I had a brief relationship with a man 18 years older than me while living out of state. He led me to believe he was only 10 years older, or else I wouldn't have dated him. Despite using precautions, I became pregnant. I moved back home without ever telling him because I was so upset because he lied about his age and think he is too old for me. He seems like a decent person and has never been married and has no other children. He always told me he wants children someday.
I am now in a relationship with a wonderful man who loves me and my child very much. I do not need financial help from the biological dad. My child is 11 months old. If I tell the dad I don't want to wait too long. I'm not sure to tell him, since we probably won't have a relationship.

What should I do?

Chances are, he will know one day. Either your child will want to know his/her biological father or you will feel compelled to tell your child the truth. It's a question of when.

Your first consideration should be your child's well being, and your second should be your ability with this loving man to have a life parenting together, and third, the father's rights as a human being, to know his child.

You say that if you tell him you don't want to wait too long. While he deserves to know that he is a father, and your child might never know her DNA father if you wait too long and he dies, you need to decide if you want him to be part of the care-and-influence circle for your child. It's you raising this child, and you are in the position of having a choice as to whether he gets involved. He might choose not to, but right now the choice is yours.

This might be a moral question for some people, but there can be morally righteous arguments for both telling him and not telling him. Try to make it as practical decision as possible: What will make it easy for you to sleep well every night, without being compromised? Are you prepared to have conflict with him about your child? How old will he be when your child graduates from college? Nothing lofty, just asking what you want to live with.


This is a tough one. Take your time. Include your wonderful man. If you make a mistake, just correct it; no self-punishment. No self-doubt. Be a good Mom.

Tao

Thank you for your intelligent and thoughtful answer. I will discuss it with my guy and we will decide together.

triumph100

While the child you have may have been conceived with a man you do not wish to have a relationship with, the father deserves to have a relationship, if he chooses, with his son.

This is not your decision to make, whether to tell him. The child exists, and the father knows nothing of his existence, and that is something that has to be corrected.

While it may be more convenient for you to deny your son a relationship with his father, and keeping this secret may prevent a lot of upset (or not), you have a responsibility to tell the father that he has produced a son.

We aren't talking about hiding property here, this is a human being. You are denying him a possible loving relationship with his father, who certainly deserves one, if he so chooses.

You can't 'script' a better father for him, you can't replace his father, you can't pretend that he doesn't exist.

While your husband may very well be an excellent father, and that is a wonderful thing, don't get me wrong here, he is not that child's father!

I hope that your son will have the benefit of two fathers who love him, as well as an extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles, neices, and nephews. It is possibly not just the father you are denying here, but his family as well.

It is, in my opinion, morally wrong, to deny a person the truth about such a basic fact of their life, regardless of how old they may be.

I hope you do the right thing.