Am I his Dad?

[MrMarple]

To cut a very long story short my OH and I have been married for over 30 years. 8 years into our marriage I discovered my OH had met an acquaintance of ours in a secluded pub. Our daughter was aged 1 at the time.

It took me 2 years for me to finally click what had been going on by which time our son had been born.

My OH stonewalled my questions other than confess to only meeting him once. 19 years later she confessed to a 2nd meeting at that time. She hasn’t owned up to anything else in that time other than it wasn’t sexual. I have enough circumstantial evidence to suspect there were more than 2 meetings and it went on longer including into her pregnancy.

One of the many issues that have resulted is that our son was conceived in or around the date of that meeting at the pub. When you use the reverse calculator of his birth date it lands on that exact date.

This has troubled me for many years (I’ve had to bite my lip for most of those 20 plus years) and as our son grows older, some of his physical features have worried me further.

I have had 2 breakdowns during this time and did demand that we have a DNA Ancestry test done. My OH said go ahead as she didn’t have sex.

Our son is pretty much oblivious to all this but how do you ask him now he is into his 20s? I don’t want to trick him into doing one and I don’t want him to know about our full past.

I've been thinking 'Christ, your poor wife and kids' since about page 5.

As far as I remember I have never posted on here. I have no posts under my email. Does it have my username?

It must have been under a different user name but it was the same issue, obsessing over cheating specifically 20 years ago with frequent mentions of diary entries / ripped out pages.

So I think you have posted before and I guess... forgotten?

The advice on the old thread (I don't have a link) was largely that the OP needed serious mental health support and that if you decide to stay with someone after they do something you view as disloyal, it is utterly toxic to spend the rest of the relationship (let alone decades) obsessing over it but staying even though you believe your partner is a liar.

I really do think you posted it before and the advice didn't differ from that on this thread.

At least I have people reading my plight (and that of my family) even if you think I’m a fruitloop. If you want to insult me can you please refrain from posting. Cheers.

You're not the thread police telling people they can't post, OP. If you don't like comments, then report them to MN and let them decide.

I ve no idea what you are like in RL but you re making a huge mistake going ahead with a test.

You re risking everything.

OP you can report posts that are insulting etc, MN will delete.

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain You know the rules, "No personal attacks"
@pointythings He didn't say that, he said no insults

Telling people not to post if they aren't going to be sympathetic isn't a good look, OP.

I’m not looking for sympathy in the slightest. I don’t appreciate a number of posts questioning my MH though. One or two. OK if you must. Yes I do suffer from clinical depression and anxiety but have still held down a full-time job for the last 25 years and that has been a constant battle (don’t want sympathy). I was the breadwinner (don’t want sympathy) for much of our children’s upbringing. I could have just dug a hole and lay in it. By the way I had no MH issues previously (don’t want sympathy).

You actually scare me

Why don’t you tell your wife about this thread and have her join us.

I’d love to hear her take.

I would but she’s currently cowering in the corner of the room petrified of scary me!! That’s a joke by the way!

I really wish you were thinking about how to make a more positive way forward rather than making sick jokes op.

Maybe she has an amazing sense of humour and takes the non paternity accusations as a big joke? Who knows.

OP if you had adopted your son, you would be his father even if it wasn't your sperm that started him off. What do you think makes you not his father at this point in your lives, after all this time? It doesn't matter where the sperm came from in terms of your relationship with him and going through the whole DNA process can only be destructive to that relationship if your fears are correct. Let it go. In terms of his life it is absolutely irrelevant. If you've lived with the knowledge of your wife cheating all this time, your marriage isn't likely to change. Your son (and he is your son regardless of whose sperm it was) and your relationship with him are the only thing likely to be damaged by going further.

These obsessive thoughts you describe are just that - obsessive - and those are the things that are damaging you and what any therapy you have should be addressing, in my opinion.

I think everyone would agree with you that looking at Ancestry now is ging to be hard, esp as you’ve already done it yourself (otherwise looking at your ancestry together could have been a plausible excuse).
No one is disputing that.

But as one poster said right at the start, you made choices then that have the consequences now. However, you can’t change that.
You need to decide if you want to tell your ds about your doubts and have tte DNA test done.
There are some pros and cons on both sides.
There is certainly a discussion to have as to whether this would benefit, you only, your ds or both of you.
You are going to make a decision either way. Not making a decision and leaving things hanging is a decision in itself. And I don’t think anyone on here can tell you what to do.

What i would argue though is that the anxiety and depression you’ve been suffering from has a part in how you are reacting.
Like it’s the case for many in ‘not good for you’ marriages, a divorce often solves the issue.
Some times, it doesn’t and you still need to work through resentment and guilt. And the whole shebag of anxiety, depression etc…
And some times, it’s the depression/anxiety that create the best environment for ruminating thoughts and brewing said anxiety and resentment. (Best way to approach that, for me, has been TCM. Acupuncture and herbs). And there actually isn’t such huge issue in the marriage (or at least, those are solvable iyswim).
And often, it’s a mix of everything all at the same time!

It’s the fact that you’ve been brewing that ressentment for 20 years that is the red flag there. That it’s the same issue that caused you to have a breakdown twice. I can’t see how your depression can’t have a role to play.

What is sure though is that ‘the definition of crazy is to do the same thing again and again and expect a different outcome’.
If you want to feel better about your life and yourself, you need to do something different this time.

For god’s sake be honest with yourself if not with us. You came here asking for sympathy. You are the main focus of your sentiment and concern. You had two break downs and blew up your sex life out of self pity.

And even then, it's Ancestry DNA. They won't give OP a breakdown of the true father's DNA make-up. They'll just send back the usual rubbish about 25% Scandinavian, 2% Irish, 10% Celtic etc etc - ie the boilerplate rubbish they send to everyone who's misled enough to pay £££ for these things

Maybe there are different levels that you can pay for, as I know people who have also received a list of people they share DNA with and at what level. I haven’t done it but guessing there must be something you can tick if you want it disclosed or something? The people I know had the option of connecting with people (guessing through the site?) that shared DNA. This would definitely pick up if two people who were supposedly parent/child relationship did not share the required amount of DNA for this to be the case.

The most important thing in OP’s life is the grievance. He will never let that go. He can find out his son is biologically his and he will still have thrown away his marriage and a healthy relationship with his wife for 20 years of suspicion and resentment.

Sadly, I think this is right.

Op I haven’t read the whole thread, but if this is all true - then why are you still with your wife?
Regardless of whether he is your son or not, this has been eating you up for 20 years! 20 years of your life you cannot ever get back? Wasted. You’re worth more than this.

My opinion is -
Do the test - find out the truth regarding your son & decide what to do & whatever the result - leave your wife for your own sanity. Good luck.

@HoppingPavlova yes, you do get the list of the people you share DNA with, and exactly how much you share with each one. You have a choice whether you try to communicate any of them. Some people put their real names, some a pseudonym. If someone on the site was your parent they would be listed as sharing exactly 50% with you. If they were your sibling they would have in the region of 50%, but this would vary.

And the person who said that they send "the same boilerplate rubbish" to everyone is completely incorrect.

I haven’t read everyone’s responses but I’ve read yours op. I feel very sorry for both you and your wife. This seems like a very sad relationship in which she’s hidden meet ups from you and you’ve accused her a lot of cheating.
It’s easy for people to say, walk away and end a relationship if you have doubts but when you’re in the middle of it all, it’s a hard choice.

I think going to counselling for yourself would be a good idea. You’ve thought about all these things for over 20 years and it’s causing breakdowns. I think you need to get some support .
Sadly no one can know for sure until you’ve done a dna test. If it comes back that he is your son then you’ll have a lot of apologising to your wife for the pain you’ve caused her for so long.
If he is not your son then you need to decide what happens next and if you can continue a marriage with her.

Either way, only you can decide what happens next. You either speak to your son and risk the family relationship or you do it secretly. Both are very risky and a difficult choice to make.

It is a amazing how many interesting things I have found out about my family from doing my DNA test. (Thought I was basically a white northern European for example...well, turns out not so much!)

What is the wife to blame for?

It doesn’t sound like the healthiest way to have lived the past 20 years. If you’ve not been able to move on, mentally, even after all those counselling sessions then wouldn’t it be better for you to end your marriage?

Wouldn’t you be happier as a singleton? Surely another 20+ years of living with this level of mental angst isn’t what you want?