Should I Tell My Husband Our Last Child Isn’t His?

The Root ^ | June 27 2014 | DEMETRIA L. LUCAS

[nickcarraway]

ear Demetria:

I am the mother of two. I have an amazing husband and father to my children. The last child is not his, and he is unaware. His best friend and I had a one-night stand two years ago when my hubby was out of town. I can’t bring myself to come clean.

I just started going to therapy about this. The guilt is making me miserable. I feel honesty would break our whole family apart. I'm afraid to find out what my husband may do. —Anonymous

My grandmother had a saying about truth: “What’s done in the dark will always come to the light.” You’ve been carrying some huge secrets, and despite trying to ignore and avoid them, they’ve come to the forefront of your mind nearly three years later with a crippling vengeance that’s making you miserable.

I’m glad you’re in therapy. That’s a good starting point. If you have a good therapist, she or he will help you find the courage to “come clean,” as you put it, and tell your husband the truth about your affair and the child that resulted from it. It’s not the easy thing to do, but it is the right course of action here for everyone involved, including you.

Your husband deserves to know the truth, and sooner rather than later.

[Ted Grant]

I’m amazed after reading this thread that there are so many who don’t think she should fess up and evidently believe this is a secret that could be kept.

Any way you slice it, her husband has the right to know so he can make an informed decision about his life. If he leaves her, so be it.

Medical situations can arise that will expose this charade at a later date.

The best friend is on the hook to support his child.

The best friend has a right to know that he even has a child.

This “take it to the grave” mentality is silly and immature. The truth will come out, let it be sooner rather than later, and let it be the bride’s choice as to when and how to make the big reveal. She should have done a dna test before birth (it’s safe and involves blood tests) to be sure, and then after birth confessed.

I’d just leave her and make sure the real dad know$ he is on the hook for child $upport for the next eighteen years. Hope it was worth it.

Me, I wouldn’t get angry or violent.

[SamAdams76]

A dear friend who is a pastor, now 70, took me to the Boston area, we sat in the van and watched inner city blacks on Friday night

Now that is really bizarre. Your pastor would take you into the city on Friday nights to sit in a van and watch black people? This is one of the weirdest things I ever saw posted here.

[Ted Grant]

I got the impression they didn’t go just to do that, but it was part of the evening (sit in the van waiting for someone or something, for example). But the final word belongs to the poster.

[Yaelle]

I need to scream this.

A FATHER IS SOMEONE WHO FATHERS. Who parents. Who loves and cares for the child. Genetics don’t matter.

Plenty of stepdads and adoptive dads are wonderful fathers. You can love and parent a child with different genetics the same as a bio child.

You can love and revere a dad of different genetics.

So until this poor man finds out some other way, I hope the cheating guilty woman keeps her trap shut (both of them) and lets these two people she loves have a full untainted relationship.

[Yaelle]

You went to “watch black people from your van?” And then make pronouncements about human beings you saw on the street and who their fathers are??

I don’t feel you are very fair at all. I won’t throw the R word out there, but when you go and anthropologically look at human beings, and then make gross pronouncements about them, it’s at least prejudiced.

I have friends who live in some rough areas. They are good and clean Christians but they might have been walking by when you made your pronouncements. Their fathers are the man still married to their mother or the man who passed away while married to their mother.

[glennaro]

The “amazing father” who is raising the child is the child’s father. The adulterer is just the sperm provider.

[Mears]

“A dear friend who is a pastor, now 70, took me to the Boston area, we sat in the van and watched inner city blacks on Friday night,”

—

As a mother and grandmother,two creeps sitting in a van “observing” would certainly put me on high alert..

.

[Kackikat]

I think before she becomes a teenager...in some cases, if the father is local and has other children.... it is imperative for them to know.

[RegulatorCountry]

She's allowed her husband to believe himself to be the father thereby perpetuating a huge lie that would devastate him, for two years. Then, she prattles on about herself, how bad it is for her, she's in therapy. Self-centered to a fault.

The time to fess up was when she had the one night stand with his best friend. Now how many has she sucked into her web of lies? Husband, husband's best friend, herself and the child once she's old enough to understand language. But it's all about her feelings. Waah.

If it was me, I'd be furious to the point of ending the marriage. The one night stand was bad enough, and there goes my best friend who was, in fact, not. What a fool she continues to make of her husband. But, it's all about her, boo-hoo.

Sick.

[SaraJohnson]

What a creep.

[reasonisfaith]

If a person pretends—for the purpose of manipulating others—to be something they’re not, their motive is the result of both moral and intellectual shortcoming.

[RKBA Democrat]

Interesting dilemma.

I favor the “suffer silently” route. All this assumes a few things (1) that the child isn’t the husbands. While it’s possible that one act of intercourse could result in a pregnancy, it’s not particularly likely, (2) it assumes she’s telling the truth about just one time. I doubt it, (3) it assumes that the husband is an idiot and won’t figure it out on his own. So why rub his nose in it?