>At that point, my parents felt that we needed to meet with a lawyer. All communication from me has gone through a lawyer. I have never responded to him personally/directly.
This is the smartest thing she could've done.
Yup! Read to me like he’d manipulated his ex-wife and was now trying to do the same to OOP. Whatever his end goal, having her lawyer be the person with her best interest in mind and on the lookout for whatever “other shoe” may be dropping is the way to go.
Exactly this. Hiding the kid was to not rock the boat with his marriage. Secret came out and divorce happened. "Accident" roped ex-wife back in and now he has to prove "the accident changed him" by doing the things a "good person would do", and bonus, it gives him more control over kid and affair partner.
I think it's all about the ex wife tbh. He made very clear he doesn't care about the kid and as soon as OOP stopped being obedient he didn't want her anymore.
Or about the children. Maybe the children would look past his affairs, seeing as mom didn't seem bothered, but decided to draw the line at abandoning his affair baby, once they learned about it.
So now he's trying to be a good dad so his kids come back.
“Let’s rekindle our family with this new baby. It will be like it was in the beginning of our marriage.” -OOP AP to his wife
I’m so upset for OOP. She’s like a fly caught in a web. Her longing for her son to have a father is about to blow up in her face and I would not be surprised if the next step is to defame her and attempt full custody of the child.
I warned her in her first update that she needed to get a lawyer because they were about to try to take her son.
I'm glad they got the lawyer and are having all communication going through the lawyers. Hopefully the lawyer will help her keep primary custody, and get her back child support.
I didn't see the original post and I would've given her the exact same advice. I'm so glad you did because she has done exactly the right thing by getting a lawyer. If this guy cared about his son, he would have faced the music in the first place, and he would have wanted to provide for his son And spend time with him. So I think a custody grab is far more likely than dad just suddenly realising he owes his child better. The part where he threatened OOP really worries me; she needs to be very careful going forward. A lawyer is one part of that and another part is not letting her child be unsupervised with this guy. If she has any proof of his threats, now is the time to show it to her lawyer and get them on the record.
I hope she kept a record of all the messages that became manipulative and vile toward her after refusing his attempt at forcing her into having an abortion. Screenshots of his angry side after being told "no" would be very good to have when determining custody.
Why though? They are already divorced, he was allegedly a great father to HER kids. He could very easily say, "Well, I tried to have a relationship with my two year old, but his mother won't let me. Oh well."
Because I'm a cynic, I worry there is something more nefarious going on. Like they want to test him for a kidney match or something. Far-fetched, I know.
But this woman's attempt at manipulation - "ohhh my teenage sons want to meet the progeny of their dad's misdeeds" - "oh wait, I mean my husband had a bad accident, he's ok, but has made this amazing turnaround and wants to do the right thing. He truly wants a relationship with his boy."
If he really cared, he'd respect the mother of the child and back off of this whole situation. It was of his making. I have a hard time believing that a court will award a person any level of custody or visitation after cheating on his wife repeatedly, demanding that she have an abortion, called her horrible names, demanded that he never see her again and demanded that she not put his name on the birth certificate, and not doing anything to support the child for 2 years.
At least I hope not.
Hopefully.
A court judgement of "no visitation, child support to be backpaid immediately, and ongoing child support granted" would be a delicious result for a weasel like this.
I think it's about control for him. His wife found out and left, but whoops he has a tragic accident to rope her back in. And now he's a "changed man" so he can prove what a saint he is by roping OP back in too.
I think he's gonna sue for custody of the kid and then get off on making his wife do the childcare to punish her for leaving him. At the same time, he gets to punish OP for leaving by taking the kid.
Honestly I think the nefarious thing is just control. He lost control over his ex wife and family, and now he is grasping for it elsewhere. And he has money — even if the court isn’t entirely sympathetic towards him, he can just keep filing stuff to wear her down and drain her finances. This could go very badly for her, especially if she doesn’t have rock solid evidence of his past behavior.
My first thought is that they don't put toddler organs into adults. Plus a toddler cannot consent to surgery. But bone marrow is a possibility. Maybe one of his kids has leukemia?
I’m honestly surprised he can just get a court order for a tissue sample on a child he has zero rights to and is now a toddler. Legally and ethically speaking he’s just some rando to this kid, it seems like it should require some acknowledgement by the kid’s legal guardians about his paternity for an order like that to go through.
It isn’t a hugely invasive procedure but it is uncomfortable and it’s a medical procedure that they’re forcing the kid to go through without a clear benefit to him. It seems like the standard for something like that should be higher than “trust me bro”.
I would bet money the father or his lawyer wrote that court order. It doesn’t sound like they have enough for it to be legit right now. Hopefully OOP can hold strong until the next shiny thing distracts him.
Well if he has enough evidence that they were in a sexual relationship at the time of conception, I see why he would be able to petition to establish paternity.
If he has the texts and emails from her discussing the relationship, pregnancy, possible abortion and then saying she would leave and raise the kid on her own then he isn't someone random. He can establish they were in a relationship that ended with a pregnancy that matches the time frame for this child's birth. She also stated that the birth certificate had no father listed.
It's also possible the wife recorded the meeting they had where she admitted he was the father. All of that is enough to get a court order.
Every state has its own rules around this, of course, but “this person is just a rando to their biological child they’ve never met,” is more a Reddit meme than any sort of common legal or ethical standard. Biology still counts over most other things pretty much everywhere. History is unfortunately littered with examples of abusive partners, or even rapists, gaining some rights to their bio children.
As long as where she lives allows him to petition and get a simple blood test - which many if not most places would allow (some have time limits etc) because why wouldn’t they, it’s harmless to the child and bio parents have rights - he’s very likely to get at least visitation, even before you get to him having money and apparently charisma. Some portion of custody after an initial introductory period is likely.
I family member had to spend basically a whole year doing supervised visitation with his son how had been placed in foster care because his mom was a junkie. Family member had to prove he was fit for custody by traveling to another state for regular supervised visits before he was granted custody.
There's no state that's going to order her to move back and share custody 50/50 of her toddler with a stranger.
At the very least, if he’s agreeing he has a child, he’s liable for paying for that child. Coupled with the fact that he’s got proof of their relationship, it’s not unreasonable to order a test. There’s not much to fight there. The real fight would be any future custody and support arrangements. I’m sure her lawyer will aim for those hearings to happen where she lives and use prior texts to prove she wasn’t causing an unwanted estrangement. Add in that the father doesn’t know the kid and I think any court would be hard pressed not to at least have her maintain primary custody, if not full.
1. He probably has proof they were boning around the time of conception
2. She has no father on the birth certificate, I'm pretty sure any man with a reasonable suspicion of paternity has the right to petition. Because if that's his kid he has rights as a parent.
3. Clear benefit to the kid, at minimum, would be child support. Also, in most cases people would consider a father that wants to be in your life to be a benefit. Regardless of if he means it in the court filings or not.
Yup.
Saw "court ordered paternity" which for her should mean "court ordered support" and she should drain that for every penny for trying to pop back in.
I don't know what the deal is, but this guy wrote that kid off and I think it unlikely 800 days later he's flipped his mind that much.
In the second to last update when she goes on about how much of a “good dad” he is I wanted to put my head through a wall.
Yeah, the multi-partner adulterer who blew up his family is just Dad of The Year material right there.
Girl is playing life like a game of whack-a-mole…only dealing with the shit as it pops up.
“But he’s such a good dad” is honestly a trope at this point. Some people seem to think any level of involvement or just not being an active serial killer means a guy is a good dad, the bar is literally in hell.
I’m relieved her parents have her back and that she has a lawyer to go to bat for her. I’ve seen situations like this go very poorly when people in a similar situation didn’t have resources like the OP.
She is also emotionally much closer to the situation. Sure her parents love their grandkid, but they don't have the same emotional baggage about him and the situation. Hard to think straight when you are panicking. I'm glad she has people who love her looking out for her best interests. I'm sure this has brought up a lot of things she thought she dealt with or moved past and is now having to face again. She isn't naive as much as stressed, caught off guard, and panicking. Overall, despite her inner feelings expressed here, she has acted quite logically. It's a good example of the importance of a good support group and having people you trust in your life to help out.
Margaret Thatcher (ex British Prime Minister) was said to get by on 4 hours of sleep. She later developed Alzheimer's. There are established links between Alzheimer's and poor sleep hygiene over a sustained period of time.
Edit: example web page on the link between poor sleep and Alzheimer's: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lack-sleep-middle-age-may-increase-dementia-risk
Join the club. I’m in my mid 40’s and have lived on basically 5 hours of sleep every night, 5/6 nights a week, for the last 25 years.
If I try to sleep much more than that, my back and joints take hours to loosen up and function.
If I nap, I only sleep 4 hours, if I’m lucky.
Have you tried changing your bed or mattress? I got used to sleeping on futon on the floor when I was in Japan and I kept it up after we moved back to the US. Also nightly stretching or yoga might help loosen up short tendons and allow you to sleep longer?
I'm not who you replied to, but I'm in about the same habit of 5 hours of sleep a night. For me, I have no trouble *falling asleep*, I have trouble *going to bed*
Basically the same here. I'm aware of the correlation as well, have been for a while, I just try not to think about it. Look at the bright side i suppose: if I'm one of the unlucky ones I'll forget about the correlation soon enough.
I really feel you on the nap thing though. Accidental afternoon nap? Hope you don't work the next day, because you're not going to sleep again until sometime tomorrow.
To add onto this, while it is true that there is a link between Alzheimer's and poor sleep, those with the Familial natural short sleep rare mutation may have a certain protection against neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and causes a relatively slower advance of the disease in those genetically predisposed to it.
The mutation is, sometimes, informally called the "Thatcher gene"! It is interesting, because she in fact didn't have a normally seen onset of symptoms. While she was officially diagnosed in 2000, some people who worked with her have said she started acting differently 9 years prior, around 1991. She also surpassed the life expectancy of someone with Alzheimer's, with her death being in 2013 and the average being 3–9 years.
If anyone wants to read more about it, the main discoveries related to FNSS are by Ying-Hui Fu, and [her wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ying-Hui_Fu) has a selection of studies, including some on FNSS!
I've bookmarked that to look at later. Thank you,
I've always felt like I have a very short sleep cycle (I go to sleep about 1 and am raring to go by 5 or 6). My wife, who usually sleeps 8-10 hours claims there is "something wrong" with me (but we've been together almost a decade now, she is less concerned).
I went on vacation once with some coworkers/friends in my 20’s and found out one of them legit sleeps 4 hours. Has done all her life. We’re drug tested at work so it definitely wasn’t that, she just naturally doesn’t need the usual amount of sleep most people do.
I fall on the other side of the spectrum (9-12hrs a night) so I was fascinated. And extremely envious
9 hours is about what I need to feel at 100%. I can do fine at 8 hours, but at 7 hours I get diminishing returns each night and 6 hours means I'm sleep-deprived.
My husband averages 3-4 hours and maxes out at 5, which is uncommon.
Oh that’s interesting. I’ve always found that, if left to my own devices, I’ll naturally split sleep into two roughly four-hour blocks and stay awake very late. I don’t remember the last time I slept through the night unaided. I didn’t realise that there was a specific gene for it, always just been told I’m lazy/wrong etc.
Is there a mutation for needing EXTRA sleep instead?
Edit: everybody is so nice by giving me advice, thank you. But after years of not understanding my body and needs, I learned I actually have Myasthenia Gravis so that’s why I like sleep so much probably.
I'm not an expert in that, but consider getting a vitamin panel done and getting checked for your B2, B6, B12, and iron/ferritin levels. Often doctors will check your vitamin D first and if that's a little low will tell you to take more of that if you're sleeping too much but that can easily mask the actual problem - it's incredibly common for the average femme to have a mild iron deficiency and it's also not unusual to have a B-complex deficiency. They say it's 'rare in developed countries' but then they also never check for it! I had to bully them for 4 months into running a panel on me only to find a B2/B12/iron deficiency is causing my chronic fatigue. Once you have one b vitamin deficiency it can impact your ability to absorb other b vitamins and cause a bit of a spiral.
Anyway, get your vitamins checked if you're having fatigue issues is my rec. I had 4 years of just the most INTENSE fatigue, like eyes closing against my will fatigue, 10/12/14 hours a day of sleep fatigue and doctor's just dismissed it as vitamin d levels being low, depression, CFS, a whole bunch of random stuff they so helplessly could do nothing about. Started taking a 50mg B complex and 400mg of B2 for my migraines and oh my good god you motherfuckers have been *this awake* this *whole time*?? It's like the rest of the world has super powers and I only just got them, and the super power is you get to have a whole day to do things in instead of laying down for a nap after going grocery shopping cause you're so intensely wrecked.
If you take iron though, it's best to take it every other day btw, the body has a natural resistance to absorbing it if you take it daily. Obvs, talk to a professional, but I'm on 325mg of ferrous sulfate every other day, along with that b complex and the 400mg of B2. It's been so effective I quit coffee, it's wild.
There are people out there who only need 4 hours of sleep naturally. They are rare, but exist. It has a strong genetic component and tends to run in families. A lot end up as highly successful people because they literally just have more time
I'm definitely jealous, I could do so much with an extra 4 hours a day.
I have whatever the opposite of this is. Eight hours of sleep and I'm still barely functional. Slow mornings. Afternoon crash and mandatory lie-down, sometimes even nap, or I'm not even barely functional, I'm just a zombie.
To be overly honest, I think I probably have medical problems but I don't have the means to address any of them.
You don't even need a cpap anymore. There are mouthpieces that push your jaw forward to open up the airway, typically fitted by a dentist. They're called OMADs. Also, a laser Treatment called Nightlase and it raises the uvula area, opening up the airway. I'm about to get my first procedure on Friday!
My husband is one of those people. He only needs 4 hours minimum, 6-8 hours is a long sleep and a lie in for him. He also is go go go, like OP described her married man.
I wish I was like it, but it's a very lucky trait to have in a partner! He can't sit still, so he's always running around tidying, cleaning, playing with the kids, working, shopping, gardening. He just doesn't ever sit down or stop. It was also great for me when our first baby was colicky, because the baby would cry aaaaaaall night and my husband volunteered to do every single night shift because he ran on less sleep.
It's very interesting. If someone could bottle it, they'd be millionaires.
My BIL only needed 4 hrs of sleep a night. He wasn’t always on the go like the guy in the OP, but he didn’t need much sleep.
So, super rare genes. He also died in his 50’s of ALS so, yeah, the he got lucky with his sleep but took a bad roll with how he went out.
Yes, he sounds like a finance bro driven by coke. The way he threatened her then is another proof of it. This girl could very possible be dead if she went with him on the "secret abortion vacation".
The way he determined to get her child now, wether it is to duck tape his marriage, or to fill up his free time and not be bored, is also very sociopathic.
I hope she saved his threats. Because this psychopath with money and power connections could easily ruin her life.
Same on all these points.
Also I got the vibe of cocaine use because my oldest step brother is a drug addict and uses an upper to wake up and do stuff once his drug of choice wears off. It reminded me of watching him wash his car obsessively and saying he needs to fix the tires.
I have a part-time gig at a country club where these finance/sales bros spend their time golfing and hanging out.
It's absolutely cocaine. When these guys brag at you and say they worked from 6am-10pm 6/7 days a week with no sleep? They really mean they do lines every day. 95% of them are doing the jaw clench and grind thing while sitting at the bar. We've caught one of them doing lines in the locker room. If they need to come down a little, they'll come get a few drinks since alcohol is a depressant. They'll also offer us their stuff?? Like I'm good. I don't need a drug addiction.
Seriously, guys, if one of those men is bragging about that kind of life and how *hard* they work? It's cocaine. You're talking to a cocaine addict.
I worked for a manager who slept 4 hours a night. He didn’t take anything, but he was a former heavy drinker in a family of alcoholics. He was fanatically dry and channeled his energy into work. Except he’d take all of January off to spend with his family over summer.
He could have short sleeper syndrome (SSS). Those lucky people have a gene mutation that allows them to be fully rested with less than 6 hours of sleep per night.
I only need four hours a night to be fully functional. More is better. Less is a mess. Four is just my magic number. Sadly, I seldom get four consecutive hours.
I'm jealous, I'm always chronically tired and 4 hours is pushing my max of having a fraction of energy. It's also fun when it's mixed with insomnia so my sleep clock true to a night owl's if I don't have something to put me sleep. 😅
I need help or new body lmao. If only we can demand refunds.
I wonder if the kids have shown symptoms of it? Because this gene *is* hereditary, and it's inherited as an autosomal dominant trait. Seeing he has multiple kids with (ex)wife and one with OOP, and that a carrier has a 50% chance of passing it on, there is a high probability one of the kids inherited it.
Funnily enough, a study from 2001 found that natural short sleepers were more prone to subclinical hypomania.
So it's either FNSS or coke. Or the third, seret option of both.
I’d usually think this, but people like this exist. My dad was this kind of person. He only needed 4 hours of sleep and he was fine. He didn’t need caffeine or any stimulant either, he was just wired that way. It’s not like he was always tired or so, he was very awake and present. He was a doctor (and worked 3 jobs at points) and I guess that he gravitated towards that kind of work because he didn’t need to sleep a lot. That being said, he did pass in his early 60’s and I always wondered if it was a case of his lifestyle catching up to him.
Meanwhile I need 7-8 hrs of sleep to even be functional lol so I didn’t get the gene I guess.
I wish I was that productive when I sleep the same amount. Got afflicted with adhd, however, and whatever time I might have gain by having more awake hours are wasted again getting myself into being productive.
I remember those first two posts
And here I am heavily sighing.
Because he has money, this is going to be ugly. Do I think he deserves to be in that child’s life? No. Not really. It shouldn’t take a life threatening experience to make you want to be a dad. Probably after he has contact and does enough to appease his whatever he’s feeling, he’s going to become the same AH he was to OOP and his ex.
I think at this point he’s latched onto this because his ego can’t take that a nobody “winning”/“beating” him
OOP's best shot is if they still have access to those old texts from her lover before she ghosted him. Having proof he wanted her to get an abortion and then the insults when she backed out should help her case.
The messages from the ex-wife about his multiple affairs would help, too, but I fear those may have been lost when she deleted her social media.
My phone doesn't keep any record of texts that are more than a year old, and mine is a very common brand. Unless OOP saved them herself somewhere, I think it's likely she's out of luck there.
Although! I might have been hasty with the strength of my statement - I don't know that the actual body of the texts would be saved, it's possible that youd only be able to view a record of the incoming/outgoing logs, so you'd have to reach out to the phone company for it, and they'd prolly only release if legally required to?
I'm not an expert and don't wanna give you misleading info :(
The good news is that he lives several states away. It's unlikely that a court would mandate visitation for a child that young who has no previous relationship with him when he lives that far away.
Who knows what the father of OP's son was going to do to her when he suggested going away for an abortion, she was right to be wary of his intentions towards her at that point as his life could have been blown to smithereens because OP was pregnant which would prove he was a cheater.
I remember the case of the lady in the barrel who was killed by the married (not to her) father of her child because his wife found out about her when she was in the latter stages of pregnancy.
But the question then becomes what would be his first instinct when coaxing her fails to do what he wants? As some murders do kill when THEY feel backed into a corner.
We will never really know if he was capable of it as OP did ensure that she was separated from him after she decided to keep the baby until recently, and as long as she works with other people to do what needs to be done everything *hopefully* will work out.
That may be so, but statistically one of the highest causes of death among pregnant women is homicide, and a recent study showed that pregnant and postpartum women are 35% more likely to be murdered than non-pregnant women. This study was limited since many states don’t record the maternity status of pregnant women, but in places where they do the difference is striking. More women die from homicide than they do from obstetric related causes
This is a slowly evolving nightmare situation. Her gut instinct that night before the 'abortion vacation' is chilling. He is a powerful, totally self centered tornado of a man and she is getting sucked into his vortex again. I feel terrible for her.
She's gonna have to share her son with this guy and will have to be under his helicoptering purview for a long time. Hopefully his accident softened him; but it clearly didn't subdue his drive to get what he wants no matter what.
The "abortion vacation" sounded like the beginning of a true crime story to me. I believe her primal gut instincts kicked in and saved her from being a missing persons story. It's terrifying that he's manipulated his ex into lying for him to help him insert himself into OOP's life again. I can't help but feel she and her child are in danger.
"Slowly evolving nightmare" and "self centered tornado..." are such perfect descriptions. Reading that last update was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You see what is going to happen and can't stop it. I really hope I am wrong.
Try googling "your first & last time" + "your phone number". It's surprisingly easy to find personal details about people if you have a little bit of info to start with. There are ways to opt out of the websites that post your info, but it requires regular monitoring and most people just don't do it.
You can also try it with addresses (current and past), schools you've attended, people you've lived with, date of birth, email addresses, old landline numbers, and workplaces, to give a few other suggestions. Just be sure to separate out individual search terms with quotations. So it could be something like:
"first and last name" "town where you live"
ETA: I see from your post history that you're in the UK, which has much stricter privacy laws than the US, which could explain why you're not coming across as much.
I went on the Internet one day and found a family friend. You know who was listed as his friend? Me. My husband. My husband's parents. It has his wife, his daughters, and his phone number, emails, current and past addresses. And you can find mine easily too. It's so scary
He'll be successful if that is what he's after. He's a wealthy man with plenty of disposable income plus an ex-wife who will testify to support how amazing he is against a younger woman who had an affair with a married man and doesn't have the same financial resources. Any good lawyer knows how to financially drain someone. Just keep burying them in motions, discovery, and all of the things that will require their lawyer to respond. Every page her lawyer has to read and respond to costs money. If he presents an expert, you need an expert of your own to defend your position, and experts cost $1000s of dollars per appearance, which usually includes a deposition and trial testimony. A single expert retained for trial can cost you in excess of $5k. If he truly wants to take the child away from her, he'll bleed her out, which then makes her look even worse because she doesn't have the financial means to support the child. The legal system is all about money and who has it. It's rigged unfairly for those who don't have the financial means to keep fighting. Lots of people give up custody fights because they can't afford to keep fighting.
Unfortunately. Back when I just came out of law school I clerked for a judge that did alot of custody cases. Money and good representation can really drain out the other party's willingness to fight. Even in law school at the firm I clerked at we have custody and divorce cases with 7 figures in attorney fees
The reality sucks but I’m glad to see it finally being acknowledged here instead of the myth that fathers have it sOoOo hard. Courts aren’t biased toward mothers, they’re biased toward whoever bothers to show up and has the most money to burn.
>After posting here, I sort of decided that I wouldn’t respond to her. I’d just ignore it...On Friday night I decided to message her. I don’t really know why.
I stopped reading after that. I understood the naivety in the first post but then I couldn't take it anymore
Goddamn I can’t believe she was still stupid enough to contact any of these people. Now this narcissist is gonna take her baby for at least some of the time
Dreading the update where he's dragging her through the family court system and draining all her finances in a legal battle to keep her child. She is going to regret responding to the ex-wife. She opened a door she can't close now.
But part of me thinks there's a tiny part of her that's actually entertaining the idea he's going to come back to her now. SMH.
For those in the back, I posted after the first post: never open the door for people associated with an absentee parent unless you are planning to open the door for the absent parent. You never never know the motive or if they are safe.
Too, if you move immediately file child support where you live. Both you and your child are owed that support. It also totally vest all decisions of custody in that same court. Otherwise in many jurisdictions the father can file where he lives.
I’m a big fan of rules. Parents should have rights to their children but they should not be able to come and go as they please. Children deserve more than that.
This. There are for sure substances involved. Four hours of sleep a night and then jam-packed days is not healthy or sustainable, definitely not in your 40's. Sounds like a dude who likes his uppers. There's a lot about this guy that screams narcissist.
I, myself, am an affair kid. My mom was 12 years younger than him. His marriage was in a rough place as he and his wife were healing from a miscarriage. He hit my with the good ‘ol we’re separated (they were not separated).
I feel the same way about this woman as I do about my mom. While I, personally, think it was a bad decision to bring a baby into a situation like this, I won’t speak to whether or not OOP is a bad mom. She may very well be a good one! Mine, while she has her flaws (as we all do), is a pretty good one all things considering.
While I won’t speak to her quality of parenting, another thing I won’t do, and the thing I find odd about a lot of these comments, is view her as anything other than a grown ass woman with autonomy who evaluated her circumstances and actively made decisions each step of the way. Sure, he’s older and was playing chess while she was playing checkers at times (e.g., saying he and his wife were just staying together for optics when, in reality, this was not the case) but, as evident by her deciding to keep the baby, she was perfectly capable of and demonstrated her ability to think and act for herself.
OOP wasn’t an 18 year old where the game was so lopsided in his favor that she couldn’t reasonably be expected to see the situation for what it was and was more a victim of manipulation than anything. She was 24. My mom was 26. They wanted to be moms… OOP wanted to be a single one.
I'm also a child of an affair.
I never knew my dad, but my mum was always pretty open about the situation with me. She was naïve and didn't think all the consequences through, she was an adult who made some poor decisions.
She was also pretty open about the fact that he wasn't in my life because of a decision she'd made, not him - he wasn't some monster who abandoned his child, he was a man who also made some poor decisions and at worst didn't fight hard enough for access to a baby that would have made his life ***really fucking complicated***.
She did a good job of being a mum, all things considered.
The bit I kept think reading through that is that the kid is going to grow up and be curious about that half of his family / genetics. Whether that curiosity is idle or overpowering varies from person to person, but it will be there - that's the only really sad part of the whole thing; that she feels her child doesn't deserve or need a relationship with his siblings.
i genuinely feel like she keeps writing all this stuff about what a bad mother she is and i cant not agree. this baby is going to have to live this messy ass life because of her and for what? because she wanted a baby that desperately?
And here come the consequences of her own desperate actions, that a whole new baby and human being has to live with for the rest of his life, when he literally didn’t have to at all. What a shitty thing to do to a person, let alone your own child. It’s hard to feel empathy for her when she didn’t feel any for her own baby and the shit show he was being born into.
She's still perpetuating this myth that he and his wife just had a marriage of convenience.
Why would his ex-wife (or wife) go through all the trouble of contacting her on his behalf if she secretly hated his guts? She definitely wouldn't be by his side after an accident, either, if she hated his ass so much. OOP's narrative makes no damn sense.
Ex wife is a idiot. She was cheated on with a bunch of women and are still helping him. This already doesn't make sense. Why a married woman with a active husband wouldn't be pissed and hating his guys? Nothing in this story makes sense.
And she’s still making bad decisions.That poor child.Not only is the baby illegitimate but it’s got to put up with a crazy father,idiot mother and god knows what the stepmother is like.OP should never have responded to the stepmother.She’s going to now expose the child to his messed up family.I will never understand how side pieces choose to have kids with married partners
Honestly dead at the "this is when we make mistakes thats just whay being young is" yeah mistakes like a bad job the wrong major maybe some immaturity from trauma you gotta work through. Not a prolonged affair with a married man where you didn't use bc because he got off better
This is Reddit, where you are Schrödinger’s Adult from about 16 to 25. Deciding which divorced parent to live with? Why, 16 is basically an adult! Knowingly schtupping a married man at 23? She was just a child!
Im around OP’s age and there’s been plenty of married men that have tried to approach me with the same narrative you know what I tell them? To gth and leave me alone. Op is a grown adult that actively made a choice to continue to be involved with someone who was married then decided to keep their child. I have a feeling this mess is only the beginning.
This feels like a weird horror story. If she's got the early communication from the pregnancy that should be enough to prevent custody, but there are so many plot holes here...
I don't think on a legal level that would prevent him from seeking custody. The 2 years where he had no involvement might give him issues, but he'll probably still get some level of visitation to start and more if he stays involved.
She's in a pretty good spot having established residence in another state. He'll have to come to her for visitation, and unless he's willing to relocate, he'll probably get pretty limited time.
I'm talking about the threatening messages, saying he doesn't want a third kid or to be anyone else's dad. Then saying he'll pay to take care of it. That sort of stuff weighs against him.
I found out through my divorce that a father can be despicable in many areas of his life but it has no bearing on his rights as a father unless it's something that could get him imprisoned. That's basically how it is in life for many people who were raised by terrible dads that never left the family. You can't choose your father.
I know a case where the dad had gone to jail for beating the mom, when he got out he had 6 months of supervised visits (which she had to pay for) then every other weekend for a year then boom 50/50. Everything had to go through a mediator if they're not allowed to see each other face to face and she has to pay for all of that. She gets nothing from him because 50/50 plus he can't get a good job because of his record, so she is responsible for paying for everything, paying for his visits. Everything, and if those kids do much as look at him wrong he threatens to take her to court over parental alienation.
The system is messed up.
Not necessarily. I don't think that there's any real way of blocking paternity. Courts these days hold the view that the child is better with both parents in their lives.So, unless he physically threatened her or harmed her the courts might grant him some form of custody.
Exactly. The whole "men don't get custody" thing is a self fulfilling prophecy combo of men not fighting for their kids because they think theyll lose... so they do. Meanwhile vile, abusive, shitty dad's get 50/50 all the time by just showing up to the fucking court date.
What is it with early 20s women buying the BS about a married man being "separated" and getting into an affair with them? Absolutely idiotic. Almost as idiotic as choosing to have a kid with said cheater.
Smh. OP was an idiot and those consequences are unfortunately lifelong in this case.
OOP had a relationship with a married man but didn't mean to. She got pregnant and wasn't using birth control but didn't mean to get pregnant. She certainly does so a lot without meaning to. She got entangled with terrible people but that doesn't make her any less terrible either.
All of the adults in this situation seem awful, I feel for the kids in this situation.
She's trying to make it sound like she was some sort of naive idiot teenager. She was 24 when all this went down, she still an idiot, but she chose this.
What a fucking monster that man is. Cheats on his wife, gets his AP pregnant, demands she gets an abortion, flips out at her when she doesn't, abandons her and his son, then shows up out of the blue demanding paternity and custody. What a fucking piece of shit.
And only showing up when his other family fell apart. Most likely he's only doing this to fill in the down time when he would normally do things with his family since he's crazy active
I work in Family Law representing victims of domestic abuse. This sounds like so many of the fathers I have to deal with on the other side. Sadly, this is really not uncommon.
I'm exhausted just reading his daily schedule, even though I also get little sleep and love to surf. But I don't have a whole family and all that... I can't help but think he might be taking drugs...
I hate to say this, but this post reads like she didn't get the abortion just to spite her affair partner. But then if so, why didn't she pursue child support? Foolish behavior all around.
> I’m a bad mom. I brought my son into this world knowing it was a messy situation.
There’s not many posts on this sub that have a sentence where my heart will ache for OOP. That sentence made me feel so sad for her. She’ll understand that doing her best is what her child will remember. It's what I remember about my mom and I have such love for her because of it. A trying mom is a good mom.
we've all made stupid mistakes in our life...but many of us have at least enough sense to not allow the stupid mistakes to permanently make someone else's life harder. unlike people who knowingly bring babies into such fucked up situations
Yeah, this. I don’t really feel sympathy for her. She’s not used logic or common sense through any of this, she’s just been continually going off her feelings. Yeah, she was manipulated, yeah, she was young and naive, sure. She still made shitty choices and it looks like she might keep making them.
Not smart. Poor kid. Hope his maternal grandparents are a firm support…
Same. She *still* believes that her ex-lover and his wife just had a marriage of convenience, yet the wife is now contacting her on his behalf... she clearly has no idea what their marriage really looks like on the inside.
Let's hope she continues this NC and listens very, very closely to her lawyer and not whatever thought passes her mind.
She's a fucking idiot for sleeping with a married man once she knew, for having the baby, and for thinking this was going to just go away because she personally has decided that the baby is only hers and doesn't have siblings in her opinion. She can't just erase their biological ties. She needs to get her head out of her ass before she loses custody
>It’s just…the whole situation is a mess.
Well.....
Maybe.... don't get involved to the point where you have unprotected sexies then choose to have a baby like that!?!?
This was selfish of her, now that kid won't have peace until her idiot lover backs off
This one is weird, I don't envy the situation OP is in and, all else normal, would probably cut contact with these people and run. But she just has no empathy for anyone or anything beyond feeling sorry for herself --which isn't *real* empathy-- and something about the callousness in how she writes helps me understand why she fell for this other terrible person.
LMFAO about the "she was young, we all did stupid things at that age" crowd.
Yes at 24-25 we all did mistakes like buying a too expensive phone, getting fired for doing something dumb etc. etc.
Most of us however never accidentally became sex slaves completely by our own choices just because we were horny to a married man.
Spends the first half of this telling us what an awful awful person this guy is and how his kids are pissed at him for this and how he's a Serial cheater and how he made horrible and terrifying threats to her for not getting an abortion. Then immediately starts talking about how she totally wants her son to have a father and how he's such an involved in caring father for his other kids and he's ever so good at being a father to his other kids and she totally wants her son to have a father too and even though this man is the living walking embodiment of a red flag and someone who I am assuming probably correctly and expert at emotionally manipulating everyone around him but he's such a good daddy! Jesus Christ some people. More than two years away from him and she sucked right back in the moment there's the biggest hint that he wants to be back in her life voluntarily. He couldn't even do his damn self. He had to get his wife/ ex-wife? To make the phone call to her the affair partner. He made his wife reach out to the affair partner to talk about involving him into his child's life. The child he didn't want born and he threatened her with. And she seems to be happy about this.
I'm sorry but I have no sympathy for her. She knew him for a month, found out he was married, and stayed his side piece because she was :"in love" and believed his lies. High schools really need to show teens a slew of Lifetime movies. The married guy always says the same things and never leaves the wife.
I would try to frame it as being worried about the safety of her son. Especially if she still has the text from what he sent her when she didn't want to get an abortion.
As much as I want to believe that guy had a change of heart and make things right with her and his son... It sounds like now that he was kicked to the curb he suddenly remembered the "back up" family
If she is right about him being a controlling helicopter parent to his kids (not just involved, but overinvolved) I hope he stays distant. That stuff is common now, but it's really destructive to kids. It might be killing him to know he has a kid he doesn't have complete control over.
>At that point, my parents felt that we needed to meet with a lawyer. All communication from me has gone through a lawyer. I have never responded to him personally/directly. This is the smartest thing she could've done.
Yup! Read to me like he’d manipulated his ex-wife and was now trying to do the same to OOP. Whatever his end goal, having her lawyer be the person with her best interest in mind and on the lookout for whatever “other shoe” may be dropping is the way to go.
The ex wife knows about his son. The only logical thing (to him) is to get custody, to prove he is a different person.
Exactly this. Hiding the kid was to not rock the boat with his marriage. Secret came out and divorce happened. "Accident" roped ex-wife back in and now he has to prove "the accident changed him" by doing the things a "good person would do", and bonus, it gives him more control over kid and affair partner.
I think it's all about the ex wife tbh. He made very clear he doesn't care about the kid and as soon as OOP stopped being obedient he didn't want her anymore.
Or about the children. Maybe the children would look past his affairs, seeing as mom didn't seem bothered, but decided to draw the line at abandoning his affair baby, once they learned about it. So now he's trying to be a good dad so his kids come back.
Or because his kids hate him and the affair baby does not yet
At least we all agree it's about the effect on him and not genuinely caring about anyone else.
How do we know they are divorced though. Could all be an elaborate lie. Why on earth would his divorced wife do this for him?
“Let’s rekindle our family with this new baby. It will be like it was in the beginning of our marriage.” -OOP AP to his wife I’m so upset for OOP. She’s like a fly caught in a web. Her longing for her son to have a father is about to blow up in her face and I would not be surprised if the next step is to defame her and attempt full custody of the child.
I warned her in her first update that she needed to get a lawyer because they were about to try to take her son. I'm glad they got the lawyer and are having all communication going through the lawyers. Hopefully the lawyer will help her keep primary custody, and get her back child support.
I didn't see the original post and I would've given her the exact same advice. I'm so glad you did because she has done exactly the right thing by getting a lawyer. If this guy cared about his son, he would have faced the music in the first place, and he would have wanted to provide for his son And spend time with him. So I think a custody grab is far more likely than dad just suddenly realising he owes his child better. The part where he threatened OOP really worries me; she needs to be very careful going forward. A lawyer is one part of that and another part is not letting her child be unsupervised with this guy. If she has any proof of his threats, now is the time to show it to her lawyer and get them on the record.
I hope she kept a record of all the messages that became manipulative and vile toward her after refusing his attempt at forcing her into having an abortion. Screenshots of his angry side after being told "no" would be very good to have when determining custody.
This, unfortunately. The empire strikes back. The wife appears to be in on it. You took my husband, I get your kid.
Why though? They are already divorced, he was allegedly a great father to HER kids. He could very easily say, "Well, I tried to have a relationship with my two year old, but his mother won't let me. Oh well." Because I'm a cynic, I worry there is something more nefarious going on. Like they want to test him for a kidney match or something. Far-fetched, I know. But this woman's attempt at manipulation - "ohhh my teenage sons want to meet the progeny of their dad's misdeeds" - "oh wait, I mean my husband had a bad accident, he's ok, but has made this amazing turnaround and wants to do the right thing. He truly wants a relationship with his boy." If he really cared, he'd respect the mother of the child and back off of this whole situation. It was of his making. I have a hard time believing that a court will award a person any level of custody or visitation after cheating on his wife repeatedly, demanding that she have an abortion, called her horrible names, demanded that he never see her again and demanded that she not put his name on the birth certificate, and not doing anything to support the child for 2 years. At least I hope not.
Does she have evidence of his controlling behaviour and demands she abort the child, though?
Hopefully. A court judgement of "no visitation, child support to be backpaid immediately, and ongoing child support granted" would be a delicious result for a weasel like this.
If the ex wife found the messages about him threatening her... yeah OOP does have them.
Well, he has the evidence.
I think it's about control for him. His wife found out and left, but whoops he has a tragic accident to rope her back in. And now he's a "changed man" so he can prove what a saint he is by roping OP back in too. I think he's gonna sue for custody of the kid and then get off on making his wife do the childcare to punish her for leaving him. At the same time, he gets to punish OP for leaving by taking the kid.
Honestly I think the nefarious thing is just control. He lost control over his ex wife and family, and now he is grasping for it elsewhere. And he has money — even if the court isn’t entirely sympathetic towards him, he can just keep filing stuff to wear her down and drain her finances. This could go very badly for her, especially if she doesn’t have rock solid evidence of his past behavior.
My first thought is that they don't put toddler organs into adults. Plus a toddler cannot consent to surgery. But bone marrow is a possibility. Maybe one of his kids has leukemia?
I’m honestly surprised he can just get a court order for a tissue sample on a child he has zero rights to and is now a toddler. Legally and ethically speaking he’s just some rando to this kid, it seems like it should require some acknowledgement by the kid’s legal guardians about his paternity for an order like that to go through. It isn’t a hugely invasive procedure but it is uncomfortable and it’s a medical procedure that they’re forcing the kid to go through without a clear benefit to him. It seems like the standard for something like that should be higher than “trust me bro”. I would bet money the father or his lawyer wrote that court order. It doesn’t sound like they have enough for it to be legit right now. Hopefully OOP can hold strong until the next shiny thing distracts him.
Well if he has enough evidence that they were in a sexual relationship at the time of conception, I see why he would be able to petition to establish paternity.
If he has the texts and emails from her discussing the relationship, pregnancy, possible abortion and then saying she would leave and raise the kid on her own then he isn't someone random. He can establish they were in a relationship that ended with a pregnancy that matches the time frame for this child's birth. She also stated that the birth certificate had no father listed. It's also possible the wife recorded the meeting they had where she admitted he was the father. All of that is enough to get a court order.
Every state has its own rules around this, of course, but “this person is just a rando to their biological child they’ve never met,” is more a Reddit meme than any sort of common legal or ethical standard. Biology still counts over most other things pretty much everywhere. History is unfortunately littered with examples of abusive partners, or even rapists, gaining some rights to their bio children. As long as where she lives allows him to petition and get a simple blood test - which many if not most places would allow (some have time limits etc) because why wouldn’t they, it’s harmless to the child and bio parents have rights - he’s very likely to get at least visitation, even before you get to him having money and apparently charisma. Some portion of custody after an initial introductory period is likely.
I family member had to spend basically a whole year doing supervised visitation with his son how had been placed in foster care because his mom was a junkie. Family member had to prove he was fit for custody by traveling to another state for regular supervised visits before he was granted custody. There's no state that's going to order her to move back and share custody 50/50 of her toddler with a stranger.
At the very least, if he’s agreeing he has a child, he’s liable for paying for that child. Coupled with the fact that he’s got proof of their relationship, it’s not unreasonable to order a test. There’s not much to fight there. The real fight would be any future custody and support arrangements. I’m sure her lawyer will aim for those hearings to happen where she lives and use prior texts to prove she wasn’t causing an unwanted estrangement. Add in that the father doesn’t know the kid and I think any court would be hard pressed not to at least have her maintain primary custody, if not full.
1. He probably has proof they were boning around the time of conception 2. She has no father on the birth certificate, I'm pretty sure any man with a reasonable suspicion of paternity has the right to petition. Because if that's his kid he has rights as a parent. 3. Clear benefit to the kid, at minimum, would be child support. Also, in most cases people would consider a father that wants to be in your life to be a benefit. Regardless of if he means it in the court filings or not.
I hope she has his threats saved.
I really hope she still has some of their communications to help her case.
Yup. Saw "court ordered paternity" which for her should mean "court ordered support" and she should drain that for every penny for trying to pop back in. I don't know what the deal is, but this guy wrote that kid off and I think it unlikely 800 days later he's flipped his mind that much.
Parents seem to do all the thinking for her, she is so naive
In the second to last update when she goes on about how much of a “good dad” he is I wanted to put my head through a wall. Yeah, the multi-partner adulterer who blew up his family is just Dad of The Year material right there. Girl is playing life like a game of whack-a-mole…only dealing with the shit as it pops up.
“But he’s such a good dad” is honestly a trope at this point. Some people seem to think any level of involvement or just not being an active serial killer means a guy is a good dad, the bar is literally in hell. I’m relieved her parents have her back and that she has a lawyer to go to bat for her. I’ve seen situations like this go very poorly when people in a similar situation didn’t have resources like the OP.
She is also emotionally much closer to the situation. Sure her parents love their grandkid, but they don't have the same emotional baggage about him and the situation. Hard to think straight when you are panicking. I'm glad she has people who love her looking out for her best interests. I'm sure this has brought up a lot of things she thought she dealt with or moved past and is now having to face again. She isn't naive as much as stressed, caught off guard, and panicking. Overall, despite her inner feelings expressed here, she has acted quite logically. It's a good example of the importance of a good support group and having people you trust in your life to help out.
Does anyone else think he was on speed or cocaine? 4 hours a night with a 20 minute power nap really sounds like he was on uppers
Margaret Thatcher (ex British Prime Minister) was said to get by on 4 hours of sleep. She later developed Alzheimer's. There are established links between Alzheimer's and poor sleep hygiene over a sustained period of time. Edit: example web page on the link between poor sleep and Alzheimer's: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/lack-sleep-middle-age-may-increase-dementia-risk
Well then I’m proper fucked.
Join the club. I’m in my mid 40’s and have lived on basically 5 hours of sleep every night, 5/6 nights a week, for the last 25 years. If I try to sleep much more than that, my back and joints take hours to loosen up and function. If I nap, I only sleep 4 hours, if I’m lucky.
Have you tried changing your bed or mattress? I got used to sleeping on futon on the floor when I was in Japan and I kept it up after we moved back to the US. Also nightly stretching or yoga might help loosen up short tendons and allow you to sleep longer?
I'm not who you replied to, but I'm in about the same habit of 5 hours of sleep a night. For me, I have no trouble *falling asleep*, I have trouble *going to bed*
Basically the same here. I'm aware of the correlation as well, have been for a while, I just try not to think about it. Look at the bright side i suppose: if I'm one of the unlucky ones I'll forget about the correlation soon enough. I really feel you on the nap thing though. Accidental afternoon nap? Hope you don't work the next day, because you're not going to sleep again until sometime tomorrow.
To add onto this, while it is true that there is a link between Alzheimer's and poor sleep, those with the Familial natural short sleep rare mutation may have a certain protection against neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's and causes a relatively slower advance of the disease in those genetically predisposed to it. The mutation is, sometimes, informally called the "Thatcher gene"! It is interesting, because she in fact didn't have a normally seen onset of symptoms. While she was officially diagnosed in 2000, some people who worked with her have said she started acting differently 9 years prior, around 1991. She also surpassed the life expectancy of someone with Alzheimer's, with her death being in 2013 and the average being 3–9 years. If anyone wants to read more about it, the main discoveries related to FNSS are by Ying-Hui Fu, and [her wikipedia page](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ying-Hui_Fu) has a selection of studies, including some on FNSS!
I've bookmarked that to look at later. Thank you, I've always felt like I have a very short sleep cycle (I go to sleep about 1 and am raring to go by 5 or 6). My wife, who usually sleeps 8-10 hours claims there is "something wrong" with me (but we've been together almost a decade now, she is less concerned).
I went on vacation once with some coworkers/friends in my 20’s and found out one of them legit sleeps 4 hours. Has done all her life. We’re drug tested at work so it definitely wasn’t that, she just naturally doesn’t need the usual amount of sleep most people do. I fall on the other side of the spectrum (9-12hrs a night) so I was fascinated. And extremely envious
9 hours is about what I need to feel at 100%. I can do fine at 8 hours, but at 7 hours I get diminishing returns each night and 6 hours means I'm sleep-deprived. My husband averages 3-4 hours and maxes out at 5, which is uncommon.
As soon as she said that she didn't know how he got so much stuff done. My first thought was drugs!
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Oh that’s interesting. I’ve always found that, if left to my own devices, I’ll naturally split sleep into two roughly four-hour blocks and stay awake very late. I don’t remember the last time I slept through the night unaided. I didn’t realise that there was a specific gene for it, always just been told I’m lazy/wrong etc.
But when I do it they just say I'm manic 🤣
Well this man gives me the ic, so he’s not too far off
Aaaaayyyyyyy
Ayyyy shoutout chronobio friend (love, a N24 neuroscientist)
Is there a mutation for needing EXTRA sleep instead? Edit: everybody is so nice by giving me advice, thank you. But after years of not understanding my body and needs, I learned I actually have Myasthenia Gravis so that’s why I like sleep so much probably.
I'm not an expert in that, but consider getting a vitamin panel done and getting checked for your B2, B6, B12, and iron/ferritin levels. Often doctors will check your vitamin D first and if that's a little low will tell you to take more of that if you're sleeping too much but that can easily mask the actual problem - it's incredibly common for the average femme to have a mild iron deficiency and it's also not unusual to have a B-complex deficiency. They say it's 'rare in developed countries' but then they also never check for it! I had to bully them for 4 months into running a panel on me only to find a B2/B12/iron deficiency is causing my chronic fatigue. Once you have one b vitamin deficiency it can impact your ability to absorb other b vitamins and cause a bit of a spiral. Anyway, get your vitamins checked if you're having fatigue issues is my rec. I had 4 years of just the most INTENSE fatigue, like eyes closing against my will fatigue, 10/12/14 hours a day of sleep fatigue and doctor's just dismissed it as vitamin d levels being low, depression, CFS, a whole bunch of random stuff they so helplessly could do nothing about. Started taking a 50mg B complex and 400mg of B2 for my migraines and oh my good god you motherfuckers have been *this awake* this *whole time*?? It's like the rest of the world has super powers and I only just got them, and the super power is you get to have a whole day to do things in instead of laying down for a nap after going grocery shopping cause you're so intensely wrecked. If you take iron though, it's best to take it every other day btw, the body has a natural resistance to absorbing it if you take it daily. Obvs, talk to a professional, but I'm on 325mg of ferrous sulfate every other day, along with that b complex and the 400mg of B2. It's been so effective I quit coffee, it's wild.
If vitamins don’t help, get a sleep study. If I slept as much as my body wanted it’d be about 14-18 hours a day; turns out I have narcolepsy 🙃
There are people out there who only need 4 hours of sleep naturally. They are rare, but exist. It has a strong genetic component and tends to run in families. A lot end up as highly successful people because they literally just have more time I'm definitely jealous, I could do so much with an extra 4 hours a day.
I have whatever the opposite of this is. Eight hours of sleep and I'm still barely functional. Slow mornings. Afternoon crash and mandatory lie-down, sometimes even nap, or I'm not even barely functional, I'm just a zombie. To be overly honest, I think I probably have medical problems but I don't have the means to address any of them.
This sounds a lot like me. Turned out when I finally had a doctor look into it, it's narcolepsy
Same here. 10 hours is my ideal amount. We're carrying the load so these people can get by on 4, smdh
Check for sleep apnoea.
Do you snore? Get checked by like a sleep lab to see if you might have sleep apnea. Using a CPAP might be night-and-day improvement.
You don't even need a cpap anymore. There are mouthpieces that push your jaw forward to open up the airway, typically fitted by a dentist. They're called OMADs. Also, a laser Treatment called Nightlase and it raises the uvula area, opening up the airway. I'm about to get my first procedure on Friday!
My husband is one of those people. He only needs 4 hours minimum, 6-8 hours is a long sleep and a lie in for him. He also is go go go, like OP described her married man. I wish I was like it, but it's a very lucky trait to have in a partner! He can't sit still, so he's always running around tidying, cleaning, playing with the kids, working, shopping, gardening. He just doesn't ever sit down or stop. It was also great for me when our first baby was colicky, because the baby would cry aaaaaaall night and my husband volunteered to do every single night shift because he ran on less sleep. It's very interesting. If someone could bottle it, they'd be millionaires.
>If someone could bottle it, they'd be millionaires. I know a guy who'll sell it to you in baggies...
I have a doctor that provides it in a bottle. It’s clean, safer, and legal.
You know what isn’t rare and has the exact same symptoms? Cocaine. Lots and lots of cocaine.
My BIL only needed 4 hrs of sleep a night. He wasn’t always on the go like the guy in the OP, but he didn’t need much sleep. So, super rare genes. He also died in his 50’s of ALS so, yeah, the he got lucky with his sleep but took a bad roll with how he went out.
Yes, he sounds like a finance bro driven by coke. The way he threatened her then is another proof of it. This girl could very possible be dead if she went with him on the "secret abortion vacation". The way he determined to get her child now, wether it is to duck tape his marriage, or to fill up his free time and not be bored, is also very sociopathic. I hope she saved his threats. Because this psychopath with money and power connections could easily ruin her life.
Same on all these points. Also I got the vibe of cocaine use because my oldest step brother is a drug addict and uses an upper to wake up and do stuff once his drug of choice wears off. It reminded me of watching him wash his car obsessively and saying he needs to fix the tires.
I have a part-time gig at a country club where these finance/sales bros spend their time golfing and hanging out. It's absolutely cocaine. When these guys brag at you and say they worked from 6am-10pm 6/7 days a week with no sleep? They really mean they do lines every day. 95% of them are doing the jaw clench and grind thing while sitting at the bar. We've caught one of them doing lines in the locker room. If they need to come down a little, they'll come get a few drinks since alcohol is a depressant. They'll also offer us their stuff?? Like I'm good. I don't need a drug addiction. Seriously, guys, if one of those men is bragging about that kind of life and how *hard* they work? It's cocaine. You're talking to a cocaine addict.
It is very scary combination: a lot of energy, a lot of money, cocaine addiction and an extreme alpha male attitude.
I worked for a manager who slept 4 hours a night. He didn’t take anything, but he was a former heavy drinker in a family of alcoholics. He was fanatically dry and channeled his energy into work. Except he’d take all of January off to spend with his family over summer.
He could have short sleeper syndrome (SSS). Those lucky people have a gene mutation that allows them to be fully rested with less than 6 hours of sleep per night.
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As a mom and as a person simply trying to survive in this economy, I am so jealous of this gene mutation haha
I only need four hours a night to be fully functional. More is better. Less is a mess. Four is just my magic number. Sadly, I seldom get four consecutive hours.
I'm jealous, I'm always chronically tired and 4 hours is pushing my max of having a fraction of energy. It's also fun when it's mixed with insomnia so my sleep clock true to a night owl's if I don't have something to put me sleep. 😅 I need help or new body lmao. If only we can demand refunds.
I wonder if the kids have shown symptoms of it? Because this gene *is* hereditary, and it's inherited as an autosomal dominant trait. Seeing he has multiple kids with (ex)wife and one with OOP, and that a carrier has a 50% chance of passing it on, there is a high probability one of the kids inherited it. Funnily enough, a study from 2001 found that natural short sleepers were more prone to subclinical hypomania. So it's either FNSS or coke. Or the third, seret option of both.
I’d usually think this, but people like this exist. My dad was this kind of person. He only needed 4 hours of sleep and he was fine. He didn’t need caffeine or any stimulant either, he was just wired that way. It’s not like he was always tired or so, he was very awake and present. He was a doctor (and worked 3 jobs at points) and I guess that he gravitated towards that kind of work because he didn’t need to sleep a lot. That being said, he did pass in his early 60’s and I always wondered if it was a case of his lifestyle catching up to him. Meanwhile I need 7-8 hrs of sleep to even be functional lol so I didn’t get the gene I guess.
I know someone who sleeps 4 hours a day without anything other than an unhealthy amount of caffeine. The dude is super productive.
Niiiiice. *dies at the age of 55*
I wish I was that productive when I sleep the same amount. Got afflicted with adhd, however, and whatever time I might have gain by having more awake hours are wasted again getting myself into being productive.
> without anything other than an unhealthy amount of caffeine Caffeine *is* a stimulant (i.e. "an upper"), just not as potent.
I remember those first two posts And here I am heavily sighing. Because he has money, this is going to be ugly. Do I think he deserves to be in that child’s life? No. Not really. It shouldn’t take a life threatening experience to make you want to be a dad. Probably after he has contact and does enough to appease his whatever he’s feeling, he’s going to become the same AH he was to OOP and his ex. I think at this point he’s latched onto this because his ego can’t take that a nobody “winning”/“beating” him
OOP's best shot is if they still have access to those old texts from her lover before she ghosted him. Having proof he wanted her to get an abortion and then the insults when she backed out should help her case. The messages from the ex-wife about his multiple affairs would help, too, but I fear those may have been lost when she deleted her social media.
My phone doesn't keep any record of texts that are more than a year old, and mine is a very common brand. Unless OOP saved them herself somewhere, I think it's likely she's out of luck there.
But your phone company does
Oh, I didn't know that. Good to know!
Although! I might have been hasty with the strength of my statement - I don't know that the actual body of the texts would be saved, it's possible that youd only be able to view a record of the incoming/outgoing logs, so you'd have to reach out to the phone company for it, and they'd prolly only release if legally required to? I'm not an expert and don't wanna give you misleading info :(
The good news is that he lives several states away. It's unlikely that a court would mandate visitation for a child that young who has no previous relationship with him when he lives that far away.
Who knows what the father of OP's son was going to do to her when he suggested going away for an abortion, she was right to be wary of his intentions towards her at that point as his life could have been blown to smithereens because OP was pregnant which would prove he was a cheater. I remember the case of the lady in the barrel who was killed by the married (not to her) father of her child because his wife found out about her when she was in the latter stages of pregnancy.
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But the question then becomes what would be his first instinct when coaxing her fails to do what he wants? As some murders do kill when THEY feel backed into a corner.
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We will never really know if he was capable of it as OP did ensure that she was separated from him after she decided to keep the baby until recently, and as long as she works with other people to do what needs to be done everything *hopefully* will work out.
That may be so, but statistically one of the highest causes of death among pregnant women is homicide, and a recent study showed that pregnant and postpartum women are 35% more likely to be murdered than non-pregnant women. This study was limited since many states don’t record the maternity status of pregnant women, but in places where they do the difference is striking. More women die from homicide than they do from obstetric related causes
Statistically the leading cause of death in pregnant people is intimate partners violence.
Pregnancy is the most dangerous time in a woman’s life. Pregnant women are something like 5x more likely to be murdered.
This is a slowly evolving nightmare situation. Her gut instinct that night before the 'abortion vacation' is chilling. He is a powerful, totally self centered tornado of a man and she is getting sucked into his vortex again. I feel terrible for her. She's gonna have to share her son with this guy and will have to be under his helicoptering purview for a long time. Hopefully his accident softened him; but it clearly didn't subdue his drive to get what he wants no matter what.
The "abortion vacation" sounded like the beginning of a true crime story to me. I believe her primal gut instincts kicked in and saved her from being a missing persons story. It's terrifying that he's manipulated his ex into lying for him to help him insert himself into OOP's life again. I can't help but feel she and her child are in danger.
I may sound crazy, but there's possibility they're getting "back together"
"Slowly evolving nightmare" and "self centered tornado..." are such perfect descriptions. Reading that last update was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. You see what is going to happen and can't stop it. I really hope I am wrong.
I’m so confused how did he know her address to send her a handwritten letter? Did she share her address anywhere?!
Try googling "your first & last time" + "your phone number". It's surprisingly easy to find personal details about people if you have a little bit of info to start with. There are ways to opt out of the websites that post your info, but it requires regular monitoring and most people just don't do it.
I just tried it and it didn’t work lmao
You can also try it with addresses (current and past), schools you've attended, people you've lived with, date of birth, email addresses, old landline numbers, and workplaces, to give a few other suggestions. Just be sure to separate out individual search terms with quotations. So it could be something like: "first and last name" "town where you live" ETA: I see from your post history that you're in the UK, which has much stricter privacy laws than the US, which could explain why you're not coming across as much.
I went on the Internet one day and found a family friend. You know who was listed as his friend? Me. My husband. My husband's parents. It has his wife, his daughters, and his phone number, emails, current and past addresses. And you can find mine easily too. It's so scary
Interesting (in a bad way)
If you're in the US, try look yourself up on Whitepages.com or truthfinder.com. There are a few sites that collect US public data and publish it.
Ohhhhh I’m not from the US. This sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen
He's going to try and take the baby off her
He'll be successful if that is what he's after. He's a wealthy man with plenty of disposable income plus an ex-wife who will testify to support how amazing he is against a younger woman who had an affair with a married man and doesn't have the same financial resources. Any good lawyer knows how to financially drain someone. Just keep burying them in motions, discovery, and all of the things that will require their lawyer to respond. Every page her lawyer has to read and respond to costs money. If he presents an expert, you need an expert of your own to defend your position, and experts cost $1000s of dollars per appearance, which usually includes a deposition and trial testimony. A single expert retained for trial can cost you in excess of $5k. If he truly wants to take the child away from her, he'll bleed her out, which then makes her look even worse because she doesn't have the financial means to support the child. The legal system is all about money and who has it. It's rigged unfairly for those who don't have the financial means to keep fighting. Lots of people give up custody fights because they can't afford to keep fighting.
Unfortunately. Back when I just came out of law school I clerked for a judge that did alot of custody cases. Money and good representation can really drain out the other party's willingness to fight. Even in law school at the firm I clerked at we have custody and divorce cases with 7 figures in attorney fees
The reality sucks but I’m glad to see it finally being acknowledged here instead of the myth that fathers have it sOoOo hard. Courts aren’t biased toward mothers, they’re biased toward whoever bothers to show up and has the most money to burn.
Is everyone in this story a moron....
>After posting here, I sort of decided that I wouldn’t respond to her. I’d just ignore it...On Friday night I decided to message her. I don’t really know why. I stopped reading after that. I understood the naivety in the first post but then I couldn't take it anymore
Goddamn I can’t believe she was still stupid enough to contact any of these people. Now this narcissist is gonna take her baby for at least some of the time
Dreading the update where he's dragging her through the family court system and draining all her finances in a legal battle to keep her child. She is going to regret responding to the ex-wife. She opened a door she can't close now. But part of me thinks there's a tiny part of her that's actually entertaining the idea he's going to come back to her now. SMH.
She keeps praising him so you might be right *sighs*
For those in the back, I posted after the first post: never open the door for people associated with an absentee parent unless you are planning to open the door for the absent parent. You never never know the motive or if they are safe. Too, if you move immediately file child support where you live. Both you and your child are owed that support. It also totally vest all decisions of custody in that same court. Otherwise in many jurisdictions the father can file where he lives. I’m a big fan of rules. Parents should have rights to their children but they should not be able to come and go as they please. Children deserve more than that.
The guy sounds like a coke head tbh, no one was that much energy just with "power naps"
This. There are for sure substances involved. Four hours of sleep a night and then jam-packed days is not healthy or sustainable, definitely not in your 40's. Sounds like a dude who likes his uppers. There's a lot about this guy that screams narcissist.
I, myself, am an affair kid. My mom was 12 years younger than him. His marriage was in a rough place as he and his wife were healing from a miscarriage. He hit my with the good ‘ol we’re separated (they were not separated). I feel the same way about this woman as I do about my mom. While I, personally, think it was a bad decision to bring a baby into a situation like this, I won’t speak to whether or not OOP is a bad mom. She may very well be a good one! Mine, while she has her flaws (as we all do), is a pretty good one all things considering. While I won’t speak to her quality of parenting, another thing I won’t do, and the thing I find odd about a lot of these comments, is view her as anything other than a grown ass woman with autonomy who evaluated her circumstances and actively made decisions each step of the way. Sure, he’s older and was playing chess while she was playing checkers at times (e.g., saying he and his wife were just staying together for optics when, in reality, this was not the case) but, as evident by her deciding to keep the baby, she was perfectly capable of and demonstrated her ability to think and act for herself. OOP wasn’t an 18 year old where the game was so lopsided in his favor that she couldn’t reasonably be expected to see the situation for what it was and was more a victim of manipulation than anything. She was 24. My mom was 26. They wanted to be moms… OOP wanted to be a single one.
I'm also a child of an affair. I never knew my dad, but my mum was always pretty open about the situation with me. She was naïve and didn't think all the consequences through, she was an adult who made some poor decisions. She was also pretty open about the fact that he wasn't in my life because of a decision she'd made, not him - he wasn't some monster who abandoned his child, he was a man who also made some poor decisions and at worst didn't fight hard enough for access to a baby that would have made his life ***really fucking complicated***. She did a good job of being a mum, all things considered. The bit I kept think reading through that is that the kid is going to grow up and be curious about that half of his family / genetics. Whether that curiosity is idle or overpowering varies from person to person, but it will be there - that's the only really sad part of the whole thing; that she feels her child doesn't deserve or need a relationship with his siblings.
i genuinely feel like she keeps writing all this stuff about what a bad mother she is and i cant not agree. this baby is going to have to live this messy ass life because of her and for what? because she wanted a baby that desperately?
And here come the consequences of her own desperate actions, that a whole new baby and human being has to live with for the rest of his life, when he literally didn’t have to at all. What a shitty thing to do to a person, let alone your own child. It’s hard to feel empathy for her when she didn’t feel any for her own baby and the shit show he was being born into.
But she was in love! /s 24 is old enough to know better.
Shell learn the lesson when her son is 16 and lives with dad full time because he can pay for fun stuff.
op knew that he was lying about his marriage anyway. she didn't care. what mattered to her was that the fucking was good. what a trashy person.
She's still perpetuating this myth that he and his wife just had a marriage of convenience. Why would his ex-wife (or wife) go through all the trouble of contacting her on his behalf if she secretly hated his guts? She definitely wouldn't be by his side after an accident, either, if she hated his ass so much. OOP's narrative makes no damn sense.
Ex wife is a idiot. She was cheated on with a bunch of women and are still helping him. This already doesn't make sense. Why a married woman with a active husband wouldn't be pissed and hating his guys? Nothing in this story makes sense.
And she’s still making bad decisions.That poor child.Not only is the baby illegitimate but it’s got to put up with a crazy father,idiot mother and god knows what the stepmother is like.OP should never have responded to the stepmother.She’s going to now expose the child to his messed up family.I will never understand how side pieces choose to have kids with married partners
Side pieces suffer from chronic stupidity and low self esteem 🤷🏻♀️ that's all there is to it, really
OOP just kept making the dumbest decisions ever. Guys, it's never worth it to be the secret sidepiece. Trust me on this.
Also what's with all the comments defending her actions "she's young" Uh she was like 24-ish, that's a full grown adult.
Honestly dead at the "this is when we make mistakes thats just whay being young is" yeah mistakes like a bad job the wrong major maybe some immaturity from trauma you gotta work through. Not a prolonged affair with a married man where you didn't use bc because he got off better
This is Reddit, where you are Schrödinger’s Adult from about 16 to 25. Deciding which divorced parent to live with? Why, 16 is basically an adult! Knowingly schtupping a married man at 23? She was just a child!
deadass, that's all on her. people in the comments infantilizing a grown ass woman. i pity the kid.
Im around OP’s age and there’s been plenty of married men that have tried to approach me with the same narrative you know what I tell them? To gth and leave me alone. Op is a grown adult that actively made a choice to continue to be involved with someone who was married then decided to keep their child. I have a feeling this mess is only the beginning.
This is going to end badly.
First rule of "Oh we're a marriage in name only" claims: ask to meet the wife to verify that.
This feels like a weird horror story. If she's got the early communication from the pregnancy that should be enough to prevent custody, but there are so many plot holes here...
I don't think on a legal level that would prevent him from seeking custody. The 2 years where he had no involvement might give him issues, but he'll probably still get some level of visitation to start and more if he stays involved.
She's in a pretty good spot having established residence in another state. He'll have to come to her for visitation, and unless he's willing to relocate, he'll probably get pretty limited time.
I'm talking about the threatening messages, saying he doesn't want a third kid or to be anyone else's dad. Then saying he'll pay to take care of it. That sort of stuff weighs against him.
I found out through my divorce that a father can be despicable in many areas of his life but it has no bearing on his rights as a father unless it's something that could get him imprisoned. That's basically how it is in life for many people who were raised by terrible dads that never left the family. You can't choose your father.
I know a case where the dad had gone to jail for beating the mom, when he got out he had 6 months of supervised visits (which she had to pay for) then every other weekend for a year then boom 50/50. Everything had to go through a mediator if they're not allowed to see each other face to face and she has to pay for all of that. She gets nothing from him because 50/50 plus he can't get a good job because of his record, so she is responsible for paying for everything, paying for his visits. Everything, and if those kids do much as look at him wrong he threatens to take her to court over parental alienation. The system is messed up.
That won’t be enough to make a court deny him split custody or visitation.
Exactly. Family court doesn’t work like Reddit thinks it does or should.
Not necessarily. I don't think that there's any real way of blocking paternity. Courts these days hold the view that the child is better with both parents in their lives.So, unless he physically threatened her or harmed her the courts might grant him some form of custody.
Even if he harmed her, US courts say that is not proof that he will harm the children.
Exactly. The whole "men don't get custody" thing is a self fulfilling prophecy combo of men not fighting for their kids because they think theyll lose... so they do. Meanwhile vile, abusive, shitty dad's get 50/50 all the time by just showing up to the fucking court date.
Someone has much too much hope and little understanding of how much family courts love money
It will not matter at all, actually.
What is it with early 20s women buying the BS about a married man being "separated" and getting into an affair with them? Absolutely idiotic. Almost as idiotic as choosing to have a kid with said cheater. Smh. OP was an idiot and those consequences are unfortunately lifelong in this case.
OOP had a relationship with a married man but didn't mean to. She got pregnant and wasn't using birth control but didn't mean to get pregnant. She certainly does so a lot without meaning to. She got entangled with terrible people but that doesn't make her any less terrible either. All of the adults in this situation seem awful, I feel for the kids in this situation.
Agreed. Crazy lol I feel like she ain’t as innocent as she’s trying to make it sound. But like she said maybe it’s lust clouding her mind
Being dicknotized seems to be her major justification for her bad behavior
She's trying to make it sound like she was some sort of naive idiot teenager. She was 24 when all this went down, she still an idiot, but she chose this.
Dude got 2 plus years of back child support payments with intrests hopefully coming his way.
What a fucking monster that man is. Cheats on his wife, gets his AP pregnant, demands she gets an abortion, flips out at her when she doesn't, abandons her and his son, then shows up out of the blue demanding paternity and custody. What a fucking piece of shit.
And only showing up when his other family fell apart. Most likely he's only doing this to fill in the down time when he would normally do things with his family since he's crazy active
I work in Family Law representing victims of domestic abuse. This sounds like so many of the fathers I have to deal with on the other side. Sadly, this is really not uncommon.
I'm exhausted just reading his daily schedule, even though I also get little sleep and love to surf. But I don't have a whole family and all that... I can't help but think he might be taking drugs...
"Had an affair..." YUP IMMA HEAD OUT. I'm team wife. Should have aborted. That poor child didn't deserve to be born in such a shitty situation.
I hate to say this, but this post reads like she didn't get the abortion just to spite her affair partner. But then if so, why didn't she pursue child support? Foolish behavior all around.
Glad it's not my circus.
whole situation is so fucked, don't be this guy and don't sleep with this guy
> I’m a bad mom. I brought my son into this world knowing it was a messy situation. There’s not many posts on this sub that have a sentence where my heart will ache for OOP. That sentence made me feel so sad for her. She’ll understand that doing her best is what her child will remember. It's what I remember about my mom and I have such love for her because of it. A trying mom is a good mom.
But on the other hand she’s consistently made the wrong choice at every turn.
It's hard to have sympathy for someone who continued to double down on bad choices
we've all made stupid mistakes in our life...but many of us have at least enough sense to not allow the stupid mistakes to permanently make someone else's life harder. unlike people who knowingly bring babies into such fucked up situations
Yeah, this. I don’t really feel sympathy for her. She’s not used logic or common sense through any of this, she’s just been continually going off her feelings. Yeah, she was manipulated, yeah, she was young and naive, sure. She still made shitty choices and it looks like she might keep making them. Not smart. Poor kid. Hope his maternal grandparents are a firm support…
Same. She *still* believes that her ex-lover and his wife just had a marriage of convenience, yet the wife is now contacting her on his behalf... she clearly has no idea what their marriage really looks like on the inside. Let's hope she continues this NC and listens very, very closely to her lawyer and not whatever thought passes her mind.
She's a fucking idiot for sleeping with a married man once she knew, for having the baby, and for thinking this was going to just go away because she personally has decided that the baby is only hers and doesn't have siblings in her opinion. She can't just erase their biological ties. She needs to get her head out of her ass before she loses custody
Man this girl still needs some growing up to do.
>It’s just…the whole situation is a mess. Well..... Maybe.... don't get involved to the point where you have unprotected sexies then choose to have a baby like that!?!? This was selfish of her, now that kid won't have peace until her idiot lover backs off
Nah he's getting 50/50 and in 12 years when that kid knows dad's got the cash, he'll be choosing wisely unlike his mon
This one is weird, I don't envy the situation OP is in and, all else normal, would probably cut contact with these people and run. But she just has no empathy for anyone or anything beyond feeling sorry for herself --which isn't *real* empathy-- and something about the callousness in how she writes helps me understand why she fell for this other terrible person.
LMFAO about the "she was young, we all did stupid things at that age" crowd. Yes at 24-25 we all did mistakes like buying a too expensive phone, getting fired for doing something dumb etc. etc. Most of us however never accidentally became sex slaves completely by our own choices just because we were horny to a married man.
Soooooo, sounds like he has money.
Spends the first half of this telling us what an awful awful person this guy is and how his kids are pissed at him for this and how he's a Serial cheater and how he made horrible and terrifying threats to her for not getting an abortion. Then immediately starts talking about how she totally wants her son to have a father and how he's such an involved in caring father for his other kids and he's ever so good at being a father to his other kids and she totally wants her son to have a father too and even though this man is the living walking embodiment of a red flag and someone who I am assuming probably correctly and expert at emotionally manipulating everyone around him but he's such a good daddy! Jesus Christ some people. More than two years away from him and she sucked right back in the moment there's the biggest hint that he wants to be back in her life voluntarily. He couldn't even do his damn self. He had to get his wife/ ex-wife? To make the phone call to her the affair partner. He made his wife reach out to the affair partner to talk about involving him into his child's life. The child he didn't want born and he threatened her with. And she seems to be happy about this.
Hopefully you've kept all the documentation on his wanting an abortion vacation and the vile things he called you after refusing to have an abortion.
I'm sorry but I have no sympathy for her. She knew him for a month, found out he was married, and stayed his side piece because she was :"in love" and believed his lies. High schools really need to show teens a slew of Lifetime movies. The married guy always says the same things and never leaves the wife.
The weird way she kept saying she totally wasn’t trying to remain pregnant of this handsome tornado of a man really rubbed me the wrong way.
Had unprotected sex…
Any sympathy should end right here^ . I was 15 and knew to wear condoms. There’s no excuse.
And she wasn't on birth control entire time.
Anytime I see things like this, I lean towards baby trapping to keep a relationship or take the man from his wife.
I would try to frame it as being worried about the safety of her son. Especially if she still has the text from what he sent her when she didn't want to get an abortion.
Courts are generally smart enough to understand that him wanting an abortion of a zygote doesn’t mean he would hurt an actual living child.
“I’m a bad mom.” Yup.
I've got a bad feeling about this.
I guess the FUCK around and FIND out happened.
How would visitation work? And baby has never even met his dad. How can courts expect her to drop him with essentially a stranger? So sad for baby.
She's totally going to fall for this manipulator's lies again.
As much as I want to believe that guy had a change of heart and make things right with her and his son... It sounds like now that he was kicked to the curb he suddenly remembered the "back up" family
If she is right about him being a controlling helicopter parent to his kids (not just involved, but overinvolved) I hope he stays distant. That stuff is common now, but it's really destructive to kids. It might be killing him to know he has a kid he doesn't have complete control over.