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.

Minor point, but you do realise when you miss your period you're counted as four weeks pregnant (even tho technically you only had sex and fell pregnant two weeks ago). So IF nine weeks traces exactly to the date he met, then it can't be his baby. She would have conceived two weeks after that.

You may have accounted for that already, but I wanted to check, because I don't think your dates match.

He can't "decide" if he doesn't even know it's a question, can he?

So, per my point, he needs to be told there's a possibility his dad may not be who he thinks he is. But it's only a possibility if the wife had sex with someone else around the time of conception. Which she may or may not have done. Only she knows. So she should tell him. If she did.

I can assure the posters who are all worried about double standards that this is absolute nonsense. I would take the same approach to a woman who had “two nervous breakdowns”, kept a pepys level diary recording the minutiae of her husband’s life so that she could comb it for inconsistencies, and who suspected that her husband had fostered another woman’s child on the strength of half heard and misunderstood theories of his infidelity for twenty years.

Basically this marriage is like a meal: OP ate the meal for twenty years but now complains he never liked it and wants someone else to pay for it. He ate the meal. He raised the children. He stayed married to the woman. The fact that he is grudge holding and despising her and believes he has been crippled and destroyed by her is, frankly, very disturbing and I would think that about a woman who stayed in a marriage where she despised and distrusted her spouse.

@VanGoghsDog - " So she should tell him. If she did."

But she's already told him she didn't at the crucial time. He just doesn't believe her.

Did your father have similar mental difficulties?

I don’t know if some on here have a degree in gaslighting or like to victim blame in the name of misandry. Some seem to like twisting the knife in more than once. Why come on to this thread if you have nothing decent to say? Anyway I’ve risen to the bait.

The fact that some have suggested I don’t love my son is incredibly spiteful. It’s not his or my fault that when he was barely 1 that life changed for all of us. But this hasn’t stopped me caring and supporting him through his life. From learning to ride a bike, to kicking a football, taking him to hospital when he fell down the stairs, wiping away his tears and blood, taking him to and from school, helping him apply for jobs, teaching him to drive etc.

Some have criticised me for not walking away 25 years ago. I had no idea then that I would struggle to deal with lies and deception, but why should I give up on my 2 children? We had spent 15 years of struggle, sacrifices and hard graft to get to where we were then.

My wife and I had a very loving relationship. We often bathed together and were very sexual 3 or 4 times a week. We had a house, 2 cars, 2 beautiful children and I was in love with the most beautiful person (many said I was punching above my weight and she still is stunningly attractive). Even my father worshipped my wife as the daughter he never had. He still does. I thought I had won the lottery of life. And then we went to that social function and my world was sent into free fall and I haven’t stopped falling since.

All you haters out there, stand ready on your keyboards and send me your evil vitriol. You are the ugly person not me.

As I said, register to his email, then he can tell the son appropriately if he's not.
It's a real young man who, if he has been lied to his whole life, deserves to know the truth.
Not least for medical reasons alone, but also to have the chance at hopefully meeting his biological family before too many have died. The alternative likely could be he does it alone at 50 and has no older relatives left to even explain the results.

Disappeared at a social function? Could that also be the same as "went to the toilet"?
Repeating the same paranoia, and refusing to take any responsibility for your own role in the last 25 years is absurd. Move on.

You didn’t disappoint. Took less than a few minutes! Funnily enough a toilet was involved. A wife to one of the players saw them coming out the toilets together. My OH did admit he tried it on with her.

And to think his wife of 6 months (and 8 months pregnant) was at home. Some on here have even suggested he is Mr Nice Guy. Bizarre.

Anyway, next.

Yes very similar. He used to accuse my Mum of seeing a guy years before they were married. His own father deserted him and was a bigamist.

Well that's a bit of a drip feed isn't it.
Seen coming out of the toilet together, that's an odd detail to leave out of the original version of events...
Still, you've had 25 years to take control of the situation. So take control.

@MrMarpleToo why have you name changed on Page 16 of your own thread?

Seems a strange thing to do and can't happen by accident

CC @MrMarple

And I know all about drip feed. I did say in my very first post it’s a long story. Do you want me to list all the weird going’s on? I’ll only get criticised for that too!

25 years to take control of what exactly? You clearly have little idea about the effects of infidelity although you probably think you do.

Someone did reference my diary in an earlier post. My God someone keeps a diary. That’s so weird. Eh no. My great-grandmother kept a diary, my Nan kept a diary (which I have) and so did my Mum. I’ve kept one since being a teenager. A few of the days events and the odd feeling mixed in. In fact he has helped in totally unrelated situations for both me and my OH.

Thing is, your wife could hand you cctv footage of every minute of every day around that time and you still wouldn't believe she hadn't cheated because your whole life is built around that belief. You couldn't function without it.

Can you not see the irony when you say your father had the same paranoia? It's not her. It's you. It's for you to take responsibility and deal with it.

Because I left but saw that I was still getting insulted so rejoined.

We know whose side you’re on and my earlier post was directed at you

And even if there was infidelity, who has forced you to stay in the marriage? Who is forcing you to stay now? Who has prevented a DNA test? Who is preventing you from speaking to your wife and son now? Who is stopping you from seeking therapy and medicine again?
Youre not a passive bystander in your own life.

Might have been a good idea to have confirmed that with your posts from the 'new account' this morning

I'm not on anyone's side. I do think it is sad that you have wasted so many years living in your self chosen edifice of martyrdom when better options were available. It's possible your wife cheated. It's possible she didn't. Either way you have chosen the worst of both worlds with your actions.

Sorry I thought it would be obvious from the old Username which it wouldn’t let me use again. Hopefully I won’t require a MrMarpleFree!

As a matter of interest as you’ve posted a number of posts on this thread all criticising me. Do you think my OH should have been open and honest at the beginning and that I wouldn’t even be on this website had she done so 25 years ago?

I will add out of everything I do know about what was going on at time I would say approx 98% of it I had to dig out for myself. Should it be that way?

I’m starting to think this thread is the product of a cuckholding fetish taken to the next level but that’s just me…

We all make life decisions and mine have been poor. Some ask why didn’t you just walk away? I explained in an earlier post that my OH and I had a very loving relationship (or so I thought). Then within a blink of an eye it turned into a bloody nightmare.

This might sound sick inducing but on that night where I found out I had been duped I drove us to that function and I remember turning to her and thinking just how gorgeous she was lit up by a full moon outside. We even slowed danced that evening before he turned up at around 10pm. An hour later she came out the toilets with him!!

The DNA thing has not always troubled me to the same extent but as my son grows older doubts have started to filter in. If I ordered a DNA kit I know my OH will be furious despite angrily telling me to have one done. By the way we have only had that conversation twice in 25 years as I hate confrontation.

What the kind that emasculates you, makes your hair fall out, causes IBS and leaves you on anti-depressants for 2 decades. I’m not sure who is more sick?