My Husband Wants To Raise His Love Child & I Refuse To Help Him

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Having an affair is rarely a good idea. Infidelity usually leads to resentment, especially from the person who was cheated on. Affairs bring up a lot of hurt feelings that couples have to actively work through if they want the relationship to continue. Everything gets more complicated if the affair results in the birth of a child. Some couples choose to divorce, and some choose to stay together.

A woman on the popular Reddit AITA sub shared that her husband had an affair that resulted in a child. The couple stayed together and the man’s affair partner was raising the child. But he now faces the possibility of taking custody of his child, and his wife shared that she refuses to allow the boy to live in her home if he does.

She found out about the child and the affair years after it happened.

In her Reddit post, the OP gave a little backstory to explain what led to her decision. She shared that she and her husband have been married for nine years, and in 2021, her husband was sued for child support, which meant she found out that he cheated early in their marriage. They almost got divorced, but instead went to marriage counseling. The wife decided to stay, but there were stipulations.

First, her husband had to “get a second job so that his child support payments did not affect our household budget.” And secondly, “at no point in time would I ever consider having a relationship with this child. If he wanted to pursue one with them, fine. But I have absolutely zero interest in this kid.”

Her husband chose to pursue a relationship with his child.

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Over the past few years, the husband has decided to have a relationship with his child. One day, the husband found out that his child’s mother was going to prison for eight months.

“My husband told me that he needed to take custody while his affair partner is locked up, otherwise the kid would have to go to their grandparents who basically live on the opposite coast from us. Their kid doesn’t want to have to change schools or be so far away from their friends, dad and mom (she will be doing her time fairly local to us),” she wrote.

OP didn't hesitate to remind her husband of the agreement they had made.

“I went to the grocery store on the corner and grabbed a copy of our area’s apartment guide went back home and handed it to him,” she wrote. “He asked if I were serious. I told him I still felt the same way as I did 3 years ago. He said he didn’t think that was fair considering the extenuating circumstances.”

She continued, “I told him I don’t care about the circumstances. His kid is not welcome in my home, if he wanted to take custody I will grant him an amicable divorce, but I am not changing my mind. I am not taking care of some other chick’s kid.”

She mentioned that up until this point, the husband has only had supervised visitation with the child in the past three years, and that he works two part time jobs that add up to 40 hours a week.

People told her she should divorce him.

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“The child will always be there,” one person wrote. “Seems like you should cut your losses and move on from this relationship. Sad but you will probably but happier in the long-run.”

“Why are you still with him?” another wondered. “In no way do I think it’s your responsibility to raise this child. But it is his responsibility. And this poor kid didn’t ask for any of it. The whole situation would be happier and healthier if y’all just split up.”

Someone else commented: “Just divorce him already. You act like you’ve won, but you have won nothing.”

“ESH not sure how you thought you could stay married while he was a dad to his child,” another person wrote. “Like in what world would that even make sense or work? You should’ve left bc you can’t just shove and entire kid into a closet bc you don’t want to deal with them.”

The OP amended her original post sharing, “I am not the one who created this situation. If my husband wants to pursue custody, I have told him I will not fight it. I will grant him an amicable divorce and let him be on his way. However, I am not going to waste my own time, energy, and money to do so! He is responsible for getting his own ducks in a row for the situation he created. That includes being the one to go through the headache of filing.”

A lot of people think that she was in the wrong, too.

“I understand why you feel the way you do, but you should have divorced him when you found out he had a child and he was going to build a relationship with them,” a comment reads. “Nta for your feelings, yta for staying with him and not expecting him to have parental roles that would overlap with you.”

“Your feelings are valid; your actions are despicable,” one comment began. “You are absolutely the AH for blaming this child for everything that has happened. I can’t believe you didn’t even have enough compassion for the child to divorce your husband given how you feel. Divorce him now and leave the poor kid to be raised by his probably more stable parent.”

 Someone else wrote: “I’ve been thinking about this and to me yes YTA. If you choose to stay, you have to choose to forgive and not forever hold it over his head and punish him. But you are in your own way by how you behave towards his child who had no choice in being his child. You are by making him choose. You are by preferring him to punish his child and send the child far away. If you can’t truly move past it. Can’t live with the child AND TREAT THEM FAIRLY in your home. Then you shouldn’t be in this marriage. You should have left then. ”

“I’ll go against the grain a bit and say YTA,” another person wrote. “Not because you don’t want to raise the child, that’s fine. But your husband had an affair and had a child. You can absolutely choose to leave your husband and have nothing to do with him or the child and I’d be on your side. But you essentially forgave your husband and have chosen to instead punish the innocent child who had absolutely nothing to do with it. If you were unwilling to have anything to do with the child, I don’t blame you for that, but then don’t take your husband back.”