Am very sorry your life has been turned upsidedown. I can only imagine your pain and your suffering is clear. You seem like a good father and husband. It was good of you to step up to the plate those many years ago and be a father to this young lady you have raised so lovingly.
As far as your relationship with your older daughter, please give her time. She probably has many emotions regarding how she feels about her MOTHER doing what she did to you, because your daughter surely loves you and is now very confused about who her allegiances are to be to: you? her mother?. Her biological father is a novelty to her and I doubt that once the novelty wears off, that she will remain close to the man. You are her father and that will never change. You must give her a chance to get her head around all this and this may take time, because she is only 20, I have a 20 year old daughter and they are not yet "grown" totally, your daughter will need TIME from you, and for you to not change your demeanor toward her; you must remain her father. Imagine how she must feel, and I am sure you can, as you love her, it is very clear.
You have been living with a woman who clearly knew what she was doing. The evidence of this is that she was cheating and continued to do so even after the birth of the first daughter. You can look at the positive side of this deception and that is, it has allowed you 17 years of happy married and family life. You say you still love your wife and in that case you must be able to understand no one on earth is perfect, and if you can feel assured she stopped the contact and relationship with this bio dad, you may want to forgive and start clean.
On the other hand, if it were me, I would have the inclination to verify EVERYTHING your wife has told you the last 20 years. You are in a position where your wife OWES you everything because SHE has kept secrets from you and not been honest and truthful with you all these years.
My mother did this to my father with my younger sister. My father thought my sister was his, and my mother had divorced my father when this sister was 2, but she was not his. He paid child support for 17 years for my sister and my mother confessed to my sister when my sister was 35 years old that the man my sister thought was her stepfather was actually her father (he was MY stepfather but my sister's father).
My sister was devastated, so I can imagine your daughter is very upset and confused and grabbing at straws by doing these odd behaviors and acting out the way she is. You need to let her know you understand her feelings, and will be there for her IF and when she needs you.
I do not think my father (who is still living) knows he is not my younger sister's father, to this day. My younger sister does not treat him ANY different and still loves my father. HER actual father has died years ago - and HE knew he was her father, but my mother and he chose not to TELL anyone, and kept my father's support money for this sister all those years.
It was wrong and deceitful. I did not like my mother for the deception she did to my father (I am somewhat like your younger daughter, taking up for MY father do to the unjust situation...).
Your wife has done a terrible thing to everyone involved in your family. My condolences to you, I am very sorry this has happened. Some people just don't realize that when they HIDE and LIE what terrible things they do to others.
I wish you peace and the ability to rationally deal with all this. It is going to take time. Hang in there, please. The answers will come, and you will figure out what to do or not do.
Your eldest daughter sounds very similar to my son a year ago. As young adults they feel they can do what they want, but aren't fully equipped to deal with the responsibility of living on their own. We did the same thing and when he first moved out, he treated me horribly. At first, he refused my help (although he needed it) and said some pretty horrible things. He felt I didn't care about him and was too stubborn/angry that we wouldn't just let him live with us and do whatever he wanted. He has totally changed over the last year, I believe realizing that life on his own is not so easy, and has been very mature and appreciative of our help now.
I also had some serious marital issues at that time & questioned whether I even knew the man I married. I totally get the suicidal thoughts. When those you love the most leave you feeling hurt and betrayed it is difficult to think about tomorrow in a positive way. I, like you, figured out my younger two children did not deserve to be abandoned in such a tragic way so I'm glad you have your younger daughter to keep you grounded.
What I really needed to do was wrap my head around all that was happening around me. At some point, I decided that although I love them all very much, I cannot contol the decisions of the adults (even my son, being young and inexperienced is an adult) in my life, only how I choose to react to them.
With my son, I just kept sending emails, leaving phone messages, telling him I loved him. They went unanswered for months but I think he needed to hear that I was still there for him.
With my husband, I saw the look in his eyes and knew that he could take back his affair if he could. I knew he truely felt horrible for hurting me and really did love me. He was very understanding, supportive of my moods during that time and made me realize he really is the loving man I married, not some stranger. For us, it really brought to the surface things we could do to stay close and connected and our marriage is stronger than it was before.
Betrayal isn't something I will forget, but I did get to a point where I fully forgave him and realized that neither of us is perfect. All I hope for now is honesty going forward and that we can both keep our marriage our priority, because right now everything is going really well in all areas & I am pleasantly amazed how I feel today versus a few years ago.
It is possible to move past this, but give yourself time to sort things out in your own mind so you are in a place where you know what you want to do.
And you are definitely not alone where your eldest daughter is concerned. Since she was at this point before she knew about her bio father, it is not that...it is an age thing and quite common...in her heart, you are her dad and always will be...if she is not asking you for help or contacting you, she is being stubborn/proud. She will come around eventually.
Thank You for the support. Right now I feel very confused about how I want to proceed. A part of me says Divorce her and the other part says keep her. I love her but I am so hurt by her actions that I do not know how to stay. I do not think I could ever truly forgive and forget. I want to because she has become a good person. But it is very hard.
I would not make any decision at this point. For me, it felt like everything was crumbling around me and it was difficult to make any decisions. Give it time to see whether you can forgive. A lot of that will be how she responds going forward. In my opinion, she should be working hard to ease the pain of this news for both you and your daughter. You will never forget, but forgiveness may come at some point.
Its been almost a year (Next Month), Since this all came out and to this day there is not a day that goes by that I do not think of the betrayel. My wife is doing everything positive to help me move on and forgive her but it is very dificult for me. I still have not gotin over the betrayel. Sometimes I feel I do not want to accept what she did to me and just Divorce her but then when the subject comes up and she starts to cry and tell me she does not want us to split, I start feeling bad for her and just stop with the thought. I love her but I am not happy with the situation I am in. The dauhgter in question has cut all communication with me and my wife. She totaly threw me under the bus for her sperm donor dad. Thats a killer for me. I raised her for 20 years and this is how she pays me. I know I have been nothing but a great father all her life. I am told by all our family and freinds who know who I am. I am in a position that I feel I cant handle much longer. Happiness for me is a thing of the past. But I am so affraid to move foward. I am scared of change after having lived a life for so long.
Dude, I feel so sorry for the situation you're in! I don't have any words of comfort, but I emphasize! My daughter is "in the business" but I still love her...just hang in there, give her some time...
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It ain't illegal until you're caught!
You are living one of my worst fears as my marriage began in a similar fashion and sometimes, I gotta wonder...but I dont really want to know.
I cant imagine how strong of a man you must be to have carried this burden for so long. I admire your strength. Perhaps its time to start thinking of your own needs and not your wife. I know you love her, and I'm sure she does too, but you cant leave yourself in the black pit of dispair for the sake of others.
It may, unfortunately, take years for your daughter to wake up and realize what an awful mistake shes making. It may even require some tragic event to set the wheels in motion.
osvaldo1321-
I have to ask you a serious question: If the roles had been reversed and you had been under both stress and temptation, would you, could have strayed? A kiss even, or an inappropriate conversation?
I do not believe in cheating. I can not even think of role reversing. I believe in being faithful and that I have been threw out my entire marrigage. I do not believe that the way you test true love is to be hurt and then see if you can forgive the person who did you wrong.
I do not believe that the way you test true love is to be hurt and then see if you can forgive the person who did you wrong.
I don't think anyone would set out to test their love in this way, but I think MTs words ring very true (for me anyway).
I could not put myself in the 'unfaithful shoes' either, but I could see my H as a human with flaws, as we all are, and many things we were both doing within our marriage that caused us to drift apart certainly made the temptation stronger. He is a good man and when he saw how hurt I was, hindsight was 20/20.
I have been through the same apart from the fact that it was me who fathered another child .. my wife has been fantastic i cant fault her one bit .
I had a afair over 6 years ago ..why ? because of the excitment the sex and because i could ..im not justifiying what i done but a few months ago i found out that through that affair id become a father ..
my wife pushed for the truth to come out and im glad she did we can begin the rest of our lifes together now with out the past dragging us down ..16 years is a long time she is with you now i say forgive and move on !! .
I do not believe in cheating. I can not even think of role reversing. I believe in being faithful and that I have been threw out my entire marrigage. I do not believe that the way you test true love is to be hurt and then see if you can forgive the person who did you wrong.
Correct. No one should set out to do this. But if it happens, and there is total remorse, then if you can't eventually forgive, there must be something else in your heart as well as the love.
So that's what I meant by making your love perfect. "Perfect love casts out all fear"
So very true Mark , you dont know what you have untill you are are faced with loseing .. your love grows more deep when someone sees your faults and has it within them to forgive you . Sometimes we choose the wrong paths temptation proves hard to resist but with forgiveness comes a deeper love a deeper understanding a stronger marriage that has survived a tough test
Re: Painfull discovery
