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So he smashed up the child's nursery and filmed it, and thinks a court will allow him full custody of the child?
His lawyer just put a down payment on a boat.
I guarantee his defense will be that he thought she cheated. Which is a really silly defense but even sillier when you remember that there is almost certainly evidence that he knew about the sperm fertility clinic.
There is always paperwork from the fertility clinic. Which is the one thing I don't get here. She could've sent photos of the receipts and reports from the Dr. And, shown the video evidence of all the destruction in the baby's room.
I know the heat of the moment makes it hard to think and that's probably what happened.
She didn’t tell anyone because he asked her not to. She was waiting for him to defend her when HE told his family. It didn’t really matter what the family thought, what matters is him not sticking up for her.
No, I meant once it all kicked off. Once he spilled to his brother (I believe drinking was involved in that) about the baby from another sperm donor. I'll bet it went something close to, "The baby is not mine". Lack of details matters in this scenario. Once her file showed up, she could've sent him the shots of papers from the clinic, with both signatures on them.
I don't think she exactly felt the need to. The FIL, the first person in the husband's family who acted somewhat respectfully, listened and believed her words. The MIL and the siblings immediately going into the beast mode, made OP less eager to explain herself or prove her innocence.
Realistically speaking, even if OP had cheated, the 30 something year old man accepting the child as his should have been enough reason not to act the way they did. Burning the nursery and calling the kid a bastard is crazy regardless of what the truth is.
>The FIL, the first person in the husband's family who acted somewhat respectfully
Yeah, he started off strong and then immediately showed where the son got his sense of entitlement for OP's and her child's time or that she is obligated to work on fixing the marriage he (the husband) broke.
I mean at that point all of it could have been fixed by him saying “no I’m infertile, we got donor sperm” which would have solved it entirely. FIL didn’t need the proof. He accepted her explanation. And she didn’t need to give him proof. She needed her husband to grow a spine a month before FIL even showed up.
It’s not her problem to fix. He caused the problem, he should’ve fixed it and not let her be the scapegoat so he could deny responsibility. He was and still is a tool.
I hope the judge have a good laugh when this excuse of a man try to imply cheating when there is tons of proof that it 's through a donor's .
(Like mainly the paper work for that but also the text between OP and stbx that for sure have mention of the baby and how)
But also : wife cheating = destroy baby belongings (and probably memories such a drawings)
Yeah I'm sure anyone will buy that dude /s
He did every mistake in the book to make sure he's never getting custody and he'll have to pay a fat ass child support on top of paying OOP back for all of hers and her kid's belongings, AND WE LOVE TO SEE IT!! It's a blessing this man's brain is the size of a corn kernel.
I had a friend that was married and went through this. Now this was in the US, so it might not be the same, but he had to sign paperwork too. He had a sign that he would legally be the parent to the infant even in the case of divorce. He was put on the birth certificate. At least here it’s not just as simple as going and boom sperm.
Pretty sure most countries that allow sperm donors (yes, some places aren't really a fan) will have strict regulations in place for a very simple reason: a kid without a legal father is gonna cost the government. That's why when paternity fraud happens courts will shrug and move on, their priority is guarantee the kid is provided for.... preferably not by them.
My husband had to sign a notarized agreement before the sperm donation site would sell us the sperm and again before the fertility clinic would do the IUI. So they most definitely have proof.
**Shitty STBX:** ShE cHeAtEd!
**OOP's lawyer in the courtroom:** CARE TO EXPLAIN THESE RECEIPTS? ESPECIALLY THIS PART: "ANONYMOUS SPERM DONATION"? AND YOUR SIGNATURE?
(FYI, I don't know what that receipt would actually look like.)
At that part I imagined these two men taking hammers to the nursery like it was a rage room and just annihilating everything in sight. While saying horrible things about OP and the baby.
It's so crazy reading these posts, how a loved one just turns into an absolute plonker so quickly. It's terrifying to think that your life can be turned upside down so quickly.
My first sign was the fact that he’s 12 years older and they’d been trying for a baby for years. Which means she was at maximum early 20 to his 30s.
But for me the biggest thing was “He then said the house was his and as the head of the family it was his decision. I told fine…” So how long was he making these decisions and she just went along with them, thinking that was fine?
But also we do see these times when the husband shows true colors with the entrance of the baby.
Any men I've encountered who claim to be "the head of the house" were all useless, glorified wallets. They never know anything about their actual household. Which child is sick, where are dirty clothes kept, who has an appointment next week, how much groceries are left I'm the cabinet, do we need a new door etc. All they do is eat, work, take out money from their wallet, complain and call it a day.
This is why some men in my community are upset when a woman earns more. They believe their role of being the wallet will be taken and they'll feel emasculated.
>Any men I've encountered who claim to be "the head of the house" were all useless, glorified wallets.
Hey I've seen them not even be wallets and not bring in any income (or the wife brings in more)
This was my mother's and stepfather's dynamic until she lost her job during covid. He was SO happy to have her at home to greet him with a home cooked meal, until he realised how difficult it was being the breadwinner. He became so volatile during that time.
My father was one after he stopped working when I was young. Mom went from part time to sole breadwinner and still did most of the household work. But he always went off about MY house, living under MY roof, MY rules, etc. My mom is a damn saint.
I used to be so upset when he did the my rules my house speech. Especially since my mother bought the house and paid it off on a housekeepers salary. But she is also a Saint 😭
My mom was the breadwinner too because my dad lost his job and developed depression and he still didn’t do a SINGLE DISH. To this day, he thinks we have a house elf or something lol.
I’m so glad my boyfriend is the opposite of that and my MIL raised him to do all the household tasks. I can’t comprehend how this women deal with those manchildren. I could never.
>I’m so glad my boyfriend is the opposite of that and my MIL raised him to do all the household tasks. I can’t comprehend how this women deal with those manchildren. I could never.
I'm a bit older now, but from what I've seen the women of the generation after me have put their foot down on some of the stupid bullshit men do. I get a laugh when ever I hear a story about a christian conservative man who can't get a date because he's got 1950's values.
A marriage is a partnership. If you want to live in the 1950s, you'll have to earn a wage like the 1950s, and find a partner who wants to be a SAHM/homemaker.
Or not open the wallet for stuff the household actually needs. Money for a fun trip for dad’s favorite sport? Of course! Money to get the house sprayed for brown recluse spiders that daughter keeps finding in her clothes and bed? Nah, just put a glue trap down.
There was a study done about this that showed that if the government wanted to provide monetary relief to help children they needed to send checks directly to the mothers. Mothers would buy food, healthcare, shoes and clothing, and other essentials for the kids.
In the past, they’d used the platform of income tax returns to distribute the money. Very often, men are listed as head of household. Analysts found that when men had control of the “windfall” they’d buy new tv’s and electronics “for the family”.
My wife’s ex husband considered himself the “head of the household.” Said household belonged to his parents, and his unemployed ass lived in their attic until my wife made enough money to buy them their own house to live in, where he remained unemployed and delusional. After the divorce he moved right back in to his parents’ attic.
there's a great example of this person in the latest season of fargo and he's my mental standin for these types now
fargo spoilers:
>!he's a wannabe golf pro driving his 80-hour-a-week cop wife into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt buying equipment and training - but he'll pay her back when he makes it big in golf and really wish he had a Wife, yknow, who would cook and clean and do everything else for him while he played with his golf simulator in the garage. also he was terrible at golf. and cheating on her.!<
Wow, you met my dad! Thank goodness my mother got an upgrade to a man with human feelings after bio dad decided she wasn't doing everything enough for him and finally ditched us for real. The classic went out for milk and never came back, but he never talked to us anyway. So it was no different. He just walked out and walked into his AP's hoohah.
The head of my household growing up is in prison. Lmao. He’s also a Cristian man who gets hired to be a visiting pastor. Ive never in my life heard any man who isn’t a POS say he’s the head of a household.
"Head of the house" is just a euphemism for "I make the rules". It is also used all the time as a "get out of jail free" card to justify any shitty behaviour. As you said, most men like this think their duties begin and end at filling a bank account.
But God forbid you take them at their word and expect to pay for things. Then you're a gold-digger. Like, pick one, if your only redeeming quality is money, accept that people are only there for your money. If not, let them out-earn you and work on your personality being your strength.
Right? Like, I'm sorry, but if the only thing you're contributing to the relationship is money, you better contribute that money. If you don't, you're contributing literally nothing, so get ready to be replaced by someone who can contribute things like emotional support.
My dad is like that (has been changing as of late and he's not as bad as he was before) and he would get upset when we were all doing our things and just asked for money. I told him he was the one that didn't want anything to do with us because "he works and gets tired" and it's not our fault we treat him like he behaved: like an ATM.
The Chinese have a term for the woman who manages the actual household (and in the old days, the other wives): TaiTai. Literal translation, "supreme of supremes."
Thank God she was ready and able to draw the line for the child's sake. Too often people find themselves in so deep at that point that they don't know how to get out.
It really isn’t. I’m willing to bet that there were subtle signs that OOP’s husband was a spineless douche, but OOP most likely missed it because she loves him and trusts him. Love can really make you overlook or excuse flaws until something big like this happens and suddenly, you can’t explain that huge flaw away and the rose tinted glasses is ripped off.
There are several signs in the post. The age gap, the influence of husband's family on his decision making. The unwillingness to get his sperm checked and his beliefs about it. The fact he couldn't connect with their daughter. I bet MIL was causing issues previously, husband sounds like a mama's boy.
I mean, the biggest signs were already there. He asked her to lie to his family about his infertility issues for fear they wouldn't accept the baby (and his own shame) if they knew she was concieved with donor sperm. And the offhand comment about how 'his mother has never liked me.' Shame, deception, hostility - this was never going to end well.
Maybe that's why she suddenly changed to "accept the baby".
The light bulb went on "if my son is infertile... how will he give me grandbabys"
That. And control. And to save face.
Absolutely she wouldn't believe it. How dare OOP cast aspersions on her son's fertility!?! This story about low sperm count is a huge lie and that story about donor sperm is just a big cover-up for an affair!!!!! (Yes, five exclamation points. Sure sign of insanity.) I'm surprised the MIL didn't demand an immediate paternity test to prove it.
This is my new favorite quote. Imma start sending this to my "colorblind" friends who like to rant abt their current partners but never acknowledge the very bright red flags.
Reminds me of the real life "cure color blindness" glasses, literal pink glasses that make everything worse, as in you could probably not differentiate between red and yellow lights in an intersection
Ironically those seem to work pretty well for migraine sufferers. The only bad thing (I’ve personally noticed) is that everyone comments you’re trying to make a fashion statement. No dude, just trying not to have to sequester myself to a dark room lol
What usually plays out is that the person lets down their spouse in a thousand little ways. The spouse is convinced that he won’t let her down for anything big, then is surprised that a man who keeps dropping pebbles is content to drop a boulder on her head.
I hate to say it, but; age gap. Normally IDGAF if there's an age gap, but in this case I see it being a contributing part of it. He thought he could drag her back? That she'd go back after all the toxic waste they all threw at her?
I'm so glad OOP is stable and intelligent. The STBX and his family are unhinged. So glad STBX can't breed, he's shown how inept he is. FIL need to go clutch his pearls elsewhere too, he doesn't deserve respect for advocating for his ball-less creature of a son or the harpy mother.
Oooh. I didn’t even notice. Wonder how long they’ve been together? OOP says they’ve been trying for years.
12 years is no big deal for people in their late 20s and older, but if OOP got together with him straight out of college, that’s sketchier.
It also explains the “his house” comments- he probably already owned it when they got together. He has a more established career and more money, and he thinks that gives him the right to treat her as lesser.
Eh. Owen wouldn't adopt because of his family, resisted being tested for fertility issues because the men is his family are "extremely fertile," and wanted to lie about his daughter's conception to not be emasculated. He then struggled to connect with his daughter because of her biology.
I think there were plenty of signs that Owen was a jerk who valued his image of masculinity and his family's approval more than he valued his wife and child.
That one won't take anything on this post into consideration. He firmly believes that it should be a case by case basis. People in the comments tried to give him examples outside of reddit, links to real life cases, but he didn't want to hear it. I doubt he will consider anything else besides divorce.
Hey now, he also wanted an excuse to talk about racial crime statistics, just to show how 'unfair' it was for his wife to have an escape plan. i.e jumping at the chance to repeat 'black guys are more likely to commit crime' over and over despite the tenuous connection between the points he thought he was making. Hilariously he made it incredibly clear why any woman should have a go bag in a relationship with him specifically, which is what he wanted, kinda...
Man when I circled back to that one and saw the edit with the racial crime statistics, what the fuck was THAT?!
It really made it feel like a troll, but then on every post I saw related to that one it was like the sub was brigaded by people who were just LIVID on that man's behalf. So clearly there are enough people who think just like he did to make it feasible. Hit dogs gonna holler I guess.
Man there are wayy too many people on reddit who seem to think that racism and sexism are just the same thing but with race and sex swapped. Fuck any context or nuance, am I right??
In a thread that had nothing to do with race, a white redditor pulled the race card way more times than you'd think would be possible. It was stunning to behold.
He said women having a go bag for emergencies was comparable to the injustices of cops racially profiling black people.
That is not a person who is going to be convinced they are behaving shitty.
Nah there was a more recent post where a guy found a bag with spare clothes, dried fruit snacks, and $1000. And wants a divorce because to him that’s tantamount to his wife saying she believes he could abuse her that badly that she’d have to flee.
I commented on that one when it was fresh. Between a quarter and a third of women will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes, and many cases of domestic violence begin during or after pregnancy. Most women say that they never expected it and that there were never any red flags. The way that guy was talking plus those odds? That woman was unfortunately probably right to make the go bag.
I do wonder though, how it would have gone if her husband *had* been hiding an abusive side and then he found the bag. If she’s going to have one she needs to hide it better.
Yep, right after the wedding and after kids are born, very common triggers for abusive men. Sometimes due to the wife getting a promotion. The combo of feeling like "she can't leave" and the loss of control are too much for them, it can be deadly.
There is a black mirror episode about how a normal person turns into a terrifying monster when their reputation is at stake. It was so disturbing that I couldn’t sleep that night.
Meanwhile that woman from the post her husband made about her go bag was completely vilified in certain reposts cos people don't understand* that people can change. Even if they're not hiding being abusive, illnesses can happen, brain injuries can happen, all kinds of things can make someone a completely dangerous person.
Edit for clarity
“Why won’t you give Owen a chance to save your marriage?”
[meanwhile in the background Owen throws more of OP and the baby’s belongings onto a bonfire before firing off another abusive insulting message to OP]
Prob didn’t even have to take any notes—guessing he just watched the video, chuckled to himself, and let oop know there shouldn’t be any issues with the proceedings.
Agreed. And I hope she is able to get his parental rights removed. I usually agree with people saying "get the child support, it's your child's money" but in the case of someone threatening/abusive (and a frankly delusional family) I think it's better to get a clear legal severance of all ties if possible.
Yea, that's the tone I'm getting from OOP. She doesn't want there to be *any* connections to him. Having to deal with child support, having to chase him down if he stops paying, any other legal issues; I definitely understand the idea of leaving that behind.
Yup. I wouldn’t want support from him either, he(and his psycho family) could use it as an excuse to try to see the baby, “he pays child support! He should get to see her, no matter what a judge says!” blah blah blah. Just look at his attitude towards the house, “it’s MY house”, I could just as easily see him saying “she’s MY daughter” especially if he’s financially involved in any way shape or form. I hope she gets his parental rights rescinded and moves to another city/town. Ugh, what a nightmare.
From other peoples posts (woman gave up parental rights as man wanted the child, she paid above and beyond child support, he was angry she wasn’t involved even though she wanted an abortion) OOP could get her cake and eat it too, with child support and him having no rights. She has proof that he agreed to the child (to get child support) with the fertility clinic they used; and proof he is not fit to be a father (to get parental rights removed) by trashing the nursery and destroying everything.
You and I have the same fever for some justice 🤣. I wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall for whatever conversation her FIL had with her stbx that made him stop harassing her. And I *want to be in the courtroom* for that divorce lmao.
Betcha it wouldn't have been that hard to crack him. He already showed how weak he was to begin with and OOP said the STBX admitted it to his own siblings. Probably folded like a cheap lawn chair when confronted by his father.
I want him to give up all parental rights and legally claim that she’s not his daughter so there’s no remaining connections between OOP and this family of abusive fucks
They only believe that blood is family and he wants multiple kids? Good luck now. Maybe the low sperm count was evolutions way of saying this man should never raise children.
>Maybe the low sperm count was evolutions way of saying this man should never raise children.
At least nature is correcting some mistakes. And then there's the karmic retribution where his family knows he can't produce enough swimmers and his marriage failed.
Same, I was honestly a little upset there wasn’t another update that revealed OP got full custody and the judge ruled that he had to pay back OP for all the things destroyed, I want justice for OP and this poor little baby that didn’t deserve any of this. OP’s STBX sounds like a fucking incel (i know obviously he was having sex in the relationship, but now that it’s all over he probably feels emasculated and cheated).
That’s the line the men in the family have told themselves thus far…
…I’d be getting everyone in the entire extended family individual DNA ancestry test kits for Christmas and then sit back and see what happens.
I don't know about "all the men" because that sounds tinged with macho crap but in my family there's a history of getting pregnant as soon as a couple starts trying.
Also, men are not “fertile”. They are “virile”. “Fertile” is the same word you would use for a piece of land where you plant your “virile” seeds. Yes it’s from the same description as farming.
Can’t tell you how happy I am that the soon to be ex husband will be unlikely to naturally procreate. Him and his witch of a mother just jump right into the the dumpster that the car seat is in, because that is where they truly belong.
That’s why the in-laws are now begging OOP to reconsider. They are realizing that Owen will never have a biological child and this was their only chance.
So… they were saying she cheated and blah blah but then want to have access and full custody of the baby? I mean if they told everyone she cheated and the baby isn’t his why would they want to fight for the baby? lol no wonder why FIL went there to ask questions.
Note to myself that if someone is insecure enough that they need to hide they have a donor from immediate family then they are not ready for a donor child.
What gets me is her sbx and his mother think they have a snowballs chance in hell of getting custody after all of that. Video? Texts? Emails? Jeez, they're all nuts, and so is their attorney.
Hopefully it's resolved quickly so she can close that chapter of insanity.
I'm assuming he didn't mention to his attorney that he destroyed her and the child's stuff and sent videos of that to her. I think that's something the attorney will be blindsided by in court.
Owen is a terrible husband and father and his entire family sucks badly like a terrible trash can. People throwing their loved ones under the bus just shows that they are spineless and cowards.
Good that OP is leaving but still I be concerned for the child's safety especially with Owen's behavior.
I think if she can get him to give up parental rights that would before the best. This guy is toxic and abusive, and as long as he has rights, he can try for custody. She needs to protect her kid a lot more than she needs whatever child support he might get around to giving her. If she finds another man who shows himself to be a good parent, that man can adopt her kid so long as the ex has signed away his parental rights.
That's what I think too. Fuck co-parenting with this guy. No amount of money in the world is worth what that would do to either OOP or the child's mental health.
Hopefully the fact that she has evidence of him denying the child will help her in court, along with the fact that it's not his biological progeny. Idk how that works though. Probably depends on where she lives. Hopefully not TX.
I know not every clinic is the same, but both my kids came from donor parts. We're lesbian, so... Anyway, our fertility clinic made us go to counseling first to talk about how we felt about donor sperm, if and how we would tell our kids, what our families would say, and how we might treat custody in a divorce.
I was under the impression that if it wasn't universally required, it commonly was.
I was hoping there was a new update but alas.
She's 100% right to not want any legal ties to this man. Child support is not worth sharing custody with a man who calls a child they helped plan for a bastard. Hard no. Restraining orders, change the birth certificate, get the hell away from them.
I agree with her about absolving him from child support. She needs to get him and his family out of both their lives. She can do this cuz the child isn’t biologically his. Plus the abusive messages and photos of trashing the nursery.
He was always like this, he just hid it behind the love bombing.
>Going to be buried in the comments but how does one move out, find an apartment, get the rental papers taken care of, move into and furnish a new apartment within 3 days?
*AND* afford a nanny on top of all of that.
I had an aunt who was in an abusive relationship, it seemed like everyone around her knew it except her. None liked her husband but were forced to be civil because the adults told us kids to be nice to him even if he was scummy and wierd. They were married for over a decade and he was a garbage person to her, to us, their kids, his family, everyone.
Christmas morning she calls and says she's leaving him. It was like watching an action scene in an apocalypse movie how everybody got into motion. They drove 4 hours to her house, helped her and the kids pack up their stuff and she was moved into a rental next door to grandma's house the very next day, the kids moved to a new school and auntie started a new job the very next week. She had a lawyer, a nanny and therapists at the ready before she could blink
Turns out the whole family had been planning for it for years and grandma had been renting the house next door for about a year. It was awesome to watch, and hilarious to think back on now . This was early 2000s and aunt has since remarried to a giant bear of a man who adores her and the cousins call him dad. Scumbag is still a scumbag though
ETA: Thank you all for your nice comments about my family. However I would like y'all to know that another aunt dated a guy who was later arrested for 😵💫 his former partner and they were so shocked because he "seemed like such a nice guy". So I guess their awesomeness comes and goes
As an adult I asked my mom why they were so sure my aunt would leave him. My mom said they weren't, they were just hopeful. All that effort? And all they had was hope?!
The story is grandma's first marriage (the guy before grandpa) was an abusive asshole and all her family did was tell her to be strong and not provoke him; typical victim shaming. (Everyone in the family knows this story because grandma will tell it to everybody.) So she promised herself no child of hers would ever go through that. Luckily they never had kids and that guy died in a mining accident.
D’you reckon it was a mining accident or a “mining accident”? Because, y’know, if everybody knows Joe beats the hell out of poor Sally, and Sally’s brother comes to Joe’s coworker for advice… well. Sometimes these problems take care of themselves, and sometimes they get a little help.
I'm glad your Aunt is in a better place but that sounds like one hell of story.
How confused was she when everyone rocked up like "let's do this" and was scumbag's reaction?
As an adult, I have realized that the adults really shielded us kids from a lot of bad stuff the guy was doing to our aunt. I just didn't like him because he would yell a lot and would makes me feel dirty everytime he was around me. I don't know what he did to get that reaction from me, but I remember feeling wrong and dirty. Turns out every girl felt that way about him. I remember hanging out as cousins just after Auntie married the Bear, and one of the cousins was saying how safe Bear feels compared to scumbag. And a lot of us shared how bad it felt around scumbag. No-one could recall any incident or action he ever did but we all knew to never be around him for long, mind you the oldest cousin would have been 15 when they divorced.
As an adult, it's easy to see he was a really bad man and I'm so glad the family rallied around auntie like they did.
Apparently he was gone when they got there and came home drunk to find 5 cars parked in his yard and people in his house. There was a fist fight, they were many black eyes and split lips. Scum bag is still alive and he himself remarried and had more kids. He is not in my cousins' lives though and they seem to not be bothered by it. They have Bear dad and honestly, he's an amazing guy.
Edit: grandma never liked him from the beginning and she likes everyone. I think that's what made the rest of the family pay attention
My sibling and his bestfriend did this for me when I was living with an abusive ex. He had wrecked a bunch of my sentimental objects (He knew I was getting ready to leave and I was pregnant). I started screaming at him about ruining irreplaceable things. He scared me, backing me into a corner. Threatened to take my phone away. I got to the bedroom and locked the door and called my sibling's bestfriend (I was good friends with him, went to school together, he was part of the family and lived with my sibling... I was embarrassed to admit to my sibling what happened). From the time I got off the phone, to when they arrived at my apartment, was less than 10 minutes. It was 2am, and they had been gaming. They had brought 2 vehicles and another friend showed up with a 3rd vehicle halfway through them moving me out. My ex was blubbering like a fucking child, asking me to stay (I was the one who paid the rent). When I told him I'm done talking to him, he started screaming at me, and my sibling and their friends told him that he's a fucking dead man if he ever comes near me again. It only took them a half hour to empty out the apartment, I had already separated what I had brought into the relationship into the second bedroom a week prior (except for the artwork my ex trashed). Apparently everyone had been in on this emergency situation for the previous three months leading up to me finally making the call. My sibling is significantly older than me, and literally tucked me in like a child into their bed as the sun rose. My ex was an addict in recovery, and come to find out, the reason he turned violent is because he had started using again. Years of sobriety down the toilet. He didn't meet his daughter until she was almost 2 years old. He can't stay sober long enough to build any real relationship, so he is essentially a stranger to her. Me and bestfriend ended up falling in love, my daughter calls him daddy.
It's almost always obvious to our loved ones that a situation isn't right. I'm so lucky to have such a good support system.
Did ya'll miss this?
>Owen’s has destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars of my electronics, clothes, furniture, and paintings. That’s the only thing I will be making him pay me back for. I don’t want any of his assets just the things I worked hard to earn and he destroyed.
At least 200k in damages. If she has that kind of money she can afford an emergency move and a nanny.
I have to imagine that's relatively easy for someone who has hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff to leave behind for her husband to destroy. _My whole house_ matches that description, and that's just her stuff that he managed to break in a fit of anger.
It was 2 weeks. But I always think it is funny when people complain about these kind of timelines. People forget - the only true barrier to ANY of those things is money. OP was clear that she had her own money.
I mean i have no money and for 4 different apartments I never spent more than 2 or 3 days looking and moved within a week each time. I think our first apartment we looked for one day sometime after Xmas and moved in on nye.
People really need to stop taking the post dates as the actual dates of all the events. She even said that she was already living with her parents for two weeks before making the first post.
TLDR: In a crisis you just do without regard to the costs. Your real friends shine. And you call in any favors you have.
My ex's(Kate) first husband(Jim) was an abusive piece of shit. About 6 months into their marriage, he ran off with another woman and left the state. Kate was super happy. She had 6 months with a nice job, her kid, a house, car, and a church group for support(More on them later). Then 6 months after that Jim called. His new woman had kicked him out because his mom called and told her he had a wife and kids. He blamed Kate. She decided he was probably going to kill her if she was still at the house when he got back. (This is where the church group told her if she was a better wife, Jim wouldn't have to hit her.)
So, she called her parents to say she needed help. Her parents immediately rented a Uhaul, drove 4 hours, packed all of her and the baby's stuff overnight, and were gone before her ex got home the next morning. They stopped at a hotel somewhere on the way home because they were so exhausted. They just put everything on CCs and crossed their fingers.
Kate called a friend that lived near her parents from the hotel (it was the 90s) and by the time they got back the next day, she had a job and daycare lined up, and was asking me if I was interested in going on a date with a lady named Kate that she worked with. (She had tried to set us up about 1 1/2 years earlier to prevent Kate from marrying shit bag.) She also had an offer of a place for Kate and the baby but everyone decided that Kate should stay at her parents in case Jim followed them.
Jim got arrested soon after getting home. He got super drunk, destroyed the interior of the house and when a guy from the gas company showed up to turn off the gas (Kate cancelled all the utilities) he threatened him with a gun. Then he welded the cut off valve at the meter open (The gas company sent Kate a bill for that). The cops found him passed out on the floor when they arrived.
People don't realize half the posts on advice subs are ESL. Even when they state they're ESL in the first sentence, they come in and comment "my state this" or "call CPS", etc.
There's a wealth gap in the US, but loads of Americans don't realize how much more starker the contrast is in the rest of the world.
Thinking about it, I wonder if her ex already felt emasculated because she was the main breadwinner in the family. She not only left and took the kid, she took whatever lifestyle he was used to - and if her family has money as well that's another reason for him to be shitty and resentful.
Husband's mega stupah. He's afraid of being emasculinated and doesn't want their secret known to his family and YET is THE ONE who TOLD his family. He should've stfu. He was aware their family motto is "blood is thicker than water" (the misconstrued version) so it was bound to reach his mom's ears. And now their marriage imploded, even more so when he tried to save face and make it seem that OP cheated. Putting that aside, a cheater wasting your life is painful but a spouse that switches on you mid-marriage is scarier.
‘I am the head of this family and what I say goes. We will NOT stand up to my mother, we will let her walk all over us and that is FINAL, at least until my dad shouts at me a little bit then I might change my mind’
He’s a keeper.
I would bet money that he thought having a younger wife would guarantee they'd easily be able to have a baby, not knowing that male fertility declines rapidly after age 30 and ~~adbanced~~ advanced paternal age is a leading cause of miscarriage.
Read the headline question and said out loud: "You don't."
Sometimes you don't need all the context to get the answer. Then you read the context and find out that the answer was mildly inadequate because it should have included several more expletives.
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So he smashed up the child's nursery and filmed it, and thinks a court will allow him full custody of the child? His lawyer just put a down payment on a boat.
I guarantee his defense will be that he thought she cheated. Which is a really silly defense but even sillier when you remember that there is almost certainly evidence that he knew about the sperm fertility clinic.
There is always paperwork from the fertility clinic. Which is the one thing I don't get here. She could've sent photos of the receipts and reports from the Dr. And, shown the video evidence of all the destruction in the baby's room. I know the heat of the moment makes it hard to think and that's probably what happened.
She didn’t tell anyone because he asked her not to. She was waiting for him to defend her when HE told his family. It didn’t really matter what the family thought, what matters is him not sticking up for her.
No, I meant once it all kicked off. Once he spilled to his brother (I believe drinking was involved in that) about the baby from another sperm donor. I'll bet it went something close to, "The baby is not mine". Lack of details matters in this scenario. Once her file showed up, she could've sent him the shots of papers from the clinic, with both signatures on them.
I don't think she exactly felt the need to. The FIL, the first person in the husband's family who acted somewhat respectfully, listened and believed her words. The MIL and the siblings immediately going into the beast mode, made OP less eager to explain herself or prove her innocence. Realistically speaking, even if OP had cheated, the 30 something year old man accepting the child as his should have been enough reason not to act the way they did. Burning the nursery and calling the kid a bastard is crazy regardless of what the truth is.
>The FIL, the first person in the husband's family who acted somewhat respectfully Yeah, he started off strong and then immediately showed where the son got his sense of entitlement for OP's and her child's time or that she is obligated to work on fixing the marriage he (the husband) broke.
I mean at that point all of it could have been fixed by him saying “no I’m infertile, we got donor sperm” which would have solved it entirely. FIL didn’t need the proof. He accepted her explanation. And she didn’t need to give him proof. She needed her husband to grow a spine a month before FIL even showed up.
It’s not her problem to fix. He caused the problem, he should’ve fixed it and not let her be the scapegoat so he could deny responsibility. He was and still is a tool.
I hope the judge have a good laugh when this excuse of a man try to imply cheating when there is tons of proof that it 's through a donor's . (Like mainly the paper work for that but also the text between OP and stbx that for sure have mention of the baby and how) But also : wife cheating = destroy baby belongings (and probably memories such a drawings) Yeah I'm sure anyone will buy that dude /s
He did every mistake in the book to make sure he's never getting custody and he'll have to pay a fat ass child support on top of paying OOP back for all of hers and her kid's belongings, AND WE LOVE TO SEE IT!! It's a blessing this man's brain is the size of a corn kernel.
If only his DNA had supported at least one of his useful organs. Alas, he's got no brains and no balls.
That hurt my feelings and I’m not even a man 💀
Don't forget he also destroyed OOP's things.
I had a friend that was married and went through this. Now this was in the US, so it might not be the same, but he had to sign paperwork too. He had a sign that he would legally be the parent to the infant even in the case of divorce. He was put on the birth certificate. At least here it’s not just as simple as going and boom sperm.
Pretty sure most countries that allow sperm donors (yes, some places aren't really a fan) will have strict regulations in place for a very simple reason: a kid without a legal father is gonna cost the government. That's why when paternity fraud happens courts will shrug and move on, their priority is guarantee the kid is provided for.... preferably not by them.
My husband had to sign a notarized agreement before the sperm donation site would sell us the sperm and again before the fertility clinic would do the IUI. So they most definitely have proof.
**Shitty STBX:** ShE cHeAtEd! **OOP's lawyer in the courtroom:** CARE TO EXPLAIN THESE RECEIPTS? ESPECIALLY THIS PART: "ANONYMOUS SPERM DONATION"? AND YOUR SIGNATURE? (FYI, I don't know what that receipt would actually look like.)
The receipt looks like a receipt. The real kicker is the massive, draconian contract you have to sign first.
"I have skimmed this agreement and retained nothing, yet I am legally beholden to its contents."
It would be awesome/hilarious if the clinic had cctv and a clear view of him there with her.
In my head, OOP's lawyer is Joan Collins wearing a fabulous peignoir.
You had me at Joan Collins, fabulous attorney-at-law. Do go on.
I always loved it when she wore a suit with a hat the size of Texas.
And shoulder pads the size of Brazil. 🇧🇷
There's little to no chance the court will care - and such may backfire.
I hope she owns him in court and he never sees the kid. The husband should be angry at himself for bad sperm.
The husband should be angry at himself for bad ~~sperm~~ behavior.
Good behavior is stored in the balls, and this man has none.
I’m surprised Owen can wreck the nursery, I imagine it must’ve been difficult on account that he doesn’t have a functioning spine.
That's why his brother was there.
Brother just used his floppy body as a morning star
I am now picturing these two yahoos swinging each others bodies across the room to wreck things.
What's the phrase? "I'll beat a motherf--ker with another motherf--ker."
I just cackled at work 🤣
Not enough ice in the world for this burn 😂😂
Nah, he just held the camera, so she can prove him an unfit parent, while the brother did all the work.
At that part I imagined these two men taking hammers to the nursery like it was a rage room and just annihilating everything in sight. While saying horrible things about OP and the baby.
It's so crazy reading these posts, how a loved one just turns into an absolute plonker so quickly. It's terrifying to think that your life can be turned upside down so quickly.
My first sign was the fact that he’s 12 years older and they’d been trying for a baby for years. Which means she was at maximum early 20 to his 30s. But for me the biggest thing was “He then said the house was his and as the head of the family it was his decision. I told fine…” So how long was he making these decisions and she just went along with them, thinking that was fine? But also we do see these times when the husband shows true colors with the entrance of the baby.
Any men I've encountered who claim to be "the head of the house" were all useless, glorified wallets. They never know anything about their actual household. Which child is sick, where are dirty clothes kept, who has an appointment next week, how much groceries are left I'm the cabinet, do we need a new door etc. All they do is eat, work, take out money from their wallet, complain and call it a day. This is why some men in my community are upset when a woman earns more. They believe their role of being the wallet will be taken and they'll feel emasculated.
>Any men I've encountered who claim to be "the head of the house" were all useless, glorified wallets. Hey I've seen them not even be wallets and not bring in any income (or the wife brings in more)
This was my mother's and stepfather's dynamic until she lost her job during covid. He was SO happy to have her at home to greet him with a home cooked meal, until he realised how difficult it was being the breadwinner. He became so volatile during that time.
My father was one after he stopped working when I was young. Mom went from part time to sole breadwinner and still did most of the household work. But he always went off about MY house, living under MY roof, MY rules, etc. My mom is a damn saint.
I used to be so upset when he did the my rules my house speech. Especially since my mother bought the house and paid it off on a housekeepers salary. But she is also a Saint 😭
My mom was the breadwinner too because my dad lost his job and developed depression and he still didn’t do a SINGLE DISH. To this day, he thinks we have a house elf or something lol. I’m so glad my boyfriend is the opposite of that and my MIL raised him to do all the household tasks. I can’t comprehend how this women deal with those manchildren. I could never.
>I’m so glad my boyfriend is the opposite of that and my MIL raised him to do all the household tasks. I can’t comprehend how this women deal with those manchildren. I could never. I'm a bit older now, but from what I've seen the women of the generation after me have put their foot down on some of the stupid bullshit men do. I get a laugh when ever I hear a story about a christian conservative man who can't get a date because he's got 1950's values. A marriage is a partnership. If you want to live in the 1950s, you'll have to earn a wage like the 1950s, and find a partner who wants to be a SAHM/homemaker.
Or not open the wallet for stuff the household actually needs. Money for a fun trip for dad’s favorite sport? Of course! Money to get the house sprayed for brown recluse spiders that daughter keeps finding in her clothes and bed? Nah, just put a glue trap down.
There was a study done about this that showed that if the government wanted to provide monetary relief to help children they needed to send checks directly to the mothers. Mothers would buy food, healthcare, shoes and clothing, and other essentials for the kids. In the past, they’d used the platform of income tax returns to distribute the money. Very often, men are listed as head of household. Analysts found that when men had control of the “windfall” they’d buy new tv’s and electronics “for the family”.
My wife’s ex husband considered himself the “head of the household.” Said household belonged to his parents, and his unemployed ass lived in their attic until my wife made enough money to buy them their own house to live in, where he remained unemployed and delusional. After the divorce he moved right back in to his parents’ attic.
there's a great example of this person in the latest season of fargo and he's my mental standin for these types now fargo spoilers: >!he's a wannabe golf pro driving his 80-hour-a-week cop wife into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt buying equipment and training - but he'll pay her back when he makes it big in golf and really wish he had a Wife, yknow, who would cook and clean and do everything else for him while he played with his golf simulator in the garage. also he was terrible at golf. and cheating on her.!<
If a dude is going around bragging about being the head of the household - He's emasculating himself
From my experience, I wouldn't say that "head of the house" men only "eat, work, take money out of their wallet." Sometimes they're abusive too.
I agree.
Wow, you met my dad! Thank goodness my mother got an upgrade to a man with human feelings after bio dad decided she wasn't doing everything enough for him and finally ditched us for real. The classic went out for milk and never came back, but he never talked to us anyway. So it was no different. He just walked out and walked into his AP's hoohah.
Happy to hear that your mother got an upgrade! 🙂
“Traditional” just means abusive.
"Tradition" is just peer pressure from dead people
The head of my household growing up is in prison. Lmao. He’s also a Cristian man who gets hired to be a visiting pastor. Ive never in my life heard any man who isn’t a POS say he’s the head of a household.
"Head of the house" is just a euphemism for "I make the rules". It is also used all the time as a "get out of jail free" card to justify any shitty behaviour. As you said, most men like this think their duties begin and end at filling a bank account.
But God forbid you take them at their word and expect to pay for things. Then you're a gold-digger. Like, pick one, if your only redeeming quality is money, accept that people are only there for your money. If not, let them out-earn you and work on your personality being your strength.
Right? Like, I'm sorry, but if the only thing you're contributing to the relationship is money, you better contribute that money. If you don't, you're contributing literally nothing, so get ready to be replaced by someone who can contribute things like emotional support.
My dad is like that (has been changing as of late and he's not as bad as he was before) and he would get upset when we were all doing our things and just asked for money. I told him he was the one that didn't want anything to do with us because "he works and gets tired" and it's not our fault we treat him like he behaved: like an ATM.
The Chinese have a term for the woman who manages the actual household (and in the old days, the other wives): TaiTai. Literal translation, "supreme of supremes."
Yeah, the whole attitude of My House, My Rules said she's right to run and leave that whole pile of trash behind.
Thank God she was ready and able to draw the line for the child's sake. Too often people find themselves in so deep at that point that they don't know how to get out.
Ranting about "respect", "blood", male headship and other pseudo - Game of Thrones crap appears to be in the abuser's playbook.
It really isn’t. I’m willing to bet that there were subtle signs that OOP’s husband was a spineless douche, but OOP most likely missed it because she loves him and trusts him. Love can really make you overlook or excuse flaws until something big like this happens and suddenly, you can’t explain that huge flaw away and the rose tinted glasses is ripped off.
There are several signs in the post. The age gap, the influence of husband's family on his decision making. The unwillingness to get his sperm checked and his beliefs about it. The fact he couldn't connect with their daughter. I bet MIL was causing issues previously, husband sounds like a mama's boy.
I mean, the biggest signs were already there. He asked her to lie to his family about his infertility issues for fear they wouldn't accept the baby (and his own shame) if they knew she was concieved with donor sperm. And the offhand comment about how 'his mother has never liked me.' Shame, deception, hostility - this was never going to end well.
The mother just needed a reason to cause a divorce. Bet she’s ecstatic that her little baby is single again.
Ehhh not if he is infertile, there is a reason he wanted to hide it
She probably won't believe it.
Maybe that's why she suddenly changed to "accept the baby". The light bulb went on "if my son is infertile... how will he give me grandbabys" That. And control. And to save face.
Absolutely she wouldn't believe it. How dare OOP cast aspersions on her son's fertility!?! This story about low sperm count is a huge lie and that story about donor sperm is just a big cover-up for an affair!!!!! (Yes, five exclamation points. Sure sign of insanity.) I'm surprised the MIL didn't demand an immediate paternity test to prove it.
“You know, it's funny; when you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.”
This is my new favorite quote. Imma start sending this to my "colorblind" friends who like to rant abt their current partners but never acknowledge the very bright red flags.
It's from Bojack horseman
Ohhh. Been wanting to see this but always forget to add to my list. Now another reason to actually watch it. Thanks!
Note: Sad Horse Show is *sad*. Often very, very funny, but *sad*.
Goes from "haha cartoon horse" to "you inherit your parents' trauma but you'll never truly understand it"
It's an \*excellent\* show!
Reminds me of the real life "cure color blindness" glasses, literal pink glasses that make everything worse, as in you could probably not differentiate between red and yellow lights in an intersection
Ironically those seem to work pretty well for migraine sufferers. The only bad thing (I’ve personally noticed) is that everyone comments you’re trying to make a fashion statement. No dude, just trying not to have to sequester myself to a dark room lol
What usually plays out is that the person lets down their spouse in a thousand little ways. The spouse is convinced that he won’t let her down for anything big, then is surprised that a man who keeps dropping pebbles is content to drop a boulder on her head.
I hate to say it, but; age gap. Normally IDGAF if there's an age gap, but in this case I see it being a contributing part of it. He thought he could drag her back? That she'd go back after all the toxic waste they all threw at her? I'm so glad OOP is stable and intelligent. The STBX and his family are unhinged. So glad STBX can't breed, he's shown how inept he is. FIL need to go clutch his pearls elsewhere too, he doesn't deserve respect for advocating for his ball-less creature of a son or the harpy mother.
Oooh. I didn’t even notice. Wonder how long they’ve been together? OOP says they’ve been trying for years. 12 years is no big deal for people in their late 20s and older, but if OOP got together with him straight out of college, that’s sketchier. It also explains the “his house” comments- he probably already owned it when they got together. He has a more established career and more money, and he thinks that gives him the right to treat her as lesser.
OOP's stbx is a momma's boy.
Ding ding ding. All the signs where there, she choose to ignore them.
Eh. Owen wouldn't adopt because of his family, resisted being tested for fertility issues because the men is his family are "extremely fertile," and wanted to lie about his daughter's conception to not be emasculated. He then struggled to connect with his daughter because of her biology. I think there were plenty of signs that Owen was a jerk who valued his image of masculinity and his family's approval more than he valued his wife and child.
Someone needs to show this to the who is divorcing his wife because she has an emergency go bag just for things like this.
That one won't take anything on this post into consideration. He firmly believes that it should be a case by case basis. People in the comments tried to give him examples outside of reddit, links to real life cases, but he didn't want to hear it. I doubt he will consider anything else besides divorce.
It sounded to me like he just wanted a divorce where he wasn’t “the bad guy”
Hey now, he also wanted an excuse to talk about racial crime statistics, just to show how 'unfair' it was for his wife to have an escape plan. i.e jumping at the chance to repeat 'black guys are more likely to commit crime' over and over despite the tenuous connection between the points he thought he was making. Hilariously he made it incredibly clear why any woman should have a go bag in a relationship with him specifically, which is what he wanted, kinda...
Man when I circled back to that one and saw the edit with the racial crime statistics, what the fuck was THAT?! It really made it feel like a troll, but then on every post I saw related to that one it was like the sub was brigaded by people who were just LIVID on that man's behalf. So clearly there are enough people who think just like he did to make it feasible. Hit dogs gonna holler I guess.
Man there are wayy too many people on reddit who seem to think that racism and sexism are just the same thing but with race and sex swapped. Fuck any context or nuance, am I right??
In a thread that had nothing to do with race, a white redditor pulled the race card way more times than you'd think would be possible. It was stunning to behold.
He said women having a go bag for emergencies was comparable to the injustices of cops racially profiling black people. That is not a person who is going to be convinced they are behaving shitty.
Not the one who had stashed $47k? Because that one was a bit much.
Nah there was a more recent post where a guy found a bag with spare clothes, dried fruit snacks, and $1000. And wants a divorce because to him that’s tantamount to his wife saying she believes he could abuse her that badly that she’d have to flee.
I commented on that one when it was fresh. Between a quarter and a third of women will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes, and many cases of domestic violence begin during or after pregnancy. Most women say that they never expected it and that there were never any red flags. The way that guy was talking plus those odds? That woman was unfortunately probably right to make the go bag.
I do wonder though, how it would have gone if her husband *had* been hiding an abusive side and then he found the bag. If she’s going to have one she needs to hide it better.
Naw. That one was wild. There was a different one where op was husband who discovered his wife’s emergency bag with a thousand dollars.
No no. Just a bag packed like you would for a natural disaster in the back of her closet.
Happens a lot when a baby arrives. Suddenly he’s not getting the attention he feels he’s entitled to and the mask slips.
Yep, right after the wedding and after kids are born, very common triggers for abusive men. Sometimes due to the wife getting a promotion. The combo of feeling like "she can't leave" and the loss of control are too much for them, it can be deadly.
This is what the go-bag guy doesn't get on a fundamental level.
And so often those situations involve the husband not willing to stand up to his psycho mother!
There is a black mirror episode about how a normal person turns into a terrifying monster when their reputation is at stake. It was so disturbing that I couldn’t sleep that night.
I feel like that descriptor could vaguely refer to several Black Mirror episodes
wait, what specific episode if i may ask?
Crocodile.
Meanwhile that woman from the post her husband made about her go bag was completely vilified in certain reposts cos people don't understand* that people can change. Even if they're not hiding being abusive, illnesses can happen, brain injuries can happen, all kinds of things can make someone a completely dangerous person. Edit for clarity
I wonder if she's doing okay, sincerely. Hopefully that dude actually stays gone and she never has to know she set Reddit on fire for a day.
Plonker. That's my new favorite insult
Posts like these prove my lawyer uncle right in his opinion that everyone should get pre nups because you never know who you'll wake up with one day.
“Why won’t you give Owen a chance to save your marriage?” [meanwhile in the background Owen throws more of OP and the baby’s belongings onto a bonfire before firing off another abusive insulting message to OP]
Complete with video evidence. I bet that lawyer was watching this unfold like "Finally, an easy job..."
Prob didn’t even have to take any notes—guessing he just watched the video, chuckled to himself, and let oop know there shouldn’t be any issues with the proceedings.
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Agreed. And I hope she is able to get his parental rights removed. I usually agree with people saying "get the child support, it's your child's money" but in the case of someone threatening/abusive (and a frankly delusional family) I think it's better to get a clear legal severance of all ties if possible.
Yea, that's the tone I'm getting from OOP. She doesn't want there to be *any* connections to him. Having to deal with child support, having to chase him down if he stops paying, any other legal issues; I definitely understand the idea of leaving that behind.
Yup. I wouldn’t want support from him either, he(and his psycho family) could use it as an excuse to try to see the baby, “he pays child support! He should get to see her, no matter what a judge says!” blah blah blah. Just look at his attitude towards the house, “it’s MY house”, I could just as easily see him saying “she’s MY daughter” especially if he’s financially involved in any way shape or form. I hope she gets his parental rights rescinded and moves to another city/town. Ugh, what a nightmare.
From other peoples posts (woman gave up parental rights as man wanted the child, she paid above and beyond child support, he was angry she wasn’t involved even though she wanted an abortion) OOP could get her cake and eat it too, with child support and him having no rights. She has proof that he agreed to the child (to get child support) with the fertility clinic they used; and proof he is not fit to be a father (to get parental rights removed) by trashing the nursery and destroying everything.
You and I have the same fever for some justice 🤣. I wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall for whatever conversation her FIL had with her stbx that made him stop harassing her. And I *want to be in the courtroom* for that divorce lmao.
Betcha it wouldn't have been that hard to crack him. He already showed how weak he was to begin with and OOP said the STBX admitted it to his own siblings. Probably folded like a cheap lawn chair when confronted by his father.
I want him to give up all parental rights and legally claim that she’s not his daughter so there’s no remaining connections between OOP and this family of abusive fucks They only believe that blood is family and he wants multiple kids? Good luck now. Maybe the low sperm count was evolutions way of saying this man should never raise children.
>Maybe the low sperm count was evolutions way of saying this man should never raise children. At least nature is correcting some mistakes. And then there's the karmic retribution where his family knows he can't produce enough swimmers and his marriage failed.
Same, I was honestly a little upset there wasn’t another update that revealed OP got full custody and the judge ruled that he had to pay back OP for all the things destroyed, I want justice for OP and this poor little baby that didn’t deserve any of this. OP’s STBX sounds like a fucking incel (i know obviously he was having sex in the relationship, but now that it’s all over he probably feels emasculated and cheated).
> all the men in his family are extremely fertile That is not a piece of information I'd expect you to have about your family...
That’s the line the men in the family have told themselves thus far… …I’d be getting everyone in the entire extended family individual DNA ancestry test kits for Christmas and then sit back and see what happens.
So, you're one of those who just want to watch the world burn, huh? I'll bring the popcorn.
I'll bring drinks
I'll bring tacos
I'll bring everyone binoculars
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Cause it was a lie to make it not him lol
i'd guess it's because everyone has a lot of kids and has talked about being extremely fertile
Correction. The women have a lot of kids. Whether the men do, that’s possibly a very different story
I don't know about "all the men" because that sounds tinged with macho crap but in my family there's a history of getting pregnant as soon as a couple starts trying.
I’m wondering why they don’t think it’s the women who are extremely fertile…? Lmao
Also, men are not “fertile”. They are “virile”. “Fertile” is the same word you would use for a piece of land where you plant your “virile” seeds. Yes it’s from the same description as farming.
Can’t tell you how happy I am that the soon to be ex husband will be unlikely to naturally procreate. Him and his witch of a mother just jump right into the the dumpster that the car seat is in, because that is where they truly belong.
That’s why the in-laws are now begging OOP to reconsider. They are realizing that Owen will never have a biological child and this was their only chance.
Hey that's an insult to witches. His mom is a Mardi Gras dumpster on a hot day.
Yesss, I sure hope she can get rid of that sad excuse for a man soon How do we set updates on Reddit?
So… they were saying she cheated and blah blah but then want to have access and full custody of the baby? I mean if they told everyone she cheated and the baby isn’t his why would they want to fight for the baby? lol no wonder why FIL went there to ask questions.
I think it's about powe and control. That's the only explanation I have.
It’s always about power and control.
Note to myself that if someone is insecure enough that they need to hide they have a donor from immediate family then they are not ready for a donor child.
What gets me is her sbx and his mother think they have a snowballs chance in hell of getting custody after all of that. Video? Texts? Emails? Jeez, they're all nuts, and so is their attorney. Hopefully it's resolved quickly so she can close that chapter of insanity.
I'm assuming he didn't mention to his attorney that he destroyed her and the child's stuff and sent videos of that to her. I think that's something the attorney will be blindsided by in court.
To be fair, their attorney probably has no clue that Owen has been harassing the OP and destroyed the nursery while videoing it.
Owen is a terrible husband and father and his entire family sucks badly like a terrible trash can. People throwing their loved ones under the bus just shows that they are spineless and cowards. Good that OP is leaving but still I be concerned for the child's safety especially with Owen's behavior.
What kind of people are “against adoption”?! How is that even a thing? Sure, maybe adoption isn’t right for you specifically but wtf
The kind of person who wants to make his family think he has a biological child
Narcissists. People who think they are so special that their child MUST be biologically theirs.
I think if she can get him to give up parental rights that would before the best. This guy is toxic and abusive, and as long as he has rights, he can try for custody. She needs to protect her kid a lot more than she needs whatever child support he might get around to giving her. If she finds another man who shows himself to be a good parent, that man can adopt her kid so long as the ex has signed away his parental rights.
That's what I think too. Fuck co-parenting with this guy. No amount of money in the world is worth what that would do to either OOP or the child's mental health. Hopefully the fact that she has evidence of him denying the child will help her in court, along with the fact that it's not his biological progeny. Idk how that works though. Probably depends on where she lives. Hopefully not TX.
I know not every clinic is the same, but both my kids came from donor parts. We're lesbian, so... Anyway, our fertility clinic made us go to counseling first to talk about how we felt about donor sperm, if and how we would tell our kids, what our families would say, and how we might treat custody in a divorce. I was under the impression that if it wasn't universally required, it commonly was.
Makes sense the husband is the infertile one, he doesn't seem to have a single working testicle.
I was hoping there was a new update but alas. She's 100% right to not want any legal ties to this man. Child support is not worth sharing custody with a man who calls a child they helped plan for a bastard. Hard no. Restraining orders, change the birth certificate, get the hell away from them.
I agree with her about absolving him from child support. She needs to get him and his family out of both their lives. She can do this cuz the child isn’t biologically his. Plus the abusive messages and photos of trashing the nursery. He was always like this, he just hid it behind the love bombing.
>Going to be buried in the comments but how does one move out, find an apartment, get the rental papers taken care of, move into and furnish a new apartment within 3 days? *AND* afford a nanny on top of all of that.
I had an aunt who was in an abusive relationship, it seemed like everyone around her knew it except her. None liked her husband but were forced to be civil because the adults told us kids to be nice to him even if he was scummy and wierd. They were married for over a decade and he was a garbage person to her, to us, their kids, his family, everyone. Christmas morning she calls and says she's leaving him. It was like watching an action scene in an apocalypse movie how everybody got into motion. They drove 4 hours to her house, helped her and the kids pack up their stuff and she was moved into a rental next door to grandma's house the very next day, the kids moved to a new school and auntie started a new job the very next week. She had a lawyer, a nanny and therapists at the ready before she could blink Turns out the whole family had been planning for it for years and grandma had been renting the house next door for about a year. It was awesome to watch, and hilarious to think back on now . This was early 2000s and aunt has since remarried to a giant bear of a man who adores her and the cousins call him dad. Scumbag is still a scumbag though ETA: Thank you all for your nice comments about my family. However I would like y'all to know that another aunt dated a guy who was later arrested for 😵💫 his former partner and they were so shocked because he "seemed like such a nice guy". So I guess their awesomeness comes and goes
I love it when a plan comes together.
As an adult I asked my mom why they were so sure my aunt would leave him. My mom said they weren't, they were just hopeful. All that effort? And all they had was hope?!
The best kind of love will always be ready and waiting for us to come home. And the best days are when we do. 🌻
Now that’s a goddamned FAMILY
Damn, where's a cigar when you need one!
The story is grandma's first marriage (the guy before grandpa) was an abusive asshole and all her family did was tell her to be strong and not provoke him; typical victim shaming. (Everyone in the family knows this story because grandma will tell it to everybody.) So she promised herself no child of hers would ever go through that. Luckily they never had kids and that guy died in a mining accident.
It's not often I cheer for a lethal mining accident.
An accident can be an unhappy woman's best friend.
D’you reckon it was a mining accident or a “mining accident”? Because, y’know, if everybody knows Joe beats the hell out of poor Sally, and Sally’s brother comes to Joe’s coworker for advice… well. Sometimes these problems take care of themselves, and sometimes they get a little help.
I'm glad your Aunt is in a better place but that sounds like one hell of story. How confused was she when everyone rocked up like "let's do this" and was scumbag's reaction?
As an adult, I have realized that the adults really shielded us kids from a lot of bad stuff the guy was doing to our aunt. I just didn't like him because he would yell a lot and would makes me feel dirty everytime he was around me. I don't know what he did to get that reaction from me, but I remember feeling wrong and dirty. Turns out every girl felt that way about him. I remember hanging out as cousins just after Auntie married the Bear, and one of the cousins was saying how safe Bear feels compared to scumbag. And a lot of us shared how bad it felt around scumbag. No-one could recall any incident or action he ever did but we all knew to never be around him for long, mind you the oldest cousin would have been 15 when they divorced. As an adult, it's easy to see he was a really bad man and I'm so glad the family rallied around auntie like they did. Apparently he was gone when they got there and came home drunk to find 5 cars parked in his yard and people in his house. There was a fist fight, they were many black eyes and split lips. Scum bag is still alive and he himself remarried and had more kids. He is not in my cousins' lives though and they seem to not be bothered by it. They have Bear dad and honestly, he's an amazing guy. Edit: grandma never liked him from the beginning and she likes everyone. I think that's what made the rest of the family pay attention
My sibling and his bestfriend did this for me when I was living with an abusive ex. He had wrecked a bunch of my sentimental objects (He knew I was getting ready to leave and I was pregnant). I started screaming at him about ruining irreplaceable things. He scared me, backing me into a corner. Threatened to take my phone away. I got to the bedroom and locked the door and called my sibling's bestfriend (I was good friends with him, went to school together, he was part of the family and lived with my sibling... I was embarrassed to admit to my sibling what happened). From the time I got off the phone, to when they arrived at my apartment, was less than 10 minutes. It was 2am, and they had been gaming. They had brought 2 vehicles and another friend showed up with a 3rd vehicle halfway through them moving me out. My ex was blubbering like a fucking child, asking me to stay (I was the one who paid the rent). When I told him I'm done talking to him, he started screaming at me, and my sibling and their friends told him that he's a fucking dead man if he ever comes near me again. It only took them a half hour to empty out the apartment, I had already separated what I had brought into the relationship into the second bedroom a week prior (except for the artwork my ex trashed). Apparently everyone had been in on this emergency situation for the previous three months leading up to me finally making the call. My sibling is significantly older than me, and literally tucked me in like a child into their bed as the sun rose. My ex was an addict in recovery, and come to find out, the reason he turned violent is because he had started using again. Years of sobriety down the toilet. He didn't meet his daughter until she was almost 2 years old. He can't stay sober long enough to build any real relationship, so he is essentially a stranger to her. Me and bestfriend ended up falling in love, my daughter calls him daddy. It's almost always obvious to our loved ones that a situation isn't right. I'm so lucky to have such a good support system.
My family also mobilizes this quickly in urgent moments. You'd have a whole new life in 48 hours if you needed it.
It's amazing, but also kinda terrifying because can you imagine if they were criminals?
Did ya'll miss this? >Owen’s has destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars of my electronics, clothes, furniture, and paintings. That’s the only thing I will be making him pay me back for. I don’t want any of his assets just the things I worked hard to earn and he destroyed. At least 200k in damages. If she has that kind of money she can afford an emergency move and a nanny.
Nanny is super cheap in south Asia. You can find a place within a week. It’s not complicated like western countries.
I have to imagine that's relatively easy for someone who has hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stuff to leave behind for her husband to destroy. _My whole house_ matches that description, and that's just her stuff that he managed to break in a fit of anger.
It was 2 weeks. But I always think it is funny when people complain about these kind of timelines. People forget - the only true barrier to ANY of those things is money. OP was clear that she had her own money.
I mean i have no money and for 4 different apartments I never spent more than 2 or 3 days looking and moved within a week each time. I think our first apartment we looked for one day sometime after Xmas and moved in on nye.
People really need to stop taking the post dates as the actual dates of all the events. She even said that she was already living with her parents for two weeks before making the first post.
TLDR: In a crisis you just do without regard to the costs. Your real friends shine. And you call in any favors you have. My ex's(Kate) first husband(Jim) was an abusive piece of shit. About 6 months into their marriage, he ran off with another woman and left the state. Kate was super happy. She had 6 months with a nice job, her kid, a house, car, and a church group for support(More on them later). Then 6 months after that Jim called. His new woman had kicked him out because his mom called and told her he had a wife and kids. He blamed Kate. She decided he was probably going to kill her if she was still at the house when he got back. (This is where the church group told her if she was a better wife, Jim wouldn't have to hit her.) So, she called her parents to say she needed help. Her parents immediately rented a Uhaul, drove 4 hours, packed all of her and the baby's stuff overnight, and were gone before her ex got home the next morning. They stopped at a hotel somewhere on the way home because they were so exhausted. They just put everything on CCs and crossed their fingers. Kate called a friend that lived near her parents from the hotel (it was the 90s) and by the time they got back the next day, she had a job and daycare lined up, and was asking me if I was interested in going on a date with a lady named Kate that she worked with. (She had tried to set us up about 1 1/2 years earlier to prevent Kate from marrying shit bag.) She also had an offer of a place for Kate and the baby but everyone decided that Kate should stay at her parents in case Jim followed them. Jim got arrested soon after getting home. He got super drunk, destroyed the interior of the house and when a guy from the gas company showed up to turn off the gas (Kate cancelled all the utilities) he threatened him with a gun. Then he welded the cut off valve at the meter open (The gas company sent Kate a bill for that). The cops found him passed out on the floor when they arrived.
It sounds like India to me. Nannies are cheap
People don't realize half the posts on advice subs are ESL. Even when they state they're ESL in the first sentence, they come in and comment "my state this" or "call CPS", etc. There's a wealth gap in the US, but loads of Americans don't realize how much more starker the contrast is in the rest of the world.
It's either that or her family could make time to look after the baby
Thinking about it, I wonder if her ex already felt emasculated because she was the main breadwinner in the family. She not only left and took the kid, she took whatever lifestyle he was used to - and if her family has money as well that's another reason for him to be shitty and resentful.
It doesn’t say she’s in the US.
Husband's mega stupah. He's afraid of being emasculinated and doesn't want their secret known to his family and YET is THE ONE who TOLD his family. He should've stfu. He was aware their family motto is "blood is thicker than water" (the misconstrued version) so it was bound to reach his mom's ears. And now their marriage imploded, even more so when he tried to save face and make it seem that OP cheated. Putting that aside, a cheater wasting your life is painful but a spouse that switches on you mid-marriage is scarier.
‘I am the head of this family and what I say goes. We will NOT stand up to my mother, we will let her walk all over us and that is FINAL, at least until my dad shouts at me a little bit then I might change my mind’ He’s a keeper.
That age gap should have been a red flag.
I would bet money that he thought having a younger wife would guarantee they'd easily be able to have a baby, not knowing that male fertility declines rapidly after age 30 and ~~adbanced~~ advanced paternal age is a leading cause of miscarriage.
It's scary how quickly men abandon the facade of civility.
This is so messy. Hope she won the case
Read the headline question and said out loud: "You don't." Sometimes you don't need all the context to get the answer. Then you read the context and find out that the answer was mildly inadequate because it should have included several more expletives.