My husband and I have 3 children together. He cheated on me prior to us getting married and I felt he was truly sorry. Well now I find out not only has he been cheating, but the woman is pregnant. She does not want to keep it, but what do I do after that? Do I stick it out again or do I file for divorce. I am a stay at home mom. He pays for everything. However, the house is mine and the car is mine. Help please.
Hurt Wife
Editor's Note: This is outside our normal scope of requests but some of you might have some good advice.
Ann Landers always says to see if you will be better off without him or with with him. I know this is not much help, but I used this advice about making many decisions. After much though and prayer, it helps.
(03/26/2005)
By Judy
You have a lot of thinking to do. First you need to sit down and have a very serious talk with him. Do you know why he did this? Could you forgive him and not hold it against him? Could you ever trust him again? If you said no to any of these then I believe your marriage will not work. This is so disrespectful.
Have you both thought of a marriage counselor? Women who are mothers work too hard to have to deal with this. How does he feel and act about this situation? The signs will be there and please do not ignore them. Personally I could not deal with this. There is no excuse. How does he feel about the other women getting rid of his child? How do you feel if he wanted to keep the baby? Would you treat the baby differently because of what happened? Just remember its not the baby's fault.
Financially this is up to you. Do you want to go back to work? Are you able to be independent? Please as a friend do not take disrespect from you spouse, you are a special lady and special ladies needs to be treated with respect. Is he proud of you? Does he do things with you? You see, there are so many questions you both need answered before you can make a decision. I hope and pray you can fix this problem. Good luck and I hope I helped. "Been there". (03/26/2005)
By christine
My heart goes out to you and I have been through it as well. The first thing I did was tell God I loved Him and then I asked Him every day to help me. I asked for help to emotionally survive it, financial help and guidance with my child. I had to give up everything to leave, my home, my vehicle, my security and God gave it back 100 times. I own my home, my child lives with me and God gave us peace of mind. Tell God about it. (03/26/2005)
By Anonymous
Once a cheater, always a cheater, My dad cheated on my mom forever until he was in he 70's. She took it, cause he paid all the bills, but she never slept with him in the same bed! Myself I would have told him to get out of my life. Only you can decide what you want or should do! Do you have parents, a sister or brother that would help you get started without him? Since the house and car are yours you have half the battle won! Men are like this and once they start cheating they will NEVER stop. Only you can stop him by cheating on you, and that is to do what you have to do. (03/26/2005)
By Rosa
There are two important things not mentioned here. What do you want to do? Also what is your husband saying he will do. I am assuming you have confronted him and discussed this before you posted your message. If you believe your marriage is worth saving you need counseling, alone so you can come to terms with this repeated betrayal and put it behind you and with your husband to enable him to sort out his cheating ways and truly commit to your marriage.
If you believe you will never be able to/want to forgive him, he denies a problem, or other areas of your marriage are unsatisfactory then the decision becomes reduced to how will you survive without him. You need legal advice re: divorce and child support. You need advice on returning to work or what benefits you may be entitled to to support yourself and your children. I would research these options now so you are fully prepared if an attempt to salvage the marriage is unsuccessful. You also need the support of friends and family so you can move on.
One caution I want to stress, although I'm sure you know this already, regardless of your husband's behaviour he is still the childrens' father and, depending on their ages, there are many ways you can explain the marriage breakup without allotting blame. Setting up conflict within the children by branding the person they love as a cheat and liar is not necessary and will add to their distress at the break up.
Regards.
(03/26/2005)
By Jo Bodey
I have always felt that cheaters should never be forgiven, once a cheater, etc. But I recently found out that my grandfather cheated on my grandmother when she was pregnant with their third child, and got the other woman pregnant as well. The other woman decided to have her child, as of course did my grandmother. My grandparents stayed together and had a fourth child. The illegitimate child does not know who her real father is. My grandmother made her decision and stuck with it, although she suffered mentally and was admitted to hospital for a while. I am not sure I would have made the same decision at the time, but last year I was present at their 50th wedding anniversary with their four children and spouses (none divorced) and 12 grandchildren. And they are still deeply in love. There might be hope for you. Good luck. (03/27/2005)
By Lizzie
There are a lot of things to think about in a situation like this. The advice given you on
this site has much good information. But let me bring up something different that applies
in these type of problems. Get yourself to a doctor to be checked for sexually transmitted
diseases right away. There's no other way to know whether or not your health has been imperiled. And there may be more than this one woman involved. With STDs so wide spread
through out the country, you need to consider that in making your decision on leaving or
staying. If you're not exposed now, you could be in the future because leopards usually don't
change their spots. Good luck.
(03/27/2005)
By Jeane
My heart goes out to you and your family. Men want a 'mom' at home taking care of them and the house and a 'girlfriend' out there to play around with free of the daily struggles. If you are willing to play that 'role' with him, so be it, if not then things need to change.
Divorce isn't always the tragedy, sometimes the getting married in the first place is. Some people simply shouldn't have gotten married in the first place and it sounds like you two may be one of those couples. When you say the other woman doesn't want to keep her baby, that raises a lot of questions; is she planning on an abortion? Is she married with children and will be willing to give up motherhood with this child? Does she plan on giving it up for adoption? Does she plan on your husband raising it? On you and your husband raising it? How old are your children, how will they feel about losing a half-sibling to abortion/adoption? What if she changes her mind, decides to keep it, then your husband being responsible for child-support for the next 18 years? Have you ever met this woman? Had a heart-to
-heart talk with her? She may be suffering too.
Blessings to you and yours.
(03/28/2005)
By DarWeen in Ga, USA
Read Dr. Phil McGraw's "Relationship Rescue", it will help you tremendously to figure out if the relationship is worth saving, or not. Good luck to you. (03/29/2005)
By Suzie
You need a lawyer! You can get a free or low cost ($25-50) referral from your county's Bar Association. You can also call your county's Domestic Relations. (06/30/2005)
By Peach
I wonder about this "staying together for the sake of the children". After my divorce, I realized that the marriage had hurt my children so much more than the divorce did. They will have to live for the rest of their lives with the negative consequences of the marriage. (09/22/2006)
By Anonymous
This is not about the money, the comfort, security or possessions. It's about "trust". I've experienced cheating once and stayed, but only because I knew that there was the potential to trust again. It was a long road with counseling and lots of communication. If there is no hope of trusting your husband then it's not a marriage worth staying in. Being a single mom is hard, but living with an untrustworthy partner is worse. You're in my prayers and thoughts.
Smitty (05/24/2009)
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