Should my man take a test to see if his ex’s child is really his?

DEAR BEL I’VE been with my partner for just over two years and we’re very happy.

A couple of weeks after we met, he told me he had a daughter (now six). Things with his ex are acrimonious. She got pregnant after a one-night stand and they formed a relationship because of the baby.

He’s well off and she bullied him into marriage by saying that their daughter would suffer if he didn’t marry her. His family all begged him not to.

Shortly after a very expensive wedding, he learned from a mutual friend that she’d been cheating on him for years with various casual partners. They then split up — about a year before we met.

He doesn’t see his daughter often as the mother moved her abroad, but he communicates regularly and loves her dearly.

When he first told me, he said he wasn’t sure his daughter was biologically his. After the split, his parents suggested a paternity test but he wouldn’t do it.

Now we are thinking about marriage and children, I don’t feel comfortable bringing more children into this situation without him confirming his daughter’s parentage.

It doesn’t make a difference to me whether she is his or not, but I worry our children would form a bond that might get taken away one day if this were all to come out and a paternity test proved negative, or that they would lose faith in us as parents having never been honest.

My mother spent several childhood summers playing with ‘older kids from down the road’ and 40 years later it emerged they were actually half brothers and a half sister from her father’s first marriage.

My grandparents thought they were doing the right thing but the lie affected her badly. This is making me more aware of the pain that can be caused.

You might think I’m worrying about things that may never happen, but his daughter doesn’t look like him or his family and I feel she might have questions when older.

Her mother is very bitter and I am worried she might stir up trouble if she knows that the child is not his.

I feel that if the child is my partner’s biological daughter, then everyone’s mind will be at ease. If she is not then there will be nothing to stop him continuing to be a father to her, but we can work out how we will deal with the bigger questions.

I feel terrible to think of even asking him to have a DNA test. Am I wrong for wanting to tackle the possibility that she is not biologically his? I try so hard to be supportive but I am also very principled and believe that being a parent involves making tough decisions and being responsible above all else.

I don’t think I personally could start a family with this hanging over us.

EMMA

With respect, this question i s not ‘hanging over us’ — it is hanging over you.

the complete version of your letter tells me you have ‘never expressed any of these thoughts’ to your partner, so it does seem to me that you are working yourself into a frenzy of anxiety with little justification.

You must be very careful this doesn’t t hreaten your happy relationship.

Your letter slightly confuses me. You say the little girl was conceived on a ‘one-night stand’ but then say you heard that your partner’s ex had been ‘cheating on him for years’.

i work out their marriage lasted about four years; did he leave her because of the tittle-tattle that she wasn’t faithful to him or for deeper reasons?

Could it be that you are reading far more into this scenario than is really there?

Your boyfriend won’t be the first man to wonder whether a child is really his, but if he has not expressed any really deep anxiety to you (more than a comment) then i honestly don’t see how you can force him to have a DNA test, given all the

appalling stress that the practicality of i t would i nvolve, si nce his daughter lives abroad.

Your mother’s story does help to explain your anxiety and you are right that lies and secrets within a family can do much harm.

But first, you don’t know that there is a lie here. Then, all the hypothetical situations you describe f ail to convince me.

Why would his daughter question who is her dad? I’m assuming he gives financial support, so why would his ex threaten that by telling him the child is not his?

And why would children not yet conceived make an issue of something they are surely unlikely even to ask about?

Instead of jumping so far ahead i nto t he f uture I t hi nk y ou have to pull yourself right back to t he present and confront your anxieties.

ThAT you haven’t raised any of your f ears with your boyfriend worries me, and suggests that there could be a subtext of (perhaps) retrospective jealousy here. Are you secretly bothered by the presence of this child in his life and resentful of claims she will continue to make on his affections?

You end with the thought that you ‘personally’ feel unwilling to start a family in these circumstances, but surely it has nothing to do with what you ‘ personally’ want and everything to do with a couple discussing dilemmas and sharing hopes and fears?

You don’t say whether your boyfriend is divorced yet; whatever the situation, he will need all your ongoing support — which you can’t give if you are brooding negatively like this.

You assert that ‘ being a parent involves making tough decisions and being responsible above all else’. Well, I’ve been a parent for more than 41 years, so feel qualified to suggest that the role involves flexibility, tolerance, gentleness, good-humour, patience, empathy, self-sacrifice and masses of (mostly) unconditional love.

I’m sure you’ll discover that if you are fortunate enough to become a mother — which I hope you do. Focus on the good things you have, knowing that you can make your happiness with this man or you can break it.

And if he has chosen to love the little girl as his daughter, then that’s all that should matter to you.