

I have no idea whether she's breastfeeding or not. Ideally the whole situation would go away for a year or so in which time I could process things as best I can and then reach a decision about what I want to do about him long term.

The problem with that is I'd spend the entire year wondering whether he's gone behind my back in the meantime and I'd have that playing heavy on my mind and impacting my ability to heal in a healthy way.

Unfortunately because he's shown himself to be entirely untrustworthy I struggle to have any faith that the seeming transparency will continue until the point where I'm mentally strong enough to deal with it.

That also means the baby being without a father for the first year or so of his life which is cruelly unfair to him.

I wish more than anything that none of this ever happened. It has shattered everything.

OP I didn’t meant to upset you with my last post, more pointing out to posters who are accusing her of all sorts that she is also a victim of your DH and his lies and she is likely to be hurting too along with all the things that being a new mum brings. I don’t think she is innocent but nor do I think that she is a terrible person.

If I were you I wouldn’t approach her, it needs to be your DH trying to sort this.

Nobody is a winner here apart from DH who has his wife fighting to save his family and if that doesn’t work he has a back up in place.

So sorry your going though this :(

I've no intention to correspond with her again whatsoever

Eventually I agreed to stand by him and we're now going through counselling to work through the problems we were ignoring prior to the EA, of which there were a few.

Sorry, I just saw this in your OP, so are you going now or waiting to go? And if you are, didn't the counsellor discuss how you would cope with the emotions once the baby arrived?

I would't discount that he's been to see the baby then. If they are only a short distance away from him, and if he's making no fuss at all. Surely he would at least want to see his baby after he was born, and wouldn't the baby's mother be calling for him to come and see the child.

He's most likely lying about this too and has already been there to see them. Either way he's an ass, if he's been and lied to you, or if he hasn't been and not bothered with his new born son for the first weeks of his life.

You absolutely cannot tell him to ignore his child for a year so you can decide if you want him or not.

He needs to see the child now. He needs to be a father, provide support, form a relationship. You say you love that he's a hands on dad... But you think this child doesn't deserve that too?

I know you're hurting. You're angry and betrayed and confused. What he has done is unforgivable... But you've chosen to forgive and stay. You cannot put the child on hold.

He needs to get up tomorrow and go and visit the child. Start there. Then keep moving forward.

You can have access with a 2 week old baby. My first born was 3 days old when she went to stay with her dad and his mum - long story short ; we had split, I suffered bad PND, had lots of issues going on - it was best

Just annoys me how some women are saying on here that baby shouldn't be away from mum. It happens. My daughter is now 11 and is fine. Even though me and her dad split before she was born n couldn't be in the same room he wanted her and they now have a fantastic bond

Dads need to bond with babies just as mothers should. Why is there so much sexism?

Like I said, I've experienced my baby being away from me 2 nights a week since three years old and it all worked out.

If he wants to establish a relationship with this baby there is no way getting around the mother.

Good Luck

@Lovelytea

You can have access with a 2 week old baby. My first born was 3 days old when she went to stay with her dad and his mum - long story short ; we had split, I suffered bad PND, had lots of issues going on - it was best

Just annoys me how some women are saying on here that baby shouldn't be away from mum. It happens. My daughter is now 11 and is fine. Even though me and her dad split before she was born n couldn't be in the same room he wanted her and they now have a fantastic bond

Dads need to bond with babies just as mothers should. Why is there so much sexism?

Like I said, I've experienced my baby being away from me 2 nights a week since three years old and it all worked out.

Oh OP

If he's not seen the baby then doesn't that affect your opinion of him as a father? I can't imagine not seeing my child - what kind of person would be ok with that?

Issy I don't think there's anything wrong with a baby being away from mum if it's what mum wants and thinks is best. I think it's wrong if that choice is forced upon her when the baby is newborn.

In your situation it sounds like it was the best thing to do and worked for everyone. 😊