It Just Might Not Be Your Baby

I’m still active as I can be on Talk About Marriage. I’ve been commenting on a thread about a pregnant wife leaving her husband suddenly… and my head hurts from banging my head on the wall with him…

If she gets pregnant and has a complete personality change and now hates you for no reason… it just might not be your baby.

If she doesn’t tell you about the pregnancy until the third month… it just might not be your baby.

If you go to her medical appointments to check up on the baby, and she demands you stay in the waiting room at the doctor’s office… it just might not be your baby.

If you take time off work to go to her medical appointment to check up on the baby, and she reschedules it without telling you, to a time when you can’t go… it just might not be your baby.

If you ask for advice on an online forum, about what to do with your pregnant wife filing for divorce, and six people in the first ten replies tell you that it might not be your baby… it just might not be your baby.

If she wasn’t using birth control because you were trying for a baby, but you were working endless double shifts… it just might not be your baby.

If she told you her greatest fear was raising a baby alone, and she then files for divorce while pregnant… it just might not be your baby.

If she tells you that she had a miscarriage and lost the baby, and that was a lie… it just might not be your baby.

If her entire family was horrified at the idea of you divorcing, and then suddenly all changed their mind about it like a school of fish changing direction… it just might not be your baby.

If every single one of these things apply to your situation…

… I’m so sorry.

Not only is it not your baby, the father of the baby probably is sufficiently different in appearance from you to be blindingly obvious. There won’t need to be a paternity test for everyone in the delivery room to know it isn’t yours. As cruel and confusing as her behavior is now, she is trying to avert the horror of that moment for both of you.

Furthermore, both her and her family believe that you will become unsafe when you discover the truth. Which is a very likely possibility – that is an extreme set of things to process and your anger is completely justified – but you can also find yourself spending a goodly portion of your life behind bars for something you did in a few moments of incoherent anger. Her family know the truth and are shielding her from you.

There’s three things you need to do now.

(1) Go to your own family and friends. Be physically in the same room with them. Tell them the story and let yourself have the emotional cascade that is coming. It’s completely normal to become totally unhinged because of  this most terrible betrayal. You need to be in a safe place and supported when it happens.

(2) Lawyer up. If by some miracle the baby is yours, or you want to reconcile or whatever, you can always turn the lawyers off later and work it out. However if you absolutely do not want to work it out, and you don’t lawyer up now, later on you may not be able to get yourself out of paying 18 years of child support for her cheating on you.

(3) Be determined to work this situation through to the best after the fact outcome you can for yourself. As I have said, the anger is justified. But at some point you will have to work it through and forgive… not for her benefit, but for yours. I’m not saying forget either… I’m saying find a way to come through this stronger for the experience. Which I know is vastly easier for me to write as a suggestion, than for you to do as a reality.

Unfortunately… the original poster of this question has not returned to the forum for a few days. So this post is really just for me. I fear he has become… unsafe.