Hello, I am reading the forum for bit, but this is my first post. I am trying to get some perspective on one of the fears that i have, some of you might have gone throu a similar situation.
So I want to ask if any of you, when a DS or DD is not genetically yours and finds out bluntly and maybe even worse than bluntly, especially pre-teens, how did you support him/her? We have IC support, but i am afraid of the consequences regardless. As a clarification if you do not want to read the story bellow, my DS is from my point of view mine in all aspects, took care of him from hour 1, and while i accept the genetic inconsistency (i hid this from myself for years), i consider it changes nothing for me.
I am going to try to give some awareness into the situation. As a resume, my WS had 3 A that i found out of, a short one with AP1, then another short one with the same AP1, and i found out as DD1. It also might have actually been a LTA. Didnt set clear boundries then, we were in our early 20’s, so in the span of 15 years, she had another short affair with AP2, then came back to AP1 for a LTA, and in the same time she got involved in another short term A with AP3, then i found out again as DD2. It might have been more, i was not interested to dig more at the time.
The “not interested” came from how i found out the details, in short i flipped skills that i have for work and used them on the AP1 devices (he was cocky enough to contact and belittle me, just as AP3 did), and gotten more details that i could handle from those devices. They consisted of convos that exposed AP2 and AP3 (he was furious about them), pictures, videos, the lot. When i saw the pictures (only looked at 2 of them) and the existence of videos, i securedly erased them. They might have existed as backups or on other devices not accessed, didn’t leave a lurking timed script for that. The meticulosity of sorting and storing convos, media files, locations etc shocked me enough to not want to dig more into that pile.
1-2 years prior to DD2, i went into IC for issues with my older DS (i snapped at him), and my WW went into IC for what i considered to be work and parenting related stress. In my IC i slowly realized that i was covering up from myself a serious issue, my DS is not genetically mine and i knew it actually before birth and covered up. I actively worked on that to be good with me and my DS and my WS. And from what we (me, WW and our IC's) worked out, me being ok with myself and being a better person than i was before (i shook of a gaming addiction, took sport, stoped wasting money, made time for myself, for the kids, for her, vacations, let her go alone in vacations while i was with the kids - btw that was when A3 took place), made her inner justifications fall apart.
So while the extent of the affairs shocked me again, i took this stress far better and was able to stand my ground after i sort of got back on my own 2 feet. I was able to tell her “find out what you want and why you are doing this, then let's revisit our M again”. She used A3 as an exit affair from me and A1, she was not ok with where she was, but caved when it sinked in that i will not divorce or punish her and that she has to sort herself out. Including if she wanted, to go ahead with D, but she had to make the steps and own them.
I did not tell her that i know about the DS, since i realized that there is nothing that witll change him from my DS into anything else, didn’t tell her i knew about AP2-AP3 either. It took 2-3 months of sour life and acting until something snapped in her and she told me IC knows all this, confessed to her A’s, she confessed the DS situation, i told her i knew, and i also told her i knew about the pictures, she was shocked. She said she actually didn’t know about them. She told me AP1 know about the DS as well.
She send the AP1 a hastly NC message, the AP1 tried to mock me, tried to contact her, got furious, offered to show me photos, ugly. She slipped a month after and replied to a message when the AP1 son was born and responded with a few messages, but told me and them blocked him for good. I did not expose the A to the AP1 BS because she was late pregnant, had lost another one, and i was in IC and the therapist considered it far too much for the mother and child. The AP1 has tried numerous times to either contact her to talk, or me to mock (anon sms, attempts to access my email, fake fb profile), but i and my WS did block him every time and maintained a strict NC. We are in R, working with ourselves, together and separate, with IC, and its bumpy but we are both committed to it.
We asked for legal advise also, not in terms of child support or that, but in shielding the DD from the AP1. We have 2 types of suits ready to go if its the case, and the finances to back them up and block him. So legally he has no chance i think to come at DS, because of a concept called "the higher interest of the child", until DS is 18.
We asked our IC’s for advice in this matter, we took our son to a child IC that was briefed about the situation and she tried to asses the situation, she gave him coping tools that he can use both in day to day life, but specifically aimed at a potential disclosure, but the general consensus between 3 IC’s is that as long as our situation is stabilizing, working and committing to the M, we love him and accept him, it should not be disclosed for at least a medium time horizon, and maybe never. On the other hand only my IC handled a man in my situation, from what i understood his case was simpler in terms of A timeline but he caved, went for D, shuned the kid and left therapy and country. The other IC had no first hand experience with non-parental-identity.
I tightened security around our virtual life, house, devices, but if AP1 want badly, he can contact either of us (and we wont respond) or worse our DS for an unregulated disclosure.
Due to a different/unrelated and recent situation at work, my email became evidence in a legal investigation thou, so the attempts at my email address became part of that and are followed by authorities, i think his IP address is being served a IT search warrant soon (and he is unaware of it). I know its his home IP address because i used contacts at ISP to get street address and contract holder for that IP the first time it happened. Hence my question, right now this can make the AP1 cave and lash out in full force, including at our DS. Or run for the hills never to be seen since things got serious and he can face legal consequences for attempts at my email and the media files themselves.
[This message edited by goldfishturtle at 6:18 AM, January 28th (Monday)]
