SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So terribly sorry for all that you are going through. If I can, may I ask, did her graphic description of her sexual acts with AP include unprotected sex? Have you asked her specifically if she was aware of the pregnancy danger (ovulation timing)?

My wife took the emergency contraceptive after the first encounter because she was near her ovulation period. Following that she believed she was safely out of it, and she also believes she is perimenopausal. She maintains she did not believe she was at risk. Now she knows better.

Is abortion an option for her, LittleAndyUnicorn?

I'm not trying to make you feel any worse about the situation, just to shed some light here, just to show you how much you should beware of your WW's words no matter how good they may sound.

Barely a week ago your WW was in the throes of POSOM. You found out about the affair and she didn't even seem all that sorry. She even went to her sister's to "decide what she wanted". Then by the end of the week she claims she is totally remorseful and will do anything to make this up to you. What will she be feeling at the end of the next week. Can you really trust your WW at this point.

On being your WW's true Plan A, instead of her Safe Choice: Your wife wants back into the marriage, but this is *after* POSOM proved to be a lying scumbag even to WW and he lost interest too. What if POSOM hadn't ended up disqualifiying himself so clearly to your WW. Suppose POSOM's sad sob story about his family were true? What if his family situation were indeed as he claimed it to be, and he felt that he was falling in love. What then. Would she still be choosing you now, and having this desire to save your marriage.

Also, keep in mind that the previous weekend, you went scorched earth on your WW and that at least snapped her out of something. Now--this entire thread so far--you seem to be all about giving your WW a soft place to land, and even she seems to be feeling sort of strange about that. If you keep on being this nice it WILL end badly! Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for everyone is hold people accountable for their actions.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 9:39 PM, April 19th (Monday)]

You seem very eager to reconcile. Too eager. You are practically quoting people who are way further out than you should be.

This isn't a race. If you don't reconcile it isn't failing. You need to see what is on the other side of leaving your wife. Then pull back and CHOOSE to stay because it is your choice. Not because the family is too hard without her or because you are afraid of being alone.

Your WW still wants to move to the town where she cheated. That could be (Should be) a huge trigger for you and she hasn't realized her dream hurt you. Expect a lot of 2X4's because even she is telling you to pump the brakes on the reconciliation and you are trying to paint her actions as if it was another woman not her. You feel you get to tell her when she is healed and that isn't how this works. You don't get to hopscotch past the parts where you swear at her and cry because she left you. That you get to be the better more communicative partner now and she just gets free forgiveness. You need to swallow that injustice and if you try to shot glass it, you are going to choke.

The main reason I felt like explaining this is because of the baby. You have 3 other children and 1 AP baby. Unless you are an adopted or foster child, you will treat this child differently than your own. I know people who have fostered a lot of children and they say exactly that. So you are bottling up all this health anger to work through by yourself. Then you are going to hold your wife's hand while she has a baby and moves back to the country.

LittleAndyUnicorn - You need some time alone to process. You don't feel ashamed for not being home, or feel a need to check in. You need to put your WW in charge and leave for a week. Keep working if you have to. I think you said you do. Just stop being a parent and go stay in a hotel for a week. During that time, every night chew on the emotions.

You seem to think the therapy you have has saved you. What are the stages of grief for losing a relationship?

Why haven't you gone through them all?

You probably got stuck on that first or second one right?

My advice, is to get some time alone away from the family. Stop talking to the wife daily and really clear your head and heart.

You seem so eager to impress people and fix things, you seem to even want to impress the people on here. Let it go and find some time alone. It is a mini 180, just to detach from your life.

2 of my friends are divorcing their wives who cheated on them a long time ago. One of them told me once his youngest left the house, he realized he never really forgave his wife. After 5-6 years he never let go of the anger. He gave her a lot in the divorce. He just wanted to go date and feel free he said. Kind of a mid life crisis I think. He was like you, always agreeable and polite. He said he never really did things for himself. He was always worried about everyone else.

Learn from them please. Process the anger and sadness. At a minimum, realize you should be feeling sad because you have lost the loving wife you had before. Your old marriage died. This new marriage is not the same. Be sad at a minimum. Otherwise when you hit the plain of lethal flatness where your WW starts to get on your nerves because you have exhausted you ability to run on pure emotion. Then you get kind of where you are pretending to be now, indifference and declaring what you expect and need. Then once you get past that ocean, which is hardest on the WS, you kind of settle in and your WS adjusts to the new normal.

Good luck.

This morning my wife took a pregnancy test and it was positive. There’s no chance it’s mine.

This opens up a whole new angle to our reconciliation.

well, or it makes it clearer, which could be good. Sorry you're going through this.

How does your wife feel,having a baby that belongs to another man, while married to you?

Her family knows about the affair, so everyone will know this child is a product of that affair. So she can't pretend otherwise.

How does she feel,asking you to raise her affair partner's child? A child that could look just like OM.

She had zero remorse after you caught her. None. You told her she had to make a choice, and she got mad that she had only been given two days to think about it. And she didn't rush home. Her marriage was falling apart,her husband was devastated. And she stayed away on vacation.

She took Plan B, but thought she was unable to get pregnant. So why Plan B? She is contradicting herself.

She had zero remorse after you caught her. None. You told her she had to make a choice, and she got mad that she had only been given two days to think about it. And she didn't rush home. Her marriage was falling apart,her husband was devastated. And she stayed away on vacation.

This. Why does a remorseful wife need any time to decide who they want to be with? Anyone that was truly remorseful wouldn’t need any time to decide. Pretty simple choice that shouldn’t take days to figure out. A remorseful wife wouldn’t run back to the place where they cheated while their devastated husband is begging them to decide who they want to be with. A remorseful wife wouldn’t say they’re with their sister while their sister is saying they aren’t.

I made the mistake of offering R too easy. 18 months later I regret it because she hasn't done the work to be a safe partner to me, nor am I sufficiently healed at the 18 months out point.

I can't imagine adding a 9 month old baby that isn't mine into the equation.

This. Why does a remorseful wife need any time to decide who they want to be with? Anyone that was truly remorseful wouldn’t need any time to decide. Pretty simple choice that shouldn’t take days to figure out. A remorseful wife wouldn’t run back to the place where they cheated while their devastated husband is begging them to decide who they want to be with. A remorseful wife wouldn’t say they’re with their sister while their sister is saying they aren’t.

An important point to make here is that no cheaters are "truly remorseful" immediately after DDay. The only pain they are feeling is for themselves; if they are affected by their BS's pain, it's only because of how it reflects on them. LittleAndyUnicorn's wife is no exception.

LittleAndyUnicorn, stick around here long enough and you will see that the length of time it takes for a cheater to get to the point of genuine remorse (if they are capable of doing so) is directly related to the consequences they experience and their spouse's willingness to walk away.

Cheaters with spouses who take decisive action and enact immediate consequences-- for example, filing for divorce, kicking them out of the house or moving out, making their cheater quit their job as a requisite for even considering reconciliation-- are quicker to dislodge their heads from their asses and do the hard work needed to hold on to their relationships. This approach also quickly identifies cheaters incapable of remorse or reconciliation.

Cheaters with spouses who are desperate to save the marriage at all costs and willing to forgive unconditionally feel free to be indecisive, take their affair underground, or start up an affair after the dust settles. At best, they do the bare minimum required of them to placate their spouse. I consider no contact with the AP, IC, and MC to be the bare minimum, since none of these require any considerable sacrifice or effort from the WS. Consequently, their betrayed spouses will waste years of their lives trying to single-handedly drive reconciliation, grasping on to breadcrumbs, and getting nowhere.

I've seen your story here and over in the JFO forum. Politely, I think you are rushing things too much.

Not to mention, now she has a baby on the way. Strength brother, this is going to be one hell of a wild ride.

I'm being honest with myself on this one, if I were in your shoes, an abortion would be one of my conditions for me to even consider moving forward with R. There are already too many things to consider and factor in when it comes to R with your own children and their mother, let alone a little bastard coming along. Again, this is my personal feelings, but I couldn't stay with my wife and raise some other man's child.

She had unprotected sex with AP while she was ovulating?

What is your WW thinking right now?

Tj

Can we PLEASE not use the word “bastard” to refer to a child of infidelity?! I get that it’s technically correct but the connotation is extremely negative and unfair when applied to a human being who no choice about the manner in which they were conceived.

“Affair child”, “Child of infidelity” , or even “illegitimate” are perfectly accurate and sufficiently descriptive words that don’t completely dehumanize the person to which they refer.

The WW and the AP are the wrongdoers here; not the child.

/tj

Hi LittleAndyUnicorn checking in. How are you doing with everything?

IaT is dead on. Better listen to her OP.

Following that she believed she was safely out of it, and she also believes she is perimenopausal.

^^^^This and the statement below do not go together.

She maintains she did not believe she was at risk.

Oh come on man we all know at least one person who had a menopause baby, or was one. Things become highly unpredictable once you reach perimenopause and you cannot as a woman trust your old body to do what it always has done, and if you do, you are fooling yourself, in denial or a moron. Sorry.

I don't buy it at all. She was looking for a way out, a baby was a full exit strategy.

Oh man... the train is coming and the bus is sitting there on the tracks. Can someone signal the engineer? Is there a way to stop this?

LittleAndyUnicorn, you're way too nice, this will end bad, if you continue this behaviour you're in for a very rude awakening. Your WW is not only NOT a good candidate for R, she's on the other side of the spectrum, now she's pregnant with POSOM's child, I strongly recommend that you end this farce and run for the hills, but of course it's your life and your decision, at a minimum you should send her back to her parents, if she's not willing to go separate for a few months, she has not given you much to work with.

IMHO and after reading hundreds of stories here and in other forums, I'm afraid to say the chances of this ending well are slim to none, even without the complications of an OC in the mix and even with a fully remorseful WW doing all the necessary work (your WW is NOT) it's a daunting effort that takes years with NO guarantees, not to mention the constant reminder and a POSOM interjecting in your life is likely to prove too much for most people.

Is R possible ? yes but under the circumstances not probable and/or very very difficult, your case reminds me of another poster, read "FamilyMan" (or is it Familyguy?) thread, he's been through hell and back with his serial cheater WW, and still has other types of family issues made worst by her infidelity, he still posts here. Your WW is light years from being a good candidate for R, treat her as such and protect your children.

Hey @WontBeFooledAgain thanks for checking in.

I took my wife and kids away for 4 days for some family time and it was really nice. We had a great time. My wife and I have done so much talking. We did 2 hours last week with a couple’s counsellor and we will see her again this week.

Yesterday we told the OP that she is pregnant and his response was “I’m in a very bad place right now and this is seriously the last thing I need. When are you going to terminate?”

My wife is now truly realising what a scumbag he is. He didn’t ask her anything about what she wants or how she is doing.

I know everyone is telling me I have no idea what’s coming and that I should leave her, but I feel I am in a pretty good place right now, and I’m prepared for whatever lies ahead. I will love and raise this baby as my own. I do not want her to have an abortion as this child does not deserve to die.

Every time I think about what’s going to be the most soul destroying: working through R with my wife, supporting her through this monumental mistake (the pregnancy) and providing a stable home life for our 3 children and this new baby; or, divorce my wife, watch her raise a child on her own, mess up my kids, still have a lifelong connection with her that will be painful and awkward.... I prefer the former.

This whole situation has shown me that I never realised just how much I love my wife and that I have been distant with her for much of our marriage. This is of course the worst possible way to discover how I truly feel but I believe that this is a turning point for us to grow stronger together.

And yes, I realise this makes me a cuckold.

I will love and raise this baby as my own. I do not want her to have an abortion as this child does not deserve to die.

As a man of faith, I concur. The child did nothing to deserve death.

However, you still need to consult an attorney and have papers drawn for OM to relinquish all parental rights. Otherwise, he may be able to re-enter this little one's life after he is "in a better place".

Protect yourself legally. If you are willing to raise the child as your own, good on you. But you MUST consult an attorney to find out (assuming your wife chooses to not terminate) what you need to do to be the legal parent of this child.

Well, you're not the first BH who has come to this conclusion. Look for posts by FamilyMan75 whose situation was somewhat similar. It all comes down to what's right for YOU. This is the one time when it pays to be a little selfish because you're really going to have to take full ownership of this decision. So, if this is truly the right thing for YOU, you don't have to make any apologies about it. Just keep working with your therapist to make sure that you don't fall into a pattern of over-giving and that you're not allowing yourself to be motivated by KISA tendencies. That's "knight in shining armor" and it's codependent as all hell. Make sure it doesn't define you going forward, right?

Yesterday we told the OP that she is pregnant and his response was “I’m in a very bad place right now and this is seriously the last thing I need. When are you going to terminate?”

This is actually a good sign. Get with your attorney to find out how you can get legal termination of his parenting rights. I believe you may have to wait for the birth of the child to establish paternity, but maybe not. Your attorney should be able to guide you on that.