Hi Director,
Firstly, like everyone else here, I am very sorry for the bombshell that has been dropped into your life.
Infidelity is a huge thing to try and cope with, without the issue of pregnancies that have arisen from the affair.
So my first comment relates to you and your well-being. Please let people who can be supportive to you know what has happened. It is quite possible that the full effects of this disclosure will hit you slowly, over several days, or even a couple of weeks. It can be vital to have people ‘there’ for you if it does.
The same is true for your doctor. If you find your sleep and appetite are adversely affected, please make an appointment with your doctor. If you have trouble eating, several people here have found protein shakes/supplements to be useful. I am sure others here have some good ideas along similar lines.
My second comment is one that you really need to absorb for your own good:
It is not your responsibility to fix this, or sacrifice the rest of your life to pay for your wife’s bad decisions. It is your responsibility to protect yourself and your son.
Your wife may have made a serious of irresponsible decisions, but you did not.
I know that may seem harsh, but I am writing it with your best interests in mind.
Your wife may have come up with a wonderful fix for HER life, involving you doing all the heavy lifting and shouldering all of the issues that come with an untrustworthy partner who puts you at risk of sexually transmitted diseases and the raising of another man’s child, but you have to consider whether that is the best possible life option for you.
I feel like I deserve somebody who is committed to me
Yes, you do, and so does everyone else who gets married. Her wanting you to stay with a ‘wife’ who has unprotected sex with another man while actively trying to conceive a second child with you is a huge 'ask', and an invitation to gamble with your chances of future happiness, love, and security.
The point is, if you stay with her, you forfeit the opportunity to forge a better, deeper relationship with another person. That is not an option to forego without fully considering its implications. The flipside of that coin, of course, is that divorce does not guarantee a wonderful, secure, loving relationship with someone else.
Could your wife become a trustworthy person with good boundaries and 100% commitment to you and your son? Possibly. Her recent behaviour is the polar opposite of that, and if you choose to stay with her, you will have to believe that she can fulfil that potential.
I know and she has said that she wishes that I would just break everything in the house and leave for a week and come back and we can begin to move on and that is probably the best reaction if I were to have one but I would describe how I should have acted but I think because I know but life is going to go on and I was not at fault for this happening that is the reason why I'm not overreacting.
That might be the ‘best’ reaction from your wife’s perspective, but it really would not fix anything at all, would it?
Just as your wife has put the responsibility on your shoulders to ‘fix’ this for her by giving her a free pass and raising another man’s child, she is also putting the responsibility of getting over it onto your shoulders too. Just trash the joint and get over it. If you could just do that, her life would be fine.
If you think about it, her statements are very revealing about how her mind works. I say that not to ‘damn’ her, but to make sure your eyes are fully open.
She made a phone call to the other person and essentially said she does not want him in her life she explained to me that she wants me to raise this child she wants me to love her she wants our son to be raised in a good home.
Leaving aside the pointlessness of shutting the man out after all the damage has been done, life simply does not work that way.
The man has fathered a child with your wife, and he will be forever linked to her via that child. Her words cannot make him conveniently disappear in a puff of purple smoke, like a magician’s trick.
That man should be legally registered as the father, and be responsible for his actions. That is what being a grown-up is all about. He created a child, he has to take ownership of that. It is not your wife’s right to give him a free pass and absolve him of his responsibilities simply because she wants to put them all on you.
Even if the man flees, what will you do if he returns in ten years, or sooner, wanting access rights, or causing problems?
It is also not wise to purge the father from the child’s life, because his family medical history may have implications for the health and well-being of his child.
That child has a right to have a relationship with its father. As unpalatable as this situation is, we have to remember that that poor kid bears no responsibility for the events that led to its creation. The two adults who do – your wife and her affair partner – have to do right by the child, morally, legally, and financially. Your wife began a second relationship with him, and she cannot just end it with a few words now that she is having his child. She has to work this out with him.
Your wife seems to want instant fixes to huge problems. You give her a free pass. You raise another man’s child. You stay with her and love her. She makes the man who fathered her child disappear with a phone call. It’s all so quick and convenient if everyone does what she wants.
She further went on to say that she will have her life ruined because of this and she became very upset in front of our two year old.
Wow. That is monumentally self-centered. The reality is that she will have to face the consequences of her own bad decisions, and how their results have ruined the lives of several people who trusted her, beginning with you and her parents. To focus on herself at such a time is very revealing, and a big red flag about her personality and priorities.
She has mentioned that she would put the child up for adoption if thats what i want, but i dont. I personally feel like i should have zero say in the future of her unborn child. I have told her i dont think she should get an abortion, and i do want to tell her parents & the world, but i am very close with them and do have a lot of respect for them, but knowing what they went through and did during their middle child's divorce, i agree with everyone here that i cannot assume they will side with me on anything, and it is quite likely that they will foot the bill going forward for her and any legal fees therafter.
It seems that your wife has been treating both you and the father of the child in a very arrogant and cavalier fashion, and now she wants to farm the kid out like some inconvenient truth that is complicating her life.
She needs to be a grown-up, and be a mother to the children that she has brought into the world.
The reality of this situation is that if you decide to divorce your wife, you can work out how to co-parent the son that you share, as many other divorced couples do.
It is your wife’s responsibility to build and maintain her relationship with the father of her other child, and to work out co-parenting with him.
In terms of the well-being of both children, I am sure that her parents, once they get up to speed with recent events, will help you with the care of your son, and also ensure that their other grand-child is safe and provided for. It is more their responsibility to do that than it is yours, although it is the father of the child who has the main responsibility for it.
But she has said she will not be with him even if I choose to divorce.
That is her choice, and nothing to do with you. She thought enough of him to cheat on you for him, and to create a child with him. If she now wants to dump him like a piece of trash, so be it.
I demanded that she tell him he needed to quit and her initial response was that she didnt want to cause a bigger ripple effect and ruin more peoples lives. I continue to think about that response of hers, she was standing up for him in that response, and that is what immediately changed my psyche going forward and seeing the big picture, which ultimately means that i have to remove myself from this toxic woman, and immediately begin to repair myself going forward.
If you were my son, my brother, or my friend, I would advise you to do the same. She has shown you who she is, and wishful thinking will not change that.
I will keep you in my thoughts, and I will say a prayer for you tonight.
