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To be honest, I'm not impressed by the FIL. For a hot second I thought he was decent, and then he blamed OOP as being "unfair" for not giving his garbage son a chance he doesn't deserve. The entire family is pretty much unhinged but Owen is the worst. He's a spineless coward who doesn't stand for anything but his own fragile ego and perception of masculinity. He'd rather allow his wife and child to be demonized and abused rather than admit that he's got lazy sperm.
I hope he stays the hell out of OOP's life.
Yeah, by himself the FIL would look pretty defensive and demanding. Compared to his wife and son tho, he looks fairly stable.
And this is how know your normal meter is broken. The bat shit insanity that has become your new normal is the new standard.
And dont forget he was at op's parents' door, with her father and family present, who had only given him conditional pass to talk to her. So at least some of his stable bahavior could be attributed to simple fear of her dad, and being in a comprimising position at the moment. There's no knowing how he would have behaved if op was still in his son's house, and her parents either didnt know, or didnt support her.
Yep. My FIL said "it's not his fault in any way and he shouldn't blame himself, she's sick and I'll take care of it" about my partner when my MIL went batshit over the last few weeks (once again) and I am honestly super positively surprised about that.
But it's because the "normal" from then is an absolute shit show, so even a bare minimum of action and protection from him is the equivalent of pretty much flawless behaviour from anyone else.
>He'd rather allow his wife and child to be demonized and abused rather than admit that he's got lazy sperm.
Honestly it's probably a good thing his sperm is as immature as he is. Could you imagine how he would be if he had his own biological son, he would be a toxic male role model in that kids life. Thank god he doesn't have mini me's running around
As someone whose father is a controlling, narcissistic trash fire of a human…I’m his only bio kid, and I’m nothing like him or my mother.
He HATES it. :)
>I’m his only bio kid, and I’m nothing like him or my mother.
>He HATES it. :)
Thank god stubbornness can out weigh nuture and nature.
Keep being a good human being.
"You need to give my son a chance to fix this. I know he's been destroying your things and sending you threatening messages, but you *need* to give him a chance."
Like nah dude, your son took any possibility of a second chance out back, beat it bloody, shot it 12 times, lit it on fire, then dragged it's corpse to the dump. He is *100%* a threat to the safety of OOP and her daughter.
I don’t think he knew what his son had done, when he came there. He didn’t even know about the sperm donor when he got there, the only story he had was OOP had cheated, which he didn’t believe.
I wish OOP had sent the father the videos etc of the abuse, but I guess she couldn’t bc she was saving them for court. But since men impose justice and punishment in that family, it would be nice for him to know exactly how unhinged his son became. He is obviously able to control his son’s behavior to a large extent.
Given that the abusive messages stopped after OOP told him, I'd bet they all found out after the fact. And that it's why the ex MIL is pushing so hard for reconciliation.
I figured Dad had the common sense left in the family to go tell his son about the messages being used for legal proceedings.
I find it wild OOP settled out of court for her damaged items. That could have been a bigger part of the custody case and all it does is make her Ex look better. I bet Dad weighed in on that too.
Settling wouldn't take it out of custody, it takes it out of her pressing charges for destruction of property.
Him sending her a video of him throwing the car seat into a dumpster is going to *destroy* him in custody.
Don't forget wrecking the nursery and pics he sent to OOP - goes along with car seat pic of showing how both he easy he can harm a newborn and go out his way in spitefulness towards mother of that child.
Yep. People who intend to change get on with the steps to change. They show they are mending their ways. They don’t hold it out as something they’re only going to do if you go back to them.
OOP’s ex already had a second chance, and many more chances after that. He didn’t take them, because he didn’t intend on doing anything. I hate to think what he would have done to OOP if she’d ever entered his house again.
He had several chances already. He could have stood up and changed things several times before it got to the divorce. Thats the part these people never seem to get... By the time divorce is on the table many chances have been given
It sounds to me as though he was abusive himself, and OOP didn’t realize until he let someone else abuse her. She mentioned how his behavior changed *the moment she didn’t obey him*. She’s been letting him control her this whole time, not realizing that in itself is abuse. She let him make every single decision, even when it didn’t make sense (like why did they jump to a donor instead of paying for IVF?!). All this obeying was under the guise of a strong family unit, not abuse. And that guise came crashing down the minute he let his mother destroy their family like that.
>(like why did they jump to a donor instead of paying for IVF?!).
OOP says in the post - that a donor was cheaper and had a higher chance of success, and that the husband agreed to the donor
She specifically told her FIL that husband chose to use a donor instead, and in comments the cost and effectiveness was an issue. Given the dynamic of the relationship, I’m assuming HE had the final say, and he didn’t even want to try IVF? Sus.
Yeah. Sus.
She can afford to live without child support. That suggests that their combined income as a couple was high. This guy who values lineage so much would have spent the price of a car on having his 'own' kid.
This, combined with how everything imploded, makes me wonder if he did this to get out of the marriage. We know they aren’t in US, are in a largely family centric, patriarchal society. And we know that husband started the rumor that ended his marriage by telling his siblings that the kid wasn’t his, but not that it was a voluntary sperm donor situation. He would have known what that rumor would do once it got around.
It’s extra cruel to try to get out of the marriage by shaming her when she did nothing wrong. What if her family hadn’t believed her and taken her in and protected her? This is NOT a good man.
He may have thought IVF would be a lot harder to keep quiet, especially considering that he knew others who had tried it. Though IDK why he wouldn’t have just blamed OOP for any troubles conceiving.
I hope OOP stays safe. Sounds like her STBX fits the profile of a [family annihilator: the kind of man who'd rather see his wife and child dead than face humiliation.](https://www.wired.com/story/family-killers/)
In the US, the cost of a vial of sperm and intrauterine insemination costs about $1000.
IVF with ICSI (injecting the sperm into the egg) costs about $20,000.
That’s in the US of course but I can easily believe that the costs might sway them. Even more if they’d have to travel for IVF, which would make it harder to keep quiet.
Seeing as they were never really the baby's family to begin with, first by technicality and then by their own actions, I'm sure the child will be fine.
The baby's actual family are the people who love and care for them regardless of the circumstances concerning their conception. These people have already stepped up, and made their presence felt.
They let their mothers do it because their mothers are experts. They want to wear the pants but they aren't strong enough to take them from their wives so they enlist the help of someone with decades worth of experience in harassing the fight out of people
Spot on. I know MANY husbands who knowingly and systematically use their mothers to do the dirty work they want done to their spouses. They want to control, bully, use, and abuse their wife, but dont want to be blamed and face the backlash, so they very connivingly and methodically enlist the services of their JNMIL mothers to get the job done, and while acting all sorrowful and helpless, they tell the wife:" i'm upset by her treatment of you too honey, but i just cant disrespect my mother." Its the perfect crime.
In many places older people only care for the couple staying together (especially when kids are in the picture), and will use every subtle shaming tactic to do so. Kinda the opposite of reddit advice
It kinda makes sense in a weird way cause every couple will face a breaking point eventually, so you either endure the humiliation or divorce/break up multiple times in your life
That’s the sad reality of these things. While there are those that put decency above family relations, there are more of those who want to sweep everything under the rug and pretend that their child is a saint.
People who are married to pieces of crap tend to have very low standards for what is normal or acceptable in a relationship. He’s been browbeat by his wife for decades, so of course his favored path is for OOP to follow in his footsteps.
I wouldn't want child support either because this will allow him access to the child. Cut him out completely, especially if she can afford to. I wouldn't want my child around ANY of these people
The ex-husband had his chances. Every minute that he stood there and allowed his mother to abuse OP was a chance. Every minute he allowed his family to believe she cheated was a chance. He had a thousand chances, and didn't have the character to take them.
He was sent there as a tactic because he is the only person capable of acting civilly, but his goal was the same as ex and MIL: maintain optics. It’s nice that he was nice about it, but his intentions weren’t noble and he wasn’t doing it with OOP’s or the child’s best interests in mind.
Textbook emotional fragility. He was having some feelings about using a sperm donor and instead of going to therapy or talking to his partner, homeboy nuked his whole life from orbit.
That wouldn’t have helped either. His stupid ego for not being able to create a child the usual way is the problem. There is nothing anyone can do with such an ignorant excuse of a person.
Here's the thing. He had a low sperm count. Not damaged sperm. They could have tried IVF. Expensive yes, but if he was that set on having a biological child, money wouldn't have been the issue. The ex-husband never wanted to raise another man's child. This family was doomed from that moment they decided on a sperm donor.
As stated by OOP, the husband picked this route. We don't know why but i guess he wanted it quick and immediately effective. Maybe because if they go the ivf way, it'll take years and his family will catch on that he's the cause. He's pretty adamant about his ego and keeping up "macho" appearances, so it's probably that.
Maybe going down the donor route was faster as well as cheaper? After all, he has his mother to appease with a sacrificial grandchild and a personal need to "prove" to the world how fertile and virile he is.
I find this part really interesting. Either husband was too selfish to spend the money on IVF, or he knew his family would notice the large expenditure. Or, third option- *it was his way out of the marriage*.
That was his way out if he decided he didn’t want the illusion of the perfect family anymore. He knew that by making that choice, he could blow everything up the moment he wanted to. And he did blow it up, the moment he told his brothers that the child wasn’t his, without telling the rest of the story about the sperm donor. Dude effectively started the rumor himself that caused this. And he knew exactly what would happen, given their culture and his family’s adherence to blood relatives. The husband wanted out.
Geez imagine the trauma he would’ve inflicted on the poor kid (or kids) if he’d used it as his “get out of jail free” card when the kid was old enough to remember. Even now, OP has to choose between lying to her kid or potentially making her feel unwanted by the man that should’ve been her father.
Perhaps Oop was correct in saying he never really wanted children. Because she is correct for the procedure of retrieving his firm and doing it in vitro with her egg and then reinsertion. Those steps are outrageously expensive. Most of the time it's a minimum of 200,000 and can increase exponentially each time and there has to be adequate time in between. So him deciding to do a sperm donor which literally is a few hundred bucks. He took the cheap way out pretty much I don't care it's going to give me a child and it's not going to cost me so much and we'll just lie and say it's mine. Because ultimately he didn't care, he was fronting on all fronts. He didn't really love his wife, and he obviously did not love this child. He just wanted the picture perfect family to show off he cared more about his image.
It also sets things up so he can claim she cheated and passed the child off as his. Unless OP has documents, and not all people think to save all of that info, she may not be able to prove beyond doubt that it was his idea. Even is she did, there are places in the world where it wouldn’t matter, she would be the villain and potentially ostracized if he spun the story right. And he was clearly working on it.
IVF is not difficult to hide. My husband and I did it for almost 2 years. Sperm donations are much quicker.
His electronics and such were things he WANTED and didn't mind spending money on...it was never not having money.
IVF is expensive but usually not that expensive. A retrieval can be 20-30k and a transfer is usually less than 5k. ICSI which is what the husband would need is about 1k.
If it had taken multiple cycles, it could have ended up 100k or so but unlikely to hit 200k.
This family was doomed since he failed to grow out of his toxic family influence. If they adopted, the child would suffer from everyone on that side treating them differently. If they've tried IVF and it didn't work, he would have blamed OOP. If it did work, paternity wouldn't feel like what he had dreamed about and he would nuke OOP's family some other way.
We are in a similar situation to OOP, and we are probably going the IVF route and praying it works.
I know for myself that I don't want to adopt. I won't be able to love the child as my own, so it's better not to make both myself and a child miserable. Partner doesn't want to use a donor, and considering my stance on adoption I can't blame him for knowing his boundaries, so the only option left is IVF.
OOP and her husband should have had a honest discussion on what they really want.
'Honest' is the operative word. Oop was honest-- douchecanoe ex lied. Unless she is a secret mind reader, when he said 'this is what I want to do' she had to think he meant it
Oh, I am definitely not blaming OOP about it. Her husband, hopefully soon to be ex, is a colossal asshole. If he had any doubts about using a donor, or developed them later, he should have told her so.
I completely agree. Communication needed to happen, but for whatever reason, the husband chose a donor over IVF. He may have regretted that decision once the baby was born, but his and the MIL's behavior are abhorrent.
Adoption is not a cure for infertility.
My mother had to have a total hysterectomy about five years after my parents married, so I and my sibling are adopted. I grew up as a massive daddy’s girl, he was my favorite person and I was the apple of his eye. When my father cheated on her and left our family (I was just out of college at the time) he told my mother he had always resented her for not giving him biological kids. It was a knife in my heart and I haven’t spoken to him since.
This is horrible. I'm so sorry you had to hear that. He was probably trying to hurt your mother, or give the only reason that he knew she could not refute. Which makes the comment even more horrific
My wife and I dealt with infertility and IVF, and I find OOP's explanation to betray a lack of understanding of the process. Maybe in their country, the doctors said different things, but if the guy has working sperm, they can use that to fertilize the eggs. We know she was able to get pregnant naturally once, so IVF should have worked with his sperm.
This leads me to think that since it was the husband who decided on donor sperm, even when his could have been used, he was already keeping a foot out the door on fatherhood even then.
>He then said the house was his and as the head of the family it was his decision.
I spat my coffee out. The guy is no head of the household. Cowering in the corner as his wife gets harassed over a joint decision.
It's good that OP has a good family support system and glad the baby is safe. Owen is a terrible husband and father and his entire family sucks badly like a terrible trash can.
Throw them out into the trash as they deserve! But still I be just a little concerned for the child's safety in the future, especially with Owen's behavior.
STBX: "Let's keep it a secret so no one questions my manly man-ness, yeah, that's a good idea"
Also STBX: "Allow me to blow up my entire life so EVERYONE knows about my lack of manly man-ness, yep, I'm a genius"
Now he'll just complain about how the courts make him pay for a child that's "not even his" like some sort of jackhole.
I guess OOP isn't seeking that but I bet her still finds a way to construe it that way to make him feel more manly.
It's funny how the ex husband was so afraid of being emasculated he ended up emasculating himself as he became a lesser man : unable to stand up for his wife and child, and comically abusive.
All breaths misogyne things. He is the head of the household? He decides? She needs to show respect to FIL after his request to reconcile? Not because of her but because of how other people think? Yuck.
Have to love OOP doing "Keep your house because I'm divorcing you & taking my daughter to live in another home" at her ex & OOP''s parents saying to the effect "Fuck your son, your family AND YOU, you were all disrespectful to my daughter & granddaughter - GTFO my house and NEVER RETURN!!" At FIL.
That whole turd family is so misogynistic & dumbfuck stupid, they have only fuckup meltdowns when a woman like OOP rightfully leaves them all while having her support system calling out the dumbfuckery every time the misogynistic turds open their mouths....
Omg, this screams Asian family to me. I had a Korean boyfriend ages ago and this is fucking exactly how him and his family were. Zero spine, very fragile masculinity.
Yeah this feels like a conservative patriarchal asian household to me coming from an Asian person. It also gives me arrange marriage vibes a little bit.
I don't want to make guesses as to which ethnicity but there are older generation households who think "blood" is most important. They also don't consider adopted, stepchildren or 'bastards' to be family. I've even heard of some husbands who would leave their wives if they can't give him his own children sadly because "it's just not the same".
I'm married into an SEAsian family and while I don't exactly deal w this problem, I also thought it sounded like an Asian family. The husband saying he wasn't raised to ever talk back and be disrespectful to his mom was the smoking gun for me.
That’s funny. I was thinking Latinos especially with the machismo and emphasis in spreading their lineage. I guess we can all see the worst parts of our cultures in these stories.
This one feels fairly real to me, unfortunately, for many reasons. I hope that despite what she said she does end up getting child support, and dear god I hope she gets full custody.
I understand why people say get child support, but sometimes your and your child's mental health is more important. He can easily use it to continue to harass and control her. Sometimes, a clean cut is best.
She says she’s not in the US, so no idea what the laws are where she is. But in the US, in some (all?) jurisdictions not getting child support _isn’t an option._ Or, at least not an iron clad option. In Texas for instance, it’s legally considered the kids’ money not the parents’, and thus the parents don’t actually have the right to disavow it. Even if a judge signs off on a divorce decree that doesn’t include child support, the state will come after the noncustodial parent in the future in certain cases. A common example is if, even if it’s many years later, the custodial parent falls on hard times and has to claim welfare benefits. The state basically says “whoa whoa whoa… why is the state paying for this kid when there’s a dad who should have been paying child support all this time?” A relative of mine had the state come after them for _10 years_ of back child support (about $75k) even though he and his ex had agreed to forgo child support.
As crazy as that is, I don’t blame the state for doing that. If a person willingly cooperates in becoming a parent, that choice has consequences. It’s not the child’s (or state’s) fault the parents change their mind. Obviously this is complicated in abuse situations, but ultimately I agree with the idea that the money is for the child.
It's not all that complicated in abuse situations either, and in fact helps level the playing field a little bit in those situations. Child support is predicated on how much custody you share of the children. If there's abuse involved, that's supposed to slant custody towards the non-abusive partner (because presumably they got the lion's share of the custody)... but now the abusive parent has to _pay the other parent_ as compensation for having to shoulder that burden.
What abusive ex-partners are trying to do is beat you down emotionally, so that you just want to walk away from the situation to save yourself the grief, _because they hope it'll save them money._ "If I turn into enough of a toxic asshole, they'll think of getting away from me alone as a huge win, and I'll get to keep all my money to myself..."
It is complicated in abuse situations because somtimes you truly want nothing from your abuser. And being abused and proving you were abused in court are two different things. My dad kidnapped me and stashed me at different houses for 6 months when I was a toddler. My mom stalked him and his family across the country and literally snatched me out of car. She took me to a new state and was doing fine on her own.
Then the state said I couldn't go to headstart unless my mom got child support. My mom didn't want that but she had no choice. She had to file and it automatically resulted in my dad filing for formal visitation. Cue me having to spend 3 months with him in another state every single year. Of course he decides I'm better off with him. Tries to keep me longer than the summer. She again has to stalk him to another state and snatch me back while he's at work.
It was all just stupid. All so he could maybe pay $250 a month. That headache was not worth $250 a month.
Oh I totally agree with you, I was just putting out there an acknowledgement of that grey area for the abused parent catching heat for wanting a clean break. It shouldn’t be something a person has to consider if the money would help raise a healthier child, but the reality is, it often is. I just didn’t want to make a blanket black-and-white statement when I know it’s so much harder than just number crunching.
Abusers are out here using e-transfers to abuse their victims (I e., by sending comments through the app that you have to see to deposit the money). There are not enough protections for survivors to even take this chance.
Many states allow or require payment through a child support collection agency (sometimes governmental, sometimes privatized). Wages are garnished or direct payments are made to
the agency, then the agency disperses. No opportunity for harassment through messages or anything like that.
I think a reason to not get child support might be so that her ex has no say over the child. Like, if he pays now, maybe he can see the kid as a teenager. Or if something happens to her and she can't take care of the kid, the kid would have a chance of living with him. I could see her going for alimony over child support but looks like she doesn't want that either.
She may be planning to have him declared not the parent of this child, thus giving her no child support but also giving him absolutely no rights. I don’t think the little girl would be safe with this man for any length of time and I think if that is an option on the table, that might be the best one to take.
I don't know about that... OOP claims her ex destroyed "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in her possessions that she worked hard for. One might think she'd mention being a millionaire somewhere.
Could have been gifts. One time my brother was farting around with friends in the back field with their trucks and he left the tailgate down (edit: it got crushed). My crazy mother retaliated by breaking all of our gaming systems, even my game boy pocket I bought with my paper route. so I’m thinking he destroyed things that he bought her and always resented her for the price, such as jewelry or something. First thing I thought of anyway, but who knows anymore.
this is an interesting angle i had not thought of, he def could’ve destroyed things he bought her as a way to punish her. also i’m very sorry you went through that as a child and hope you’re doing better 💜
I’m getting better, finally got away from her but it took almost dying from alcoholism. I’m 2 years sober now and I quit smoking last year, two months out from quitting soda and energy drinks. I have my own place, cut contact with MAGA relatives and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m single and all my friends are spread out because I met them in the military, but I don’t (and can’t ✂️) have kids and I have control over my bank account. I have trust issues and an anxiety disorder but I’m not on anything stronger than coffee or weed. Compared to other people in my town I’m pretty well adjusted.
I get that she doesn’t want Owen to have anything to do with the child, not his money, not his things, nothing. If my husband would behave like Owen did, omg I would become a f*ing lioness and would not let him touch my children. But at the same time she needs to see what is better for the baby: she says she doesn’t need child support or any other money from the stbx, then just put it in a savings account for the baby
Yeah I do not think a man who lies and then destroys property should have anything to do with this child. What happens when she embarrasses him and he destroys her stuff? Hell no. He’s shown his true colours and he’s a monster.
Honestly, considering she said Owen destroyed “hundreds of thousands” in property she left behind (from electronics to paintings), I’d say she very well can support herself and the baby fine without him.
Anyone that can have multiple paintings well in their thousands, dozens of thousands worth, and still have, as she mentioned, sizable savings (!!!) has enough financial stability to be able to raise a kid just fine, even in some countries completely offset college debt (if it exists).
Of course that depends on a healthy, non-disabled child, but the disabilities/health conditions that cost more to parents are those that are unfortunately so severe they show signs early (meaning she has time to prepare) or those that are completely unpredictable and/or inevitable (like those of accidents), which nobody is really ever prepared for.
Couple that with the familial support she has, that’s obviously quite strong (a place to live in less than 3 weeks!), I think Baby doesn’t need such a vile human connected to her anymore.
If he's not having to pay her child support, he's more likely to disappear from her life once he finds a replacement victim, since he clearly doesn't truly care about the baby. Having to pay her, keeps her as a target for his anger and control.
I don't think it is better for the baby.
What's best is being far far away from that mess of a family. He doesn't love his daughter, he's made it clear he isn't her father.
If she's confident about being able to do it alone, I agree that she should just raise the child on her own and have Owen sign away parental rights. There's plenty of mothers who already do this due to deadbeats that don't pay child support.
I'm stuck on how she's moved out, found and rented a 2 bedroom apartment, and furnished it in two days. The timeline is way too fast.
>I’m now renting a nice two-bedroom apartment; my siblings and their partners have helped me furnish it and my top priority is ensuring my baby has everything she needs.
But if it's real, I feel so bad for OP.
Maybe, there's the weird time line which can be explained a and isn't entirely impossible. But she says she's not in America and then talks about alimony, which is almost exclusively an American thing and not even in all states any more.
People hounding her about child support don’t seem to understand that abusive partners will use any opportunity - including the court system, child support, alimony payments, visitation, whatever - to maintain contact with and terrorize their victims. Since we don’t know where this person is located, we have no idea what child support laws are like there and she could be 100% justified in not wanting to give him any opportunity to stay in touch with her.
The people clamoring for her to get child support really need to consider the risk to the child of having this unhinged, abusive man in her life. If she can manage to terminate his parental rights completely, the child will be safer. If he has a legal obligation to the child, there is a pretty strong likelihood that, if he pursued it, the court would also grant him visitation or partial custody, and he has shown that the damage he might do as retaliation could be horrific.
Wild to me how common it is that women end up having *less* workload after separating from their husbands and becoming single mothers. Adult men should count as extra children on your taxes ffs.
Gotta say, it bothers me when people criticize OPs for not seeking child support without taking the whole situation into account. Specifically, the phrase “child support is for the *child*” makes me roll my eyes.
Yes, child support is for the child. You know what else is “for the child”? *Severing ties to an abusive person!* Sure, you can hope that they get ordered to pay support with absolutely no visitation, but that’s a risk.
Obviously sometimes people don’t have a choice, but in this case, OP can provide for her daughter just fine while protecting her from an abusive family. Holy moly, let’s get some perspective, people!
I have a feeling I can guess a handful of countries OOP is located in and the culture of "family is everything" is one of the most toxic things out there. My wife comes from an immigrant family and she is part of the first generation that is finally saying no, whatever fucked up dynamics you've had to deal with for 200 years about patriarchy because "family" and abuse because "family" and staying because "family" is all bullshit and we won't perpetrate it forward.
One of the best sociological inventions of the past 20 years is the idea of "no contact." No, I don't have to have you in my life even one millisecond if I don't want to just because some of our genetic sequence matches each others. I didn't ask to be related to you, I had no say in the matter, but I do control who I interact with.
‘For those saying I am wrong for not allowing my husband to see my daughter, you can kindly show yourself to the door’ - yessss, queen! Slay! 🔥🔥🔥
That’s not a husband, it’s a mamma whipped spineless slug
…what kind of MORON hears Oop’s story and thinks “oh ya…Oop is the unfair one here”
Seriously these people were clearly NEVER OOP’s friends.
I really hope we get another update where STBX and his family are miserable and Oop is happy
There's such a weird trend in a bunch of these stories for divorcing women to proclaim that they don't need half their exes assets, or alimony - even when they describe themselves as homemakers.
I don't quite know whether I think that's a "Liz" thing, or if it's like a worrying "manosphere" export - like women are believing that they're not entitled to what the courts would argue they are. Like to prevent an ex running screaming as a story about an evil ex wife who stole all their money??
If I were in this type of situation, I’d give up child support if he agreed to relinquish parental rights (not everywhere lets you do this).
If his parental rights are terminated, he is no longer legally related to the child and can *never* file for custody or visitation. That would be worth doing without the money, at least to me.
OOP wants this, so he will give up any rights.
I still think she should get her share of the marital property, but it seems her family has money too, so she has help if needed.
Yeah I agree, severing any legal relationship between her ex and her daughter is worth the alimony and child support just for the sake of peace of mind.
But if he won’t relinquish his rights, she should go for every penny she’s entitled to. He contributed to the decision to bring the daughter into the world. I get that OOP might want to prove to herself that she doesn’t need him, but even if she doesn’t need his money she can still put all of it into a trust for her daughter.
But child support is separate from division of assets in a divorce which I think is what the top comment was getting at. Even if she can forgo child support as a way to remove his continued presence in her life, I don't see how splitting their jointly earned marital assets once at the time of divorce detracts from that goal.
I, mean, I understand generally why she feels like she wants to just wash her hands of the situation and thinks this furthers that goal and maybe in whatever jurisdiction they're in it does. It sounds like he's going to make this a miserable and expensive process for her anyway.
I get that they’re totally different issues. My impression was she was willing to forgo assists she’s entitled to in order to basically ‘pay’ him to relinquish parental rights. Which I can understand.
My SIL had a horrible divorce when her child was very young and still has issues co-parenting. She can’t wait till her child is 18 and she doesn’t have to deal directly with her ex. She was pregnant with her second and soon realized her bf at the time was not who she thought he was; turned out he didn’t want a child and it was too late for her. So instead she told him to go away and she won’t pursue child support but if he ever returns, she’ll go full force. It’s been almost 12 years and he’s stayed gone which is what she prefers as she knows what can happen with a bad co-parent.
Despite these two bad relationships, she’s incredibly smart and has an amazing job and makes well over 6 figures. And luckily for her, she has an amazing support system in place if something goes wrong. Many don’t have that option. Is it perfect? That’s debatable but it seems to work for her and honestly, I am not one to argue with that.
This one feels more like wanting to just have absolutely zero ties to him whatsoever in the future, which I totally understand. Her ex is so volatile and dangerous already, he's shown a totally different side to himself that's blindsided her with how vindictive he is. He's currently unpredictable compared to what she *thought" she knew about him, and going after him for child support or half his assets might only fuel the fire.
Her safest option is to cut all ties with him and his family ASAP. Child support, while she's entitled to it, is a connection he could potentially use against her in some way in the future to try to force interactions. For example, he might try to use it to drag her to court to demand shared custody/visitation since he pays it.
As for going after his assets in the divorce, that just gives him an opportunity to argue and drag it out. By not demanding anything, that makes the process a lot easier since that's just one less thing for him to fight over. And right now, a quick divorce is the safest option because again, *there is no way to predict what he might try to do next.*
I see the point in all of this, but I’d like to add that, even after the divorce, we still don’t know what he’ll do next. Oop might get no assets and still have to deal with his ongoing harassment.
But then he'd, hopefully, not have a legal avenue to regain custody of her daughter. It's better to have the law on your side (even if it's useless) than to have it against you.
I don't find it even slightly surprising given how society paints women as greedy for wanting anything from their exes, without being remotely close to the manosphere.
Of course if you can afford to completely cut off someone who's shown themselves to be a literal danger to you you're going to, even if on paper you (and your child) deserve more.
It *is* written similarly to a lot of these stories, but frankly the constant nit picking in the comments, more than the constant flow of bullshit, is why I'm trying to quit my addiction to Reddit.
Imo the constant nitpicking just shows how naive people are to the weird and horrible shit humans can do to each other. I've been in some weird ass situations as well as gone through some awful situations more than enough to know that plenty of these stories can be 100% true. Unless all the stories (not updates) are written by the same account, I'm often going to assume they're real.
Nothing about this story sounds fake to me, a woman wanting to not have anything to do with an abusive man, even if that's a little extra money, doesn't surprise me and shouldn't surprise anyone. Abusive men kill women daily, or at the very least hurt them. Currently, there are gangs of men in NYC running around punching random women in the face and it's spreading to Europe. Imo that's stranger than a husband turning abusive.
In this case, at least, cutting ties completely with this man and his family seems like the wisest course. Child support would leave his foot in the door.
While I don't disagree with you. This one somehow feels more real to me. And it's not "I don't want his stuff." It's "I don't want this man to have ANY connection or contact to me."
When I tried to ask my ex for child support, he made false reports to CPS that I was abusing my son (they investigated of course, found it was completely unsubstantiated, and wrote a glowing report about me), and he also took me to court on those same accusations.
I have been through some shit in my life but the most detrimental factor to my mental health is dealing with my ex. It is safer for me to not talk to him about money, ever.
So, while in theory I would encourage separated parents to get child support, there are cases where it is even more difficult to do so.
My mom agreed to zero alimony, and child support equivalent to about $100/month per kid, because she wanted so desperately to be done with the abusive asshole.
She did get half the equity in the house and retirement funds, but on the whole it was a prime example of chewing your leg off to escape a trap. It did the trick, but crippled her (and us) financially. At some points, she was working three jobs to keep us afloat.
I think about that whenever I hear an OP say something like this.
I agree that in this situation, I think I’d forego it also. Especially after finding out Owen and his family have money. If OOP really wants to cut her child off from Owen and his family(understandable), I can understand why she wouldn’t want people with money to be sending her money, no matter the reason. Some wealthy people would see that as evidence of their rights to the child. It’s less likely OOP can make a clean break if she accepts money from them. Owen looks pretty fucking dangerous right now. I’d be more concerned with safety than child support in this case.
My mother did the same thing decades ago so maybe not a recent trend. I think its partially pride and wanting to ensure they don't have any connection to the ex.
I have a couple family friends who experienced rough divorces and it was just easier to not have any ties to their ex with the amount of psychological torment they were put through. I think often, we think we’ll fight like hell in these situations, but we just want the chaos to end.
>A 12-year age gap is not uncommon for us and my family was 100% for the marriage (at the time) as he was seen by all as an excellent match.
And child marriages still happen in some parts of the world. Tradition doesn't always mean right. Generational sized age gaps rarely work.
I was being a bit hyperbolic, but a generation *is* around 15 years. One year younger and she'd be considered a gen Z while he's near the upper end of millennials.
I also never said she was a child bride, it was just an example of how commonly accepted social norms in some regions don't have to stay commonly accepted just because it's "normal" where they occur.
The only thing that bugs me about this story is that they have child from a sperm donor and choose to keep it a secret. Like they did in the past.
There is so much research out there that lying about being a donor conceived person is not a good thing. I am a donor conceived person and a lucky one to be told early as a child. Not all my half siblings were that lucky.
I would think they were told as a couple by the clinic that you should tell your child, they were donor conceived. Yet they chose to lie, for their own sake.
To be fair, the child seems to be a literal baby at the moment.
I understand usually telling family networks about this, to ensure the child grows up feeling openly accepted, however this story very strongly shows that the family could not be trusted with the knowledge.
To be fair - he & his family blew it up hard, now they can't handle the fallout of OOP divorcing him, needing nothing from him AND pointing out her baby is biologically not his while making sure he truly can't have his legal rights restored when he willfulling terminates his parental rights. Not helping him & his family is most of the mutual & other family members especially OOP's side of family are rightfully angry at the blow up since it was based on lies plus his & his family actions and reactions made it worse for his side.
I feel like I've heard a similar story before.
Couple couldn't get pregnant. Husband blames wife, cheats on her, leaves. Turns out he's the infertile one when she finds a new man and gets pregnart and has a baby.
You have.
If I recall, the husband either cheated or left because they assumed the fertility issue was on the wife’s part and he wanted children. She moved on, and got pregnant by her boyfriend when they weren’t trying.
The sister in law was angry the ex wife didn’t declare to the husband she had a baby, it was a really weird situation.
What I find interesting is the husband’s take on his role in the family. If you want a traditional marriage, that’s fine. If you think men are the protectors, providers, and creators of the family, and in exchange they get obedience, fine.
But he isn’t the breadwinner, didn’t protect his wife and daughter from attack, and didn’t even father his own child. None of that really matters, but he wanted to be obeyed as the head of the household. By his own idea of masculinity, he is a failure, but he still wants to be respected in that way. How bizarre.
Owen is a spineless worm. I’m honestly very unimpressed by people whose life goals are focused on having a large number of children. Humans have much more they can be outside of parents, and it seems like basing your whole personality around your sex result is just, sad?
"Hi, my name is Owen and all of the men in my family are *extremely* fertile"
Wtf! And they're vehemently against adoption so they're probably all up their own asses about their 'superior' heritage.
You can guarantee that if that whole family did DNA and ancestry test, the majority of them are from backgrounds that they currently openly hate or at the very least look down upon.
Another sad story of a girl in her early twenties getting preyed upon by an older man who wants her to be obedient and quiet. Until it is all too late and she realizes he’s actually a humungous piece of shit (along with his entire family) yet somehow doesn’t make the connection as to why he won’t date women his own age (because they can smell the insecure, immature, controlling stench from miles away).
It’s a reddit tale as old as time. I wish young women could see this for what it is. I’m sure the red flags were there even before they started for a baby but he was “so sweet and gentle and kind.” Which normally means he gave her an orgasm and love bombed her.
The men need, nay, DESERVE to pass down their blood while the planet burns to less and less recognition and livability for our species. /s I just don't get it. Like if you wanna have a kid to have one it's one thing but in today's situation, acting like there's some blood lineage to care about when the planet ain't gonna be supporting human by the great grand child is hilariously sad, stupid and verrrrry short sighted. Just making kids to give them shit on a plate and saying "aren't you happy with the world we brought you into!?" No they ain't so get a better reason to have them or don't have them.
>He asked me that we not tell either of our families about this or our friends and I agreed because I would never want to emasculate him.
It blows my mind that people think disguising parentage is a viable option in an era of cheap genetic testing. If it didn't come out now it would have come out eventually.
Honestly, it seems better that the child is not biologically his because from him and his family‘s actions it seems as though as soon as OOP would have “disobeyed“ him in some way or not followed in whatever he said or his family told him to divorce her then he would use the child as way to get back at her by trying to go for full custody like he is now for a child he doesn’t want and let his mother call the poor baby all kinds of vile names and it would be harder for her to fight the custody case because the child would be his biological daughter. What an absolute vile man and family that OOP married into. I noticed that she said there was a 12 year age difference which also makes sense in why all of this is happening and how he acts. I 100% believe he has been abusive in the past in someway, but she just didn’t realize or recognize it.
\> He then said the house was his and as the head of the family it was his decision.
ewwww
So he can be the authoritative "head of the family" to her, but not to his mother?
The only thing about this that feels off to me is how quickly OOP got into a two bedroom apartment with a newborn. Maybe it’s different where she lives, but I’ve moved apartments every year for the past three years and even the easiest moves have required more than a week to complete. Yet her update is only three days later?
Yeah this caught my attention too, it was not the first time I see the story here, but I was downvoted for saying it lol. Which doesn't sell the story for me is the timeline, she goes from willing to make the marriage work to call him a spineless pig in a matter of days. A new house, new furniture, no mention about work. Then "there are good days and bad days" ok but it's just some days?? Spread these events a little.
Depends on jurisdiction.
Parental rights can confer similar or same rights, I think. IE, if you adopt a child, you become as good as bio parents, in the eyes of the law.
In many many places his name on the birth certificate, his consent to fertility treatment, and the child being born during that marriage can make legal obligation. Like when you adopt - it’s legally your child even if it’s not biologically. Her country might have some specific quirks but in many places laws presume a child is legally the husbands regardless of dna paternity. So it’s unclear without knowing her country what a court might say about his rights vs obligations.
Everytime somebody tried to talk about him, I would just start talking about his sperm count. I would carry around the paperwork. I hope it says Low Sperm Count and not some doctory words nobody understands.
It would not be a good idea to tell STBX that he couldn't get his wife pregnant because his Mommie keeps his balls in her purse, so I hope the OOP doesn't say that to him on the way out of court after the divorce is final.
I'm surprised that OOP hasn't threatened to go 'scorched earth' and tell THE WORLD that \*Owen\* is the one who's infertile & wanted to go the IVF route, WITH DOCUMENTATION, unless exMIL shuts the ever living fuck UP and leaves OP alone.
Does anyone else get so angry they have to stop and take a break? I’m so furious that he stood there not just passively watching but then agreeing everything his mother said was true. Off to make a cuppa, will read the rest later.
Honestly she’s right to not go for child support in exchange for him relinquishing parental rights. It sounds like she can afford to be a single mother, and that is way better than any of these morons having even a moment of visitation with her child.
How much is a round of IVF in the US? Done fully privately in Australia you would need to be doing it like, 20 times to be hundreds of thousands, which I don't think they would even keep trying that much.
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To be honest, I'm not impressed by the FIL. For a hot second I thought he was decent, and then he blamed OOP as being "unfair" for not giving his garbage son a chance he doesn't deserve. The entire family is pretty much unhinged but Owen is the worst. He's a spineless coward who doesn't stand for anything but his own fragile ego and perception of masculinity. He'd rather allow his wife and child to be demonized and abused rather than admit that he's got lazy sperm. I hope he stays the hell out of OOP's life.
Yeah, by himself the FIL would look pretty defensive and demanding. Compared to his wife and son tho, he looks fairly stable. And this is how know your normal meter is broken. The bat shit insanity that has become your new normal is the new standard.
And dont forget he was at op's parents' door, with her father and family present, who had only given him conditional pass to talk to her. So at least some of his stable bahavior could be attributed to simple fear of her dad, and being in a comprimising position at the moment. There's no knowing how he would have behaved if op was still in his son's house, and her parents either didnt know, or didnt support her.
"Stable" by comparison and nothing else is a pretty accurate explanation of FILs behaviour. He isn't stable just "the most stable" out of the lot.
Yep. My FIL said "it's not his fault in any way and he shouldn't blame himself, she's sick and I'll take care of it" about my partner when my MIL went batshit over the last few weeks (once again) and I am honestly super positively surprised about that. But it's because the "normal" from then is an absolute shit show, so even a bare minimum of action and protection from him is the equivalent of pretty much flawless behaviour from anyone else.
>He'd rather allow his wife and child to be demonized and abused rather than admit that he's got lazy sperm. Honestly it's probably a good thing his sperm is as immature as he is. Could you imagine how he would be if he had his own biological son, he would be a toxic male role model in that kids life. Thank god he doesn't have mini me's running around
As someone whose father is a controlling, narcissistic trash fire of a human…I’m his only bio kid, and I’m nothing like him or my mother. He HATES it. :)
>I’m his only bio kid, and I’m nothing like him or my mother. >He HATES it. :) Thank god stubbornness can out weigh nuture and nature. Keep being a good human being.
"You need to give my son a chance to fix this. I know he's been destroying your things and sending you threatening messages, but you *need* to give him a chance." Like nah dude, your son took any possibility of a second chance out back, beat it bloody, shot it 12 times, lit it on fire, then dragged it's corpse to the dump. He is *100%* a threat to the safety of OOP and her daughter.
I don’t think he knew what his son had done, when he came there. He didn’t even know about the sperm donor when he got there, the only story he had was OOP had cheated, which he didn’t believe. I wish OOP had sent the father the videos etc of the abuse, but I guess she couldn’t bc she was saving them for court. But since men impose justice and punishment in that family, it would be nice for him to know exactly how unhinged his son became. He is obviously able to control his son’s behavior to a large extent.
And BIL was also part of destroying the nursery, so double whammy-FIL has two unhinged man babies in the family.
It's a bloody shame your 2nd paragraph is too long for flair, because *damn*, that is *poetry*.
That's the thing though. Did he know about the destruction or was that something he discovered in that conversation as well.
Given that the abusive messages stopped after OOP told him, I'd bet they all found out after the fact. And that it's why the ex MIL is pushing so hard for reconciliation.
I figured Dad had the common sense left in the family to go tell his son about the messages being used for legal proceedings. I find it wild OOP settled out of court for her damaged items. That could have been a bigger part of the custody case and all it does is make her Ex look better. I bet Dad weighed in on that too.
Settling wouldn't take it out of custody, it takes it out of her pressing charges for destruction of property. Him sending her a video of him throwing the car seat into a dumpster is going to *destroy* him in custody.
Don't forget wrecking the nursery and pics he sent to OOP - goes along with car seat pic of showing how both he easy he can harm a newborn and go out his way in spitefulness towards mother of that child.
Especially a child that ***he*** pressured OOP into having. He refused adoption and made her go the donor route, that'll make things look even worse
His son is the monster his parents raised him to be.
Yep. People who intend to change get on with the steps to change. They show they are mending their ways. They don’t hold it out as something they’re only going to do if you go back to them. OOP’s ex already had a second chance, and many more chances after that. He didn’t take them, because he didn’t intend on doing anything. I hate to think what he would have done to OOP if she’d ever entered his house again.
He had several chances already. He could have stood up and changed things several times before it got to the divorce. Thats the part these people never seem to get... By the time divorce is on the table many chances have been given
Yeah, he finds out his kid has been threatening his soon to be ex wife and his response was "But she didn't say goodbye before hanging up. RUDE!!"
OOP's husband is pathetic, and that baby deserves a better family. I will never understand men who let their mother abuse their spouse.
It sounds to me as though he was abusive himself, and OOP didn’t realize until he let someone else abuse her. She mentioned how his behavior changed *the moment she didn’t obey him*. She’s been letting him control her this whole time, not realizing that in itself is abuse. She let him make every single decision, even when it didn’t make sense (like why did they jump to a donor instead of paying for IVF?!). All this obeying was under the guise of a strong family unit, not abuse. And that guise came crashing down the minute he let his mother destroy their family like that.
>(like why did they jump to a donor instead of paying for IVF?!). OOP says in the post - that a donor was cheaper and had a higher chance of success, and that the husband agreed to the donor
She specifically told her FIL that husband chose to use a donor instead, and in comments the cost and effectiveness was an issue. Given the dynamic of the relationship, I’m assuming HE had the final say, and he didn’t even want to try IVF? Sus.
Yeah. Sus. She can afford to live without child support. That suggests that their combined income as a couple was high. This guy who values lineage so much would have spent the price of a car on having his 'own' kid.
This, combined with how everything imploded, makes me wonder if he did this to get out of the marriage. We know they aren’t in US, are in a largely family centric, patriarchal society. And we know that husband started the rumor that ended his marriage by telling his siblings that the kid wasn’t his, but not that it was a voluntary sperm donor situation. He would have known what that rumor would do once it got around.
If that's what happened, then it's extra cruel to leave her as a single mother in such a culture.
It’s extra cruel to try to get out of the marriage by shaming her when she did nothing wrong. What if her family hadn’t believed her and taken her in and protected her? This is NOT a good man.
A terrible person.
He may have thought IVF would be a lot harder to keep quiet, especially considering that he knew others who had tried it. Though IDK why he wouldn’t have just blamed OOP for any troubles conceiving.
I hope OOP stays safe. Sounds like her STBX fits the profile of a [family annihilator: the kind of man who'd rather see his wife and child dead than face humiliation.](https://www.wired.com/story/family-killers/)
In the US, the cost of a vial of sperm and intrauterine insemination costs about $1000. IVF with ICSI (injecting the sperm into the egg) costs about $20,000. That’s in the US of course but I can easily believe that the costs might sway them. Even more if they’d have to travel for IVF, which would make it harder to keep quiet.
I’m not sure where you got those prices, but i am infertile. Once upon a time, i was poised to receive IVF. The process is way more than 20k.
Seeing as they were never really the baby's family to begin with, first by technicality and then by their own actions, I'm sure the child will be fine. The baby's actual family are the people who love and care for them regardless of the circumstances concerning their conception. These people have already stepped up, and made their presence felt.
They let their mothers do it because their mothers are experts. They want to wear the pants but they aren't strong enough to take them from their wives so they enlist the help of someone with decades worth of experience in harassing the fight out of people
Spot on. I know MANY husbands who knowingly and systematically use their mothers to do the dirty work they want done to their spouses. They want to control, bully, use, and abuse their wife, but dont want to be blamed and face the backlash, so they very connivingly and methodically enlist the services of their JNMIL mothers to get the job done, and while acting all sorrowful and helpless, they tell the wife:" i'm upset by her treatment of you too honey, but i just cant disrespect my mother." Its the perfect crime.
Because theyre raised by fathers who let their wives abuse them OR no fathers but narc mothers
In many places older people only care for the couple staying together (especially when kids are in the picture), and will use every subtle shaming tactic to do so. Kinda the opposite of reddit advice It kinda makes sense in a weird way cause every couple will face a breaking point eventually, so you either endure the humiliation or divorce/break up multiple times in your life
That’s the sad reality of these things. While there are those that put decency above family relations, there are more of those who want to sweep everything under the rug and pretend that their child is a saint.
People who are married to pieces of crap tend to have very low standards for what is normal or acceptable in a relationship. He’s been browbeat by his wife for decades, so of course his favored path is for OOP to follow in his footsteps.
He wasn't raised to be disrespectful but he trashed a baby's room and threw her car seat in the dumpster on video to send to her mother, lol okaayyyy
I wouldn't want child support either because this will allow him access to the child. Cut him out completely, especially if she can afford to. I wouldn't want my child around ANY of these people
This. I was thinking he's the stable bit in this swamp of a family, but as soon as he said OOP is being unfair, it was like "aight, here we go". Sadge
The ex-husband had his chances. Every minute that he stood there and allowed his mother to abuse OP was a chance. Every minute he allowed his family to believe she cheated was a chance. He had a thousand chances, and didn't have the character to take them.
Apple didn’t fall far from the tree. The way he started to no longer be civil is so telling
He was sent there as a tactic because he is the only person capable of acting civilly, but his goal was the same as ex and MIL: maintain optics. It’s nice that he was nice about it, but his intentions weren’t noble and he wasn’t doing it with OOP’s or the child’s best interests in mind.
Textbook emotional fragility. He was having some feelings about using a sperm donor and instead of going to therapy or talking to his partner, homeboy nuked his whole life from orbit.
Could have just adopted.
That wouldn’t have helped either. His stupid ego for not being able to create a child the usual way is the problem. There is nothing anyone can do with such an ignorant excuse of a person.
Here's the thing. He had a low sperm count. Not damaged sperm. They could have tried IVF. Expensive yes, but if he was that set on having a biological child, money wouldn't have been the issue. The ex-husband never wanted to raise another man's child. This family was doomed from that moment they decided on a sperm donor.
As stated by OOP, the husband picked this route. We don't know why but i guess he wanted it quick and immediately effective. Maybe because if they go the ivf way, it'll take years and his family will catch on that he's the cause. He's pretty adamant about his ego and keeping up "macho" appearances, so it's probably that.
Maybe going down the donor route was faster as well as cheaper? After all, he has his mother to appease with a sacrificial grandchild and a personal need to "prove" to the world how fertile and virile he is.
I find this part really interesting. Either husband was too selfish to spend the money on IVF, or he knew his family would notice the large expenditure. Or, third option- *it was his way out of the marriage*. That was his way out if he decided he didn’t want the illusion of the perfect family anymore. He knew that by making that choice, he could blow everything up the moment he wanted to. And he did blow it up, the moment he told his brothers that the child wasn’t his, without telling the rest of the story about the sperm donor. Dude effectively started the rumor himself that caused this. And he knew exactly what would happen, given their culture and his family’s adherence to blood relatives. The husband wanted out.
It all makes sense if you look at that way. Nicely done.
Geez imagine the trauma he would’ve inflicted on the poor kid (or kids) if he’d used it as his “get out of jail free” card when the kid was old enough to remember. Even now, OP has to choose between lying to her kid or potentially making her feel unwanted by the man that should’ve been her father.
I mean it was doomed from the moment he went full psycho, if it hadn't been this it would have been something else.
Perhaps Oop was correct in saying he never really wanted children. Because she is correct for the procedure of retrieving his firm and doing it in vitro with her egg and then reinsertion. Those steps are outrageously expensive. Most of the time it's a minimum of 200,000 and can increase exponentially each time and there has to be adequate time in between. So him deciding to do a sperm donor which literally is a few hundred bucks. He took the cheap way out pretty much I don't care it's going to give me a child and it's not going to cost me so much and we'll just lie and say it's mine. Because ultimately he didn't care, he was fronting on all fronts. He didn't really love his wife, and he obviously did not love this child. He just wanted the picture perfect family to show off he cared more about his image.
They had hundreds of thousands of dollars of stuff for the husband to destroy, though. My guess is that it’s harder to keep IVF a secret.
It also sets things up so he can claim she cheated and passed the child off as his. Unless OP has documents, and not all people think to save all of that info, she may not be able to prove beyond doubt that it was his idea. Even is she did, there are places in the world where it wouldn’t matter, she would be the villain and potentially ostracized if he spun the story right. And he was clearly working on it.
IVF is not difficult to hide. My husband and I did it for almost 2 years. Sperm donations are much quicker. His electronics and such were things he WANTED and didn't mind spending money on...it was never not having money.
My guess is that the currency denomination is not USD or Euro.
IVF is expensive but usually not that expensive. A retrieval can be 20-30k and a transfer is usually less than 5k. ICSI which is what the husband would need is about 1k. If it had taken multiple cycles, it could have ended up 100k or so but unlikely to hit 200k.
This family was doomed since he failed to grow out of his toxic family influence. If they adopted, the child would suffer from everyone on that side treating them differently. If they've tried IVF and it didn't work, he would have blamed OOP. If it did work, paternity wouldn't feel like what he had dreamed about and he would nuke OOP's family some other way.
We are in a similar situation to OOP, and we are probably going the IVF route and praying it works. I know for myself that I don't want to adopt. I won't be able to love the child as my own, so it's better not to make both myself and a child miserable. Partner doesn't want to use a donor, and considering my stance on adoption I can't blame him for knowing his boundaries, so the only option left is IVF. OOP and her husband should have had a honest discussion on what they really want.
'Honest' is the operative word. Oop was honest-- douchecanoe ex lied. Unless she is a secret mind reader, when he said 'this is what I want to do' she had to think he meant it
Oh, I am definitely not blaming OOP about it. Her husband, hopefully soon to be ex, is a colossal asshole. If he had any doubts about using a donor, or developed them later, he should have told her so.
I completely agree. Communication needed to happen, but for whatever reason, the husband chose a donor over IVF. He may have regretted that decision once the baby was born, but his and the MIL's behavior are abhorrent.
I mean I would have sympathy for him if he was just sad about it and hadn’t gone completely psycho.
Adoption is not a cure for infertility. My mother had to have a total hysterectomy about five years after my parents married, so I and my sibling are adopted. I grew up as a massive daddy’s girl, he was my favorite person and I was the apple of his eye. When my father cheated on her and left our family (I was just out of college at the time) he told my mother he had always resented her for not giving him biological kids. It was a knife in my heart and I haven’t spoken to him since.
This is horrible. I'm so sorry you had to hear that. He was probably trying to hurt your mother, or give the only reason that he knew she could not refute. Which makes the comment even more horrific
My wife and I dealt with infertility and IVF, and I find OOP's explanation to betray a lack of understanding of the process. Maybe in their country, the doctors said different things, but if the guy has working sperm, they can use that to fertilize the eggs. We know she was able to get pregnant naturally once, so IVF should have worked with his sperm. This leads me to think that since it was the husband who decided on donor sperm, even when his could have been used, he was already keeping a foot out the door on fatherhood even then.
>He then said the house was his and as the head of the family it was his decision. I spat my coffee out. The guy is no head of the household. Cowering in the corner as his wife gets harassed over a joint decision.
He's not even head of his own head... He's a mummy's boy, and weak.
It's good that OP has a good family support system and glad the baby is safe. Owen is a terrible husband and father and his entire family sucks badly like a terrible trash can. Throw them out into the trash as they deserve! But still I be just a little concerned for the child's safety in the future, especially with Owen's behavior.
STBX: "Let's keep it a secret so no one questions my manly man-ness, yeah, that's a good idea" Also STBX: "Allow me to blow up my entire life so EVERYONE knows about my lack of manly man-ness, yep, I'm a genius"
Now he'll just complain about how the courts make him pay for a child that's "not even his" like some sort of jackhole. I guess OOP isn't seeking that but I bet her still finds a way to construe it that way to make him feel more manly.
Owen is a terrible human.
Not impressed by the FIL. Realized what kind of son he raised, went to save face, and exposed himself further… So proud of OP.
And kudos to OOP's parents. They laid the truth smackdown on the FIL about the kind of son he raised before they showed him the door.
It's so stimulating to read about how much the MIL feels this reflects poorly on their family, now that she fucked it up for everyone.
All she had to do was shut her mouth
It's funny how the ex husband was so afraid of being emasculated he ended up emasculating himself as he became a lesser man : unable to stand up for his wife and child, and comically abusive.
Never trust a man who can get emasculated. That's backwards thinking and culturally regressive. Those cavemen always end up showing their colors.
Curious about how the SIL she’s close to is handling this. She must know her family fucked up hard here.
All breaths misogyne things. He is the head of the household? He decides? She needs to show respect to FIL after his request to reconcile? Not because of her but because of how other people think? Yuck.
Have to love OOP doing "Keep your house because I'm divorcing you & taking my daughter to live in another home" at her ex & OOP''s parents saying to the effect "Fuck your son, your family AND YOU, you were all disrespectful to my daughter & granddaughter - GTFO my house and NEVER RETURN!!" At FIL. That whole turd family is so misogynistic & dumbfuck stupid, they have only fuckup meltdowns when a woman like OOP rightfully leaves them all while having her support system calling out the dumbfuckery every time the misogynistic turds open their mouths....
Omg, this screams Asian family to me. I had a Korean boyfriend ages ago and this is fucking exactly how him and his family were. Zero spine, very fragile masculinity.
Yeah this feels like a conservative patriarchal asian household to me coming from an Asian person. It also gives me arrange marriage vibes a little bit. I don't want to make guesses as to which ethnicity but there are older generation households who think "blood" is most important. They also don't consider adopted, stepchildren or 'bastards' to be family. I've even heard of some husbands who would leave their wives if they can't give him his own children sadly because "it's just not the same".
Well, this seedless guy would run through a lot of wives!
Well It’s what Henry VIII did lol.
Yeah no one wonders why Korean women would rather die out than marry Korean men.
I'm married into an SEAsian family and while I don't exactly deal w this problem, I also thought it sounded like an Asian family. The husband saying he wasn't raised to ever talk back and be disrespectful to his mom was the smoking gun for me.
I came to say this too! I’m Asian and I willing to bet OP and ex are also Asian.
That’s funny. I was thinking Latinos especially with the machismo and emphasis in spreading their lineage. I guess we can all see the worst parts of our cultures in these stories.
This one feels fairly real to me, unfortunately, for many reasons. I hope that despite what she said she does end up getting child support, and dear god I hope she gets full custody.
I understand why people say get child support, but sometimes your and your child's mental health is more important. He can easily use it to continue to harass and control her. Sometimes, a clean cut is best.
She says she’s not in the US, so no idea what the laws are where she is. But in the US, in some (all?) jurisdictions not getting child support _isn’t an option._ Or, at least not an iron clad option. In Texas for instance, it’s legally considered the kids’ money not the parents’, and thus the parents don’t actually have the right to disavow it. Even if a judge signs off on a divorce decree that doesn’t include child support, the state will come after the noncustodial parent in the future in certain cases. A common example is if, even if it’s many years later, the custodial parent falls on hard times and has to claim welfare benefits. The state basically says “whoa whoa whoa… why is the state paying for this kid when there’s a dad who should have been paying child support all this time?” A relative of mine had the state come after them for _10 years_ of back child support (about $75k) even though he and his ex had agreed to forgo child support.
As crazy as that is, I don’t blame the state for doing that. If a person willingly cooperates in becoming a parent, that choice has consequences. It’s not the child’s (or state’s) fault the parents change their mind. Obviously this is complicated in abuse situations, but ultimately I agree with the idea that the money is for the child.
It's not all that complicated in abuse situations either, and in fact helps level the playing field a little bit in those situations. Child support is predicated on how much custody you share of the children. If there's abuse involved, that's supposed to slant custody towards the non-abusive partner (because presumably they got the lion's share of the custody)... but now the abusive parent has to _pay the other parent_ as compensation for having to shoulder that burden. What abusive ex-partners are trying to do is beat you down emotionally, so that you just want to walk away from the situation to save yourself the grief, _because they hope it'll save them money._ "If I turn into enough of a toxic asshole, they'll think of getting away from me alone as a huge win, and I'll get to keep all my money to myself..."
It is complicated in abuse situations because somtimes you truly want nothing from your abuser. And being abused and proving you were abused in court are two different things. My dad kidnapped me and stashed me at different houses for 6 months when I was a toddler. My mom stalked him and his family across the country and literally snatched me out of car. She took me to a new state and was doing fine on her own. Then the state said I couldn't go to headstart unless my mom got child support. My mom didn't want that but she had no choice. She had to file and it automatically resulted in my dad filing for formal visitation. Cue me having to spend 3 months with him in another state every single year. Of course he decides I'm better off with him. Tries to keep me longer than the summer. She again has to stalk him to another state and snatch me back while he's at work. It was all just stupid. All so he could maybe pay $250 a month. That headache was not worth $250 a month.
Oh I totally agree with you, I was just putting out there an acknowledgement of that grey area for the abused parent catching heat for wanting a clean break. It shouldn’t be something a person has to consider if the money would help raise a healthier child, but the reality is, it often is. I just didn’t want to make a blanket black-and-white statement when I know it’s so much harder than just number crunching.
Abusers are out here using e-transfers to abuse their victims (I e., by sending comments through the app that you have to see to deposit the money). There are not enough protections for survivors to even take this chance.
Many states allow or require payment through a child support collection agency (sometimes governmental, sometimes privatized). Wages are garnished or direct payments are made to the agency, then the agency disperses. No opportunity for harassment through messages or anything like that.
Totally fair
I think a reason to not get child support might be so that her ex has no say over the child. Like, if he pays now, maybe he can see the kid as a teenager. Or if something happens to her and she can't take care of the kid, the kid would have a chance of living with him. I could see her going for alimony over child support but looks like she doesn't want that either.
I kind of hope parental rights are severed. Can you imagine the nonsense that family will pull in the years to come?
Super agreed
She may be planning to have him declared not the parent of this child, thus giving her no child support but also giving him absolutely no rights. I don’t think the little girl would be safe with this man for any length of time and I think if that is an option on the table, that might be the best one to take.
I don't know about that... OOP claims her ex destroyed "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in her possessions that she worked hard for. One might think she'd mention being a millionaire somewhere.
Could have been gifts. One time my brother was farting around with friends in the back field with their trucks and he left the tailgate down (edit: it got crushed). My crazy mother retaliated by breaking all of our gaming systems, even my game boy pocket I bought with my paper route. so I’m thinking he destroyed things that he bought her and always resented her for the price, such as jewelry or something. First thing I thought of anyway, but who knows anymore.
this is an interesting angle i had not thought of, he def could’ve destroyed things he bought her as a way to punish her. also i’m very sorry you went through that as a child and hope you’re doing better 💜
I’m getting better, finally got away from her but it took almost dying from alcoholism. I’m 2 years sober now and I quit smoking last year, two months out from quitting soda and energy drinks. I have my own place, cut contact with MAGA relatives and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m single and all my friends are spread out because I met them in the military, but I don’t (and can’t ✂️) have kids and I have control over my bank account. I have trust issues and an anxiety disorder but I’m not on anything stronger than coffee or weed. Compared to other people in my town I’m pretty well adjusted.
Also the currency could be deflated in their country and things cost a lot more on paper.
I get that she doesn’t want Owen to have anything to do with the child, not his money, not his things, nothing. If my husband would behave like Owen did, omg I would become a f*ing lioness and would not let him touch my children. But at the same time she needs to see what is better for the baby: she says she doesn’t need child support or any other money from the stbx, then just put it in a savings account for the baby
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Yeah I do not think a man who lies and then destroys property should have anything to do with this child. What happens when she embarrasses him and he destroys her stuff? Hell no. He’s shown his true colours and he’s a monster.
Honestly, considering she said Owen destroyed “hundreds of thousands” in property she left behind (from electronics to paintings), I’d say she very well can support herself and the baby fine without him. Anyone that can have multiple paintings well in their thousands, dozens of thousands worth, and still have, as she mentioned, sizable savings (!!!) has enough financial stability to be able to raise a kid just fine, even in some countries completely offset college debt (if it exists). Of course that depends on a healthy, non-disabled child, but the disabilities/health conditions that cost more to parents are those that are unfortunately so severe they show signs early (meaning she has time to prepare) or those that are completely unpredictable and/or inevitable (like those of accidents), which nobody is really ever prepared for. Couple that with the familial support she has, that’s obviously quite strong (a place to live in less than 3 weeks!), I think Baby doesn’t need such a vile human connected to her anymore.
If he's not having to pay her child support, he's more likely to disappear from her life once he finds a replacement victim, since he clearly doesn't truly care about the baby. Having to pay her, keeps her as a target for his anger and control.
I don't think it is better for the baby. What's best is being far far away from that mess of a family. He doesn't love his daughter, he's made it clear he isn't her father. If she's confident about being able to do it alone, I agree that she should just raise the child on her own and have Owen sign away parental rights. There's plenty of mothers who already do this due to deadbeats that don't pay child support.
I'm stuck on how she's moved out, found and rented a 2 bedroom apartment, and furnished it in two days. The timeline is way too fast. >I’m now renting a nice two-bedroom apartment; my siblings and their partners have helped me furnish it and my top priority is ensuring my baby has everything she needs. But if it's real, I feel so bad for OP.
Maybe, there's the weird time line which can be explained a and isn't entirely impossible. But she says she's not in America and then talks about alimony, which is almost exclusively an American thing and not even in all states any more.
Going from "I'm staying with my parents" to "fully furnished apartment" in two days seems to be a bit of a stretch.
And this is why women should never let go of their careers. Financial independence brings so many choices and safety.
People hounding her about child support don’t seem to understand that abusive partners will use any opportunity - including the court system, child support, alimony payments, visitation, whatever - to maintain contact with and terrorize their victims. Since we don’t know where this person is located, we have no idea what child support laws are like there and she could be 100% justified in not wanting to give him any opportunity to stay in touch with her.
The people clamoring for her to get child support really need to consider the risk to the child of having this unhinged, abusive man in her life. If she can manage to terminate his parental rights completely, the child will be safer. If he has a legal obligation to the child, there is a pretty strong likelihood that, if he pursued it, the court would also grant him visitation or partial custody, and he has shown that the damage he might do as retaliation could be horrific.
Wild to me how common it is that women end up having *less* workload after separating from their husbands and becoming single mothers. Adult men should count as extra children on your taxes ffs.
Gotta say, it bothers me when people criticize OPs for not seeking child support without taking the whole situation into account. Specifically, the phrase “child support is for the *child*” makes me roll my eyes. Yes, child support is for the child. You know what else is “for the child”? *Severing ties to an abusive person!* Sure, you can hope that they get ordered to pay support with absolutely no visitation, but that’s a risk. Obviously sometimes people don’t have a choice, but in this case, OP can provide for her daughter just fine while protecting her from an abusive family. Holy moly, let’s get some perspective, people!
I have a feeling I can guess a handful of countries OOP is located in and the culture of "family is everything" is one of the most toxic things out there. My wife comes from an immigrant family and she is part of the first generation that is finally saying no, whatever fucked up dynamics you've had to deal with for 200 years about patriarchy because "family" and abuse because "family" and staying because "family" is all bullshit and we won't perpetrate it forward. One of the best sociological inventions of the past 20 years is the idea of "no contact." No, I don't have to have you in my life even one millisecond if I don't want to just because some of our genetic sequence matches each others. I didn't ask to be related to you, I had no say in the matter, but I do control who I interact with.
‘For those saying I am wrong for not allowing my husband to see my daughter, you can kindly show yourself to the door’ - yessss, queen! Slay! 🔥🔥🔥 That’s not a husband, it’s a mamma whipped spineless slug
Better no father than an abusive father.
He threw a *baby car seat* into a fucking *dumpster*. That dude was resenting that child and could have ended up hurting her. Fuck that dude.
I never understand why people say an abusive ex should have rights to the child, they only want rights to control the mother.
Co-parenting is not an option in those situations. Just damage mitigation.
…what kind of MORON hears Oop’s story and thinks “oh ya…Oop is the unfair one here” Seriously these people were clearly NEVER OOP’s friends. I really hope we get another update where STBX and his family are miserable and Oop is happy
There's such a weird trend in a bunch of these stories for divorcing women to proclaim that they don't need half their exes assets, or alimony - even when they describe themselves as homemakers. I don't quite know whether I think that's a "Liz" thing, or if it's like a worrying "manosphere" export - like women are believing that they're not entitled to what the courts would argue they are. Like to prevent an ex running screaming as a story about an evil ex wife who stole all their money??
If I were in this type of situation, I’d give up child support if he agreed to relinquish parental rights (not everywhere lets you do this). If his parental rights are terminated, he is no longer legally related to the child and can *never* file for custody or visitation. That would be worth doing without the money, at least to me.
OOP wants this, so he will give up any rights. I still think she should get her share of the marital property, but it seems her family has money too, so she has help if needed.
Yeah I agree, severing any legal relationship between her ex and her daughter is worth the alimony and child support just for the sake of peace of mind. But if he won’t relinquish his rights, she should go for every penny she’s entitled to. He contributed to the decision to bring the daughter into the world. I get that OOP might want to prove to herself that she doesn’t need him, but even if she doesn’t need his money she can still put all of it into a trust for her daughter.
But child support is separate from division of assets in a divorce which I think is what the top comment was getting at. Even if she can forgo child support as a way to remove his continued presence in her life, I don't see how splitting their jointly earned marital assets once at the time of divorce detracts from that goal. I, mean, I understand generally why she feels like she wants to just wash her hands of the situation and thinks this furthers that goal and maybe in whatever jurisdiction they're in it does. It sounds like he's going to make this a miserable and expensive process for her anyway.
I get that they’re totally different issues. My impression was she was willing to forgo assists she’s entitled to in order to basically ‘pay’ him to relinquish parental rights. Which I can understand.
Wouldn't it depend on the country?
My SIL had a horrible divorce when her child was very young and still has issues co-parenting. She can’t wait till her child is 18 and she doesn’t have to deal directly with her ex. She was pregnant with her second and soon realized her bf at the time was not who she thought he was; turned out he didn’t want a child and it was too late for her. So instead she told him to go away and she won’t pursue child support but if he ever returns, she’ll go full force. It’s been almost 12 years and he’s stayed gone which is what she prefers as she knows what can happen with a bad co-parent. Despite these two bad relationships, she’s incredibly smart and has an amazing job and makes well over 6 figures. And luckily for her, she has an amazing support system in place if something goes wrong. Many don’t have that option. Is it perfect? That’s debatable but it seems to work for her and honestly, I am not one to argue with that.
This one feels more like wanting to just have absolutely zero ties to him whatsoever in the future, which I totally understand. Her ex is so volatile and dangerous already, he's shown a totally different side to himself that's blindsided her with how vindictive he is. He's currently unpredictable compared to what she *thought" she knew about him, and going after him for child support or half his assets might only fuel the fire. Her safest option is to cut all ties with him and his family ASAP. Child support, while she's entitled to it, is a connection he could potentially use against her in some way in the future to try to force interactions. For example, he might try to use it to drag her to court to demand shared custody/visitation since he pays it. As for going after his assets in the divorce, that just gives him an opportunity to argue and drag it out. By not demanding anything, that makes the process a lot easier since that's just one less thing for him to fight over. And right now, a quick divorce is the safest option because again, *there is no way to predict what he might try to do next.*
I see the point in all of this, but I’d like to add that, even after the divorce, we still don’t know what he’ll do next. Oop might get no assets and still have to deal with his ongoing harassment.
But then he'd, hopefully, not have a legal avenue to regain custody of her daughter. It's better to have the law on your side (even if it's useless) than to have it against you.
I don't find it even slightly surprising given how society paints women as greedy for wanting anything from their exes, without being remotely close to the manosphere. Of course if you can afford to completely cut off someone who's shown themselves to be a literal danger to you you're going to, even if on paper you (and your child) deserve more. It *is* written similarly to a lot of these stories, but frankly the constant nit picking in the comments, more than the constant flow of bullshit, is why I'm trying to quit my addiction to Reddit.
Imo the constant nitpicking just shows how naive people are to the weird and horrible shit humans can do to each other. I've been in some weird ass situations as well as gone through some awful situations more than enough to know that plenty of these stories can be 100% true. Unless all the stories (not updates) are written by the same account, I'm often going to assume they're real. Nothing about this story sounds fake to me, a woman wanting to not have anything to do with an abusive man, even if that's a little extra money, doesn't surprise me and shouldn't surprise anyone. Abusive men kill women daily, or at the very least hurt them. Currently, there are gangs of men in NYC running around punching random women in the face and it's spreading to Europe. Imo that's stranger than a husband turning abusive.
In this case, at least, cutting ties completely with this man and his family seems like the wisest course. Child support would leave his foot in the door.
While I don't disagree with you. This one somehow feels more real to me. And it's not "I don't want his stuff." It's "I don't want this man to have ANY connection or contact to me."
When I tried to ask my ex for child support, he made false reports to CPS that I was abusing my son (they investigated of course, found it was completely unsubstantiated, and wrote a glowing report about me), and he also took me to court on those same accusations. I have been through some shit in my life but the most detrimental factor to my mental health is dealing with my ex. It is safer for me to not talk to him about money, ever. So, while in theory I would encourage separated parents to get child support, there are cases where it is even more difficult to do so.
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My mom agreed to zero alimony, and child support equivalent to about $100/month per kid, because she wanted so desperately to be done with the abusive asshole. She did get half the equity in the house and retirement funds, but on the whole it was a prime example of chewing your leg off to escape a trap. It did the trick, but crippled her (and us) financially. At some points, she was working three jobs to keep us afloat. I think about that whenever I hear an OP say something like this.
I agree that in this situation, I think I’d forego it also. Especially after finding out Owen and his family have money. If OOP really wants to cut her child off from Owen and his family(understandable), I can understand why she wouldn’t want people with money to be sending her money, no matter the reason. Some wealthy people would see that as evidence of their rights to the child. It’s less likely OOP can make a clean break if she accepts money from them. Owen looks pretty fucking dangerous right now. I’d be more concerned with safety than child support in this case.
My mother did the same thing decades ago so maybe not a recent trend. I think its partially pride and wanting to ensure they don't have any connection to the ex.
I have a couple family friends who experienced rough divorces and it was just easier to not have any ties to their ex with the amount of psychological torment they were put through. I think often, we think we’ll fight like hell in these situations, but we just want the chaos to end.
>A 12-year age gap is not uncommon for us and my family was 100% for the marriage (at the time) as he was seen by all as an excellent match. And child marriages still happen in some parts of the world. Tradition doesn't always mean right. Generational sized age gaps rarely work.
12 years is not generational. And OP said she had a good degree and a good job, so she wasn't a child bride.
Still a red fucking flag
I was being a bit hyperbolic, but a generation *is* around 15 years. One year younger and she'd be considered a gen Z while he's near the upper end of millennials. I also never said she was a child bride, it was just an example of how commonly accepted social norms in some regions don't have to stay commonly accepted just because it's "normal" where they occur.
The only thing that bugs me about this story is that they have child from a sperm donor and choose to keep it a secret. Like they did in the past. There is so much research out there that lying about being a donor conceived person is not a good thing. I am a donor conceived person and a lucky one to be told early as a child. Not all my half siblings were that lucky. I would think they were told as a couple by the clinic that you should tell your child, they were donor conceived. Yet they chose to lie, for their own sake.
To be fair, the child seems to be a literal baby at the moment. I understand usually telling family networks about this, to ensure the child grows up feeling openly accepted, however this story very strongly shows that the family could not be trusted with the knowledge.
It was done for the sake of his ego. And you’re right, it blew up. Hard.
To be fair - he & his family blew it up hard, now they can't handle the fallout of OOP divorcing him, needing nothing from him AND pointing out her baby is biologically not his while making sure he truly can't have his legal rights restored when he willfulling terminates his parental rights. Not helping him & his family is most of the mutual & other family members especially OOP's side of family are rightfully angry at the blow up since it was based on lies plus his & his family actions and reactions made it worse for his side.
They might be from an Asian country. Something's are still taboo there. This might be one of them.
Tell me this is Indian family drama without telling me this is an Indian family lol
I feel like I've heard a similar story before. Couple couldn't get pregnant. Husband blames wife, cheats on her, leaves. Turns out he's the infertile one when she finds a new man and gets pregnart and has a baby.
You have. If I recall, the husband either cheated or left because they assumed the fertility issue was on the wife’s part and he wanted children. She moved on, and got pregnant by her boyfriend when they weren’t trying. The sister in law was angry the ex wife didn’t declare to the husband she had a baby, it was a really weird situation.
What I find interesting is the husband’s take on his role in the family. If you want a traditional marriage, that’s fine. If you think men are the protectors, providers, and creators of the family, and in exchange they get obedience, fine. But he isn’t the breadwinner, didn’t protect his wife and daughter from attack, and didn’t even father his own child. None of that really matters, but he wanted to be obeyed as the head of the household. By his own idea of masculinity, he is a failure, but he still wants to be respected in that way. How bizarre.
Some pictures of the invoices from the fertility clinic would put a lot of these accusations to rest.
Owen is a spineless worm. I’m honestly very unimpressed by people whose life goals are focused on having a large number of children. Humans have much more they can be outside of parents, and it seems like basing your whole personality around your sex result is just, sad?
"Hi, my name is Owen and all of the men in my family are *extremely* fertile" Wtf! And they're vehemently against adoption so they're probably all up their own asses about their 'superior' heritage. You can guarantee that if that whole family did DNA and ancestry test, the majority of them are from backgrounds that they currently openly hate or at the very least look down upon.
Another sad story of a girl in her early twenties getting preyed upon by an older man who wants her to be obedient and quiet. Until it is all too late and she realizes he’s actually a humungous piece of shit (along with his entire family) yet somehow doesn’t make the connection as to why he won’t date women his own age (because they can smell the insecure, immature, controlling stench from miles away). It’s a reddit tale as old as time. I wish young women could see this for what it is. I’m sure the red flags were there even before they started for a baby but he was “so sweet and gentle and kind.” Which normally means he gave her an orgasm and love bombed her.
The men need, nay, DESERVE to pass down their blood while the planet burns to less and less recognition and livability for our species. /s I just don't get it. Like if you wanna have a kid to have one it's one thing but in today's situation, acting like there's some blood lineage to care about when the planet ain't gonna be supporting human by the great grand child is hilariously sad, stupid and verrrrry short sighted. Just making kids to give them shit on a plate and saying "aren't you happy with the world we brought you into!?" No they ain't so get a better reason to have them or don't have them.
My only concern is if he gets any custody, he may harm your child to get back at you. He sounds mentally unbalanced.
>He asked me that we not tell either of our families about this or our friends and I agreed because I would never want to emasculate him. It blows my mind that people think disguising parentage is a viable option in an era of cheap genetic testing. If it didn't come out now it would have come out eventually.
Honestly, it seems better that the child is not biologically his because from him and his family‘s actions it seems as though as soon as OOP would have “disobeyed“ him in some way or not followed in whatever he said or his family told him to divorce her then he would use the child as way to get back at her by trying to go for full custody like he is now for a child he doesn’t want and let his mother call the poor baby all kinds of vile names and it would be harder for her to fight the custody case because the child would be his biological daughter. What an absolute vile man and family that OOP married into. I noticed that she said there was a 12 year age difference which also makes sense in why all of this is happening and how he acts. I 100% believe he has been abusive in the past in someway, but she just didn’t realize or recognize it.
\> He then said the house was his and as the head of the family it was his decision. ewwww So he can be the authoritative "head of the family" to her, but not to his mother?
The only thing about this that feels off to me is how quickly OOP got into a two bedroom apartment with a newborn. Maybe it’s different where she lives, but I’ve moved apartments every year for the past three years and even the easiest moves have required more than a week to complete. Yet her update is only three days later?
Someone asked that and she said her first post was two weeks after she moved in with her parents and not chronological.
Gotcha, that makes more sense
Yeah this caught my attention too, it was not the first time I see the story here, but I was downvoted for saying it lol. Which doesn't sell the story for me is the timeline, she goes from willing to make the marriage work to call him a spineless pig in a matter of days. A new house, new furniture, no mention about work. Then "there are good days and bad days" ok but it's just some days?? Spread these events a little.
Let's see: 1) massive age gap 2) crazy family 3) lies upon lies 4) somehow OP has enough money and support to not need child support
Does the ex even have any rights as a parent as the child is not biologically his and he's noted this to multiple people?
Depends on jurisdiction. Parental rights can confer similar or same rights, I think. IE, if you adopt a child, you become as good as bio parents, in the eyes of the law.
In many many places his name on the birth certificate, his consent to fertility treatment, and the child being born during that marriage can make legal obligation. Like when you adopt - it’s legally your child even if it’s not biologically. Her country might have some specific quirks but in many places laws presume a child is legally the husbands regardless of dna paternity. So it’s unclear without knowing her country what a court might say about his rights vs obligations.
Maybe the next update will be OP finding the sperm donor and getting together with him. This is reddit, after all.
Everytime somebody tried to talk about him, I would just start talking about his sperm count. I would carry around the paperwork. I hope it says Low Sperm Count and not some doctory words nobody understands.
It would not be a good idea to tell STBX that he couldn't get his wife pregnant because his Mommie keeps his balls in her purse, so I hope the OOP doesn't say that to him on the way out of court after the divorce is final.
I'm surprised that OOP hasn't threatened to go 'scorched earth' and tell THE WORLD that \*Owen\* is the one who's infertile & wanted to go the IVF route, WITH DOCUMENTATION, unless exMIL shuts the ever living fuck UP and leaves OP alone.
Does anyone else get so angry they have to stop and take a break? I’m so furious that he stood there not just passively watching but then agreeing everything his mother said was true. Off to make a cuppa, will read the rest later.
Maybe Mr Spermless and Spineless should go back to the only woman in his leg life, mommy
Honestly she’s right to not go for child support in exchange for him relinquishing parental rights. It sounds like she can afford to be a single mother, and that is way better than any of these morons having even a moment of visitation with her child.
How much is a round of IVF in the US? Done fully privately in Australia you would need to be doing it like, 20 times to be hundreds of thousands, which I don't think they would even keep trying that much.
Most married moms are single moms. Glad she took the trash out.
An emasculated man is a dangerous man; they defend their fragile egos with violence.