agonyaunt | Carolyn Hax: Man Fears Affair Baby Will Ruin His Life

Dear Carolyn:

I'm ashamed to admit I made the classic mistake of having a brief, midlife-crisis affair. I love my wife and family and quickly realized I couldn't risk it all for a fling. Before I could end it, though, the woman I was seeing got pregnant and the result has been nothing but pain.

My wife and I have stayed together and are in counseling, but the woman is keeping the baby. I know I have to agree to partial custody and my affair will have to become public. Soon everyone -- my older children, friends, neighbors -- will know I cheated on my wonderful wife. When I think of the pain and humiliation it will cause my family, especially my wife, I'm not sure how we will bear it.

My wife says she is ready to welcome the baby into our home but her burden is about to become so much heavier. How can we prepare ourselves for, and most importantly do right by, a child who is (if I'm being brutally honest) going to ruin our lives?

-- Prepare for Affair Baby?

If I could dope-slap you in writing, I would.

Not for the affair, since you've slapped yourself on that count. I'm talking about the "ruin our lives" part, which may be "brutally honest" by your lights but by mine is a three-way failure of imagination, flexibility and love.

Your wife has come through this wringer embracing both you and your coming child. That is a towering and, frankly, inspiring display of love.

Please make damn sure it's contagious enough to spread to you. This child is a person who will come to you with love of his or her own, unburdened and uncomplicated and as fierce as only a child's love can be. So please accept this love in the spirit it is given by opening yourself to the possibility that your life will be only enhanced, if complicated, by it.

Will the "reveal" portion of this love-fest (all senses intended) be difficult? Yes, of course, like you only read about. But your wife has accepted that challenge, so accept her acceptance. Be OK with this public-shame phase as the necessity it is to get you to the other side, which is to manage and love your messy family out in the open where it belongs. Village gossip just does not rate as a valid priority. Be an example to your kids that even massive screw-ups can be survived, dealt with and mined for goodness -- by bringing not just full accountability to the fallout, but also a positive attitude and a selfless plan. Be patient, be tough.

And be daddy-on-the-spot for every night wake-up when Baby is in your care, because, duh.

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1. Your wife is a hero.

2. If you are going to be resentful of this child and blame them for your misdeeds coming to light, then maybe you should think long and hard about that "I have to agree to partial custody" (which is weird phrasing in and of itself). I generally take a dim view of parents who completely absent themselves from their children's lives, but there are time when a parent who pays child support and sends birthday cards with a nice check is the lesser of two evils. Think long and hard about this, dude. That child deserves to be loved and cherished. Can you do that?

I think that the ages and personalities of the other children have to be considered, too, in terms of what's going to be good for the new baby. When I was in high school, in the early 1980s, my family hosted an exchange student from Germany who had been born in this sort of situation and whose older half-siblings strongly resented her. As far as I can tell, she never felt loved by her father or his wife, either, and might well have been better off with no direct contact.

Thirty years makes a difference in social attitudes, of course, but I'm wondering just what this guy's 'community' consists of. Do they attend a conservative church? Is his boss going to come down hard on him for this? Either of those things (and other factors) could make things much less welcoming for the baby in the long term.

I just wish this guy was thinking more about what's good for the baby.

I just wish this guy was thinking more about what's good for the baby.

Yes, exactly.

I know I have to agree to partial custody

Uh... why?

Yeah, that's a headtilt. I mean, maybe there is a reason; we don't know the details. But I worry that he's just taken on board "this is what I have to do to take responsibility" without considering if it's actually necessary or a good idea.

Criminy. LW doesn't deserve any of these people. Not his amazing wife and not the privilege of getting to raise a child. I hope he dreams of dopeslaps every night until he mends his attitude.

.... that is probably not a helpful response, but omg.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

What I see in this letter is fear. So much fear. And I can understand it - he screwed up, and he's afraid of a lot of things that the fallout from that will include. But Yoda couldn't be more spot-on here. If he stays in his fear, he's going to lead not only this new kid, but his entire family into some bad places, and his wife, at least, is ready to turn away from that.

Imagine, instead, if he could say, as this becomes more public, "yes, I had an affair. No, it was not my brightest moment. But look at this amazing new person who's come of it, and look at the family - as structurally unusual as it is - that's going to help raise it. We are wonderful." That ... might take a whole hell of a lot of courage, but it would stop naysayers in their tracks. But he has to let go of his fear first. He has to see his fear first.

If he can't face his fear that way, I don't know how well he'd be able to face his fear of withdrawing to the distant child-support-paying figure, either.

A baby cannot ruin your life - change it, yes, but they have very little agency of their own for a few years. But you can let your reactions to the baby - your fear, your anger, your hate - ruin your life. Or you can welcome change.

Withdrawing and paying child support from a distance may not help him at all, but his emotional growth is not the priority here. He's choosing performing responsibility publicly over actually being responsible--either by genuinely welcoming the child, or, if he can't, fucking off, reducing his role to a purely financial one, and letting the people who do welcome it raise it themselves. Having an absent parent may not be great for the kid, but it's scads better than having a present parent who resents the kid's existence and blames it for ruining their life.

Right. Given that he's performing, rather than being, and that he is doing so from a place of fear, I don't think he'd be able to either be genuinely welcoming or withdraw himself. He needs a rather fundamental mindset shift to do either of those, which would involve letting go of that fear and deciding that this portion of his life is not about him.

Carolyn Hax: Man Fears Affair Baby Will Ruin His Life

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