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[New End of the Year Update]: I had a baby as a result of an affair and now his wife is reaching out to me (old.reddit.com)

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 on 2025-01-07 05:04:11+00:00.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Free_River_3388

Originally posted to r/TrueOffMyChest

Previous BoRUs: 1, 2, 3. 4, 5, 6

NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----

[New Update]: I had a baby as a result of an affair and now his wife is reaching out to me

Editor’s Note: Removed the older relevant comments for more space in this post.

Trigger Warnings: infidelity, past abuse, mention of abortion, deadbeat father, coercion, weaponization of legal system, financial threats

RECAP

Original Post: January 28, 2024

I (F, 26) had an affair with a married man (M, 42) a few years ago. I had no clue he was married when we first met and hooked up. I obviously looked him up on social media and while he did have photos of his kids on there, there was absolutely no mention or photos of a wife at all. I found out that he was married about a month after we first got together, but he told me it was just a marriage on paper and that they basically lived separate lives and agreed to remain married for practical purposes until the kids were older. They owned a business, which she really ran and he was just financially involved in.

I knew at the time that I probably shouldn’t believe him, but I convinced myself it was true. I was in my early 20s and so attracted to him and I guess almost infatuated with him. He made me feel so good. I know now that I should have ended it immediately, but I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into. I was addicted to all of the attention he gave me, the great sex, the places he’d take me. I felt special. I was so naive.

I got pregnant about a year into seeing him. I had always been so careful with preventing pregnancy, but during my relationship with him I took stupid risks. I was so high in lust with this guy, it’s embarrassing. The things he’d asked me to do…I’d say yes to almost anything, even when I knew it was a bad idea.

I was in love with him, or I thought I was. I hadn’t intentionally wanted to get pregnant. I would of course dream about being his wife and having a family but I knew that wouldn’t be a possibility while he had this arrangement with his actual wife. I didn’t get pregnant on purpose with any intention of him leaving her for me, even if I wished that we could be a real, normal couple. I was surprised by how excited I was to be pregnant with his baby. I wanted that baby once I found out I was pregnant. The thought of carrying this baby of the man I loved was so special to me, but I knew he probably wouldn’t feel the same.

I told him I was pregnant and he told me I couldn’t keep the baby. I expected his reaction, but I was devastated and it hurt me to my core that he didn’t feel the same way I did. He offered to pay, to make a whole weekend of it somewhere exciting (wtf?) and to buy me something special if I’d just please get rid of the baby. He explained that he didn’t want any more kids and that he couldn’t openly be a father to another kid when he and his wife were still pretending to be happily married to the outside world.

I agreed to do what he wanted and we made plans for him to pick me up and find somewhere out of town to go get it done. I was all packed the night he was going to pick me up, but I started to feel really scared and really unsafe about the whole thing. I took my bag and checked myself into a hotel to hide because I couldn’t go with him. I texted him to say I promised to never contact him again and to never name him as the father or go after child support if he’d promise to leave me alone.

At first he tried to sweet talk me into doing what he wanted. When I didn’t cave in, he said some very nasty things to me and that I essentially better never contact him again or show up at his door.

I have a 2 year old now. At times, it’s been difficult, but overall we are thriving as best we can. I have kept my word about not naming his as the father or requesting child support.

His wife contacted me on social media. Well, she’s his ex-wife now. She wants to talk to me. She found out about me and told me that she divorced him 6 months ago. She wants her children to know their sibling and for my child to know his siblings. That’s weird to me.

I haven’t responded back to her yet. I am unsure about how to approach this. How to I respond to this? I wonder if I’m being selfish by not exploring an option for my child to know his siblings, if she’s being genuine about that. If I was married and my husband fathered a child outside of our marriage I don’t think I’d feel the same that she does.

Update #1: February 18, 2024 (three weeks later)

I made a post 3 weeks ago and things have only gotten stranger. I had an affair with a married man a few years ago. I regret it and I will never do anything like that ever again. I knew it was wrong from the very beginning, but he captivated me. I was naive. I allowed myself to believe when he told me they were pretty much just married on paper for the sake of their kids. I got pregnant and while he tried to talk me into getting an abortion I ultimately decided to keep the baby. I have a 2 year old little boy now. I promised this man that I wouldn’t expose our affair and I wouldn’t formally identify him as the father or request child support. I did that because he was becoming very nasty about the whole thing and I felt like due to the mess that I had created and the way I felt by the end of it, a clean break with no involvement with him would be the best thing for everyone. I moved back to where my family is, hundreds of miles from where he and his family live.

About a month ago his ex-wife reached out to me via social media, claiming they had been divorced for 6 months and that she wanted our children to be able to know each other. Now, their kids are teenagers, so I didn’t really think they’d want anything to do with the toddler and the woman their father was having an affair with. It seemed odd to me. After posting here, I sort of decided that I wouldn’t respond to her. I’d just ignore it. She just sent me the one message, so it wasn’t as if she was badgering me about talking to me or meeting me.

On Friday night I decided to message her. I don’t really know why. I think it was really just for my sake so I could have the chance to apologize to her. I told her that I would be more comfortable speaking with her face to face since I couldn’t trust that it was really her. She said she understood. I was too nervous to meet her in person, but we did a video chat. I didn’t know what to expect, if this was all a ploy just to unleash her fury on me or what. I mean, I’d deserve that. She wouldn’t be wrong to feel that way.

It was really her. She told me she discovered our affair when she found communications between the two of us, after our relationship had ended. She told me I’m one of many women he had affairs with over the years and she knew about somebody even before he met me, but she didn’t divorce him at the time. Finding out about my child was the final straw for her. I told her I was sorry for my relationship with her husband and admitted that I knew he was married. She graciously told me she forgives me and that while she harbored a lot of anger towards me initially, she ultimately blames her husband. I’m not blameless, but she chooses to not hate me, essentially. She said she couldn’t have said this 6 months ago or a year ago when she first found out about me, but she has moved past that. She still has anger toward him, in addition to many other emotions surrounding him. She started pouring out her heart to me about their 20+ year marriage and life together and it was very awkward because what do I even say?

Her kids know about me and my son. She says they’re very mad at their father. Somehow I don’t think they’re mad about the fact that he’s not involved with my son’s life. And why would they be mad about that? I would hate me if I were them.

I told her with my son being so little right now, I don’t really feel comfortable with him meeting her kids or being involved with their family. I feel unsure about it and it’s just not something I feel needs to happen right now.

Then she told me her ex husband was in a bad accident 2 months ago. He’s fine now, still not allowed to return to all his normal activities just yet, but will be fine. He is probably the most physically active person I’ve ever met, barely ever seems to sit down, so he must be terribly annoying to be around if he’s not allowed to go go go all the time. She told me he wants to meet my son. Apparently she moved back in with him temporarily when he first came home from the hospital. She said the accident really shook him up and he has been expressing a lot of regret about my son, not being involved, not providing for him.

So now it’s like was everything she said just a lie and he somehow got her to reach out ...

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

So now it’s like was everything she said just a lie and he somehow got her to reach out to me on his behalf? And she actually did it? It felt almost like a relief talking to her initially, but then it’s like was any of that true or you were just trying to be his messenger? I don’t even know if that part is true now. Why wouldn’t he just contact me himself?

I’m just feeling so uneasy about the whole thing now.

Update #2: April 30, 2024 (two months later)

I posted about this few months ago.

To summarize very quickly, when I was fresh out of college I had an affair with a married man and father. I became pregnant. He wanted me to get an abortion. He had arranged to “take me away” in a “vacation” to get an abortion. I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do but I agreed to go along with what we wanted. At the last minute, when he was on his way to come pick me up, I told him I couldn’t go through with the abortion. I just really didn’t feel comfortable about his plan and how he was orchestrating everything. It scared me. I realized at that time how deep I had gone with this mistake, how screwed up the whole relationship was.

He was really mad. He threatened me, said a lot of nasty things to me. I told him if he just left me alone and let me have my baby then I’d leave him alone and wouldn’t name him as the father or seek child support. I moved back home (I was living in a different state when I met him). I kept my word and I did t it name him as the father or seek to establish paternity. I have never sought child support. My child is 2 now.

A few months ago his wife contacted me via social media. At first she made it seem like she wanted my child to have the opportunity to know his siblings. It was sort of weird since the siblings are teenagers. She said she had divorced him 6 months prior.

I agreed to talk to her virtually, not in person. I felt that I owed it to her to apologize for what I had done. I do feel bad about it. But at the end of the conversation I told her that I didn’t feel it was the appropriate time to connect my son with her kids. He’s a toddler and their teens, plus I had promised her husband to stay out of his life. That’s when she told me that he was recently in a bad accident and she had been helping to take care of him. Supposedly he was going to be fine and was fairly recovered at that point, but she said he had expressed interest to meet our child. So she was basically his messenger.

I have not been in contact with her since then. I deleted my social media. I don’t know why, but the whole thing just really made me uncomfortable.

Since I last posted here….

Then, I received a handwritten letter from him. In it, he expressed how he wanted to get to know our son, he wants to be a father to our son, he wants to provide financially for him, he’d like us to come visit him. He asked me to sign a paternity affidavit. I refused to do so. I know he is my son’s father but I’m not going to make this that easy for him. After the things he said to me and threatened me with, he at least has to work for this.

At that point, my parents felt that we needed to meet with a lawyer. All communication from me has gone through a lawyer. I have never responded to him personally/directly.

Now, I have a court order for paternity. I have to present my son to have a specimen taken tomorrow. I already know what it’s going to say.

It’s not that I don’t want my son to have a dad in his life. It’s just…the whole situation is a mess. And he lives a few states away from me. I don’t know what to do. I can’t really do anything. He’s doing things legally. Next, I’m sure he’ll petition for some form of custody or visitation. He’s not married anymore, supposedly, but he’s a lot more established than I am. He has considerably more financial resources. I also know he has all sorts of connections where he lives. Luckily they don’t hold as much weight here in my state but it’s still so scary to me.

I’m a bad mom. I brought my son into this world knowing it was a messy situation. I just got so comfortable with it just being the 2 of us and now I don’t want to give that up.

Update #3: June 15, 2024 (two months later)

I won’t rehash the whole thing here. My previous posts are on my profile. I got pregnant from an affair with a married guy. He wanted me to have an abortion. I decided I didn’t want one. He turned mean, I promised to not name him as the father, legally, or to pursue any sort of child support. I moved away from where he and his family were located. I’m about 12 hours away from him now, back where my family is from. I haven’t reached out to him in the now over 3 years since.

His ex-wife reached out to me out of the blue via social media, initially claiming she wanted to connect with me so that our kids could know each other. When I politely declined for the time being, as her kids are teenagers and my son is a toddler and we live states apart, she revealed she was really reaching out in behalf of her ex-husband who had supposedly had a change of heart about being involved in our child’s life after nearly dying in an accident. I did not engage with her any further after that. It all made me feel very uncomfortable.

Later, I received a letter from him in the mail. He asked to be involved with our son, to provide for him, etc. It still felt weird. I mean he turned really mean and didn’t want anything to do with me or our baby and hadn’t made any attempt to contact me in years (and I was not hiding - his wife was obviously able to find me on social media and you can find my address online).

I felt like if he was serious, he’d take the steps to establish paternity legally. And that’s what he did. Around 1.5 months ago we were ordered to submit DNA samples for a paternity test. It took around 5 weeks to find out what I already knew it’d say. But now things are stalled for another several weeks for the next step in the court process.

I haven’t talked to him at all during this whole thing. I didn’t respond directly to his letter. I do have a lawyer and everything is basically going through him now.

Then without any warning, he just showed up at my home last weekend. Just knocked on the door like it was nothing. Basically, this is his son and he doesn’t want to wait another 6 weeks for the court to inevitably order us into some sort of custody mediation anyway…his words. Why can’t I just talk to him? I told him he made me uncomfortable and him just showing up at my house really made me uncomfortable. Honestly, I don’t know what made me so uncomfortable. The fact that he showed up unannounced like that or the fact that I instantly felt the same attraction to him that I had when I was with him and I didn’t want to feel that at all. In some weird way part of me felt happy to see him and then another part of me was disgusted that I was happy.

He said he doesn’t understand why we can’t just talk about this. He’s not trying to take my son away from me; he just wants to be involved in his life and to help provide for him like he should have been all along. He’s sorry he wasn’t there when he was born. He’s sorry he reacted the way that he did when I didn’t go along with his plans to take me on an abortion vacation. Why can’t I believe that he just wants to be a dad to his kid?

I guess I agree with him. Why can’t I just accept that he has had a change of heart? I can’t trust myself. I can’t trust my own judgment. I feel like if I easily let him into my son’s life I’m going to end up regretting it and be made a fool of somehow. I’ve already made so many mistakes when it comes to him.

He says it’s stupid of me to not try to work it out amongst ourselves first. I’m giving so much control to the court. I don’t know whether to believe that or to think it’s just his way of convincing me to do what he wants.

I know he will get some sort of visitation and eventual custody. Maybe it would be better if we try to come to an agreement, but he had the ability to sway me so easily. I’m so stupid when it comes to him. Nobody else has ever made me feel so foolish in my life.

I want my son to have a dad. I admit it’s probably selfish of me to want to keep him away. I just keep imagining having to spend weeks or months apart from my child while he’s living with his dad 12 hours away and I can’t stand the thought of it.

I’m just feeling sad, stupid, and defeated.