'My wife deleted a message from my ex telling me that she was pregnant 5 years ago.' UPDATED 2X

"My wife deleted a message from my ex telling me that she was pregnant 5 years ago."

It's been almost two weeks since I found out. We've did the tests and she's mine. My ex had sent me a message a couple weeks before giving birth telling me about everything. My then gf and present wife saw that my ex sent me a message and deleted it then blocked her, apparently without reading it.

Ex took that as me not wanting to be involved and raised our daughter all alone. For five f#$king years. My daughter is turning 5 in a month and I haven't even met her. Every time I think about how much I missed out on I just lose it. I know I must focus on what I've gained instead of what I've lost but damn it's hard. It's taken me two hours just to write this out.

Don't even want to start on what my ex had to go through alone and the desperation to reach out to my mother for help when she hates her nearly more than me. My wife says she's remorseful. That she was just very immature at the time and didn't think it could be that important, so much so she forgot about it.

I've never loved anyone more than my wife. She's supported me through so much. I believe that she actually feels bad and regrets it. She's pregnant +-21 weeks pregnant with our first child together. We're currently separated while I deal with everything but I don't know how we'll move forward after this.

The commenters did not hold back.

first-room-right wrote:

How did you find out? ("two weeks ago").

OP responded:

My ex asked my mother for some cash for our daughter and then my mum chewed me out for being a deadbeat. Asked her what she was talking about about and she told me about my ex and how I blocked her. Mentioned it to my wife who admitted there was a time where she deleted a message from my ex and blocked her.

b1gd1cv1rgin wrote:

Part of me doubts your wife didn't read the message. If it were me, & some guy my wife used to date texted her, I'd read it to know if my wife were cheating or WTF was going on.

I highly doubt she didn't know your ex was pregnant with your child.

Charming-Ad-2381 wrote:

Not quite sure how someone can delete a message without reading it...

Emma7656 wrote:

Yeah I don’t buy for a second that she didn’t read it.

chace_thibodeaux wrote:

I'd forgive your wife, as she was immature and made a mistake. And, as you said, it's not like she even read the message and was deliberately trying to hide the pregnancy from you. And you couldn't have been together too long at the time, if your ex was pregnant. So, yeah, it was wrong.

But put that in the context of the happy 5 years you've had together since. And that's especially with your upcoming child together. You're already going to have to get used to having one broken family, no point in making it two.

Frankly, I put more responsibility on the ex. She sends one text (after waiting until a couple of weeks before she was due to give birth) that, as far she knows, you ignore and...that's it?

She just gives up and decides to have and raise the baby all on her own? I'm sorry, but there had to have been other ways to contact you and make sure that, if you didn't want an emotional relationship to your child, that you were at least compelled to provide financial support.

So her going through these past 5 years alone is on her. But what's done is done. Now that's the time for you to put your anger aside and focus on being the best father that you can to both of your children.

OP responded:

In all honesty I was a s#$t boyfriend to her especially towards the end so I can't blame her for not trying harder to contact me. That's on me. I do want to forgive her. As I said, I believe she was just being childish in the moment but damn that was some bad timing. I'm not entirely sure I can forget about this.

Eleven days later, OP shared an update.

Got some messages asking for updates and since my post got some attention I though I should publicly update. Long story short, I met with my ex last week just to properly explain myself and discuss the whole 'what nows'. It didn't end up being productive and mostly filled with awkward silence with a few miniature arguments.

Towards the end she said that she'd been talking to a lawyer and didn't want me to be involved and will be seeking full custody of our daughter with no visitation as well as suing me for back child support and getting me on child support. So that was fun. To be clear, I was always going to provide more than my fair share for any child of mine.

I really don't know how any of this works but I haven't received anything from the court or something so it could've just been a threat but she seemed serious. Regardless I decided to find myself a lawyer to help me instead of waiting around and eventually got linked with an old friend's brother whom I'm meeting tomorrow which is great.

My wife and I are trying to work things out. Due to the lawyer/court situation financially speaking, we couldn't get an actual therapist but my wife's pastor offered to provide marriage counseling for us. We only had two sessions before the family drama broke out and we temporarily put counseling on pause.

Basically the thing about my wife deleting the message leaked out to the rest of the family, is it led my wife getting uncivil messages from a couple family members. My lovely older sister also decided to add to the fire by posting about this on her FB. My wife has locked herself at home since and is taking everything quite badly since even her friends now know now and have distanced themselves from her.

I'm actually quite worried about it but at least her mum is there with her and I try to check on her regularly. It's all just overwhelming. When I'm not thinking about my daughter, I'm thinking about my ex. When I'm not thinking about my ex, I'm thinking about my family drama and when I'm not thinking about that I'm thinking about my marriage and the pregnancy.

And there's still work so it's been a really terrible week. Finding it hard to maintain optimism and excitement for my daughter when all this has happened. Just a shit situation all round. This ended up being more of a vent so sorry about that. I probably won't give another update in future unless there's good news so just thanks for the support.

The comments kept coming.

Karyatids wrote:

Did you bother to press you wife on if she read the text or not? That was one of the most pressing questions posed in the last post.

magus448 wrote:

By that time they must have only been dating a few months. Pretty messed up to block someone on someone's phone whom you went on possibly only a couple dates with.

cherabye wrote:

OP, you need to get your priorities straight. You need to focus on what you can control and that's you're marriage and baby otw. This stress is horrible for the newborn, do not let this get even more out of control. Honestly, I'd tell your family to back off and that they have no business in your marriage or messaging your wife. Yes, your wife did something stupid and immature.

She's definitely understanding the consequences of her own actions. Also, for your ex, I find it hard to believe she wrote one measly text and was like "oh okay he's not involved." I read what you wrote about it and it just sounds like BS.

She probably didn't try hard because she didn't want you involved and sent a courtesy message, especially if you were a sh#$ty bf, she probably didn't want you around and she's NOW finding a reason to be petty.

She thinks she's in control with her nonsense of court or whatever. If you want to be a father to the child, you can. There's no way a court would terminate your rights as a father especially if you have no record, let alone a petty ex. Everyone in this situation sucks unfortunately.

Three months later, OP shared an update.

It's quite a long story so the more condensed version is that I've met my daughter, my ex and I handled the custody and support agreement ourselves (still signed off by the court), we're both committed to making this co-parenting thing work and it's been going well so far. My wife and I are back at home and both excited about her nearing due date. We've decided to move on.

The longer version: The last update ended with my ex threatening to fight me in court. Well, the lawyer I'd arranged suggested we give mediation a try and set that up with her lawyers and this mediator. Overall the mediation went quite s#$t and seemed to be more detrimental to us ever cooperating. We only had two actual sessions and both were just filled with unnecessary fighting and no resolution.

Funny enough it was the chaos at the mediation that kind of proved to both of us we weren't interested in fighting each other indefinitely and she reached out late in the evening after the second mediation asking to meet up the next day. In that meeting, we talked things out and listened to one another.

Sorted through some baggage from our relationship as well as spoke about what exactly had been going on the past 5 years. Hours long conversation but it was totally worth it. We agreed that we'd make it work and put our daughter in the forefront. A meeting was arranged for me to drive over and see my daughter face to face and I did.

At the time I wasn't introduced properly to her as her father and she obviously was cagey around this random dude around but it was still great seeing her that first time. She was/is seeing someone to help with my transition into her life and i've since been properly introduce to her and she's started calling me papa so things are going stunningly smooth and she's coping really well with it all.

Plus my ex has floated around the idea that if she could find a job/better job where I am she'd consider moving so distance isn't too big of a problem though that's still a big if. For now, I'll just keep driving up to her until we're acquainted enough to allow her to make the trip to me.

The last update on my wife left things at my sister posting about everything and my family fighting with my wife. My sister has removed the post and apologized to my wife although not sincere but still an apology. Still ongoing but attempts of reconciling my family and wife are going more or less well.

My wife momentarily moved to stay with her parent to get away from everything for about a month but has since moved back to the house with me as we're soon expecting the birth of our child in the up and coming weeks.

All extremely excited over that and we've worked through our issues. I'm sure most of you will be disappointed by this but I do 100% believe my wife and trust that she isn't some conniving person.

She's still the woman I love and we're all to blame for the circumstance that led to this whole situation. All we can do is focus on the future. Big thanks to everyone who's offered their support and wishes as well as advice. I truly do appreciate all of it. And that's it. Signed off- a happy dad of (almost) two.

The comments kept coming.

itsallminenow wrote:

"I'm sure most of you will be disappointed by this but I do 100% believe my wife."

Not disappointed buddy, just disbelieving, but if you thinking this keeps you warm at night and your family together, then more strength to you.

HayWhatsCooking wrote:

I think this’ll be one of those things that festers. Behaviour such as that is indicative of an awful personality, no matter how well she hides it, and something else will eventually be the straw to break the camels back. Just lots of emotional turmoil until then. Luckily for OP’s wife, her current bargaining chip is being heavily pregnant. Hard for a man to leave his wife in that position.

LunaMunaLagoona wrote:

I want to add no one is disappointed about a relationship working out. Many of us might be skeptical about the wife not reading, but no one genuine wants to see a relationship break apart.

[deleted] wrote:

It's great that you've reconciled with the woman you love. I wish you well with both of your children and in your marriage. That said, she absolutely read the message from your ex. No woman in the history of the world would look through her partner's messages, see one from his ex, and delete it without reading. That's just not how people behave.

Even in the most poorly written piece of fan fic that would stand out as a ridiculous contrivance. It's perfectly okay to forgive everyone, especially yourself. What matters now is where you go from here. You've rightfully put your children first. Just try to make sure that you look out for yourself as well. Good luck and congratulations!