A very tricky one

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Hi ALL...
This problem may seem to have a very obvious answer but try very hard to look at it from a different perspective
about 19 years ago a woman i knew and i became pregnant now we both agreed that it wasnt the right time and this was unplanned...she agreed we would terminate...both agreedin fact
we drifted apart after that and she didnt terminate it... and a baby boy was born...I had made it clear that i was simply not in a position to be a dad, and again I know that sounds wrong but at the time, it was the way I felt.. she decided to bring the child up herself, with help from her family and a new man she met....she was totally ok re this..she wanted to do it herself with no help
I lead my life and met a new woman.. we have no children and have lived a good life, for all intense and purposes this woman and he have too as I have never heard a thing apart from one or two calls from her over 19 years saying hello...., he has never contacted me.. ever.... altho he knows im his father.
The bit that im finding hard lately for some reason, and understand this has been triggered by NOTHING AT ALL....there is no contact.. I have no idea where they are etc ..... im thinking about it a lot....
not the fact he is there .... just I have never told my current wife.
Now before Im howled down.. please understand something....
My wife and i have had some ups and downs THat I have caused and were on track now and right now she is very volatile with work problems and her own family issues.. she really is in the cusp of a very low depression.......and im there for her helping her thru it
If I was to blurt this out it would destroy her, I dont want any secrets, but this could be enough to tip her over the edge... im very serious re that
My thinking on it is that I have never heard from this previous woman, or him.. and maybe never will....they seem to have got on with their lives he knows.. doesnt care she is living happily......
Do I risk sending her over the edge based on this.. or do i just keep it to myself until the time comes whwre i may need to say something, if it ever comes at all....
given i heard nothing from them when he was a baby/toddler/ grade school child/ junior high/ college... his granparents on her side even live in the same city as me and they have never said a thing.. no one has....I know its not the best scenario... but do I set a bomb off that could destroy my marriage and her mind or just deal with this if and ever i need to.....
Please try to understand Im not a bad person... i just failed to be straight all those years ago

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Type: Question • Score: 1 • Views: 576 • Replies: 14

[+3] - chai2 - 03/31/2013I'm curious aldistar and contrex.... What purpose would Ever telling about this accomplish? If there was ever some really unlikely event like needing to check for some genetic disease or the...

@Jamaica305,

I wouldn't say anything.

You were just a sperm donor. It's not like you're a father, in anything but the strictest biological sense to this person.

I can't imagine what good it would be to tell your wife, or anyone.

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@chai2,

Thanks for that I know many reading this would feel im an ass..but to be honest I love my wife dearly and i cant see her go under based on this happening nearly 20 years ago.. and they have shown no interest or anything in me at all....not that I wanted it......I even had major surgery for a life threastning illness a few years ago.. and they knew but couldnt have cared.....
you right....it would make no sense at all......Kind regards chai2

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I agree with Chai, don't say anything right now. You needing to clear the air is not as important as the mental health of the woman you love. Normally I would say go for it as secrets this big will always find a way out, but if your wife is really in a bad place you need to wait for a better time.

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@Jamaica305,

Jamaica305 wrote:

about 19 years ago a woman i knew and i became pregnant

Correction. She "became pregnant". (I wonder how?) You didn't. Personally I think you could tell your current wife, after all it's just a 20 year old babyfather thing, but maybe if she is a bit shaky you should leave it for now.

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I'm curious aldistar and contrex....

What purpose would Ever telling about this accomplish?

If there was ever some really unlikely event like needing to check for some genetic disease or the like, I would say cross that bridge when you come to it.

Otherwise, I don't feel it would, even in a healthy relationship be beneficial.

It would be different if there had been some sort of contact, some interest, support, but there's not. There's nothing. There's never been anything.

I think this is one of those times when we think we should to be all politically correct even when it means shooting yourself in the foot.

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I'm having difficulty connecting the dots here.

You say you are thinking about "it' a lot recently. ("It" being this child born to a woman you had relationship with. You are the birth father, but never the Dad to this child)

Then you say you and your wife are going thru issues. And you wonder if you should tell her about the "it.'

What's really going on here?

May I ask how old you are now and how old you were when you fathered this child?

1 Reply

@PUNKEY,

What difference does any of that make Punkey?

It seems as though all three of the people beyond the OP and myself who have posted are trying to make some connection(s) which don't exist or are totally irrelevant.

There aren't any dots to connect, but I suppose it's human nature to try to see a pattern or design so things "make sense"

In fact, it's the job of our neocortex to create patterns, to facilitate thought and communication. That's why we all have these seemingly random thoughts in response to events/stimulation we currently experience. Our brains are hard wired to travel through our brain maze, hitting dead ends, back tracking, finding a ghost of a connection, traveling that venue until it hooks up with a more concrete connection, until there is this weird connection between the apple over there and the orange over here exists.

It's why when we see a particular shade of a gray dress with a blue belt on a complete stranger we think of the friend of a neighbor of our Aunt Tilly's accountants hairdresser who used to live in Duluth, but moved to Sacramento, but didn't like it there because her daughter married a man who ate pistachio ice cream and left her for the grocery store clerk who would sell the ice cream to him every Saturday.

The fact he fathered a child is meaningless to his current marriage, regardless of the state of that marriage at this time, no matter how much we want there to be a connection so we can advise him to tell her, and cause all kinds of unnecessary, and perhaps harmful complications.

Is it because we're "supposed" to tell our spouse everything, regardless of when it happened in our lives, or if it has anything to do with any aspect of his current life? What, because of a mental burp that's got some connection a dozen, or 50 steps away from what is going on today?

For whatever reason, he had thoughts about this complete stranger he fathered 20 years ago, long before he had the life he had today, maybe because he saw a carton of eggs in the window of a department store display of kitchen tools.

Some things ya just gotta let go, acknowledging they aren't relevant to your life or relationships today.

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@Jamaica305,

Well, I don't care what age he is, but I wondered about the same things as Punkey - he hasn't told her for 20 years - why does he feel the need to do so now?

It's akin to saying "Honey I've never felt the need to tell you before, but now that you're really struggling, depressed and our marriage is strained and stressful, hey let me tell you a secret I've been keeping from you, like forever...now I know that it might tip you over the edge, so wouldn't you just love to hear my secret? No? But seriously, the timing is just perfect for you....'

(or)

....'here, let me just help to this edge just here...what you can't see the bottom? That's alright, I can't see the bottom either, but just come stand here and let me push you, then you can find out ...'

It's just...odd.

1 Reply

@vikorr,

I get that feeling too. It's almost like she's having a crisis, he feels that he is entitled to one too.

2 Replies

@contrex,

Well, anyone is entitled to have a crisis - none of us are perfect all of the time...but I'm guessing that wasn't exactly the gist of your post.

1 Reply

@vikorr,

vikorr wrote:

Well, anyone is entitled to have a crisis - none of us are perfect all of the time...but I'm guessing that wasn't exactly the gist of your post.

I think I meant, putting it generously, that when someone close is having a crisis and is feeling very uncertain about their life and where they are emotionally, we can feel uncertain ourselves and start to look over our lives.

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@contrex,

contrex wrote:

I get that feeling too. It's almost like she's having a crisis, he feels that he is entitled to one too.

Maybe not so much entitled to have one, but that he feels drawn to participate.

I noticed people tend to travel in herds with this sort of this.

There's a flurry of activity, either physical or emotional over there, and its gravitational pull sucks in others, starting with those closest, then others who even see there's a clump.

Just look what's happening here.

In any event, the OP hasn't been back. At this point I can surmise he's glad he's been given "permission" to not have to go ahead and share this meaningless, to him, item from his past.

Maybe not absolutely meaningless, but considering his situation, something he hasn't given hardly any thought to over the years, has seeped to the surface. Maybe because of something his wife said, maybe because of something some passing stranger on the street said, or something he saw on TV, or at the corner convenience store. Who knows, and that is unimportant.

Thing is, in my opinion, he's been validated in the idea that he doesn't have to share everything with this person who is supposed to be everything to him.

No one is everyone to everybody, and no one needs to know everything about someone else.

In fact, in his 2nd and last post he said

Thanks for that I know many reading this would feel im an ass..but to be honest I love my wife dearly and i cant see her go under based on this happening nearly 20 years ago.. and they have shown no interest or anything in me at all....not that I wanted it......I even had major surgery for a life threastning illness a few years ago.. and they knew but couldnt have cared.....
you right....it would make no sense at all.

I guess that says it all, and the rest is us trying to make our own connections.

1 Reply

@chai2,

Yes - there is a contradiction in there (ie a disconnection...and us trying to make a connection)...Hence me saying 'it's odd'

1 Reply

@vikorr,

The brain is odd vikorr, as I've been saying.

It makes connections that aren't really there all the time.

It's just a puff of vapor.

No need for someone to make the situation potentially a million times worse, and 0% potential of helping by paying attention to vapor.

0 Replies

A very tricky one

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