Dear Sazon and Sad Wife,
I found this site today out of desperation and an enormous amount of inner turmoil. I too am married to a man who cheated and had a child with the other woman. I didn't even find out about it until the child was almost 9 years old. He concealed it from me while he paid child support, visited the child, and had regular correspondence with the other woman. I feel, like both of you, that no one can possibly understand until they have experienced it. The amount of betrayal, mistrust, hurt, etc is overpowering. I should ba embarrassed to say this, but it has now been 8 years since I found out, and we are still together. He has had minimal contact with the child, who is now 17. I want to tell both of you, though, that unless you can really forgive and deal with, really deal with, the other child, you should think very hard before staying. The other child was born the year between my son and daughter, so he had one child with me, a second child with me in 1990, a child with her, and another child with me in 1992. He got her pregnant when our son was 1 month old. The kicker is that she told me, after I finally found out their secret, that she thought she was pregnant again by him when the other child was nine months. I have always had a very hard time understanding him still being intimate with her after the horror of getting her pregnant the first time and hiding it from me. I have tried to just not think about things over the years, and ignore things like that, but it has taken it's toll on me. My husband is a very good provider and a wonderful man in a lot of ways, but I wonder if there isn't some side to him that I really don't understand. Both of my daughter's, who know about the situation, recently told me that while they love their dad completely, as a dad, that he manipulates me, and that I deserve better than I get from him. Every time the issue of the other child comes up, as it will for the rest of his and your life, if you are with him, I feel so hurt and betrayed all over again. I have finally begun to be realistic with myself, that I will never be able to deal with it and that it will always be a huge obstacle between us. We have been married almost 26 years, and it is very scary for me to think of being on my own. But, I do not want to continue to be hurt by this over and over for the rest of my life. I thought a lot of reason for staying was for our kids, but they have now let me know that they don't believe I should stay. I am so lost right now, because I think I know what I need to do, if I am ever to be completely close to someone again and be happy, but I don't even know where to start. I am writing this to try to give myself some clarity, but also to tell you both, that 8 years later, I am still feeling mistrust, betrayal and insecurity. Don't try to just ignore and not think about it, because it will come up again and again. I am a very good person, am told by men that I am sexy, beautiful, sweet, funny... the ideal woman... but, all I ever wanted was a perfect family, and amazingly enough, it was my daughter who told me recently that "mom, no matter how much you want things to be "ideal", they never will be!! Make sure you do what is right for you, because you deserve to be happy!
