'I had a baby as a result of an affair and now his wife is reaching out to me.' UPDATED
"I had a baby as a result of an affair and now his wife is reaching out to me."
I (F26) had an affair with a married man (M42) 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.
Three weeks later, the OP returned with an update.
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 rid of the baby but 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 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.
Two months later, the OP returned with an update.
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.
Two months later, the OP returned with an update.
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 get rid of the baby. 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 a vacation to get rid of the baby. 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.
Over a month later, the OP returned with an update.
Since everyone got mad at me for posting a recap of my situation in my previous posts, I won’t even go there. If you’re interested in the backstory, you can read my previous posts. All I will say is that I have a 3 year old son who was conceived with an affair I had with a married man.
After initially making me promise to not contact him, to not name him as the father, and to not request child support, my child’s father has been pursuing involvement in our sons’s life over the last several months. He lives states away and most recently he showed up at my house to try to convince me to work things out directly with him.
Since the last time I posted, we’ve recently had a mediation session and he’s met our son twice. At this time, he will have supervised visitation, with me present. Because he lives states away, he is required to come here to see our son. It will not be on a weekly basis due to the travel.
He will see him during 2 weeks of the month, 2 times each week, for a total of 4 visits a month +2 video calls a month This will last for 6 months. The next step will be for him to continue that schedule, but to have unsupervised visitation during which he cannot remove him from the area, for another 6 months.
After a year, we agree to have another mediation session to determine next steps, with the goal (his goal) of being able to have my son at his home for short overnights. I’m not even ready to discuss that! He’s already suggesting I can come for the first few times. I don’t like the sound of it at all. We also have the option to request another mediation before 1 year and something tells me he’s going to pull that.
I also have an order for child support. While he is in agreement with paying child support, it will have to work through the court system before becoming official and for me to start getting the regular payment. He wrote me a large check in the meantime.
I was hesitant to accept it. Not that I don’t think my son deserves it, but now I’m just always worried I’ll say or do the wrong thing legally, completely unknowingly, and shoot myself in the foot. Like, am I obligated myself and my son to anything by accepting this check? Can he somehow spin this against me?
Of course he was not in favor of the 6 month/6 month plan and while he does understand that my son should not just go off with a stranger upon first meeting him, he wishes we could speed it along a little more, but 6 months was what we were able to agree on.
He wanted to fly us both to where he lived so he could spend a week or 2 getting to know our son but I don’t feel that’s appropriate at this time. Perhaps in a few months, or around the holidays, depending on how things are going. It would be too much too soon.
The initial two meetings went pretty much just as I thought they would. My son is extremely shy. He wanted to hide behind me most of the time. Then when he would venture out from behind me, as soon as his dad would say anything to him, he would scurry back behind me and just stare at his dad blankly without saying anything.
He came out of his shell a little bit however he has still not said a single word to his dad. He just pretends like his dad isn’t there and only talks to me. I will say that his dad is being patient and understanding as far as that goes. If he’s frustrated, he’s not showing it.
He did suggest that maybe our son needs to get out more, go to daycare more of even preschool instead of spending so much time with me and my parents. He’s very delighted with how much our son looks like him and how much he favors him over me.
The one thing that did bother me is that I already told him I wanted to be very careful and mindful of how we informed our son, this little barely 3 year old boy, that this man/complete stranger is his dad. He said “sure, yeah.”
Then at the first meeting he introduced himself as dad. Since then I’ve been trying to help my son understand. Like, you know how your grandpa is my daddy, this guy is your daddy. It’s so surreal to me that any of this is happening. I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’m waiting for something to blow up in my face.
Now, it’s just working on accepting our new reality. All of this change is hard and confusing for my son and it’s hard for me. Unless he really messes up, I’m looking at eventually shared times with my son spending school breaks and holidays at his dad’s house, hours and hours away in another state.
It won’t happen tomorrow, but it will happen in the most likely reality. I just hope he stays committed. If he can be a good dad to my child then my child deserves that, no matter how sad sharing him makes me. If he breaks my son’s heart, that’ll be another story and I won’t accept that so readily.
Three weeks later, the OP returned with an update.
It’s been 3 weeks since I last posted, and just over a month since our new visitation arrangement started. I’ve seen plenty of people here talking about how dumb I am. I don’t really understand. What am I doing that’s so dumb? I know it was dumb to have an ongoing, year long affair with a married man. It was stupid to put myself in a position where I could likely end up pregnant.
That was in the past. What am I doing now that’s so stupid? I have a lawyer. Yes, I agreed to talk to his wife one time. How was I to know she was just doing his bidding? Who would have thought that was the case? It’s not even like I went to meet her in person somewhere. It was just a video call. I figured I at least owed that to her. Just one time, and a chance to tell her I was sorry for what I did.
But ultimately it felt off and I protected my son by telling her I didn’t think it was appropriate at this time for me and my 2 years old to travel to another state to meet her teenage kids.
It’s not as if talking to her opened the door for him to reach out to me. I was careful with what info I shared with her. It’s not as if I told her my address. He didn’t need her to gather that info from me. Me talking to her isn’t what prompted him to contact me directly and establish paternity.
When he reached out to me directly about wanting to be involved with our son, I didn’t reach out to him and decide to discuss things directly with him. I got a lawyer. When he showed up at my house, I didn’t let him inside. I put my son in his room, so he didn’t eventually see our son or have access to him.
I’m listening to my lawyer. I met with him in a mediation and I am trying to make careful decisions for my son. There is nothing I can do to prevent him from having access to our son. The court will grant him access if I fight it. At least this way I have a say in the arrangement. We are supposed to be using a parenting app.
Since the last time I posted, he’s reached out to me outside of the app. Now, he keeps talking about us coming there to visit him. I have told him no. It’s not appropriate. It’s too much too soon. He’s also already started talking about changing my son’s last name to his, but you know “maybe imma year or so.”
He tries to have personal conversations with me, not always about our son. I have shut those down and referred him back to the parenting app. He thinks using the app is stupid and is only for people who can’t get along. He thinks it’d be better for our son if we got along and “got to know each other again.” He “cares” about me and what’s going on in my life, or so he says.
I also didn’t cash the check he gave me. I returned it. If he wants to help financially beyond the child support he’s ordered to pay, he can purchase items that our son needs out of his own free will, but he isn’t to give me cash or checks.
My lawyer actually told me that there was nothing wrong with accepting and cashing the check. It wouldn’t affect anything related to child support. But knowing him, he could be using this check as something he can bring up later in court and I just didn’t feel comfortable about it. Sure I would have loved to have kept it.
There are quite a few useful things I could have used that money for. Of course he was upset when I returned the check, via certified mail. His plan was foiled. I know he’s trying to butter me up for something. I don’t know precisely what, but I’m not that stupid that I don’t see through him now.
Two months later, the OP returned with an update.
I’m not allowed to post more updates in trueoffmychest so I’m posting this to my profile. Not sure if anyone will even see it. I think somebody reposted my story somewhere else because I suddenly started receiving messages about an update nearly 2 months since I last posted.
It’s been two more months of this. Two months of him sending me messages, half about our son, half about... everything else. Despite the parenting app, he just can’t seem to stick to it. Every other day, I get a text directly from him: “How’s our son?” followed by, “You good though? Need anything?”
He’s also started sending packages for our son. The last one came a few days ago—a big box of toys, books, and clothes. At first, I didn’t know what to think. Was this another tactic?
But then I looked at the stuff he sent. It was thoughtful—age-appropriate books, clothes that actually fit, and toys my son genuinely liked. It was clear he put effort into it. Or, the person he had go buy the stuff put effort into it. Hopefully not this poor ex-wife! For a moment, I could see him trying to be a father. A small part of me appreciated that.
Still, I’m careful. I’m not letting my guard down. The good gestures are mixed with moments that make me feel uneasy. He mentioned, again, that “maybe in a year or so” we should talk about changing my son’s last name. I don’t know why he keeps bringing it up. He acts like it's no big deal, like it’s just something we’ll agree on eventually.
On the other hand, I can’t deny that having him show up consistently with child support and gifts has taken some pressure off me. He’s contributing in ways that actually help. My son seems happy with the things he’s sent. And while I don’t want to rely on it, it’s nice not to worry about buying new clothes every month.
The biggest challenge right now is finding balance. How do I acknowledge the good things he’s doing without letting my guard down too much? How do I protect my son from getting hurt if he loses interest or starts pushing too hard again? I’m still following my lawyer’s advice, still documenting everything.
But the dynamic is changing, and I’m trying to keep up. For now, I’m taking things day by day. Some moments feel peaceful, like maybe this arrangement could work. Other moments, I feel the weight of what’s coming. He’ll keep pushing for more time, for overnights, for a bigger role.
He thinks it’s “unfair” if I don’t let him spend more time with our son during the holidays. He was practically throwing a temper tantrum about it. If I won’t go to him then he can rent an airbnb and we can stay together. What? Why would we do that? He’ll see him in December during his regularly scheduled visit.
So then he called me a narcissistic, paranoid parent who just wants our son all to myself and that I’m psychologically damaging him by not forcing him to go 0-60 playing happy family with a completely stranger overnight.
The thing is, he has a way of saying it that makes me start to believe it and then I’m worrying if I’m really being that way. I don’t know why he can’t just act like a normal, patient, understanding adult person.
I’m cooperating and I know their level of contact and time will increase gradually. That’s the key word…gradually. I’m not even trying to prevent that, but I just can’t agree with this idea he has of just acting like he hasn’t been completely uninvolved for almost 3 years.
He’s also trying to bribe me with money again. I’m not talking about the court ordered child support and things like that. He asked me how much debt I had and I wouldn’t tell him. He kept pushing me to tell him, because he would consider paying it off for me. “Come on, let me help you.”
It’s not help out if the kindness of his heart. He says there aren’t strings attached but I’m sure there are. He’ll expect something in return, like for me to agree to change our son’s name and allow some sort of custody arrangement I’m uncomfortable with.
I do have a lot of debt that’s a huge stressor on me and yes I’ve considered taking advantage of his offer but not when I know my son is the price I have to pay. He told me he can find out how much debt I have if I don’t tell him and that he knows a lot more about me than I realize.
I hope that’s just him trying to intimidate me. It sounds like it’s mostly just talk and something stupid he’d say. He is sounding more and more like his old self though. So much for this accident really changing him for the better. He’s really had me fooled at moments.
At the end of the day, it’s not money or fancy things that would go a long way with me. It’s things like a genuine apologize for threatening to kill me, you know…little things like that which go completely ignored and swept under the rug that would mean much more to me (but only if it was completely genuine).
Two months later, the OP returned with an update.
I’m just posting a quick update because several people have reached out and expressed concern for me and my safety. I’m fine. My son is fine. I appreciate that people were concerned. There just hasn’t been much change or reason to post an update since my last one, until very recently.
We continue to follow the same visitation schedule with my son’s father traveling here to visit. He hasn’t missed a visit, pays child support as ordered, and other than his pushiness things are going ok.
My son is a lot more comfortable with him now and doesn’t hide behind me or stay silent the entire time, but I think it’s hard for him to grasp the concept of this guy being his dad. He’s just a nice guy who plays with him and brings him toys a few times a month.
Last weekend was one of his visitation weekends and he bought tickets for a Polar Express train ride. I had planned to do that when my son was maybe 4 or 5. I think 3 is a little young, but of course he’d already bought the tickets. The 3 of us went.
I don’t really feel threatened by him but I also don’t feel comfortable letting him take my son somewhere alone yet. I didn’t have the best attitude going into it. I felt like I was kind of going against my will. We stayed in a nice hotel that was decked out for Christmas and part of a Poker Express package.
I was worried he’d expect us all to share a room, but he got us separate rooms. The train ride was fun and my son enjoyed it. I don’t know that he cared about Santa, but he liked the cocoa, the jingle bell, and the pancake breakfast the next morning. He got cranky towards the end of the train ride but overall it was ok and I got a ton of really great pictures I’ll treasure forever.
Everything was going fine. It was a totally tolerable experience being there with my son’s father. I wasn’t focused on him. I was sort of able to ignore his presence to a degree. Then after we got back from the train ride he said he loved me and he’d give anything to be sleeping in the same bed as me that night.
I told him I didn’t want to talk about that, that it’d ruin the entire weekend, and that we wouldn’t be sleeping in the same bed. He said he doesn’t understand why I’m so resistant to him.
I guess he thinks I can just easily forget the way he treated me and our son when I told him I wasn’t going to get rid of the baby. I told him I can’t get over what he said and did to me and he said “I didn’t mean it, that was years ago!” I refused to talk about it anymore, but I couldn’t resist asking him why he’s doing all of this.
I still don’t understand why he decided to re-enter our lives. I do t buy that he suddenly had a totally non-selfish change of heart after he was in his accident. He said he just wants to be there for his son and I should be happy for our son to have a father.
He also said he can give him so much and I selfishly want to prevent that because of my pride. He thinks the reason I won’t be with him again is because just because I’m stubborn and insist on resisting everything he could do to make my life better and happier.
So, the whole thing just ended in a sour note. We won’t see him again until January. He has really tried to talk to me since then. He has short, scheduled video calls with my son and he usually tries to get me to talk to him but he basically ignored me.
I may just have my dad take my son for the next few visits. I know my dad won’t want to spend any time with my ex and my ex definitely won’t want to spend time with my dad, but I think it’d probably be for the best and would send a clear message.
Here is what readers had to say at this point in the story:
Thank you so much for the update! I’ve been following since the beginning and I’m always cheering for you and your son! We all make mistakes in life. It’s what we do after those mistakes that really define our characters.
You’ve matured so much in the last few years and have really become an admirable woman and mother. Don’t feel too much pressure, just take things slow, trust your instincts, and do what’s best for you & your son.
I think it’s important to stay in your state at this point in time so you have the home-field advantage. But also try to get along with him, pick your battles so he doesn’t try to pull some power move.
Free_River_3388 (OP)
He had to switch his normal weekend this month because he had to take his daughters back to college, so we won’t see him again until later this month. I think I’ll go. My dad says I’m just a quitter if I start making him go instead.
Glad to see one of your updates. Happy to know things are going well. Keep your distance with this man, on a personal level. This guy is not used to NOT getting his way with things and I can see his manipulative ways as clear as you. That's not to say his intentions with your son are genuine and honest. He may be a good father to him.
Keep reinforcing your boundaries. This is on your terms and there is no other way. That said, it's good to see their relationship evolving. Hopefully you'll reach a place where you can trust him enough and it all be smooth and in the best of your child's interest.
Free_River_3388 (OP)
My son refers to him as daddy, and that’s what I call him when speaking about him to my son. I don’t really think he has bad intentions with my son. I mean, I think he might actually want to be a father to our son and that he’s not using my son as part of some bigger plan.
I know people here will think I’m foolish to think that, and that doesn’t mean I’m excusing his flaws, but I think he genuinely cares about our son. Do I think he’d have pursued contact and publicly claimed my son if his wife hadn’t found out and divorced him? No, I don’t think so.
You're probably right. Things might be different if he was still married. But, he's not. And he could also not want to be there I guess. So I think your headspace is right where it should be. Allowing this with caution.
It is good for your son that he can have a relationship with his father, and it seems this guy is being a good fatherly figure to him. I hope he can be a stand up dad and his commitment to your son doesn't fade.
One and a half months later, the OP returned with an update.
This is the first time I’ve dated anyone since my relationship with my son’s father. I intentionally haven’t dated. Not because I’m still in love with him, but because it didn’t feel like a responsible thing to do.
After the mess that was that relationship and the bad decisions I made, I decided that I needed to dedicate myself to being a good mother to my son. I needed to figure out how to stand on my own two feet and support my son, and that left no room for dating.
I also felt like I had to prove to those who knew the true story of my son’s conception (not many people), that I could be a good, caring, responsible mom. I felt like I had to prove something and dating other men or jumping into a new relationship just wouldn’t look good. In reality, I ended being too busy and too tired to date, even if I’d wanted to.
Plus, it was hard for me to picture introducing any man to my child. I knew from the start that I would never parade different men in and out of his life. I was scared to take the chance on anyone and have me and my son get hurt. I dreamed of finding somebody who could be a dad to my son one day but at the same time it was hard to imagine ever finding a man I liked enough to let into our lives.
I actually went out with this guy for the first time about a year ago. We went on 2 dates. Never slept together. I was being cautious. Then all of this stuff started to happen with my son’s father and I got spooked, I guess.
I felt overwhelmed with all of that and not in a good place to start a new relationship. I wasn’t going to really be fully present in a new relationship with this other drama happening in my life.
We kept in touch and just sort of stayed friends. It’s not like we hung out together, but we’d check in with each other a few times a month. Then a few months ago he basically told me he knows I’m dealing with all this other stuff but I shouldn’t let it get in the way of me living my life.
We went out on a few casual dates and I still felt attracted to him. He’s so much different from my son’s father. For starters, he age appropriate for me. But his personality is so different. He’s genuine, not walking around constantly in bs salesman act mode. He’s not a narcissistic control freak.
He doesn’t rush me when I’m talking and turn every conversation around to be about himself. He’s confident but not a braggart. He’s super fun to be around and I feel so much more relaxed around him than I ever have or do around my son’s father.
I don’t want to drag him into everything that I’m dealing with, but he knows enough about what’s happening. I was honest with him about that relationship - that I knowingly slept with and carried on a relationship with a married man.
I’ve been really worried that when any man I was interested in found out that I was involved in an affair and about how my son came about, he’d think I was trash and not want anything to do with me. He said he thinks people can make mistakes that don’t have to define them and he’s more interested in current me, not whoever I was back then when I made that decision.
He doesn’t think the version of me he knows would make the same decision. He told me he thinks I’m a good person and I’m a good mom and that actually attracted him to me more, not in a weird way though.
He says seeing how much I love my son and the way I talk about him and stuff is endearing and it was my sweetness that he liked, but he’s never dated anyone with kids before. He has nieces and nephews.
He feels fine about kids but dating somebody with a kid is new for him. He won’t be meeting my son for quite a while, if we make it that long. He’s totally fine with that and he understands that my schedule as far as any time we spend together has to be worked around my son and that my son comes first.
The weird thing is that my ex found out I was dating. He’s either spying on me directly or he’s having somebody do it for him. He said something like “So you’ve got a new man now?” at the last visitation. And “don’t look so surprised, your son told me.” First off, my son doesn’t even know that my boyfriend exists.
I haven’t mentioned him to my son and they’ve never met. Plus, my son has no concept of what dating is or even boyfriend/girlfriend. I don’t post on social media anymore. So how else would he know? I think he has somebody checking on me or he might just be following me when he comes here for his visitation.
January’s visitation was the last supervised visitation. Starting this month (this weekend) he has unsupervised visitation. It’s only for a few hours on Saturday and again on Sunday. No overnights. Overnights are supposed to start in 6 months.
I'm sure he’ll start asking for them sooner though. I was a wreck. I didn’t think he’d hurt our son. I kind of worried he’d run back to his home state with him, but I don’t think he’s dumb enough to do that on his first unsupervised visit. I mainly just worried that my son would be scared and think I left him.
I talked to him, explained he’d be spending a few hours with his dad and then I’d be back to get him. His dad even told me I could call at any time. I made it through without calling, but it nearly killed me not to call. All I could think about was my son sobbing and thinking I’d abandoned him.
When I got there to pick him up, he seemed fine, happy, he’d eaten lunch, told me all about what he and his dad did, fell asleep almost as soon as we got home because he didn’t have a nap. I’m happy he didn’t freak out but this is so hard for me.
Two months later, the OP returned with an update.
I gave into my ex this weekend. Well, o started to give into earlier than that, but physically it happened this weekend. I was dating this really great guy. I posted about him previously. I liked him a lot but our relationship was pretty casual.
He hadn’t met my son yet. For me, it was just nice having a grown up to occasionally go out and do stuff with. It was also sort of nice having those feeling about a guy again, just the excitement and all of those good new relationship feelings.
He got a job about 2 hours away from where we live. His degree and training are pretty specific. You can’t just go anywhere and get a job in this field. Many of these jobs are on college campuses. He’s been working in this field, but in an assistant role here at a college in our city.
A higher level position opened up at a university about 2 hours away. He didn’t think he’d actually get it. He’s still pretty new to the field and there are many people with considerably more experience than him. But he got offered the job. He has a great personality and I feel like he probably won them over in his multiple interviews.
We decided to not commit ie any sort of romantic relationship. We’re not interested in dating somebody we live hours apart from. My life and schedule doesn’t really lend itself to me dating somebody who lives 2 hours away - my time is already limited.
I know 2 hours isn’t far but you know he’s going to be in a bigger city, a new exciting place. He’ll have so many opportunities to meet people. I was sad about it, still am a little, but it’s not like I was heartbroken - our relationship wasn’t that deep.
So in the meantime, my son’s visitations with his dad have been going well. He has unsupervised visitation now. He travel here and stays overnight in a rental on these weekends. My son doesn’t stay overnight with him - he spends all day Saturday and half the day Sunday with his dad. He calls him daddy now. He’s comfortable with him.
Soon, we have to go back to mediation. It’s what we agreed upon with our initial agreement. The next steps will probably be overnight visits here in my city. There’s really no reason for me to argue against it since my son is adapting well to the progressive visitations we’ve been doing.
I’ve been talking to him outside of the parenting app. Before,he was contacting me outside of it but we weren’t having conversations. I was doing my best to shut him down. Now I’m actually talking to him.
After he told me that he found out about this guy I was seeing, he backed off for a while. He wasn’t really reaching out outside the app, he was actually doing what he was supposed to be doing. On his last visit, it was my birthday weekend. He told me he could keep our son overnight if I was going out with this guy to celebrate my birthday.
He said he wasn’t trying to pressure me to allow an overnight and he totally understood if I wanted to stick to no overnights yet, but wanted me to know he could do it if I wanted to go on the night of my birthday.
It seemed so genuine and I didn’t feel pressured by him to say yes - and he has a way of pressuring you to say yes if he really wants you to. I told him no, we broke up and I wasn’t planning to stay out late on my birthday. I wanted to see my son on my birthday. He was fine with it.
My birthday came and I received a big flower arrangement and a card from him. He’s been sending flowers every week since then. He got my car detailed for me as a gift (my son had decided to “paint” stripes down the sides of it with a rock last fall).
He asked if he could just have 5 minutes on the phone with me and if I told him not to ever mention it again, he would respect that. He told me he was sorry for everything he’s done - involving me in his cheating in his wife, threatening me about the pregnancy, not being involved with our son.
He said he’s committed to being a father to our son and he wouldn’t still be paying for plane flights out here twice a month if he was doing it for ulterior motives. He’s changed his will to include our son and ensure he’s provided for.
He’s making a bedroom for him in his house right now for the day I say our som can finally visit there. He confessed that he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to be with me, that he wasn’t still attracted to me and in a “totally different way” now that we have a child together.
He wants me to give him a chance to prove he really cares about me and had changed. And I don’t have to promise anything right now, but what if things work out and we can be together as a family, not having to split our time with our son.
I didn’t want to resist it any longer. I don’t know if it was because I’m still so scared of the day where I’ll have to send my son off to go stay states away at his dad’s house or what.
Nobody else gives me the same feelings he does. Im still so attracted to him and I’ve never felt so good with a man before or after him. I feel like I’m resisting it because I’m “supposed to,” but I don’t want to anymore. There’s nothing wrong about us being together now.
I slept with him on Saturday night. I hadn’t really planned to, but I wanted to and fully consented to it. It happened with me on a washing machine in an air bnb so nothing romantic in the least bit, but I can’t describe how good it make me feel physically, emotionally.
I don’t really know where this is going to go from here. I’m going to be careful. I’m going to try to be smart. I’m going to keep my son as the priority. We’re going to stick to the custody plan, this doesn’t change any of that.
A month and a half later, the OP returned with an update.
I posted about how I slept with my the father of my son. I was definitely got raked over the coals after my last post and didn’t expect the comments to be quite that bad. Idk what I was even looking for when I made my last update.
Maybe I was hoping people would tell me how stupid I was being, but I think I already knew it was stupid and was hoping I’d receive more encouragement so I could rationalize what I was doing. I let myself feel close to him again. It felt safe, in a way. Familiar. Even though nothing about our history has been safe or easy.
Lately, he’s been trying hard to show up. For our son. For me. He’s been flying in twice a month, doing everything he’s supposed to. He’s been saying all the right things, trying to prove he’s changed. And for a little while, I let myself believe it. I wondered if maybe we could build something new from the mess we initially created.
But after really sitting with everything, I made a decision. And I told him clearly that we’re not getting back together. I told him that when he’s here, he’s here to see our son, not me. That I’m not going to try and maintain a long-distance relationship. That I won’t move away from my family and support system ever again. That whatever chemistry or feelings still exist between us aren’t enough anymore.
He didn’t argue. He just nodded and said “Okay.” That was it. No follow-up. No flowers this week. No dramatic text message. Thankfully no showing up at my house. Just silence. And honestly, that silence has been harder to sit with than I expected.
Not because I regret the decision, but because part of me wanted proof that what we had meant something to him, too. That it wasn’t just about chasing redemption or easing guilt or having control.
Now, he’s told me he wants to bring his older son to meet our son on his next visit. I guess he’s trying to build some kind of bridge between their worlds. But part of me worries this might be his way of trying to shut me out now. I’m starting to worry about how he might try “get back” at me. His silence is just very uncharacteristic.
Still, I stand by what I said. He is our son’s father. That’s his role. And I hope he continues to show up in that capacity. But for me? I’m done waiting to see if he becomes the man I needed back then.
I’m not going to let a few good weeks erase years of damage. I’m not going to romanticize being someone’s second (or 3rd, 4th, 5th??) chance at figuring out how to love properly.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s full story:
I wish this OP wouldn’t post updates because every time she pisses me off more than before which I didn’t think was possible. Bad decision after bad decision.
Ugh. This is exhausting, and I am exhausted enough.
I audibly groaned when I saw it was this idiot again, but read it anyways. Insert that "dead bird do not eat" meme here. Gotta hand it to her though, My expectations were already pretty damn low, and she came in with an excavator.
I’d like to say that he treats her like she’s stupid because she goes out of her way to act needlessly naïve. She likes the easy way out that he provides not really thinking about the repercussions it could have on her small child.
She said in one of her last post that she admits that it was incredibly selfish to bring her child into the situation in the first place, but to keep re-introducing a traumatic figured is insane.
Good thing to point out. Honestly, I think OP genuinely wants someone to care for her, which I think has a lot to do with the inner child and what needs have been/have not been met. The huge problem is she was seeking those needs from a bad person, who not only puts danger on herself but ultimately her child as well.
Free_River_3388 (OP)
Yes I would love to have somebody take care of me. I’ll be honest.
The silent treatment is the warm up act to what he's planning and it will be hateful and cruel. The only way he has to punish you now is via your son. He will do what it takes to make you move to his city and that starts with him getting custody. To do that, he'll have to make you look horrible in court.