Just a rollercoaster of emotions right now, and I do not know where to start. For the past 8 years I had believed my 8 yo daughter was mine biologically. Now my entire world is crashing down because two tests confirm that she is not mine.
My wife and I have been married for 7 years, and she got pregnant when we were engaged. I was so madly in love with her and when she told me she was pregnant, I never in a million years would have thought to question the paternity of the child- of course it was mine, and I was going to marry this woman and raise however many kids we had together in the sort of happy family that neither my wife nor I had growing up.
However, after our daughter was born, it seemed like nothing about our lives were ever good enough. She quit her job in public relations without telling me and bounced around between various part time roles, most of which she ended up having some sort of drama in and stormed out of. Now she is running a business where she buys discount stuff and attempts to sell them for a higher price online, which brings in at most a few hundred each month.
Around year 5 of our marriage, she went from never wanting sex to needling me about the possibility of an open marriage. I really felt uncomfortable with how she didn’t seem to care about any ground rules and said I could sleep with whoever I wanted as long as I never brought them to our house and never spent any money on them beyond paying for dinner. She later backtracked and said that it was just her late thirties- early forties hormones making her go crazy. However, the subsequent borderline dead bedroom and her actions made me constantly suspicious that something was going on.
In these past few months, things got really bad really quickly. I came home one day to find her in our bed crying. She said that she was just very emotional. Thus began a two month period where I took on all the childcare so that my wife could go see a therapist and just be by herself, as she requested. Her therapist put her on anti depressants but she ended up self medicating with alcohol and we had fights because I hated smoking and she picked up her old smoking habit from her twenties.
Then one night I seem to trigger a massive avalanche of rage from her when I asked her if she could please engage more with our daughter when she was talking about her day. She flipped out and started screaming about how much she regrets this life and regrets marrying me. That I annoy her more than she can put into words.
She then said ” there is someone else- I know you already suspected, so good job.” I felt like the wind was being knocked out of me. She then burst into tears and said she was dying from a broken heart and all doctors will do is put her on antidepressants. That the world never gives her solutions, allows her an ending of her choosing in this life. She then says to me that my daughter isn’t mine- she is her ex’s, and that she has the paternity test to prove it.
I knew immediately which ex she was talking about. It was her ex (42M) from 13 years ago who was in an on again, off again relationship with somebody. He kept dumping her when he and his girlfriend became on again. He has now been married for two years to a 26 year old, but obviously his ways of never being able to decide between women has never stopped.
I am obviously having my world crumble before my eyes so we start the worst argument of our marriage. I for several minutes forgot that our daughter could easily walk in on the both of us even though she was thankfully outside and occupied at the time.
My wife at this point is already pretty drunk and angrily finishes up the rest of her bottle. She says that she loves him, she loves him but she is lower than trash to him. She showed me the paternity test results on her phone that she and him both saw and afterwards he said she’s been playing him the whole time and ghosted her. She says she hates him for being such a cruel human and that she just wanted to curl up and disappear, but she cannot stand me either.
Not only was she cheating on me with him while we were dating, but after he started making business trips back to the area two years ago, they reconnected and that was the reason she asked for an open marriage.
I told her that I put up with all her problems. I told myself that she was just trying to get over the trauma from a tough childhood or that it was her professional struggles giving her depression, but she has been spitefully betraying me. I told her that I was done.
I ended up leaving the house and going to a motel and just staring at the ceiling for like an entire day. I even forgot to call in sick for work and that never happens, and a friend at work called to check on me. After I told him what happened he told me I needed to clear my head enough to get ahead of this situation and all the drama ahead. I ended up going to see a lawyer. It was then my wife started bombarding my messages with texts. Saying she is sorry, that she is selfish, but she couldn’t help who she fell in love with. She asked me to come home and to still love our daughter.
I replied I did love our daughter and can wake up every morning and call her my daughter but that I could no longer call her my wife. She told me that she was going to check herself into a psych hospital if I filed for divorce right now, and asked for one last chance. I told her that if she wanted to go to a hospital because she was feeling so many emotions, I support her, but she cannot emotionally blackmail me with this. She then tells me she dropped our daughter off with her sister and I immediately feel guilty about leaving our daughter like this.
I end up heading to our house and find out she is gone. I go to pick up my daughter from her aunt’s house to bring her back home, while people try to locate my wife. Hours go by where there is no answer from her, and she seems to have turned her phone off. I cannot help it- I worry and a part of me that cares for her started giving the rest of me so much agony.
Finally I find out bystanders witnessed her drinking and acting erratically in public. Police were called and she started saying that I was going to divorce her and her family was gone now. She told police she was on antidepressants and suffered from anxiety. The police decide to take her to the hospital and she is now in the psych ward. Hearing her voice on the phone there that she called me with made my heart break. After the phone call, where she sounded so helpless and sad I broke down and cried.
I only stopped because I knew my daughter could hear. The next morning, I realized that I needed to give my daughter some stability. However, I also knew I had to do this, and I ended up collecting the materials I needed for another DNA test because I needed to know for sure that she was biologically not mine. I simply didn’t trust anything that came from my wife and kept thinking she had another motive or something for saying my daughter wasn’t mine.
Today I got the results of the test and my daughter indeed isn’t mine. I can no longer cling on to that remaining shred of denial and now am at a loss. The place my wife is in allows two hour visits and I went to see her. She looked again so helpless and lost. Part of her treatment is to make amends and I can’t help but be afraid of her reaction if I really go through with filing for divorce.
I know that she will be released, and probably sooner than later and her demons will still be there. What do I do? I had a plan carved out but that was done during the anger phase of me finding out. I combed through her electronic records and found out the contact information for her affair partner. I feel that I need to have a conversation with him since paternity is a legal matter. I also do not know how much I should tell my daughter about this whole thing. I’ve only told her her mom is sick and is getting better with help.
33 comments
Holy
Shit
Dude.
She is the devil.
Be big about it and fight for your daughter. Protect her. Biology aside, she needs you more than ever and you raised her. That counts as much or more than biology. You might need her too. Be well, this too shall pass.
First off you do need to file for divorce. Your wife will never get better if you keep accepting her actions. She does need to be in a hospital.
Contact a family attorney about your daughtes status.
Your daughter is only 8 years old you can tell her, that her mother did something she should not have done and she needs help. You do not need to tell her she is not your daughter. You can tell her all the truth when she is older.
The fact that your wife lied about the paternity in some places is a crime. You might want to check that out. Yes contact the girls bio father and let him know. If your wife is committed to a mental hospital child custody might be an issue for you.
Contacting him may then make you lose your daughter, he could take you to court.
None of this is fair to you, she used you knowing you were caring
Try r/legaladvice maybe someone can give you some advice about the legalities of custody for your daughter.
Tell her your marriage is over. She has support where she is. They will make sure she is ok. As far as your daughter goes, you should discuss that with an attorney because legally you are the dad. Good luck to all three of you.
This won’t be popular but my advise to abandon ship. Get a divorce and wish your wife’s child well. I know it sucks but you owe them nothing. You were tricked by and evil person and her daughters life a wreck. No one will blame you for staying for the kid and I wouldn’t hold it against you. Good luck I hope it works out for you.
Fuck her you are the backup plan, always has been. Never speak to your wife again. Divorce her, and be done with her. If she does something to herself that is on her not you. As far as your daughter? You will
Need to do want you can to legally protect her to keep
Her as your daughter. Get the divorce, but you need to also make this public op, and ensure you don’t pay child support, and get full custody. Build up your support system. You need it and you need to see a psychologist also.
You’re her backup plan, nothing more, nothing less.
Never set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm.
Giving her false hope that things might work out won’t help the situation. You need to protect your daughter and yourself from her. When feeling weak, Keep saying to yourself, “I deserve happiness. I deserve better.”
Divorce use the fact she’s in a mental hospital to get full custody. Asap.
She is your daughter in ever way that counts, and you are the only father she wants, hold on to that thought in the coming days because after reading your post you’re going to need it.
You need to end the charade bro, everything was a lie and built on a lies after lies…
She keeps suckering you back in and you need to cut the cord now, the “mental breakdown” ain’t gonna work this time…
Your daughter is your #1 priority now, blood or no blood, she is yours…
I am not reading all of this dude PLEASE for the love of god GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE?????? How have you even put up with this relationship for so long!!!!!
Most of the advice you need is going to come from your lawyer. I would get a separation and custody order in place ASAP because it may not be safe for your wife to be at home or be alone with your child. And she is your child. Maybe not biologically, but in every way that counts, you’re it. And you are the only stable parent she’s got.
My guess is that eventually you will divorce, but you don’t have to make that decision right this second. What you need to figure out right this second is who lives where and under what circumstances while your wife works on becoming stable. Just because she gets released from the hospital, doesn’t mean she’s safe or stable.
Your next steps will involve getting counseling for yourself and possibly your daughter as you navigate this huge betrayal and life change. You deserve to process this and be as sad and angry as you are, but your kid also deserves a stable home– so you gotta have a place to take those feelings. You’ll tell her in a way that makes sense for her age and the story will evolve as she gets older. Eventually she’ll know everything, but right now, she’s 8. She’s not ready for more than the bare bones and nothing about how you aren’t her bio dad yet.
Her mental health is hers and hers alone.
You need to divorce and get custody.
Document EVERYTHING that your wife has been doing.
You don’t need to have a conversation with him.. that will only complicate things and possibly brings an unstable man into the daughter’s life at a time she least needs that. You are legally her father, getting custody from the mother considering she was picked up by the police and in a hospital shouldn’t be an issue unless you live in a place where men are royally effed. First things first, stay stable for your daughter and talk to a lawyer asap about the custody.
As all the other advise here, your marriage is done and over. Your daughter is the priority now. I’m guessing you want to keep her.
An attorney will advise if you have any case for fraud against the AP as he most assuredly knew he had a daughter.
I personally would go scorched earth against everyone I could.
Best of luck
Keep her in the psych ward while the divorce proceeds.
You need to consult the lawyer and a family lawyer NOW. This is going to be messy. Document her behavior and file right now. She may or not get better. You cannot wait for the off chance that she might. And tbh even without the addiction and mental health issues she cheated and lied for over 10 years. There’s no going back from that
If you intend to still be a dad you need to insure you can do that. Because the bio dad knows you want to establish custody asap.
I know that your world is crashing around on you right now but you need to accept some very hard facts:
1. Your wife “settled” for your marriage because her ex wouldn’t commit.
2. You have been her safety net for all this time but not her first choice. If her ex asked to be together she would not hesitate to leave you.
3. All of these problems likely stem from her bottling up everything over the years (and is recently coming to a head with her ex re-entering your lives).
Not trying to dog pile on to your misery but you’re going to have to suck it up in the short term and immediately take action to prevent further fallout. Consult with an attorney and get the divorce process filed. Record every interaction from here on out. You need to start establishing a clear and concise claim that your (ex)wife is unfit to be a parent. It really depends on the state/country’s jurisdiction (hence the lawyer) but given her psychotic breaks and police being called you have something to go on.
I’m sorry you’re going through this man, I really am, and you don’t deserve it at all. Focus on you and your daughter, get an action plan in place, and work on getting this toxic person out of your life as quickly as you can (strike while the iron is hot). Then you can focus on recovery for you and your daughter.
Making decisions based solely on someone else’s feelings, usually leads to unhappiness. Why not let it sit and think about the future you see for yourself. Is she there? Is your daughter? Are you happy? People do things that are seen as horrible and it’s up to each individual to decide what and how much they want to put up with. Just remember all feelings are temporary and will pass eventually. Ride the wave and think things through. Feel better. You sound like a great person.
Paternity fraud should be criminal
File for divorce and notify her while she’s in the hospital, your daughter is legally yours , move your wife into an apartment so she has a place to go after the hospital. Keep you and your daughter safe! Let your attorney do the rest! You will get through this and you will like your freedom and you will see just how toxic and narcissistic your wife is and has been, also while she’s in the hospital get custody of your daughter and think about a protection order against your wife. Good luck to you
Let me be honest, this I would never forgive.
Obviously, therapy for you and *your* daughter. Because SHE IS YOURS. Biology is not only what makes a parent.
The best time for you to file for divorce is while she is committed, because that way your ex-wife has a team of professionals to teach her to cope, and to help gear an exit plan for when she leaves. Just know that you are not responsible for your ex-wife’s mental health and don’t owe her any support or care. Do not take responsibility for her when she gets out.
That woman is a monster. She’ll never love you. Take your daughter in law and leave her behind. Post haste. Find another woman who’ll give your daughter in law a sibling with your help
My eyes were filled with tears while reading your post OP. How could a good guy like you get entangled to such pain and drama? I’m sorry to say but your wife didn’t love you in the first place. She used you to raise her daughter from another man. Many are saying it’s paternity fraud and it’s true. It’s better to raise your daughter alone because from your post, I believe your wife has some hidden resentment against your daughter. She is your daughter legally and you’re a good man choosing to be a better parent than abandoning her. Be free from your wife and best of luck.
This is exactly why we shouldn’t demonize men for wanting to get a paternity test for peace of mind.
You have to divorce this women. It never be the same.
I don’t think he’ll have to fight bio dad for rights to his daughter. The guy sounds useless. He’s not gonna step up. Get your daughter, divorce your wife. And I’m so sorry
Oof. 8 years of lies. The biggest and most exciting experience of someone’s life: a total sham.
Paternity fraud should come with jail time as aside from murder its basically the worst thing you can do to a man.
My condolences.
I stop reading when you said “she said she would check herself into a mental hospital if i filed for divorce” because the next line wasn’t “so i did”.
Buddy, you describe a horrible person that has cheated you and lied to you. Why the fuck wouldn’t you divorce her?
Biological or not, birthing is nothing compared to raising a loving child.