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.

Sometimes you are not control of your own life and happiness no matter how much you would like to be. Ask millions of people.

Anyway I shall soon be leaving Mumsnet. Hope I’ve created a discussion and some thoughts on a tricky subject. And try and be kind when posting. Who knows you might need to hear some in the future.

Peace of mind will do for me. One day hopefully.

You CAN choose to be happy for the last years of your life.

But you won't. You have created a personality of wallowing in the unfairness and 'uncontrollableness' of your life.

You will plod on, as you say. I feel sorry for you. But not for the reasons you might think or want.

Maybe you should've heard some 'unkind' words a long time ago and it would've given you the kick up the bum you needed. But I suspect it did happen, you just didn't see it for what it was.

You are completely responsible for how your life turned out. And if you can't see it, you will be miserable forever. But I suspect that's what you want.

What a waste of life.

MrMarple, stop clutching at straws
Go talk to a real health professional ... and stick with it (your 50 sessions seem like you tried 3 or 4 times and gave up after 2-3 months when it gets real) like you should stick with the truth

To be in such a state 20 years on after listening to a radio show about DNA test?
Go talk to a doctor, your MH and sense of real seem VERY fragile

Go back to therapy, get back on your meds. People are not being mean when they tell you your behavior isn't normal.

This is true, but not for you. You have chosen your life every step of the way.

Just get one of the ancestory, say a friend at work etc got one and the results were surprising eg didnt realise partly german or something, register to your email and then unless results show he's not yours then you don't need to explain about the cheating.

And what if it shows he isn't his father? He's just tricked his son into finding out unprepared that he isn't his biological father?

This isn't Eastenders, this (if OP isn't a troll) is a real young man who doesn't deserve to be unknowingly tricked into having life changing news.

You're still claiming lots of people agree with you when really, they don't. Did you really receive lots of private messages? And you you are positioning yourself as a helpless victim, when you're not. It's quite insulting to people who are genuinely victims.

And actually, in most cases, even in the worst of situations, most people realise they have to take responsibility for their own lives. Heck, it's what we all spend the first 18 years of our children's lives trying to teach them.

For this to fester for so dam long is inconceivable. I think honestly is the best way forward. Secretly obtaining your sons DNA now he is an adult, is not the answer.

Have you had any type of counselling? Your son is either yours or another man’s, either way, the festering of such a wound has already done so much damage.

Please seek professional advice/ support before going further.

The Op really doesn't want help.

He wants to wallow in his self-pity.

This thread has been exhausting.

That seems to be the case.
Great op, crack on. Enjoy!

People in war zones, people with schizophrenia: they are not in control. But you are. You are unhappy because your expectations were not met. When this is the case you have a few options—but they are options.

1. Solve the problem.
2. Move away from the problem.
3. Tolerate the stress from the problem.
4. change your attitude to the problem
5. stay miserable.

If the problem is that you were betrayed by your wife you can

1. separate.
2. separate
3. get therapy
4. get therapy and recognize that she gave you two beautiful children and stayed with you despite your shitty, miserable, paranoid, collapsed behavior.
5. stay miserable.

This.

Even if it were a thing, which it isn’t, the onus would be on you to get better. Nothing the affair person does will cure your syndrome.

If any of this is real you came from a massively dysfunctional family background, had no healthy role models growing up, saw your parents and grandparents (IIRC) act out extremely disordered and disorganized relationships around sex, marriage, parenting and self care. This is your actual problem. As sn adult person things happen that trouble and hurt us. You just didn’t have the core inner strength to handle it openly and directly with words or actions. Instead your body had a tantrum—that is what the breakdowns ate. The body takes over and throws itself (more or less) in the floor because the activated toddler oart can’t solve the problem the way a mature, adult part would.

The infidelity, if it happened, is not the problem. It was just the catalyst for the breakdown that part of you has been expecting since, as a child, you saw the wreckage of your father.

I'm quite appalled by a lot of the comments in this thread. Someone has essentially said they have mental health problems and are clearly suffering yet they have been made fun of and called names as opposed to actually helping and offering support.

I think people need to keep in mind that there are real people on the other end of these posts and someone with an already fragile state of mind can easily be pushed over the edge with the comments on here.

Kindness never harmed anyone.

@StopTheQtipWhenTheresResistance OP has had many sensible and politely phrased words of advice. Their only response has been to double down and drip feed more nonsense. There comes a time when one runs out of tolerance for someone who refuses to help themselves and chooses to wallow in victimhood instead.

@pointythings I disagree. Tolerance and kindness should never run out for someone who may need help.

My sympathy is reserved for OP's wife and son, who have had to live with this paranoia for two decades.

Tolerance and kindness =/= encouraging delusions.

@Oliotya It's not at all. You wouldn't see a psychiatrist calling their patients names and telling them they were 'unhinged'.

Hope the OP manages to sort things out for him and his family.

What a terribly sad story. To have gone through all this for decades and die never knowing the truth would be even more terrible. I'm not sure how you could broach the subject but given all the lies you've uncovered perhaps that's a conversation your wife needs to have with him? It is afterall her deceit that has left this hanging over you. It's actually quite cruel of her to let her actions torture you this long. If there's a way of doing it, perhaps leave a letter with a solicitor to be given to your son after you die telling him you can not be certain, he may have had more of an incline that you realise.

Well that's what happens when you come to an internet forum, rather than a mental health professional, and he still ignored pages and pages of helpful advice.
Mumsnet is not therapy.

Sure but a therapist or a psychiatrist is duty bound to help the patient reality test and gain insight into his condition, to the extent possible. Otherwise we are colluding with the patient and fostering delusions.

All I'm saying is show some empathy and kindness

StopTheQtipWhenTheresResistance

agree
my honest opinion is that (some ) women see a male poster and it’s gloves off

it’s blatant and not helpful