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Pertinent Article for those in physical affairs


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somanymistakes

More of an issue historically than now, I'd think, since I would hope that in the modern age more people would have the sense to have safe sex when they're sleeping around.

 

I know not everyone does, but then, the cases I hear of these days where someone deliberately gets pregnant to a married man, it's usually a dramabomb intended to try and pry him away from his wife, not a secret to be passed off as someone else's child. And these days people are more open about their out-of-wedlock children, too.

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somanymistakes

Also interesting that neither case covered was actually the result of an 'affair' - one was a confessed premarital one-night-stand where the husband (these days at least) could have had a paternity test if he was worried about it, and the other was a deliberate IVF baby who had a family right up to the point where her father who had deliberately helped create her decided "no genes, no love" and had his whole family cut her off. What monsters.

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I am not really surprised about the "no genes no love" mentality, it happens a lot, especially in families where "family" is all.

The bigger picture purpose of life is to procreate and pass on genes.

Genes are important to many. When the chips are down, blood can be what really matters.

Adopted children tend to at some point want to go seek out their "real" family, usually after their adopted parents die.

They want to find "blood" relatives, people who share their genes, people who may look like them, people who they consider to be their real family, a link to the past, blood passed down many generations.

 

In the situation in the article, the father was divorced from the mother he had moved on and his family chose his side and excluded the ex and the non- blood child. I guess that is not uncommon. Seems to me, family is either totally on board with the ex with either tolerance or virtual exclusion of the new relationship or the family moves on with the new relationship with tolerance or virtual exclusion of the ex.

Few families will totally accept both equally.

It depends on personalities and the circumstances of the split...

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somanymistakes

It's a pretty harsh mindset IMO, to suggest that no love matters unless genes are involved. Friends? Worthless. Childless marriage? Worthless. Meh.

 

I'm not going to say genes are completely meaningless, there's a lot of value in finding out your origins and people you might have things in common with. But generally adopted kids seeking their birth families now have TWO families, rather than abandoning one entirely for the other.

 

Like many people of my generation and social circle, I have far more connections with "found family" (friends, etc) than with biological family.

 

And yeah, in a messy divorce I can understand how it might seem easier to try and deny that they were family at all, but it's pretty terrible for the kid involved. (If you've seen me ranting at people about paternity testing, you've probably gathered that I'm obsessively protective of the child's interests in these situations.)

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I think "found family" is a slightly different situation, I was thinking more of kids. This kid is blood, this kid isn't. Paternity testing of older kids seems cruel to me.

Or

Aunt - blood aunt = family

Aunt through marriage to uncle = not family.

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Most in affairs dont use protection, it takes away from the fantasy and the "I never intended too" excuse.

 

If anyone recalls there was a woman here around Christmas that had an affair a couple decades ago and got pregnant by her AP. Her children decided they would do the testing and she freaked out. Ultimately she confessed before they got the results back and blamed the posters here for destroying her family...um ok.

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mark clemson

"Dramabomb" - hadn't heard that before. It's sounds almost cute in a way. Doesn't quite capture the complete ****ed-up-edness of having a child for that particular reason.

 

Anyhow...

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I'm an adoptee, and one of the people who got an "NPE surprise" . I joined a support group for people who had similar experiences, and many have found out the man who raised them isn't their biological father.

 

 

I know it's easy to say " it doesn't matter", but to many of these people, it does. There's also the assumption that this can somehow be hidden.

 

Personally, I'm sick of hearing about how it was more important to some to hide their affair than it was to give their child the truth. It's a real blow to find out something like this.

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somanymistakes
Personally, I'm sick of hearing about how it was more important to some to hide their affair than it was to give their child the truth. It's a real blow to find out something like this.

 

And that's one of the ways that it really does matter. Because if one or both of your parents have been lying to you all your life, it changes your world and your sense of self to find that out.

 

If you were adopted and no one told you, there's a whole story about their relationship and the choices they made before you came along that has been hidden from you.

 

Even more awkward if you turn out to be one of those "my sister is really my mother" cases, because then there's this whole painful story you didn't know and your interactions with your 'sister' have probably been strained for her all your life for reasons you didn't understand.

 

 

In cases where neither parent had any idea about the biological relationship, though (like a hospital mixup or highly unlikely conception) it ideally shouldn't wreck your relationship with your parents because in that situation they weren't intentionally distancing you from the truth.

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I’m not a fan of family secrets. I think if your family has an interesting history, that’s an asset rather than an embarrassment. Someone dared to be different, or circumstances led to situations where choices were constrained. If everyone was boring, the world would be grey and beige.

 

I’ve been genetically tested, because I was interested in my genetic make up (which is pretty much everything) but there have been no ancestry surprises. Though my father told me not long before he died that my older brother is actually a half brother, though he’d raised him as his own kid and made no distinction between us. Apparently while my father was deployed for extended periods early in their marriage, my mother sought comfort elsewhere, got pregnant, tried to pass the child off as “premature” but... it was pretty obvious. He looks nothing like my dad, nothing like my other brother or me, and is apparently the spitting image of his biological father. But we never knew growing up, he was always just my older brother. I’m sure he still doesn’t know.

 

(My mother of course denied it until her death - it would not have looked good for her - but her sister has since admitted that she knew, and pretty much all the family knew, but decided to pretend nothing was amiss.) if my older brother were to ever take a DNA test he would only find out if he linked up with me on the site, all of which is very unlikely. It’s possible his daughter might, since she works in the medical field, but as the other side of her family has all kinds of scandals I’m sure she would exercise judgment in what she chose to follow up on.

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