I haven't read anywhere that men are discouraged from walking away from a cheating partner and the child of an affair.

Everything you wrote is obvious, such a man who decides to stick around and raises the child of the woman who cheated on him and the other man is certainly going to be miserable and he deserves it because he's not man enough to kick her to the curb and do a reset on his life.

 

I haven't read anywhere that men are discouraged from walking away from a cheating partner and the child of an affair.

Everything you wrote is obvious, such a man who decides to stick around and raises the child of the woman who cheated on him and the other man is certainly going to be miserable and he deserves it because he's not man enough to kick her to the curb and do a reset on his life.

There most certainly are instances of that happening. Reddit will tear you a new one if a duped man finds out a child he believed he had with his wife or girlfriend turns out not to be his and he even considers walking away from the relationship AND the child as well. They oftentimes judge the man worse than the mother.

 

Trust me... there are men out there who are deeply loving and wouldn't hesitate...

They just DO...

 

How do you know these men are out there, men who after being cheated on wouldn't hesitate to raise the progeny of an affair?

I mean there might be a select few incredibly weak individuals that are afraid to walk away from their cheating wives who have been impregnated by another man but I would hope they're an anomoly and don't represent the entirely of the male gender.

 

I know this is a totally different scenario but I read a book about a married lady who was raped in her own home by a home invader and got pregnant. They didn't agree with killing unborn babies and her husband agreed that she should have the baby and they would bring her up with their own children.
What made it more challenging was that her rapist was black and they are white so I am pretty sure most people would have assumed that the little girl was adopted or that the mother had had an affair.
I love that story. What incredible people.

 

I love that story. What incredible people.

I hate that story.

 

I know this is a totally different scenario but I read a book about a married lady who was raped in her own home by a home invader and got pregnant. They didn't agree with killing unborn babies and her husband agreed that she should have the baby and they would bring her up with their own children.
What made it more challenging was that her rapist was black and they are white so I am pretty sure most people would have assumed that the little girl was adopted or that the mother had had an affair.
I love that story. What incredible people.

Mrs. C and I would have done the same though my wife's assailant would have never been found.

More to the point of this thread though...

Which sites are promoting this @olk ?

👇👇👇

The comments to these posts, as a rule, contain many statements about the innocence of these children and the need for betrayed partners to "man up", reconcile with the cheaters, "overcome infidelity", "move forward", to love the affair children and so on and so forth.

 

Same but child would have been given up for adoption. I could tell the difference if affair or otherwise. My wife contends it would only be over her dead body that another man would be able to. So if she were alive, it would be because she was beat to unconscious.

 

First off cheating alone would be more than enough to end the marriage. An affair child would just put an exclamation point on it

 

I believe for what I`ve read that in the State of Tennessee, USA, it is now law that no man`s name can be placed on a new born`s birth certificate until given a DNA test and proven to be the biological father. There are organisations in America that are campaigning to have this law extended to the whole country, because I`ve also read in western countries a staggering 33% of children are born from affairs and the husbands not knowing they are not the biological fathers.

30 percent of children's born inside a marriage are not the husband's kids. Could be higher because the mothers wouldn't let researcher test their kids.
Last year reported in the UK press 1 in 10 husbands are raising children that unbeknown to them are not theirs.

If my wife were younger and pregnant today I would insist on a DNA test.

 

If the husband doesn't know them how can researchers know?

I would be so hurt if a guy I was married to wanted a DNA test done.
It would damage the trust between us.

 

while I do not agree with a number of the points you make, I do agree that is a very messed up situation and the potential for maltreatment of the affair child is higher than for a wanted child conceived within the marriage.

But I think making a man raise his WW’s affair child is cruel and abusive in the first place.

While I am sure there are some 300lb, blue-haired liberal feminazi’s out there that would insist a BH accept and raise an affair child, I can’t imagine very many normal, decent people would.

 

No no one should ever be forced to raise another person's child. It should only ever happen with both spouses agreeing.

 

Reading through OP's analysis got me thinking about this from a different angle. Here are my initial thoughts, presented in a similar format:

The Reality of Affair Children: A Child-Centered Approach

Internet forums are filled with betrayed partners asking whether they should raise affair children, while commenters push abstract notions of "manning up" and "doing the noble thing." But these discussions miss the fundamental point: what actually serves the child's wellbeing.

The standard advice ignores crucial realities about children, families, and human psychology. Here are the facts betrayed partners need to understand:

1. Children don't naturally prefer biological parents - they bond with whoever loves them consistently.

The myth that genetics creates automatic preference is false. Children attach to adults who provide safety, care, and emotional availability. Adopted children often have stronger bonds with adoptive parents than biological ones. Stepchildren frequently prefer stepparents over absent or harmful biological parents.

Effect: Your relationship with the child depends on your actual parenting, not DNA.

2. Mandatory DNA testing removes family autonomy and treats genetics as more important than chosen relationships.

Families should decide what information serves their circumstances. Institutional policies that force testing prioritize biological connection over the relationships families have actually built.

Effect: State control over intimate family decisions rather than respecting family choice.

3. Half-hearted parenting causes more damage than honest departure.

If you cannot love this child without resentment, staying creates a toxic environment where the child feels unwanted and responsible for adult pain. Children deserve adults who choose to love them completely.

Effect: Better a clean separation than years of conditional, bitter "tolerance."

4. Protecting children from adult drama is non-negotiable.

Using affair children as reminders of betrayal, sources of information about the mother, or emotional support for your trauma destroys their sense of security and self-worth.

Effect: The child becomes a victim twice - once from the affair circumstances, again from adult inability to separate relationship issues from parenting.

5. Multiple loving adults benefit children, not threaten families.

If the biological father wants involvement and can provide good parenting, consider how this serves the child rather than your wounded pride. Blocking beneficial relationships out of spite prioritizes adult ego over child welfare.

Effect: Children with more loving, stable adults typically thrive better than those with fewer.

The bottom line: Every child deserves at least one adult who chooses to love them unconditionally. Whether that's you or someone else matters less than ensuring the child has that foundation. Your decision should be based on honest evaluation of what you can provide, not guilt, social pressure, or abstract nobility.

Don't stay if you'll treat the child as a living reminder of betrayal. Don't leave if you can genuinely love and parent them well. The child's wellbeing - not adult feelings - must drive the decision.

 

Reading through OP's analysis got me thinking about this from a different angle. Here are my initial thoughts, presented in a similar format:

The Reality of Affair Children: A Child-Centered Approach

Internet forums are filled with betrayed partners asking whether they should raise affair children, while commenters push abstract notions of "manning up" and "doing the noble thing." But these discussions miss the fundamental point: what actually serves the child's wellbeing.

The standard advice ignores crucial realities about children, families, and human psychology. Here are the facts betrayed partners need to understand:

1. Children don't naturally prefer biological parents - they bond with whoever loves them consistently.

The myth that genetics creates automatic preference is false. Children attach to adults who provide safety, care, and emotional availability. Adopted children often have stronger bonds with adoptive parents than biological ones. Stepchildren frequently prefer stepparents over absent or harmful biological parents.

Effect: Your relationship with the child depends on your actual parenting, not DNA.

2. Mandatory DNA testing removes family autonomy and treats genetics as more important than chosen relationships.

Families should decide what information serves their circumstances. Institutional policies that force testing prioritize biological connection over the relationships families have actually built.

Effect: State control over intimate family decisions rather than respecting family choice.

to the original message from the OP, I too see many comments online that the man is just suposed to “man up” and take the gut punch of raising an affair kid. That seems to be the current thought process of our western culture, but I’ve seen more and more backlash to that thought process over the past 5 years or so as men are starting to wake up and learning to be more masculine and look out for themselves.

I quoted this part of your message because of the forced DNA test. I don’t believe this should be forced. I think at birth DNA tests should be automatically done by the state but not forced. Meaning, if BOTH the woman and man decide they don’t need the DNA test, then so be it. They can waive their right to the test, but it needs to be unanimous. If the woman doesn’t want the test but the man does, then it still happens.

I think it is important that we go down this road. I don’t care if some women feel that it damages trust. I understand where that comes from… but you know what other women think this is a breech of trust? Women that have cheated and given birth to another man’s baby. So, I have to go with the side that serves the most protection: considering this a breech of trust is a shaming tactic to hide a lie.

I’m also well aware that children bond with whom gives them love. That’s great.

but why does a man want sex so bad? Biologically, he wants to pass on his DNA. He wants to build something to provide for his own family. That takes a lot of time, money and effort…. Only for it to be stripped away in the worst kind of betrayal? Seems a bit unfair when the woman almost for sure always knows who the bio father is.

 

I had a friend (now ex due to her extreme negativity, selfishness, and willfully ignorant decisions), and her husband was such a stupid clod but he thought he was so smart. Stupid, absurd things kept happening to him, all his fault, but of course a stupendous surprise to him every time.

He had one kid with a junkie that he met in the military and knocked up 2 weeks after he met her. Then he had a kid with my friend, who were both too old at 39 and 40, and that kid was born with half it's brain missing. I think they had sex two times after she knew she was pregnant til the time the kid was 4.

He cheated during the pregnancy and beginning of the marriage, with two different women that she knew of, then one day a lady from his past calls him and says your son is 18 and wants to meet you. I never wanted a relationship with you so I hid him and now he's 18 so he can do what he wants. They met. The kid didn't want anything, and had turned out much better than Dad and was going to continue his education.

My friend was shocked and annoyed by this but not nearly as much as I thought she should have been, but then she didn't do anything about the cheating either because all she cared about was his paying all the bills. The kid went back home and that was the end. Her husband just seemed freaked out by the whole thing. I asked, how can we be sure that it was his kid? She said the boy looked just like him.

Not an affair, but still horrifying. And a massive red flag in a sea of other red flags. I would have so many questions but she did nothing proactive. Ever. Just stuck her head back in the sand until the next kid showed up, I guess.

 

He must be free to choose of course.
The mother would be raising the child alone, presumably along with her own children part of the time. Not sure how that little child would feel with their siblings going to dad when they have no dad but hopefully the bio dad may step up and be a good daddy.
It's a very difficult situation all round.

 

The child can be raised without unusual harm if separation is early. Any man who accepted continuing to live with a woman who has a child by an affair in their marriage is either a loser or has some type of hero complex.

 

From what I see in this thread and how I feel about it, relationships work in two fundamentally different ways, and understanding this explains why mandatory testing is wrong.

Some couples build Trust Partnerships where they choose to believe in each other without needing proof. For these relationships, strength comes from mutual faith and emotional commitment. When one partner requests DNA testing, it actually damages the relationship because it implies doubt about fidelity and honesty. These couples specifically want their bond built on choosing to trust each other.

Other couples work better as Evidence Partnerships where they build their connection on confirmed facts and transparent information. For them, testing actually creates stronger foundations because certainty removes anxiety and allows them to invest emotionally without reservation. They see verification as relationship strengthening, not damaging.

The fundamental incompatibility is clear: Trust Partners experience verification requests as betrayal of their chosen approach to intimacy. Evidence Partners find blind faith anxiety-provoking and prefer dealing with concrete reality.

Both types of couples genuinely want loving, secure relationships - they just have completely different ideas about what creates that security. Trust Partnerships thrive on emotional faith in each other. Evidence Partnerships thrive on factual certainty.

This is exactly why mandatory DNA testing fails. It forces all couples into the Evidence Partnership model, even when they specifically chose Trust Partnership as their approach to building intimacy. Family choice respects that different couples need different approaches. The couple themselves should decide which model serves their specific relationship, not have it imposed by institutions.

 

This is exactly why mandatory DNA testing fails. It forces all couples into the Evidence Partnership model, even when they specifically chose Trust Partnership as their approach to building intimacy.

I think though that if the MANDATORY DNA happened, it takes the betrayal OUT of the hands of the Trust Partnership. Neither of them asked to have it done -- it's just done as part of the process of giving birth.

 

This topic brings me to think of the last U.S. election when one of the sides was pro abortion and the other pro life. I am in the middle. What’s wrong with the plan B type pills? Apparently they are supposed to stop the egg from being fertilized to begin with, and it’s debatable whether it is an actual baby right after fertilization.

There’s no ****ing way I’m raising an affair child or a child conceived during a rape.

 

This topic brings me to think of the last U.S. election when one of the sides was pro abortion and the other pro life. I am in the middle. What’s wrong with the plan B type pills? Apparently they are supposed to stop the egg from being fertilized to begin with, and it’s debatable whether it is an actual baby right after fertilization.

There’s no ****ing way I’m raising an affair child or a child conceived during a rape.

You can do the same thing as plan B by taking a bunch of normal bc pills within a small window of time. I think the Princeton website had a list of each brand of bc pill and how much to take to be the equivalent. I think it's just a big estrogen overload that throws the process off, like the myriad of natural things that throw off the process naturally 50% of the time.

 

I have seen it too. Guys who met and married single mums and made it work. I know a couple where he was an unmarried guy with no children she a single mum of two little girls. It works.
.

As she said there are some amazing men around who willingly raise a child who isn't their biological child. They are strong and brave guys.

That is so much different than raising a child born from your wife having an affair. I think you’re mixing apples and oranges here.

A man who meets and marries a single mom is making a clear choice from the start. He knows the situation, decides he’s okay with it, and there’s no betrayal hanging over his head. That can be admirable.

But raising an affair child? That’s a completely different animal. That man didn’t choose it. It was forced on him through betrayal and humiliation. If he stays, he’s not showing strength. He’s swallowing a very bitter pill, usually out of fear, weakness, or lack of self-respect. He’s afraid to leave, afraid of judgment, or clinging to a broken marriage.

To me, there’s nothing noble in that. It’s not “bravery” to live every day with a reminder of your wife’s infidelity and another man’s child. It’s resignation. And he and his wife are now permanently attached to the affair partner, who can be in their lives forever. That’s not courage. That’s another layer of humiliation on top of everything else.

And I’ll say this bluntly, women will never fully understand how deeply emasculating this is. It’s something uniquely experienced by men, and only men.

 

What a truly bizarre world we live in where even one person “admires” a man who is served a **** sandwich that he didn’t order, and wolfs it down like it’s the best meal ever.

 

What a truly bizarre world we live in where even one person “admires” a man who is served a **** sandwich that he didn’t order, and wolfs it down like it’s the best meal ever.

I admire a man who is able to take on a child that isn't his bio child and raise it as his own.
It's the same with women whose husband gets another woman pregnant.

 

This thread is getting surreal and downright Orwellian. Weakness is strength. Self respect is cowardice. Leaving a cheater and her illegit child is abandonment. SMH

 

Just curious, how many of those men are raising a child that resulted from an affair?

I’m still waiting for that answer…..starting to agree with the “confused” assessment…..

I’m still waiting for the answer to if she cheated on Mr @Diana7 and he was raising her affair child when she was talking about how admirable it was that he was involved with her children ………. which I believe are adults.

 

Where are all these "real men" when it comes to the affair partners taking responsibility for their own actions and their own children?

 

These men screwed some guy's wife and now he's raising their kid and incurring all the associated costs. Probably including a college education that will be close to a half a million bucks for a kid that is being conceived as I type this.

These men are laughing at Mr. Hero.

And scouting out their next Mr. Hero's wife for no strings attached copulation.

But it takes time because he's gotta find a woman whose husband is brave enough to raise his child. They're in short supply.

 

For those that think “stepping up” and raising an affair child is strong and courageous, you either imply or explicitly state that a man not raising affair children are weak - or as Diana put it… the easy way out.

this is a shaming tactic used to shame men into doing something they don’t want to do. That is horrible. Reading things like this push me further into dna testing.

raising an affair child isn’t stepping up nor does it take courage. In fact, the child wouldn’t be getting a good, masculine father. The child will have a feminized father who allows himself to be walked all over. In turn, he teaches that to the children and now the children grow up as weak.

 

raising an affair child isn’t stepping up nor does it take courage. In fact, the child wouldn’t be getting a good, masculine father. The child will have a feminized father who allows himself to be walked all over. In turn, he teaches that to the children and now the children grow up as weak.

There is truth to this even though the WW, society as a whole and Diana only care that someone is stuck paying the bills and caretaking the child.

 

I think some people, mainly women, are just kid crazy. It's all about the chilrens until they're about 21, then the resulting adult they become may as well be invisible. Omg you must save the children, and it can be anyone's children, anywhere, and it's perfectly fine for rights and dignity to be bulldozed over or disregarded. It isn't just about bullying men, except that they usually have more financial resources that can be bullied out of them.

 

There are so many assumptions made in this thread it is mind boggling to me... I hope yall sort it out amongst yourselves...

There are extreme outliers

And men out there who STILL rise to the call honorably...

Period...

 

Diana brought up an interesting topic that involved rape. It wasn't really what the OP was talking about but a great discussion.

I'm interested in @Blossom Leigh 's angle on this too.

 

Actually it is classic strawman. You've brought into the discussion one rather extreme scenario that isn't even completely relevant to the discussion. That's pretty much the exact definition of a strawman.


In your scenario, a man saving a woman from a terrible situation and not only helping her get out of it, but also helping her raise her child, which I believe is what you are saying, is not even close to what we are talking about here. In your scenario I think the guy is doing something honorable and admirable. But that is because he choose every on of those things. Nothing was forced on him.

However, what we ARE talking about is raising a child as a result of your wife cheating on you. In that case the situation was forced on him. He has been lied too, betrayed in the deepest way and humiliated by his wife choosing to allow another man to impregnate her. HIm choosing to stay in spite of all that is neither honorable nor admirable IMO.

Acceptable premise, however...

Outliers ARE outliers and I introduce them because they may one day matter...

I outsmarted one of the most dangerous men who claimed to have killed 39 people AFTER he targeted me and had his claws in me... BEFORE BIS MASK DROPPED...attempting to make me a money mule..

And guess who introduced him to me... my violent husband who is my soon to be ex

This man was a professional con artist... (just recently died thank God)

By the time I was done handing him is ass, I had the FBI involved with all the Intel I had gathered

Because I don't commit crimes for anyone and I was quite divorced YET... though I HAD filed and asked.permission, but did NOT know what was ahead of me. 18 solid months of death threats.

I was fighting for my life, AND the life of my child and soon to be ex...

So, like I said.... life isn't so black and white

And guess what is happening now in divorce... my stbx is claiming that as an affair EVEN THOUGH he gave full permission and is now rewriting history.

And TAM won't be able to handle this and that is ok... I've been through worse...

All I know is my education in trauma helped me outsmart an EXTREMELY dangerous man, all his cohorts AND deliver ALL the info to the FBI on this network of criminals from Sandiego to Tampa FL and many cities in between.

So, yes... there are outliers...

And yet I will be **** shamed for it.. when my stbx is who set the whole thing up..

And now my STBX has his claws into my child...

So if any of you are of faith... pray for my Baby child... I am in a VERY complex situation

I don't think some understand what's being discussed.
Would you share a scenario?

I'm interested.

It's risky to share it here... I might...

Sharing it privately with one now...

 

And yet I will be **** shamed for it.. when my stbx is who set the whole thing up..

And now my STBX has his claws into my child...

So if any of you are of faith... pray for my Baby child... I am in a VERY complex situation

This has me wondering, because of the wording used. Is your STBX not the biological father of your child?

 

Throwing all 'what ifs' aside—including cases like rape or pre-existing (even unborn) children—if I came home with an affair baby, my wife would be done with me, and the same goes for her. There is zero tolerance from either of us for that kind of betrayal.

 

I hate to break it to y'all, but I see grown azz women all the time now claiming they were groomed every time some criminal activity or joyride with loverboy goes awry. They get all kinds of benefit, the least of which being, highly underrated pity.

The infantilizing of women, I'm telling ya. The worst part to me is women are the biggest facilitators.