Man Who Had Baby Is Pregnant Again
But the Kid Is Non My Son
In a live chat, Prudie counsels a man whose wife is pregnant with another homo's baby.
Emily Yoffe
Photograph past Teresa Castracane.
Emily Yoffe, aka Dear Prudence, is on Washingtonpost.com weekly to chat alive with readers. An edited transcript of the conversation is below. ( Sign up hither to get Dear Prudence delivered to your inbox each week. Read Prudie's Slate columns hither . Ship questions to Prudence at prudence@slate.com .)
Emily Yoffe: Good afternoon. Let'south get to it.
Q. I Am Not the Father: A little later my married woman and I reconciled from our separation, we discovered she was meaning. Although we were having marital problems, we were going through marriage therapy and I genuinely wanted to give it some other try. I was, of course, over the moon well-nigh becoming a father. Things were starting to wait up, until I discovered an ultrasound browse study which showed my married woman was further along in the pregnancy than she told me. After a biting, heated statement she confessed she conceived the baby with someone else while nosotros were separated. She said she thought she was interim for the best because she knew I would exist happy about the pregnancy. (One of the many reasons why nosotros initially separated was because I wanted to start a family and she didn't.) To cut the long story short, I decided to get a divorce. Since I moved out, my married woman has been spreading malicious rumors that I abased her and "our baby." She's been hospitalized due to complications in her pregnancy and I got a lot of detest mails/calls from her family and friends for non showing upwards. I don't want to get caught up in a dirty fight so I have been ignoring these. Simply I'1000 getting increasingly angry that she is smearing my reputation through lies. Should I clear my name, even if it means airing our muddy laundry in public?
A: It's 1 thing to be the bigger person, it'south another to allow a compulsive liar ruin your reputation. The story she's telling is that upon discovering she is conveying your kid, you lot decided to divorce her. This makes you look like a heartless cad now, and you lot will be even more than despicable when the kid is born and you desire nothing to practice with it. I think yous need to get in touch with your before long-to-be ex and tell her you know she is under concrete and emotional duress, but you promise she can run across that spreading what will exist provably false stories about you volition only injure all of yous, including her kid, in the long run. Explicate that fifty-fifty if she is non in a continuing relationship with the father of her child, she needs to establish paternity so that the baby tin at least go financial back up. Tell her y'all've said nothing to date, but because you lot are not the roughshod person she is portraying equally, you are going to begin to tell people the truth.
Then yous tin can tell people simply that the babe was conceived with some other man while you were separated, a situation that lead to your decision to stop the spousal relationship. Y'all don't have to add the damning grid that she tried to mislead you nearly the kid. Since she sounds possibly pathological she will probably have a whole counterfactual account to claiming yours. But your elementary assertion, and refusal to engage in grapheme assassination, will at to the lowest degree put serious doubt in people's minds. If she continues to agree you out as the begetter after the birth, bank check into your legal rights to need a paternity test to prove that you are not responsible for the child. Oh, that poor child, to be built-in of such a manipulative mother.
Dear Prudence: Third Wheel Twin
Q. Halloween Harassment Over Oral Sex activity: Concluding year, my husband and I had a modest Halloween get-together for some family unit. We left the door unlocked for our 12-year-quondam niece to come in if nosotros were still getting things ready. She called and told u.s. she would be more an hour late. My married man forgot to lock the door, and figuring we had a footling more fourth dimension, nosotros got downward to business. Our niece popped the door open—much before than she told united states she would be—and saw me paying "lip service" to her uncle. Since then, the gossip has spread through the family. I have received cards of an adult nature from my married man's family, and during family outings, most of the jokes are centered around oral-sexual activity puns. My husband and I have both asked them to stop, we have even left family gatherings. It has been months since I've been to any gathering with his family. I take recently started getting Halloween cards in the postal service in which his relatives have written things similar, "Don't permit it be a repeat of last twelvemonth!" I am exhausted with defending myself. His sister is throwing the Halloween party this twelvemonth, and I am definitely not going. My husband is on the fence. Only I'm worried that if we don't show, this heckling will just go along—by email, mail, whatever. What should I do?
A: Folks, write your ain flim-flam-or-treat jokes. I empathise the almost shocking office of your letter is not that you decided to have oral sex while leaving the door unlocked for expected company, only that a tween showed up early on to an event. At least your husband'due south family finds this hilarious instead of you two beingness excoriated for your beliefs and an exorcism suggested. You're right that the anniversary of the dandy consequence is leap to blow things out of proportion, but I think you should go and express mirth it off. And then at the end of the evening your hubby should announce the joke has gone limp and the statute of limitations has expired. He can say you've both been good sports about this, but the word play about lip service has to stop or else as far as family gatherings are concerned you will both end coming.
Q. Paternity Examination Drama: My hubby'southward first wife cheated on him throughout their wedlock. He's been battling how difficult information technology is for him to trust women always since their divorce. We've gone to counseling separately and as a couple to cope with how his difficulty trusting me has impacted our relationship. We love each other very much, though, and when I became meaning with our get-go child terminal winter, I thought he finally trusted that I have never and will never cheat on him. Then he asked me for a prenatal paternity examination to ensure the baby was his. His biggest fright is raising a child that isn't biologically his own. I was hurt past his request, because information technology unsaid he still seriously mistrusted me. He thought if I had nothing to hide then information technology shouldn't be a big deal, and he told me he trusted me, but needed absolute balls. We argued almost the paternity exam for well-nigh of my pregnancy, but he lay off shortly before I gave birth to our daughter in July. Things have been wonderful always since, until I discovered evidence that he and his mother ran a paternity test without my knowledge. Of course our daughter is his. At present we're fighting once more. He's apologized for not trusting me, but I cannot stop feeling betrayed that he would do this behind my back. I don't know where we can goes every bit a couple from here. Am I overreacting?
A: Despite what this column might betoken, almost all men really are the father of the children they think they are the male parent of. You may beloved your married man very much, simply I wish you'd paid more attention to the klaxons in your relationship. Being incessantly punished for the misdeeds of a previous spouse is non a good basis for a healthy relationship, and you had plenty of alarm that you were being doubted. I bet if you wanted to check, y'all will find your married man regularly scans your cellphone and computer to try to gather the nonexistent incriminating evidence. That he and his mother did some genetic testing behind your dorsum must have been a punch to your solar plexus. You now have a child with this man, and then I assume y'all want to relieve your relationship and endeavour to found some framework of trust. Head back to the therapist right away. He needs to understand that while he's obsessed with you cheating on him, he's shown himself to be the great deceiver.
Q. Re: I am not the father: He also needs to check his legal rights. In some states (like Texas), the child is PRESUMED to exist his considering it was conceived during the marriage.
A: Interesting. Since he'south in the middle of a divorce, he should make sure his lawyer is on top of this.
Q. My Son Is Dating a Stripper!: My husband had numerous affairs with strippers, and at present my twentysomething son is dating one. My husband's adultery ended five years ago. Our union has mostly healed, and at present nosotros're happy together and very much in dearest. A few days ago my daughter called me and told me she institute out that her brother has been dating a stripper for almost eight months—he is in love with her. He finally introduced his girlfriend to his sister last week, and the girlfriend freely admitted her profession. I called my son to ostend what his sister told me, and he doesn't seem to intendance near his girlfriend'due south profession. He told me she strips to pay off her college loans and that she wants to become a medico. He wants to bring her home for Thanksgiving. I told him I would not allow a stripper in my business firm. I know I sound judgmental, just the only strippers I have ever known have had no qualms almost sleeping with married men. I worry this woman volition use my son for financial proceeds or volition cheat on him. Strippers also bring up very painful memories for me. My husband agrees with me. We think it'southward our right to determine who can and cannot come up to our house for important family gatherings. My son is very upset with the states and has threatened not to come up dwelling for the holiday. Am I being too rigid or unreasonable?
A: At least when this immature adult female gets to medical school she will have enough of expertise in beefcake. (And I thought most strippers are doing it to pay for constabulary school!) Unless your son'due south girlfriend also slept with your married man, yous are existence priggish and condescending and your husband is comically hypocritical. I can see proverb yous don't desire a drug dealer in your home; otherwise it'southward really none of your business organisation what your son's girlfriend does for a living. I assume you're savvy enough to know that barring her volition non make your son contemplate his error in romantic judgment while passing the gravy. It will mean he'll skip the entire result, leaving you to stew about your silly self-righteousness. Your son wants to bring a guest, so be a gracious hostess and don't make any remarks when this girl says she prefers chest meat.
Q. Abortion Bumper Sticker: My mother has potent opinions—and a strong belief in expressing them. I am in my mid-30s and learned long agone to let my female parent vent/rant, and to make neutral comments until the conversation turns to something else. However, my mother recently affixed a strongly worded pro-life bumper sticker to her car. On numerous occasions, strangers have made comments in parking lots or flipped her the bird when driving. This upsets her profoundly. I think that if you lot put a strongly worded opinion on an emotional bailiwick out for anybody to see then you open yourself up to criticism. How exercise I explain to her that not everybody cares almost her opinion and not everybody volition requite her the wide berth that our family does? My father passed away years agone and my blood brother more or less ignores our mother when she gets on a bluster, so it is up to me to accost this issue.
A: I don't know why y'all have to explain this to her. I hope your mother is functional plenty to see for herself the truth of your insight. If yous're driving with her, tell her to ignore the remarks or actions of other people—engaging could be dangerous. If she won't, refuse to proceed trips in her motorcar. Your brother's strategy is a good ane. It doesn't sound as if your mother wants insight, she simply wants a sounding board. But she will just hear her own voice if you lot just walk away.
Q. BIL'south Going to Jail: My sister'south married man is going to jail for sleeping with one of his underage students. My sis does not want to divorce him and they will work on their spousal relationship while he is in jail. The result is that my kids adore their aunt and uncle, who don't have children. My sister and brother-in-police want to visit with my kids every bit much as possible earlier my BIL goes away for a few years. My husband and I are non comfortable with letting my BIL around our kids, fifty-fifty if nosotros don't believe the kids are in any danger from him. His educatee was 16, and that's actually weird and gross to us. How practice we explain our newfound feelings for my BIL while letting my sister know we yet love and back up her?
A: You explain to your sister that her husband is going off to jail for sexually violating a pocket-sized and you've got issues with him. You say you lot want to support her through this, and she of course volition remain close to your children, but you're still processing what he did and you can't bear on as if nothing had happened. If she doesn't go that, well, it helps explain the mentality of a Dottie Sandusky.
Q. Mother-in-Laws: My married man and I are expecting our get-go child in the summer. We are absolutely ecstatic! My mother will play an active role in watching the baby when I have to become back to work, but the thought of my mother in law caring for our babe in her abode scares us! We both love her and we are very happy for her 10-month sobriety, but are much closer to my parents. MIL'southward firm is incredibly dirty; my husband even got food poisoning after eating dinner at her place recently. I just can't imagine allowing my child to crawl effectually on the rarely vacuumed floor. Although she has stopped drinking, she withal smokes, as does her live-in boyfriend. She as well allows my husband's younger blood brother (22 years onetime) to gratis-load and smoke marijuana in the house. I don't believe she realizes how dirty her dwelling is. How do I tell her that her abode is non an environment that I want my child in, without causing hurt feelings?
A: You lot tell her that you're more comfortable having her come to your house. It doesn't matter that things aren't equal with the 2 grandmothers. Your mother is great; your mother-in-law barely functions. That means you limit your mother-in-law's contact with the baby to times you lot can supervise. She's got a drug user in the house and she's not even a year sober. Do not be bullied into letting her baby-sit.
Q. Inherited Cousin's Money and Her Nephews Are Slighted: My mom was very close to ii of her cousins, a brother and sister named Adam and Eve. I was the first kid born into this generation 18 years agone. Eve was much more than like an aunt to me—buying me everything, taking me out all the fourth dimension—than my ain aunts and uncles were. My mom is a single parent, and then Eve'southward financial contributions meant I never missed out. She died in a car accident a few months ago at 37. The family is devastated. Eve saved upwards enough money to pay for my higher tuition—and I am her sole beneficiary. Eve didn't have kids. Her brother Adam's two sons got zip. Eve was not close to them and there were often divisions in the family. But now Adam says he is going to sue and go some of the money. I experience guilty for proverb this, but Adam's kids have resources and money. Eve's husband has stood by the will and has defended me. What should I do? Exercise I offer some of the coin to Eve's nephews?
A: I'one thousand distressing for your loss. It sounds as if to Eve you were the daughter she never had, and fifty-fifty her widower understands Eve's wish was for you to benefit from her fiscal resources. I'm no estate lawyer, but I tin't imagine what grounds Adam thinks he has to challenge this volition. He'due south just turning a tragedy into an ugly family feud. You owe cipher to Adam's well cared-for offspring. Take the money and honor Eve's memory by getting a great education.
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Source: https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/10/dear-prudence-my-wife-is-pregnant-by-another-man-but-she-s-saying-it-s-mine.html
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