what's the worst affair story you've heard of where the marriage recovered?

[Anonymous]

They were separated, she got pregnant. He moved back in when she gave birth. She went to the hospital for several weeks for depreasion. While she was in the hospital the AP lived in the house taking care of the baby. Waking up for feedings, taking him on his walks. The baby would stop crying when she held him. The wife got out of the hospital and a year later found out about the affair. The husband told her he ended it and they tried to fix their marriage. She thought everything was fine after spying on him and finding nothing. Right after Christmas he asked for a divorce. So they recovered and then it ended.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The entire family now includes the half-sibling and the half-sibling's mother. You are preserving a false little fantasy world, not the family.

Don't be silly. Families are shaped by choices, not genes. Look in the family forum and count the people who have "estranged" family members. Then poll the second wives and see if they consider the first wife of their husband (wife, not AP!) to be the member of the family. I will be shocked if they say yes.

They are wrong. So are you.

The children of the marriage have a half-sibling that you are advocating abandoning. That is incredibly psychologically damaging for all of the children. If you can abandon one child, why not all of them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like this thread is DCUM at its most batshit crazy. Can you guys hear yourself? "Separating a woman from her biological child is lethal but separating a man is merely painful"

Jeeeeesus. I've said it a few times in this thread but you are all about preserving the 'marriage' over basically everything else in the world. Including your own values, general morality, and a completely innocent baby's well being.

I also echo another PP. Apparently being married to a dead beat is ok with some of you as long as he never talks to his side piece again but in my world? Any man who has accepted that he is not allowed to see his own child, his own flesh and blood, is not the type of man I want to be married to. I would be absolutely disgusted.

I almost broke up with my DH when we were dating because HIS BROTHER had a baby in college with a girlfriend that he walked away from and the whole family seemed kind of ok with it. It was only until I talked to him about it more and learned that DH had kind of been keeping tabs on the girl and making sure she was alright that I thought he was ok. Walking away from a child is a horrific thing for an adult to do.

No one is about preserving the marriage over everything else. That type of infidelity shatters marriages and any woman who decides to divorce over this has my enthusiastic support. If this is not for you, it doesn't have to be!

For those who decide to try and rebuild the marriage, do you think they should NOT know about the scenarios that give them the best shot?

I want to address your comment I bolded above. There is no "general morality" about this. Until less than a hundred years ago, men were expected to ignore their illegitimate children. The idea that ALL children need to be embraced, much less prioritized, is a very new one. Don't oversell this as "general morality", because it isn't.

As for the wellbeing of an innocent baby, well of course it is important, but is it more important than everything else? More important than the wellbeing of the children of marriage? More important than the wellbeing of the wife? Why? They too are innocent so why should the baby be the priority to the detriment of everyone else?

Until 100 years ago, racially mixed marriages were illegal and considered immoral. Birth control was immoral. Sex before marriage was immoral. Divorce was immoral. I don't use my great-great-grandparents' views on morality as a template.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The entire family now includes the half-sibling and the half-sibling's mother. You are preserving a false little fantasy world, not the family.

Don't be silly. Families are shaped by choices, not genes. Look in the family forum and count the people who have "estranged" family members. Then poll the second wives and see if they consider the first wife of their husband (wife, not AP!) to be the member of the family. I will be shocked if they say yes.

They are wrong. So are you.

The children of the marriage have a half-sibling that you are advocating abandoning. That is incredibly psychologically damaging for all of the children. If you can abandon one child, why not all of them?

Because the circumstances of the other children's lives are different. We are assuming that their father loves their mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The entire family now includes the half-sibling and the half-sibling's mother. You are preserving a false little fantasy world, not the family.

Don't be silly. Families are shaped by choices, not genes. Look in the family forum and count the people who have "estranged" family members. Then poll the second wives and see if they consider the first wife of their husband (wife, not AP!) to be the member of the family. I will be shocked if they say yes.

They are wrong. So are you.

The children of the marriage have a half-sibling that you are advocating abandoning. That is incredibly psychologically damaging for all of the children. If you can abandon one child, why not all of them?

NP here and I'm not sure it's a fair comparison to equate an accidental child from a ONS on one end of the spectrum with a planned child within a marriage. There's certainly a continuum along that spectrum (accidental child with someone in an LTR, accidental child with spouse, etc.) so I think it's a facts and circumstances thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like this thread is DCUM at its most batshit crazy. Can you guys hear yourself? "Separating a woman from her biological child is lethal but separating a man is merely painful"

Jeeeeesus. I've said it a few times in this thread but you are all about preserving the 'marriage' over basically everything else in the world. Including your own values, general morality, and a completely innocent baby's well being.

I also echo another PP. Apparently being married to a dead beat is ok with some of you as long as he never talks to his side piece again but in my world? Any man who has accepted that he is not allowed to see his own child, his own flesh and blood, is not the type of man I want to be married to. I would be absolutely disgusted.

I almost broke up with my DH when we were dating because HIS BROTHER had a baby in college with a girlfriend that he walked away from and the whole family seemed kind of ok with it. It was only until I talked to him about it more and learned that DH had kind of been keeping tabs on the girl and making sure she was alright that I thought he was ok. Walking away from a child is a horrific thing for an adult to do.

No one is about preserving the marriage over everything else. That type of infidelity shatters marriages and any woman who decides to divorce over this has my enthusiastic support. If this is not for you, it doesn't have to be!

For those who decide to try and rebuild the marriage, do you think they should NOT know about the scenarios that give them the best shot?

I want to address your comment I bolded above. There is no "general morality" about this. Until less than a hundred years ago, men were expected to ignore their illegitimate children. The idea that ALL children need to be embraced, much less prioritized, is a very new one. Don't oversell this as "general morality", because it isn't.

As for the wellbeing of an innocent baby, well of course it is important, but is it more important than everything else? More important than the wellbeing of the children of marriage? More important than the wellbeing of the wife? Why? They too are innocent so why should the baby be the priority to the detriment of everyone else?

To the bolded: Yes. Absolutely. She is an adult. She can take care of herself. I agree with you that it is not necessarily more important than the well being of the other minor children.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The entire family now includes the half-sibling and the half-sibling's mother. You are preserving a false little fantasy world, not the family.

Don't be silly. Families are shaped by choices, not genes. Look in the family forum and count the people who have "estranged" family members. Then poll the second wives and see if they consider the first wife of their husband (wife, not AP!) to be the member of the family. I will be shocked if they say yes.

They are wrong. So are you.

The children of the marriage have a half-sibling that you are advocating abandoning. That is incredibly psychologically damaging for all of the children. If you can abandon one child, why not all of them?

This scenario has no options where children AREN'T damaged, only options with degrees of damage. If the choice is to damage children by divorce or by absence of half-sibling, it's not wrong to choose #2.

I also think you are rather reaching when you say children of marriage are INCREDIBLY damaged by absence of half-siblings. This is merely an anecdote, but when I was 13, I found out my mom was my dad's second wife, and that his first marriage produced a son. I've never met him, and it never really occurred to me that I should. Meh. I mean, we all have family members somewhere that we never see, so what's with the compulsion to have a relationship with EVERY single one of them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The entire family now includes the half-sibling and the half-sibling's mother. You are preserving a false little fantasy world, not the family.

Don't be silly. Families are shaped by choices, not genes. Look in the family forum and count the people who have "estranged" family members. Then poll the second wives and see if they consider the first wife of their husband (wife, not AP!) to be the member of the family. I will be shocked if they say yes.

They are wrong. So are you.

The children of the marriage have a half-sibling that you are advocating abandoning. That is incredibly psychologically damaging for all of the children. If you can abandon one child, why not all of them?

Because the circumstances of the other children's lives are different. We are assuming that their father loves their mother.

ok. So the children can deduce that when the circumstances of their own lives change in a manner that is inconvenient for whatever reason, they too can be abandoned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like this thread is DCUM at its most batshit crazy. Can you guys hear yourself? "Separating a woman from her biological child is lethal but separating a man is merely painful"

Jeeeeesus. I've said it a few times in this thread but you are all about preserving the 'marriage' over basically everything else in the world. Including your own values, general morality, and a completely innocent baby's well being.

I also echo another PP. Apparently being married to a dead beat is ok with some of you as long as he never talks to his side piece again but in my world? Any man who has accepted that he is not allowed to see his own child, his own flesh and blood, is not the type of man I want to be married to. I would be absolutely disgusted.

I almost broke up with my DH when we were dating because HIS BROTHER had a baby in college with a girlfriend that he walked away from and the whole family seemed kind of ok with it. It was only until I talked to him about it more and learned that DH had kind of been keeping tabs on the girl and making sure she was alright that I thought he was ok. Walking away from a child is a horrific thing for an adult to do.

No one is about preserving the marriage over everything else. That type of infidelity shatters marriages and any woman who decides to divorce over this has my enthusiastic support. If this is not for you, it doesn't have to be!

For those who decide to try and rebuild the marriage, do you think they should NOT know about the scenarios that give them the best shot?

I want to address your comment I bolded above. There is no "general morality" about this. Until less than a hundred years ago, men were expected to ignore their illegitimate children. The idea that ALL children need to be embraced, much less prioritized, is a very new one. Don't oversell this as "general morality", because it isn't.

As for the wellbeing of an innocent baby, well of course it is important, but is it more important than everything else? More important than the wellbeing of the children of marriage? More important than the wellbeing of the wife? Why? They too are innocent so why should the baby be the priority to the detriment of everyone else?

To the bolded: Yes. Absolutely. She is an adult. She can take care of herself. I agree with you that it is not necessarily more important than the well being of the other minor children.

Adults don't prioritize the interests of EVERY SINGLE child, only of their own. The baby already has a mother, and she is the one who should prioritize the interests of the baby over her own. The wife is not related to the baby so it's nonsensical to expect that she will choose what's best for someone else's baby over what's best for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The entire family now includes the half-sibling and the half-sibling's mother. You are preserving a false little fantasy world, not the family.

Don't be silly. Families are shaped by choices, not genes. Look in the family forum and count the people who have "estranged" family members. Then poll the second wives and see if they consider the first wife of their husband (wife, not AP!) to be the member of the family. I will be shocked if they say yes.

They are wrong. So are you.

The children of the marriage have a half-sibling that you are advocating abandoning. That is incredibly psychologically damaging for all of the children. If you can abandon one child, why not all of them?

This scenario has no options where children AREN'T damaged, only options with degrees of damage. If the choice is to damage children by divorce or by absence of half-sibling, it's not wrong to choose #2.

I also think you are rather reaching when you say children of marriage are INCREDIBLY damaged by absence of half-siblings. This is merely an anecdote, but when I was 13, I found out my mom was my dad's second wife, and that his first marriage produced a son. I've never met him, and it never really occurred to me that I should. Meh. I mean, we all have family members somewhere that we never see, so what's with the compulsion to have a relationship with EVERY single one of them?

Divorce is not as bad as abandoning children, as far as I am concerned. I would look at my dad funny if he did not care about one of his children. It would not matter whether or not I was curious to meet my half sibling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like this thread is DCUM at its most batshit crazy. Can you guys hear yourself? "Separating a woman from her biological child is lethal but separating a man is merely painful"

Jeeeeesus. I've said it a few times in this thread but you are all about preserving the 'marriage' over basically everything else in the world. Including your own values, general morality, and a completely innocent baby's well being.

I also echo another PP. Apparently being married to a dead beat is ok with some of you as long as he never talks to his side piece again but in my world? Any man who has accepted that he is not allowed to see his own child, his own flesh and blood, is not the type of man I want to be married to. I would be absolutely disgusted.

I almost broke up with my DH when we were dating because HIS BROTHER had a baby in college with a girlfriend that he walked away from and the whole family seemed kind of ok with it. It was only until I talked to him about it more and learned that DH had kind of been keeping tabs on the girl and making sure she was alright that I thought he was ok. Walking away from a child is a horrific thing for an adult to do.

No one is about preserving the marriage over everything else. That type of infidelity shatters marriages and any woman who decides to divorce over this has my enthusiastic support. If this is not for you, it doesn't have to be!

For those who decide to try and rebuild the marriage, do you think they should NOT know about the scenarios that give them the best shot?

I want to address your comment I bolded above. There is no "general morality" about this. Until less than a hundred years ago, men were expected to ignore their illegitimate children. The idea that ALL children need to be embraced, much less prioritized, is a very new one. Don't oversell this as "general morality", because it isn't.

As for the wellbeing of an innocent baby, well of course it is important, but is it more important than everything else? More important than the wellbeing of the children of marriage? More important than the wellbeing of the wife? Why? They too are innocent so why should the baby be the priority to the detriment of everyone else?

Less than 100 years ago lynchings were still happening. School segregation was the 'right' thing. Less than 100 years ago women couldn't vote. Less than 50 years ago rape within a marriage didn't exist in the eyes of the law. Less than 20 years ago it was completely normal to say something extremely homophobic in normal conversation. Less than 10 years ago same sex marriage was illegal. Just because humans have acted like jacka$$es until the recent past (and will continue to do so in the future) doesn't mean everything bad that happened in the past is retroactively said to be moral.

I do think an innocent child is more important than the wife for a couple reasons. Cheating is usually a symptom of a problem within a marriage. And even when it isn't and the woman is truly innocent and wronged, she still chose the risk of marrying someone and trusting them. The baby did none of that.

The other children in the marriage are also innocent but IMO they cannot be entirely shielded from this. So I exile a child and teach them that its ok to walk away from your responsibilities and your family or I teach them that sometimes people make mistakes and thats awful but you still have to do the right thing when the dust settles.

I choose option 2.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The entire family now includes the half-sibling and the half-sibling's mother. You are preserving a false little fantasy world, not the family.

Don't be silly. Families are shaped by choices, not genes. Look in the family forum and count the people who have "estranged" family members. Then poll the second wives and see if they consider the first wife of their husband (wife, not AP!) to be the member of the family. I will be shocked if they say yes.

They are wrong. So are you.

The children of the marriage have a half-sibling that you are advocating abandoning. That is incredibly psychologically damaging for all of the children. If you can abandon one child, why not all of them?

This scenario has no options where children AREN'T damaged, only options with degrees of damage. If the choice is to damage children by divorce or by absence of half-sibling, it's not wrong to choose #2.

I also think you are rather reaching when you say children of marriage are INCREDIBLY damaged by absence of half-siblings. This is merely an anecdote, but when I was 13, I found out my mom was my dad's second wife, and that his first marriage produced a son. I've never met him, and it never really occurred to me that I should. Meh. I mean, we all have family members somewhere that we never see, so what's with the compulsion to have a relationship with EVERY single one of them?

Divorce is not as bad as abandoning children, as far as I am concerned. I would look at my dad funny if he did not care about one of his children. It would not matter whether or not I was curious to meet my half sibling.

You might, as an adult. As a child, you simply would not care if the adults in your life don't remind you. And you won't be damaged by it, much less INCREDIBLY damaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like this thread is DCUM at its most batshit crazy. Can you guys hear yourself? "Separating a woman from her biological child is lethal but separating a man is merely painful"

Jeeeeesus. I've said it a few times in this thread but you are all about preserving the 'marriage' over basically everything else in the world. Including your own values, general morality, and a completely innocent baby's well being.

I also echo another PP. Apparently being married to a dead beat is ok with some of you as long as he never talks to his side piece again but in my world? Any man who has accepted that he is not allowed to see his own child, his own flesh and blood, is not the type of man I want to be married to. I would be absolutely disgusted.

I almost broke up with my DH when we were dating because HIS BROTHER had a baby in college with a girlfriend that he walked away from and the whole family seemed kind of ok with it. It was only until I talked to him about it more and learned that DH had kind of been keeping tabs on the girl and making sure she was alright that I thought he was ok. Walking away from a child is a horrific thing for an adult to do.

No one is about preserving the marriage over everything else. That type of infidelity shatters marriages and any woman who decides to divorce over this has my enthusiastic support. If this is not for you, it doesn't have to be!

For those who decide to try and rebuild the marriage, do you think they should NOT know about the scenarios that give them the best shot?

I want to address your comment I bolded above. There is no "general morality" about this. Until less than a hundred years ago, men were expected to ignore their illegitimate children. The idea that ALL children need to be embraced, much less prioritized, is a very new one. Don't oversell this as "general morality", because it isn't.

As for the wellbeing of an innocent baby, well of course it is important, but is it more important than everything else? More important than the wellbeing of the children of marriage? More important than the wellbeing of the wife? Why? They too are innocent so why should the baby be the priority to the detriment of everyone else?

To the bolded: Yes. Absolutely. She is an adult. She can take care of herself. I agree with you that it is not necessarily more important than the well being of the other minor children.

Adults don't prioritize the interests of EVERY SINGLE child, only of their own. The baby already has a mother, and she is the one who should prioritize the interests of the baby over her own. The wife is not related to the baby so it's nonsensical to expect that she will choose what's best for someone else's baby over what's best for her.

I am not saying that she should. I am saying that she should lose respect for a man who doesn't choose what is best for his child. But if you think divorcing is as bad for his other children as abandoning this one child(I completely disagree), then I get your point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The entire family now includes the half-sibling and the half-sibling's mother. You are preserving a false little fantasy world, not the family.

Don't be silly. Families are shaped by choices, not genes. Look in the family forum and count the people who have "estranged" family members. Then poll the second wives and see if they consider the first wife of their husband (wife, not AP!) to be the member of the family. I will be shocked if they say yes.

They are wrong. So are you.

The children of the marriage have a half-sibling that you are advocating abandoning. That is incredibly psychologically damaging for all of the children. If you can abandon one child, why not all of them?

This scenario has no options where children AREN'T damaged, only options with degrees of damage. If the choice is to damage children by divorce or by absence of half-sibling, it's not wrong to choose #2.

I also think you are rather reaching when you say children of marriage are INCREDIBLY damaged by absence of half-siblings. This is merely an anecdote, but when I was 13, I found out my mom was my dad's second wife, and that his first marriage produced a son. I've never met him, and it never really occurred to me that I should. Meh. I mean, we all have family members somewhere that we never see, so what's with the compulsion to have a relationship with EVERY single one of them?

Divorce is not as bad as abandoning children, as far as I am concerned. I would look at my dad funny if he did not care about one of his children. It would not matter whether or not I was curious to meet my half sibling.

You might, as an adult. As a child, you simply would not care if the adults in your life don't remind you. And you won't be damaged by it, much less INCREDIBLY damaged.

I am not the "incredibly damaged" PP, but how do you know how incredibly damaged the son was? or does it not matter because you weren't incredibly damaged?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like this thread is DCUM at its most batshit crazy. Can you guys hear yourself? "Separating a woman from her biological child is lethal but separating a man is merely painful"

Jeeeeesus. I've said it a few times in this thread but you are all about preserving the 'marriage' over basically everything else in the world. Including your own values, general morality, and a completely innocent baby's well being.

I also echo another PP. Apparently being married to a dead beat is ok with some of you as long as he never talks to his side piece again but in my world? Any man who has accepted that he is not allowed to see his own child, his own flesh and blood, is not the type of man I want to be married to. I would be absolutely disgusted.

I almost broke up with my DH when we were dating because HIS BROTHER had a baby in college with a girlfriend that he walked away from and the whole family seemed kind of ok with it. It was only until I talked to him about it more and learned that DH had kind of been keeping tabs on the girl and making sure she was alright that I thought he was ok. Walking away from a child is a horrific thing for an adult to do.

No one is about preserving the marriage over everything else. That type of infidelity shatters marriages and any woman who decides to divorce over this has my enthusiastic support. If this is not for you, it doesn't have to be!

For those who decide to try and rebuild the marriage, do you think they should NOT know about the scenarios that give them the best shot?

I want to address your comment I bolded above. There is no "general morality" about this. Until less than a hundred years ago, men were expected to ignore their illegitimate children. The idea that ALL children need to be embraced, much less prioritized, is a very new one. Don't oversell this as "general morality", because it isn't.

As for the wellbeing of an innocent baby, well of course it is important, but is it more important than everything else? More important than the wellbeing of the children of marriage? More important than the wellbeing of the wife? Why? They too are innocent so why should the baby be the priority to the detriment of everyone else?

To the bolded: Yes. Absolutely. She is an adult. She can take care of herself. I agree with you that it is not necessarily more important than the well being of the other minor children.

Adults don't prioritize the interests of EVERY SINGLE child, only of their own. The baby already has a mother, and she is the one who should prioritize the interests of the baby over her own. The wife is not related to the baby so it's nonsensical to expect that she will choose what's best for someone else's baby over what's best for her.

Unless you're a male who had a baby while cheating or with a married woman apparently. Those guys shouldn't prioritize all their own children, only the ones that weren't created in sin.

GREAT message to send to your other kids PP, pro parenting right there.