Advice for a friend

[Ierian]

I normally would never put someone's business out there but since none of you know me or my friend I believe it would be safe. I am trying to help a friend get thru a tough choice and event that has really destroyed him so far and I feel I can't or any of our friends can provide him with any honest advice since its our friend and like most will always have mixed emotions and try to protect our friends.

So the deal is he was with this girls for almost 3 years and they had a child together and I have never seen him in my life be so happy and love this boy. I never thought he would be the father type person but anyways he just found out that when he was out of town his girl friend had a affair on him with her boss and he was the real father and she never told him till recently and the child is 9 month olds if that gives you an idea of the bond he has with the child. So it turns out the guy who is the father is also married with children and to protect his marriage he is not stepping forward with any responsibility for the child.

I am really at a lost for what to say that would help him make a more clear decision and he doesn't exactly know what to do.
I know myself and our friends are think he should walk away from all of this and to protect himself down the road is to get it all erased and move on with life. However he is not thinking this and feels he owes it to that child to be the father figure in his life and to forgive her and continue and raise the child himself. So my question really is what would you do if you where in that position. I am looking for advice from outside of our group of friends.

[Drem]

go to the real father's house w/ baby's blood test and go "YOU RUINED MY FUCKING LIFE" or something
after that it'll ruin his, too

then walk away

don't tell him to walk away first.... especially when there are a lot of ways he can take the situation into his hands. idiot women like this girl he's seeing and the idiot men they see do not deserve to get away with things like that. especially after she lets him raise it for 9 months before she tell him it's not his. that's beyond fucked up to me.

if he walks away and takes all this in the ass he'll just feel robbed of three years and cold to every woman he meets after

[Harrison]

Lol Diekan-style

[Maeya]

That is pretty tricky.

Does he feel like he's going to marry this girl? He shouldn't stay in the picture just because he feels an obligation to provide a 'father figure'. It will only make him feel like he's tied to the situation and feel responsible for everything that happens down the road, AND it gives her a hook to ask him for money and favors. Additionally, if he does finally convince himself to leave once he can't stand her anymore, it will just make it that much more difficult to part with the child, who will be old enough to understand that something is wrong, but not what, or why. Additionally if he really doesn't see a future with her but tries to force one, it can result in an unhappy situation for the child - lots of arguing, and tense situations in an unhappy home. And then the divorce later on will be messy and cruel, and he'll probably never be allowed to see the kid again, since it's not really his.


If he can forgive her for the affair (I assume she's been faithful other than this once?) and sees a future with her, then he should definitely try to stick it out. If they've had 3 good years and he loves the child, and can trust her to remain faithful in the future, then he could have a very happy life with them, despite the child not being his flesh & blood.

So really, from my point of view, it all boils down to his relationship with her.

[Haylo]

Does the "real" father acknowledge the child? Because depending upon what state he's in, he may not have a choice on whether or not to walk away. Many states have what is called a "bastard" law. You can not change a birth certificate in a manner that would declare a child a bastard. So if he's already on the BC and he signed it, unless the birth father says hey i'm the dad, and assumes responsibility, he would still be legally responsible for that child. So he had better maintain some sort of amicable relationship with the chick and make sure he has good custody benefits. It would suck for him to be stuck paying child support for a child that has animosity for him and one he does not see or have a relationship with.

[Drem]

no he doesn't acknowledge it

read the post

and how can a girl cheat on someone and not only not tell him soon after the fact to either end it or repair it, but actually grow a goddamn child in your stomach from the guy you slept with and then watch your 3 yrs boyfriend raise it for 9 months thinking it's his the whole time and then one day decide to tell him "um honey.... the baby is actually my boss'... we had a little thing on a business trip. no big deal, right?"

give me a break. the girl should get hit by a car for each part of what she did

that's a horrible situation and i'm really sorry for your friend. really the only thing i think to do is let him figure it out himself. takes time to come to a smart decision about something like this... but personally i would get blood tests to prove i'm not the father if i were your friend. just in lieu of any legal problems that are bound to come down the road since we're dealing with obviously a very insane woman and a very shitty situation... might as well get the defense on lockdown

[10sun]

Does he care who fathered the child?

Who told him that he wasn't the father?

To forsake the child because of his parent's mistakes is wrong. Your friend should file for custody and then go after the real father & mother for child support.

[Ierian]

I guess the situation is that the real father doesn't want to accept it because of the possible lost of current family and then having to pay child support on both sides. She had her doubt for a long time and thought she could live with it but I guess not. The wierd thing about it is that she got the paternity test done before she told him so obviously she was making sure it was not his before being honest. I think its a cowardly way of doing it and it questions her honesty more than anything.

I have really stayed out of the advice part until I find more out of the story. My views on relationship and trust is alot more different since I believe once its broken there is not a way to ever truly fix it and would always be a tool for hurting the other individual to the point of her leaving for good. It's so sad that the choices people make in life have a way of destroying things that matter the most.

[Naethyn]

I'd leave the situation entirely. It will only get worse.

[Martrae]

Setting aside all the questions about the child.....does he intend to stay with this girl? He needs to think about that first and NOT let his feelings for the baby color it.

[Sithos]

Staying for the child although a noble idea is the worst thing he can do. The sting of being cheated on and raising a child that is not his will gnaw away on him and will eventually turn him bitter. This will cause arguments, screaming/yelling etc and this young child will be caught in it during his formative years.

How old is your friend and his GF? Who is listed on the birth certificate as the father? Has a paternity test been done? How old is the man she cheated on him with (is she like 16 and the boss was 35 or something?)

If your friend is listed on the birth certificate as the father and he has no refuting evidence to the contrary his cheating GF can make him pay child support. So have your friend insist on a paternity test to either prove/disprove he is the father. That is the absolute first step. If they don't work out down the road (he leaves her or she leaves him for whatever reasons) then your friend will be liable to pay if she should choose to go that route.

So after the paternity test comes back he has some choices to make. ATM it seems they are just going off her word (he thought he was the father up until a short bit ago, so there is a small chance he could be the biological father). If he is the biological father then no matter what he will be held responsible for the financial well being of the child. We now have the "I am the father but my GF cheated on me" scenario.

If it's shown he is not the father then tell your friend to hightail it. It won't be easy due to his attachment to the child but in the long run it'll save some grief on everyone part, including the child. This is his absolute best option should the test show he is not the father. He can still maintain a relationship with the boy should he choose but at the same time keep distance between all concerned.

If he is bound and determined to stick it out no matter the consequences then he has a few routes he can take. He can stay the course as is with no support from the biological father. He can insist that the biological father pay support either out in the open (Yay drama) or under the table so as to avoid any unpleasant stuff. Both these options give him an out should the time come.

Edit: Just noticed that you posted about the paternity test already having been done and it showed your friend is not the father.

As I said earlier he should leave. The quicker he does the better off everyone will be. It'll be hard, no doubt but in all honesty if your friend is going to stay with a girl who cheated on him,had a child with another man and let your buddy think until recently that he was the father, then your friend gets what he deserves. He has to pull his balls out of his purse. The situation will likely only get worse as time goes on,making it harder for everyone involved. I know from his perspective it's not as cut and dried but if he sticks around the chances are good that he and the child will suffer for it. If he is worried that she won't be able to support the child without his help then he can work towards having the biological father pay support. All it takes is one phone call to the right folks to get the ball rolling. Why should your buddy have to possibly pay or even feel guilty and the other guy gets off (in more ways than one!!)

[Gypsiyee]

The other question I would ask is what type of mother this girl is to the child if she can't even keep it in her pants. Judges almost always lean towards the side of the mother unless she's unfit. Does she love the child? Would she make a good single mother? Does she want to be a single mother or is she trying to come up with an excuse to get out of motherhood by causing conflict?

It's easy for an outsider, especially one who's never had a child, to say walk away from it - for people who form a bond like that with a child, it's generally not an option to them to just x the child out of their life.

No matter how you slice it, I think he needs to be out of the relationship with the mother - she's clearly not someone he, or anyone for that matter, needs to be with. However, after that part is done, it needs to be determined where the child needs to go. The biological father obviously isn't an option, though he will need to be involved in the case so he can go ahead and forget about the whole 'protect my marriage' bs.

If the mother is a good mother and is keen on being a single mother, well it might be in the child's best interest for her to raise the child on her own before anymore damage is done and let your friend grieve in his own time. First and foremost is obviously going to be the best interest of the child. If she's not a good mother, it'll depend on how the case goes but I think your friend would have a good defense in gaining custody if he would like it.

If it's his desire to stay in the child's life, it needs to go to court - bottom line. If he feels it's better for the baby to not have him in his life, then he needs to step out of it now while the child's at an age that it won't remember down the road the mess that this woman has made.

[Eziekial]

Have the Birth Certificate changed to reflect it. Sooner or later this will end up in court and that is a legal document that needs to reflect the truth. Not only for your friend but for the baby.

[Ierian]

i have been talking to him all day which has interfered with my work but he is my best friend forever and I truly feel sorry for him and want to see the best come of this awful thing. I have finally got him to tell me everything and to be more open about how this girl is. I have finally gave him my advice and that is to get this fixed asap and to walk away forever and never look back.

It turns out that she has 2 other kids and both are from different fathers. She has done this before with her ex-husband but was her boyfriend at the time. She got mad at him and had a one nighter which end in her getting pregnant by another guy. However fortunately for her the boyfriend excepted the kid and raised him. This was his thinking also but after telling him he is stupid and this might have been her true intentions into keeping him was to let him get attached to the child and he would do the same thing. After all it work once right. I just hope he does it because it will only bring him pain later on if it doesn't work out.

This is very scary was trying to do some research for him and found this regarding california law but I guess it has been revised so there is hope for him.

When Larry Nicholson went to court after receiving a child support order, he knew something wasn't right.

"I looked at the child," he says. "The child is white. I'm black. Now I'm not an expert in genetics, but I knew something had to be wrong."

It sounds like an easy problem which any reasonable judge would remedy with one pound of the gavel, right?

"I got a DNA test that excluded me as the father," Nicholson says. "The judge refused to consider the DNA evidence--not to mention the obvious evidence right in front of him--and made a child support order. He said that the time period for challenges to paternity had run out. But nobody had ever served me--I knew nothing about it until I got a bill saying that I owed support and that I was $75,000 in arrears. If I had known, I would have contested it in a second."

Nicholson now pays over 40% of his take home pay in child support and arrearages, and will be paying for the next 13 years. Meanwhile he has a wife and a daughter of his own to support.

[10sun]

To put it simply, I highly doubt that two one night stands resulted in pregnancies in both situations.

The woman is sleaze.

[Martrae]

Yeah, run....run far away. And make sure the birth certificate doesn't have him listed as father.

[Drem]

bingo i was right

make him get blood test for proof immediately

[Sithos]

Knowing how she is my advice to him is to run and get away as far and as fast as possible. Get his name removed from any and all certificates. If he is truly worried about the child call the local child welfare group (not sure what they are called in the states, here they are called Childrens Aid Society) and explain the situation. Sadly I think he has no legal rights to involve himself (that I know of) with the child that he thought was his should he leave, although someone better versed in this situation may know different. He did after all provide for the child during his first 9 months and raised it as his own. Not sure if that will count for much if anything at all.

Having a one night stand to "get back" at one of her ex-boyfriend shows where her priorities are. Have your buddy remove himself from the situation asap. Or he will end up getting cheated on again and again.

[Maeya]

Yeah - tell him to leave. I hate women like that.

[Ierian]

Now here is where I am better at doing and that is getting even. I think that people who father kids and if even by mistake should not have the right to say its not my problem you take care of it and just walk away as if its not important or even to throw away something you help create. If he gets a copy of this paternity test I wonder if it will list the true fathers name and I hope it list addresses. But if not anyone know how to track down a persons address. I believe his wife should have every right to know. But thats just me. However I think people should take some responsibilties in a child wether is secretly paying support or fessing up to it. I do not think they should get away with and leave one person to bear the responsibilities even if she is a horrible person.

[Maeya]

Now here is where I am better at doing and that is getting even. I think that people who father kids and if even by mistake should not have the right to say its not my problem you take care of it and just walk away as if its not important or even to throw away something you help create. If he gets a copy of this paternity test I wonder if it will list the true fathers name and I hope it list addresses. But if not anyone know how to track down a persons address. I believe his wife should have every right to know. But thats just me. However I think people should take some responsibilties in a child wether is secretly paying support or fessing up to it. I do not think they should get away with and leave one person to bear the responsibilities even if she is a horrible person.

Uhm, well having never been in this situation, I can't say for sure, but I don't think that paternity tests will say "Oh according to the results, your father is ACTUALLY Mr. Jim Reynolds, who lives at 125 La Cholla Blvd, Tucson, AZ 85741". I think it compares the DNA to your baby with the DNA of the supposed father and will give a yes or no as to if THAT MAN is the father. I don't know that they run the sample against DNA files to see if it comes up with a match or not, but even if they did - it'd still be dependent on him having a sample in their files to match it against.

So don't' get your hopes up is all I'm saying.

[Martrae]

She must have just gotten a sample of your friend's DNA (from a toothbrush or something) and sent it in along with the baby's to see if they were a match. When it came back negative she knew it wasn't his. It won't say who the actual father is.

[Drem]

you guys are really good at repeating each other

[Maeya]

Great minds and all that, right Martrae?

[Drem]

^^