An accidental affair, a baby and no closure telling the wife.

[Nowayjose0]

I found out my child's father is married and cheating on said wife when I was six months pregnant he threatened me to go for custody if I apply for child support or his wife finds out.
I thought he was a good guy prior to all this.
I grew some, spoke to a lawyer, called his bluff and messaged her on Monday.
Loads of proof.
Photo's, messages the lot.
I told her about dating apps and multiple women.
They have only been married two years and I met him the month they got married.
This also wasn't the first time he had hurt her.
She thanked me for telling her anddddd blocked me.
Still has him all over her social media.
I thought I would feel better after this I am struggling to understand her reaction and feel like I am angrier than she is about it.
I'm now worried maybe she genuinely didn't want to know and I have done the wrong thing.
I'm also angry that this man has no repercussions for the hurt and anxiety he has caused.
I have no idea what this all means for my baby and what I tell him as he gets older. Do I lie. Say it was a sperm donor or what.
I'm drowning in anxiety please be kind.

I would consider carefully if you want to pursue maintenance in this situation. Once he has parental rights that means you’ll have ongoing contact with him - holidays, schools, travelling back and forth between you both, Christmas, travel (I have to have written confirmation from my ex if I want to take my child to some places abroad and always need birth certificate, copies of both our passports etc).

How far away from him do you live? Do you have support from family where you live now, or could you move?

I think ideally you’d claim child support but keep him at a distance. It’s unlikely his wife will be encouraging contact if she hasn’t already done so.

If there is any option to move long distance from him and then claim, I would do that. 💐

Don't lie to the child. Better to share accurate info in age appropriate terms

If you lie, then the "right time" to share the truth will never come and you'll end up (1) living a lie for ever (2) child finds out truth in unplanned way or (3) having to tell your child that their childhood has been based on a lie

Men threaten anything and everything when they’re caught out, they know they’re in the wrong. Can you honestly see 1. Him caring for a child 50/50 if his wife leaves him or 2. His wife caring for a child that she knows is a result if her husband’s cheating? BUT if you put him on the birth certificate he has parental responsibility ( financial support) and also parental rights—- he may well abuse these rights to “ punish” you.
In your shoes I’d cut off all contact with him, definitely do not put him on bc, don’t even let him know the baby is born. Yes, it’ll be tough financially but this man won’t have a hold over you for the next 18 years.
Move if necessary, block him and his wife on SM, make all your settings ultra private and get on with your life. Good luck, you have the opportunity to make a good life for your baby without his lying and cheating being a part of it.

I know I am in the minority but I would not not want my child to have anything to do with a man who can / does behave in this way.

I would not put his name on the birth certificate, I would not pursue financial support, I would block him and his wife and I would plan a way to support my baby on my own.

You don’t have to worry about what to tell your child when they start to ask questions - you were in a relationship with someone and fell pregnant. The relationship did not work out. It’s as simple as that. When they are older there will be opportunity to be more specific.

I was raised by a single mum - my dad treated her badly and I am so glad that she protected me from that. My life would have been so different if I had been allowed contact with my dad and his family.

You can’t have thought he was a good guy if you knew he was with multiple women and on dating apps, come on you found her fast enough when you wanted to after he told you how it was so why was she so difficult to find in the last 2 years before he said he wanted nothing to do with you? You knew he was married, didn’t you?

Well done for cutting the comment short and removing all context. Slow clap to your wonderful reasoning skills.

It clearly was an attempt at vengeance because if all she wanted was for the wife to know, that's done and she'd be happy. She's not because she was, understandably really, hoping for him to be punished and for it to be public enough for her to be able to find out about it.

And it was definitely a bad idea to tell the wife if she thought it would result in some sort of satisfying justice for him. Because the wife isn't a cat's paw for justice, she's a married woman who is going to act in her own interests, as she should. The deflated distress OP is experiencing now is precisely why it was a bad idea. Punishing a cheater shouldn't be her priority. Her baby should be.

So whether you did the right thing or not, OP, forget it now. His marriage isn't your responsibility. You and your baby are. Move forward with only you two as your concerns.

I would do what @EliflurtleAndTheInfiniteMadness

Suggested:

Potentially another option would be to move away, and not applying for CS until settled in the new place. That should limit how much contact he could get. I wouldn't usually suggest something like that but he sounds like a person your DC would be better off without in his life. Again something to ask a lawyers advice on.

^ make that your medium/long term plan.

Punishing a cheater shouldn't be her priority.

That wasn't her priority.

You clearly can't read.

Oh and telling the truth is not punishing a cheater, it is telling the truth.

Plus anyone who thinks a cheater truly gets punished is a fool
Anyone who seriously thinks someone with the capacity to act like this in life could ever be truly punished - with their mindset and make up and probable personality disorder ,- is also a fool.

His wife hasvbeen given a golden opportunity, a gift beyond gifts. She should be thanking her lucky stars the woman her husband deceived, used and abused in the worst way; told her the truth.
If she throws that gift in the mud and stays, she's a masochist who's ruining her life.

If I could step into a time machine I would have nothing to do with baby's father.
He controlled me by threatening to take baby away. He was/is a nasty jealous manipulative man.
You don't need his influence in your or your childs life. You don't need his money.

If you can have a life without the threats, bullying, lies and control, then grasp that chance. You can have a lovely life without his malign presence tainting every day.

Put his wife out of your mind. Rightly or wrongly you did what you felt you had to do in telling her. The consequences of that are not your problem or your business. Now it's between her and him. Your focus should be on you and your baby.

First of all get tested for STDs. This man is clearly an excellent liar and accomplished cheater. I'm sure you and his wife aren't the only people he's been sleeping with and if he was having unprotected sex with you he was probably having unprotected with his other women.

He may well have made other women pregnant too so I wouldn't lose sleep over him applying for custody of your baby. Do what you have to do to ensure he steps up financially and worry about the future when and if it happens. Doing that will be properly calling his bluff.

Finally - be honest with yourself was part of your motivation for telling his wife revenge? A way of trying to hurt him the way he hurt you?

Finally - be honest with yourself was part of your motivation for telling his wife revenge? A way of trying to hurt him the way he hurt you?

Stop this shit, seriously.

It is totally irrelevant.

She told the truth about what he's done to her, she had every right under the sun to do so

Stop querying and making the victim in this situation justify or examine her motives.

She's even told you she has anxiety.
She's suffering.

This is a form of bullying.

You're focusing on the wrong person. Focus on him and his motives. He's the perpetrator in this scenario.

This is terrible advice.

People really struggle with the shock of their life / family story not being what they think it is, when they have a bombshell stopped on them later.

That doesn't mean telling them all the details, but saying something age appropriate and a bit vague - BUT TRUE - so you can fill in the details as they get older. Just making something up risks having consequences down the line.

People also have a right to know who their father is, unless he's a danger to them and not knowing protects them.

My grandfather didn't know who his father was, and was still trying to find out in his 90s. He never did find out, and my mother continues to try to find out who he was, over a century after my Grandad was born.

It clearly is if she's not happy having told the wife because the wife hasn't reacted as she wanted. She thought the wife should know, the wife now knows. So why isn't she happy? What's this "closure" she's hoping to find via the wife's social media?

But you are one of those people who prioritises punishing the cheater above all else and gets shitty when it's noticed, so this is par for the course. Sadly, OP's results are also par for the course, and it's why OP is suffering so much right now...because she's staking her happiness on the "closure" of the wife publicly responding to her revelation in the way she wants. It's a bad choice for happiness, albeit understandable.

Hopefully OP won't listen to the likes of you and rather than ruminating on what the wife does or doesn't do now, she'll focus on making decisions in the best interests of her and her child, with him as an irrelevance except as her child's father.

I'm not sure it's vengeance I have not enjoyed any of it. I do think she deserves better, I do think I deserved better and my child deserved better. It was getting to me that he was continuing to treat her like an idiot by trying to hide this, given that he had treated me like an idiot too. She did thank me for telling her so hopefully one day she does realize she deserves better.

Nowayjose0 you did the right thing.

I'd want to know if my DH was cheating on me.

We have one life and it's a tragedy to live a lie.

The wife knows the truth now, whatever she does with that is her choice, but she is making that choice for herself now, not being duped.

She may take a while to leave, she may not feel ready yet.

I'd say stay away from them. Poor wife probably going through hell right now, and hopefully making him suffer.

It's unlikely he'd get custody of a baby especially with an enraged and resentful wife in the mix. But he might well get access, visitation etc. And if they split up you may even find him trying to get back to you - don't believe a word he says.

I'd be focussing on independence, earning, saving your own money and not chasing him for it or benefits.

I agree with all of this.

His wife hasvbeen given a golden opportunity, a gift beyond gifts. She should be thanking her lucky stars the woman her husband deceived, used and abused in the worst way; told her the truth.If she throws that gift in the mud and stays, she's a masochist who's ruining her life

I'll respond to this since it's part of a lengthy addition that wasn't there initially.

This is exactly the sign of someone whose priority for telling is vengeance... insulting and belittling the wife if she doesn't respond in the way you think she should. It's absolutely transparent. It's not your concern, it's none of your business and if she decides her life without him would ruin it more than her life with him, it's not your place to tell her she's wrong. Perhaps she's making a mistake but that's not your business. You say you only wanted her to be able to make an informed decision, well, she's made it. The rest is nothing to do with you.

The reason you people can't stop going on about how stupid and awful she would be not to do as you want after telling her is because all you want is for him to be punished. So you won't entertain the idea that that might not be in the wife's best interests. You have to invalidate and bulldoze any reasons she might have for prioritising herself and her family rather than your thirst for revenge.

It's a damn fool way of making decisions and the risk of it biting you in the arse is sky high. If what you really want is to be independently happy, base your choices on that.

When I found out my ex cheated via Facebook messenger, my first reaction was to block the woman. I believed her 100% and I was leaving the relationship, however I just needed time to clear my head and not have any further communication until I was ready. After about a week, I had some kind of change and felt ready to hear more details. She’s just protecting herself and thinking things through.

To be clear, I'm not saying the OP needs to involve the dad in her DC's life at this point if she knows that won't be for the best.

But she shouldn't make up a story about him, then drop a bombshell when she reveals the truth years later.

Whatever she tells her child needs to be an age appropriate version of the truth.

There is so much going on in your OP and responses. Understandably, because of what that arse has put you through, you are muddling the issues.

First is your shock and feelings of betrayal at being lied to and gaslit. I'm so sorry that happened to you. It could absolutely happen to anyone, even the smug, unsympathetic posters on this thread. I hope that you are healing slowly and being kind to yourself, but that sense of injustice is perfectly natural.

Second is what you feel is reputational damage, with him continuing to lie to his wife and possibly others. Telling people that you knew all along, or that the affair was your fault, or whatever else. Well, he will do all of this. He's a lying, scheming prick. This may or may not have any realworld impact for you, at least for the next few years. It depends how much you run in each other's circles. Some rando you don't know thinks you are Jezebel - I mean, that sucks, but does it matter? Maybe it does, and if so you should seek good advice before taking action or posting anything or contacting him.

Next is the baby - and congratulations on your little one. You either need the money or you do not. If you can live without it, then that is the easiest answer for now. You may get away without interference in your life and the child's for a time (depends on the laws where you live). And you can change your mind and claim CMS at any time - at least in the UK.

You dc will have a right to know their Dad. In seven years, or twelve, you may be dealing with a child who wants to know Dad and have a relationship with him. And you will need to deal with all those old feelings of unfairness, because this man will lie to your child, will blame you, etc. Your child's realtionship with him, if any, will be their own.

All steps you take now you will need to one day justify to your dc. So beware of your motivations when you take decisions - your anger is fully justified, but maybe not always helpful to you.

I think contacting his wife was a perfectly fine thing to do - she should know what he did - but it wasn't one that will help you. No worries about that, but from now on take decisions only in the best interests of yourself and your dc.

So keep the receipts, all the communication with him in written form. Someday your much older child may need or want to see that.

Legally, parents don't have rights, only responsibilities.

Seek legal advice from a child and family law specialist. It will cost money but be worth it.

Are you from the country you live in? Do you have your parents/family/friends close by? If not, move “home” and get as much support as you can.

PPA and the like is awful. You won’t be thinking rationally at the moment, so maybe the best thing to do is file this away in your brain for now and wait until your treatment kicks in and you feel more like yourself.

Thank you I'm taking all of this on board. Obviously with the way the world is and DNA testing etc I need to factor that in as there may be revelations down the line. The main thing is I don't want my child to resent me for not being honest about his father or to feel like he is less than for having an uninvolved father. It may be something I discuss with my therapist when the time comes.