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firenze posted 7/4/2019 20:50 PM

LosferWords, I don't know much of anything about your story but I'm sorry for what you've been put through. My exWW was already pregnant with her AP's child when she told me she wanted a divorce, and once I found out about the pregnancy it was my primary motivation for getting the divorce done ASAP. I didn't want to deal with California's bullshit.

Even now, the idea that my exWW was carrying another man's child when she was still married to me makes me sick. Had I raised that child as my own and found out years later that he wasn't mine, I don't know what I'd do. Don't even want to think about it.

Butforthegrace posted 7/4/2019 20:58 PM

There are two legal principles at play here:

1. Somebody has to provide support for a child. The law presumes that the first and best option is the parent(s).

2. In general, it's better for society to put an end to legal disputes. This concept is referred to as "statute of limitations". At some point, legal rights die. This way, courts aren't cluttered with disputes involving facts that occurred long ago, where witnesses may be gone, or dead, or have lost their memories, etc.

Thus, in the case of false paternity, a married man whose wife has a baby is presumed to be the father. He has a limited window to prove otherwise. If that time period passes, he is the legal father no matter what.

Justsomeguy posted 7/5/2019 00:17 AM

Wiw. What a shitstorm. Cheaters are super gross!

JustSayNC posted 7/5/2019 09:09 AM

This is why I haven't paternity tested my kids. They're probably mine, but if they're not, what good would it do to know that? I'd still be financially responsible for raising them, and it would just damage our relationship. I prefer to live with the slight doubt rather than risk upending our bond for no purpose.

I never, ever imagined I'd have to be thinking through this kind of decision tree. Cheater really do suck.

cocoplus5nuts posted 7/5/2019 19:07 PM

Wow! I did not know all of this about paternity. I knew that the husband is automatically considered the legal father unless proven otherwise. My oldest son recently had to go through this. Luckily for him, his wife was honest about the paternity. The DNA test was just a formality.

I get that the state wants to ensure that someone other than it provides for the child if at all possible. It's sad to think that men would need to get paternity tests at birth, but I understand feeling the need for that. Marriage is supposed to be what ensures the man (husband) is the father of his wife's children. Obviously, that has never actually worked.

Rideitout posted 7/6/2019 04:39 AM

The numbers I've read say, throughout history, it's 1-3% of men that fall into this category (unknowingly raising a child that's not theirs, not just raising another man's child, that's a much higher number).

However, there's something really interesting in those numbers. That rate hasn't changed very much. Which is shocking, because, well, having an A before the pill (and all the other BC methods we have today) was far more likely to result in a pregnancy than it is with our modern sterilization techniques. The author's conclusion:

Scientists are unsure why more women weren’t getting pregnant with other men’s babies. It could be that the rate of adultery was much lower in the past or that older methods of either birth control and/or pregnancy termination were more effective than previously thought.

I'm going with "option 1" for 100 Alex. Remove the penalties for doing something and add in some radicalized gender politics... And this is what you get. A whole lot more of the undesirable behavior.

cocoplus5nuts posted 7/6/2019 13:04 PM

Women have known how to prevent and terminate pregnancies without modern medicine for a very long time. It's not that difficult to figure out your fertility cycle and act accordingly.

Rideitout posted 7/6/2019 13:20 PM

Women have known how to prevent and terminate pregnancies without modern medicine for a very long time. It's not that difficult to figure out your fertility cycle and act accordingly.

You think that it was abortions performed solo? I guess it could be, but, man, that's hard core! Yes, we've known how to prevent pregnancy for a very long time, but our methods have become shockingly more effective. The rhythm method has a failure rate of about 25% a year. That's really, really poor; so poor, in fact, that it's not a whole lot better than just rolling the dice. Also, it's unlikely that's a reasonable explanation because research tells us the opposite, women cheat more during their fertile times (they are more receptive to sex, kind of makes sense when you think about it), not less.

Nope, I don't believe there was as much female cheating in the past, I really don't. Remove the consequences for something (unwanted pregnancy, divorce for cause, etc) and you get more of that behavior. Change the narrative from "you're a POS and a s**t" to "you go girl" and you get even more of that behavior. Frankly, the "Mad Men" era (and likely most eras before it, but that was the "last hurrah") shows us this pretty clearly. And yes, of course, all those cheating men were cheating with women. Just not married women, there was a lot more "sharing" of AP's back then, at least that's the way it seems to me. And there's still some of that today, the guys at work find out someone is having an A, it's like blood in the water. She's an easy target, she's already crossed that line. Not a lot of issue "sharing APs" in male groups that I've been a party too. Shoot, there can't be, I mean, by default, you're sharing that person with their H/W, right? Why not share them with your buddies too...

keptmyword posted 7/6/2019 15:41 PM

The guy in this story is a self centered prick.

No, he's devastated, hurt, lost, and in a world of confusion and pain.

He had had one of the most evil crimes on earth committed on him.

There is no greater fraud or deceit than this.

His "controlled rage" is commendable.

His wife should be subject to civil and punitive damages into millions of dollars.

And, she should be imprisoned for doing something so sinister and evil.

This boy has a different father and she knew all along that there was at minimum, the possibility and it was her responsibility to TELL HIM.

This woman knowingly kept this child hidden from his biological father - I would call this a form of kidnapping.

She is solely responsible for causing tremendous pain and trauma to an innocent child and an innocent man.

"Not knowing for sure" IS NOT an excuse - at all.

Leave the man to raise this child and lock her up for a long, long time.

[This message edited by keptmyword at 3:44 PM, July 6th (Saturday)]

LostHope8008 posted 7/6/2019 16:26 PM

The guy in this story is a self centered prick.

I disagree also. I know my younger son (now 22) is not mine. He was a product of my first wife’s A and he is now being raised by my stepbrother, whom I know is his biological dad. I did pay CS for about 9 years, but that ended when they moved out out of state. He’s not my son, and I haven’t considered him my son in more than a decade. Had things have turned out differently, I would have established paternity and proved he wasn’t mine. I would never raise another man’s kid. I agree 100% of what this guy is going through in the OP’s article.