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Published in the following newspapers
Couple must put children
Ask Ellie
January 2, 2004
Question:
Soon after coming to North
America, I discovered my spouse was having an affair with her co-worker. I'd suspected her infidelity before
we moved — our first child doesn't resemble me. I followed her and saw her enter a stranger's car. He drove
her home late every night and picked her up every morning. I saw e-mails to her from her boyfriend, love
notes/cards, and a letter she wrote to her aunt about her plan to marry him. I don't feel responsible for
her newborn second child because she mostly doesn't allow me near her, and she was sleeping with this guy.
She's refused DNA testing of the kids, saying that if they were proved to be mine, she'd take them away and
never allow me to see them again. I say she can do whatever she likes, but I insist on DNA. She's
troublesome and untrustworthy.
Mr. Frustrated
Answer:
I empathize with your
frustration, but this household mess is heading for internal combustion unless you take the next step. See a
lawyer to discuss separation and your responsibilities to the children. For me, the saddest thing is your
emotional distance from the kids in your home, based on your conviction they aren't yours. Yes, the
infidelity is your wife's doing. You've expressed no love for her, so getting on with your life without her
seems a logical solution. But the children deserve two parents involved in their live.
Family law expert Linda
Silver Dranoff says the courts will decide custody and access based on the children's best interests. "Since
to them, he's their father, he won't be excluded from their lives." If necessary, the court will order DNA
testing. She says that if there's a different biological father, both he and you (having accepted the
father's role and responsibilities so far) must pay child support, if claims are made against either of you.
| The position of the
Canadian Children's Rights Council:
We find the answer provided to this
letter to "Ask Nellie" to totally disregard the rights of 5 people and to support a woman's fraudulent
paternity representations that the children of her marriage were her husband's children.
The 2 children involved have the right to
know and have a relationship with their biological fathers under the U.N. Convention on the Rights of
The Child and other human rights legislation provided for in the constitutions of countries around the
world. Their rights have been violated.
The 2 biological fathers have the right
to the society of their children. The husband who has been deceived has lost years of his life raising
children in a fraudulent circumstance. Further he will suffer substantial financial loss resulting from
past and future child financial support for the other men's children because of the fraud.
The children's identity rights should be
the 1st concern. The state should require this woman to prove the identity of the biological fathers and
to notify them immediately of the fraud perpetrated against them.
This columnist states "Couple
must put children first".
Perhaps she should be advising the husband to seek out the children's fathers with the help of the
courts and to sue the wife for all costs incurred for lawyers, time off work, past financial support
etc.
In Australia, the deceived father ( the paternity fraud victim ) would
have the feral government child support agency collect back his child support payments after the divorce
or separation but his portion of the reasonable costs of raising the child while the mother and father
lived together.
In addition, there have been a number of successful damage lawsuits in
France, Korea and Australian by deceived men who sued for damages which are separate and apart from the
recovery of the cost to raise the child. |
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