Paternity

[joedo]

It's been awhile since I was on here - my last post was a stressed out anxious one - then things improved - and some of the paranoia I had were justifiable!

We're at a crossroads - things had gone well but now due to a number of factors we've began to move back to a toxic situation. During one argument I raised my concerns over paternity of our children.....the reason I had done this was due to her reaction to my questioning paternity when I found out she was having an affair.

When I was asking what other affairs she might have had (we had been together for almost 25 years at that point!) and how long - and that she was capable of anything after the emotional abuse and long term affair and her utter denials, gaslighting and attitude towards me (during one argument before I confronted her with my knowledge of her affair she called me a 'fucking piece of shit' and would at times even try and hit me during arguments.

Anyway, she was upset that I had found out about the affair and was in her car crying and talking on the bluetooth (handsfree) when I asked about paternity - her response was the most primal, fearful shrieking noise I have ever heard - and it's left a very deep mark as she vehemently denied ever cheating before and that she would never ever carry another mans child and claim he was mine.

It got brought up in an argument a few months ago and now we're talking about paternity tests - as otherwise I will always use this against her..

When we were first trying for a baby - we had tried for months - and then I had my sperm tested - it was 'clumping' and we were told that this sperm agglutination might have an impact on my sperms fertility.

I remember the period well as my partner was completely driven motivated and obsessed with having a baby - her hormones went crazy - and it was a constant process of having sex at key points - which was more robotic rather than sexy! She went from not wanting to wanting children and went to the extremes!

We had been trying for a year before our eldest son was conceived......I did have some minor doubts at the time as the potential infertility or low fertility of my sperm freaked me out!

Our 2nd son was born 3 years later....with a number of miscarriages suffered along the way.

It used to upset me when people would always say our children look like their mother. When my partner would point out to my Mum some feature of my son that he must have inherited from me my Mum would kind of ignore it or say she didn't see the link.

Anyway, (sorry for long post), we're still together as we've been working on our relationship and trying to give it a shot....My partner has now brought up the paternity testing and got angry - saying that if I don't trust her now then what's the point.....and now she has said that she wants to have the most expensive test done that has no margin of error and is recognised by the courts - and that this could then be given to the Child Maintenance Service so that I'm paying the correct amount in Child Maintenance - so that I pay what I should - and that I can never use paternity against her or hold it over her ever again as some kind of moral victory.

It feels like my bluff is being called - that the financial element - of me paying hundreds of pounds for each test -and child maintenance (while we're still together and living together as a family!) will intimidate me.

She has also said that I should feel proud that I will be subjecting our children to DNA Tests and I will have to explain to them why I am doing this - that I had questioned if I was their father.....I told her that that would be completely damaging and horrific.

So....any views, comment please! I love my children -and the last thing I would ever do is cause them any harm or upset!
My partner doesn't realise that I would only pay Child Maintenance if we split up.

I don't think you should do the test, or at least really think about it first. The kids are going to know what is going on, how do you think that will make them feel?
What if one is and one isn't, how is that going to affect the family?
You love the kids, can you imagine not being able to see them again? Because it could happen, if mum is upset enough, and she doesn't sound very stable, imagine what is going to happen if you find out the kids aren't yours. You can't stop her taking them and moving to the other side of the world.
Do you think risking your relationships with two children is worth paying a bit of child support, or scoring a point against her? You really need to think about this before you do anything.

Of course you should do the test. What if one or more has a different Father and there's some health issue which might need looking at?

So the slight possibility of a health issue, or turning two kids lives upside down. Op said he won't feel differently about the child, but is the child going to feel the same about him? Do you think a situation like this is going to have a happy ending for the op? He is the one who is risking losing his family. The likely ending to this is op gets to win an argument, then gets thrown out and never sees his kids again because mum alienated them against him. He needs to really think about how this will probably play out.

The kids have a right to know. Maybe not now while things are so emotional. But at some point they have the right to know their dad is not their biological father.

It's really that simple.

The wife clearly knows theres a chance. That's why she is trying so hard to put op off

I have been in a similar position. My DD is now in her late teens, we have a close and loving relationship which we maintained after I left her mother due to XW's long term affair which spanned the time of her conception. I pay a lot of child support and I am fully aware that she may not be mine, especially as the older she gets, the more different she looks to anyone else in my extended family. But to me she is my DD and to her, I am her dad.

If I did a paternity test, and if we found she wasn't mine, she would be the person who loses at this point. Her mother is not stable and her life has been challenging but is now working out well. I took the view it was better for me to have niggling doubts and to pay child support (and most likely University fees as well) than for her to be cut adrift. I could not do it in secret because it would not be right to withhold the results.

When she is an adult she may choose to find out for herself (she is very smart and may have drawn the same conclusion) but right now I feel I would be selfish to do it. The time to have done it was when she was very young, if at all.

Your wife has called your bluff. Now what? You need to decide what are in the best interests of the children. Are you really willing to pull the pin on the paternity grenade to one up your wife? If it really doesn’t matter, why take the risk?

I’d advise you to break the toxic cycle and end this relationship, it has zero future.

@joedo I have 4 kids. 3 of them you can see elements of me or my family but one of them looks completely like her father's side. She has the same colour hair as me but that's it - different shape head, face, nose, eye shape, eye colour, body shape etc. I gave birth to her though so she's definitely mine. One of my kids is almost a Male version of me and the other two are a mix. I wouldn't worry about what they look like.

I have a friend with 2 children, each a clone of one parent and doesn't look like the other parent at all.

I'd be careful here OP
If they are not yours, and you split up - you will have no legal right over the children. And she may be a nightmare to deal with.

You could do the test and just be the person to know the result. That way if you split you can continue with your children and decide your course of action.

I'd personally spilt with her and never do the test.

The World is divided into 2 types of people:

• Those that need to feel they are making informed choices in their life regardless of the personal hurt that knowledge can bring
• Those who would rather not know painful truths even if it means they are kept in an inauthentic reality.

Decide which camp you pitch your tent.

Jabbercocky

The word that you are looking for is lie not inauthentic reality

Get the tests. You’ll send yourself insane if you don’t. The results might not be to your liking but at least life going forwards will be based on truth. If your wife and or others try and use it against you then that can easily be swatted away because your wife is a cheat. Only someone crazy would criticise you for wanting to know and the fertility issues only add to that but are not necessary to bring up if she was fucking someone else

We had a conversation about paternity yesterday as I told her we needed to confront the issues that are contributing to us being in a toxic environment.

I told her that my initial concerns were raised when she shrieked a deep pained primal noise when I asked about my childrens paternity when the affair came out....this made me feel that there was something more to it.

I don't suspect the chump she had the affair with as being biological father to any of my kids....she met him in 2014 - my kids were conceived in 2007 and 2004.

When I discussed paternity yesterday with her she was very aggressive and kept turning it back to me and my faults and shouting that it was sexist to raise paternity questions as 'it's always the woman at fault.'

Her explanation for the primal scream was that my suggestion that she might have got impregnated by another man and carried another mans child and claimed him as mine was the most disgusting offensive thing anyone could ever have said to her.

I told her that after finding out that she had a 5 year affair - in a period during which I had to battle with depression, the death of my mother, huge financial sacrifices as I got in debt to rent a house in an expensive area while paying the mortgage on our own house...which was only allowed one lodger in - instead of 4. That she witnessed the huge financial burden I made to ensure the kids got into the school she wanted and we lived in a better area - all went unacknowledged. She basically treated me like a piece of shit for a few years while I bent over backwards to please/placate her - not knowing that all the time she was saying she was too depressed to be intimate she was with her affair partner and making plans for the future with him. She later claimed that she felt trapped by him and that she was relieved that it was finally over when I found out.

I told her that she was capable of that kind of behaviour - and so years ago when our kids were conceived she may well have been upto similar behaviour, that it might well be a pattern of hers!

It was reassurance that I wanted, to be told that yes of course I'm their father, but instead I was met with anger. She refused to consider my feelings (I've come to the conclusion that she is definitely a narc).

I said to her, 'how do you know that I haven't already had a paternity test' to which she kept shouting, 'well, have you?' she looked panicked and angry - then said it would not have been possible as it needed her consent.....again when told this can be bypassed she got angry and asked if I had done the test......
what she could have said was...
'so there you go, now you know that you're their father, you can stop being silly!!'
Instead she was very angry and defensive.
When I told her that having a 5 year means that anything could be possible she tried to dictate to me that if I couldnt get over the timescale of her affair and keeps bringing it up she will just call it a day - you can imagine my response - (and her anger that the last 8 months of trying to reconnect has been a waste of time)

She wants to get the paternity tests so I can't 'hold it against her forever' and to prove that I am their biological father,
It just seems a very strange aggressive way to do this.

Find a reputable place and have the tests ASAP.
You will still love the dc but may receive clarity about the future of your relationship with her!

Get it done this weekend.
Whatever the result your marriage is over. This is the kind of person you go and colonise Mars to avoid!

good luck OP.

So the slight possibility of a health issue, or turning two kids lives upside down. Op said he won't feel differently about the child, but is the child going to feel the same about him? Do you think a situation like this is going to have a happy ending for the op? He is the one who is risking losing his family. The likely ending to this is op gets to win an argument, then gets thrown out and never sees his kids again because mum alienated them against him. He needs to really think about how this will probably play out.

This. 15 is a sensitive age. The result may well be that you lose all rights to your children- and they may never forgive you for knowingly having taken that risk.

Get the tests done. Her extreme reaction makes me think she has something to hide. You don't need her consent. You have a right to know the truth and so do the children if it turns out you're not their biological father.

I wouldn't do the tests op until you think through the consequences of finding out one or two arent yours biologically and how everyone will be affected. They're your children whether biologically or not. How will it affect them knowing that you're not their father.

Yes, if you find out that they're yours then brilliant but you're doing it because you're doubting their paternity...

I wouldn't get the tests. If you love your kids. Which you say you do.

I can well understand your wife's "deep pained primal noise" because sometimes "Gnnnaaaaaugh!" is the only human response. Whatever she says is going to be wrong as far as you are concerned.The way you come up with things she 'could have said' that would have mollified you, and characterize her as looking "panicked and angry" whenever you confront her make you sound like a complete dick desperately looking for a way to end your relationship - and making it all her fault. (Just like I sound like a complete dick and try to make everything the other person's fault when I have argument.)

Yes you're unhappy. So, by the sound of it, is she. Going to war over the paternity of your kids isn't going to solve the fact that your marriage is fucked. Get help to fix it - or scrap it.

But don't fuck up your kids' lives any more than you have to.

Look at them and think, "I love this kid. he loves me. Can I tell this child: 'By the way, I'm not your dad.'?"

I think you would have to be some special kind of self-martyring sado/masochist to go and put yourself in a position where you would have to do that.

@TheSandman I think you've done a great job of bringing some perspective back. In very emotional situations like this a bit of space and time is needed - otherwise, it's easy to be a dick...of which I have been for sure.

I certainly don't want to get into a conflict over paternity....basically a seed of doubt has exploded into a forest of thorns when it really just needs a reality check and some objectivity.

The last thing I want to happen is for any kind of emotional or psychological harm to our kids to take place.

I'm still coming to terms with the reality that until January, my partner had been involved with someone else for almost 5 years.The gaslighting and emotional abuse I suffered was extreme as they orchestrated a plan to make my life so unbearable that I would end the relationship and move out.

It's the trauma of this that's probably making me paranoid and questioning so much...too much probably.

The reality is that I'm already the father to my kids and I don't need to risk jeopardising them to prove it.

The truth will out eventually. What if your kids decide in the future to do some ancestry DNA testing?

Remember, this is all your wife's doing. I wouldn't listen to voices that say otherwise.

I picked up that your wife would point out a feature in one of your children that was similar to you and your mum would totally dismiss it. That's cold and inappropriate.

There's more to this than just her being in the wrong. If you had doubts then, you should of dealt with it then. I know you've since found out that she had an affair but throwing doubts from years a go that you never did anything about at the time just seems petty and childish.

You also coldy point out the many miscarriages. So here we have a woman that gets dismissed by your mum and judging by the sounds of it, not much support over miscarriages and now accused of claiming the wrong father to her children.

Grow up, honestly. Deal with the affair and mend the marriage but don't drag your kids into it like this. You had ample opportunity to deal with it when you had doubts

TheSandman

She had an affair, that is all her fault.

All of the lies she has told and the distrust that follows is all her fault.

The question of paternity is also her fault as she had an affair, this throws everything in to disarray.

As for her primal screech when the question is asked of her is also her fault. Why? because she has lied and slept with at least one other man that the OP knows about. So she is hardly a bastion of truth.

Well she's not been truthful up to now tbh.

I'd only be wary of doing the tests and finding out you're not the dad and her trying to stop you seeing them

@AMAM8916 this poster is telling your they have been emotionally abused and their partner had a 5 year affair.

The poster isnt to blame for their abuse nor the affair.

She could have been a grown up and left herself.