When hubby fathers child out of wedlock

I CANNOT even imagine the hurt, pain and disappointment one experiences when they find out their husband has been unfaithful and has fathered a child outside of the marriage. It is one thing to cheat on your partner but it is something else when a child is born as a result of infidelity.

There is nothing worse than to find out that the man you love and committed to spend the rest of your life with has had a child with another woman while married to you. That level of betrayal makes it difficult to forgive and to trust.

Every day you wake up, your mind almost immediately grips on the other child. Some people might say over the years (should you decide to stay in your marriage), waking up and thinking about the fact that your husband fathered a child outside of your marriage will eventually lessen but I guess the hurt and pain would probably remain.

How do you move forward after finding out the truth? What do you say to your friends and family? This is not a secret you will be able to keep for a lifetime. This is not something that will go away, never to return again. When a child is born, you have the child for life (for as long as God says so). This child should be in your life regardless of how you feel.

Whether you agree or not, this child is a part of the family because you cannot make the child disappear. After all, the child did not ask to come into this world. Disowning the child or pushing the child away will not make the hurt and the pain go away. The only thing you accomplish when you shun the child is mentally hurting and possibly damaging the child.

If you should choose to leave your marriage, that does not exclude your children from having a relationship with the “love child.”

This week our column is on a woman who is struggling to deal with her husband’s infidelity and the “love child” that was a result of the cheating.

As I sit here and write this my hands are shaking and my head is spinning in all different directions when I think of this level of betrayal! My husband was having an affair with a woman for about two years. I decided to stick it out with him because I felt he was going through a rough patch and besides I thought what man does not cheat. I took the infidelity but the baby is more than I had to take.

We have been married for many years and have been together for long enough to call a lifetime. I just do not see how our marriage will work and I cannot even begin to imagine a life without him. I am so stuck for words and numbed because the pain I have felt after discovering his “love child” is worse than any pain I have ever experienced.

I am angry and hurt. I have always had a big heart to forgive but I still struggle to accept what has become a part of our lives.

When I first found out about the child he had with his “mistress” I was angry and I threw him out of our matrimonial house because I felt betrayed but he refused to go and live with her and temporarily moved into his parents’ house. I later on felt bad and I asked him to move back into our house with conditions of course.

We are in separate rooms and not having sex. I want to leave, but it is hard because I love him and I am struggling to come to terms with what happened. My emotions are on a roller coaster.

He keeps telling me that he loves me and is sorry and I sometimes believe him but sometimes I do not. I feel like I cannot trust him ever again because of the lies, betrayal, and cheating with the same person for two years and now there is a child involved.

I wish I had done something drastic to end the affair before it spiralled out of control then maybe, just maybe I would not be going through this. I know the “mistress” is not always at fault and I do take responsibility of the whole mess too but I cannot stop myself from playing the blame game whenever I need to cope with this whole situation.

I still cannot understand how my husband went out of his way to bring an Ishmael into our lives complicating all we have worked for all our lives.

I recently decided to bring the children together and introduced them to “Ishmael”. He has met his brothers and sisters, but I wish I was not in this situation, especially putting the kids in this situation where they are confused and do not understand how they have a sibling from out of the blue because I am not about to start explaining to them what their father did.

A few months ago I woke up one day to respond to a knock on the door and since then my life has never been the same. As I opened the door at the entrance was a woman who claimed that my husband was the father of her son and all she needed was child support.

The bitter truth was that not only had my husband cheated on me, he had fathered a child outside our marriage. It was confusing for me but seeing her had brought back the messages and stuff I had stumbled upon when I first discovered my husband was having an affair.

I was so angry and confused when this woman made known her claims and I called out to my husband who at first, denied ever knowing the woman but when he was confronted with evidence, he accepted responsibility. It was very hard because I had to choose between forgiving him and divorcing him. In the end, I chose to stay.

The ‘‘illegitimate’’ child was later on brought to stay with my family but our lives have never been the same because every time I see “Ishmael” I am reminded of my husband’s betrayal, a sad reality that I still struggle to deal with to this day.

Learning of that fact made me miserable and made me feel down but I let it go because I still want us to be a family though sometimes I want to give it all up and walk away because sometimes the pain is unbearable and it hurts so bad.

That knock on our door that changed my family’s life irreversibly came out of the blue, as these earth-shattering events so often do. For a moment I thought it was all a dream and then came a sickening feeling that made my head reel. It was as if an emotional hand-grenade had been tossed into my life.

I had to ask him the question that spun dizzyingly in my mind just to make sure this woman was not trying to mess up our lives with her lies. The selfish part of me wanted to beg him to leave things as they were before the revelation, but even then, in the midst of my sorrow, that seemed a very cruel path to take.

I have always believed it is important for children to know their parents, so, with unease, I agreed for the child to come and stay with us, heart-shattering as it is.

There are days when I cry uncontrollably and I have a lot of wishes in my mind and there are some mornings I wish I did not have to wake up to this painful reminder but all I am doing now is taking it a day at a time.

Getting through a breakup is as much a physical process as an emotional one. Remember that, and know that it will get easier. Keep going. You will get there someday and in the mean time continue to share your heartbreaking stories with us.