I was in your situation to a degree. My husband was estranged from his adult children when we met and married. He too would never have brought down the fires of hell by telling them we were getting married. However his family knew as did my children. Why would my children who respected him and our relationship be left out of such an important occasion because he has such a poor relationship with his. And it is a poor relationship with his kids, it's nit just all the ex's doing. I don't understand why you agreed to not having your child there because his wouldn't accept things. He needed to accept your child being there, or sort his out,

However, what's done is done. So let me tell you my experience, I have no idea how his kids found out, but we had been married about 14 months and were building a house. The youngest and only daughter then made contact. Apparently if dad could afford to build me a house, then he could buy her a brand new car. Life was hell from that phone call onwards for the next 8 years. Right up until the day I banned her from my home and life and told dh to go with her.

You see, my Prince Charming, my soul mate, the man of my dreams, had a serious flaw that I never saw, he was obsessed with his daughter. Her contacting him, even though it was to give her a new car, sent him into a spiral of accepting abuse from her, worse still expecting me to happily take it also, his reasoning, now that she had started speaking to him again, then he wasn't about to become estranged from her again. He thought he could put me on the back burner and we would happily go into our old age together with me bring the cook, the cleaner, the washing lady, the home maintenance person, the financial planner and of course he bed mate,while he made his daughter number one woman in his life.

The way your husband has gone about this is not right. It shows dysfunction in his relationship with his kids. It shows unresolved issues with the ex, and by that I mean he is clearly still letting her pull the strings, and of course using his kids as an excuse to do everything his way. Oh, she won't let me see them, she will turn them against me, etc., I'm sure there is a book of excuses for men like this.

You've married him now, as I did, and you have made a fatal mistake as I did. You put aside your feelings, your wants and needs to make him happy. You may have had a lovely wedding day, but it wasn't perfect for you, you wanted your child there, but you sacrificed that for his feelings. You understood how he was feeling. But guess what, if he loved you the way you loved him, he would have understood yours. He would have known how much it meant to you and your child and he would've put his feelings aside for you, he didn't. He was too busy protecting himself.

He is lying by omission here, make no mistake about that. To marry, to pretend you are not married, which is what is happening is a lie. He is doing it he says to give his kids time blah, blah, blah. He is doing it for himself. But in doing this his way, he now has you lying to your child. Can you imagine how hurt she is going to be when she finds out the truth, and she will find out. You may be long gone when she finds paperwork and your marriage certificate one day, she may be a grown woman with a family of her own,but she will still be hurt because you lied.

You need to start getting a backbone in this marriage. You need to start getting your needs met too. Marriage is about two people each wanting the best for each other. Is lying to your child, leaving her out of your wedding, and hiding the fact that your married fulfilling your needs as a person, as a couple, or is it only fulfilling his,

I can see myself in you. My dh in yours. Circumstances somewhat different but personalities the same. I loved him so much I wanted nothing but the best for him. I did everything his way, to make him happy. But you see, there was always another wait a minute, another sacrifice for his supposed kids well being. I was always put on hold. That happened because I put up with it, just as you have done. You agreed to his idea of getting married, you are living in a secret marriage because he wants it. Don't keep this up. It's not healthy For you to be living like this for your health and ultimately for your marriage.

My dh thanks to all his lies is now in counselling, he has killed that special spark I had for him, I will never love him like that again, and his entire family have nothing to do with him. This is where your husbands lies are going to take him. Instead of lying to everyone he needs to man up, be a husband and a father and an HONEST man that people can love and respect. No one is going to love and respect him for being a sneak and a liar.

Sorry for being so blunt. But if I can open your eyes that are blinded by love and let you see how others see this, how his and your children will see this, you may be able to save yourself years of heartache. Who knows, you may also be able to save him from himself.

You agreed to be his little secret to make thibgs easy for him?? :?

I don't know how old all of the children are or how long you are talking about waiting here, but I can only imagine that your own child is going to be crushed when she finds out you kept this a secret from her.

The thing that booths me the most about this is you talk about it like it was solely his decision of whether or not to tell anyone. I could understand him not wanting to tell his kids I guess. And there no reason for either of you to tell BM. But he can't deal with your child knowing because his dont? That isn't a decision I would let someone else make for me.

If he's gun shy now of being branded a cheater, that is so unlikely to ever change. The kids being over or under 18 isn't going to really change his perspective on it. I doubt he's ever really going to be ready or willing to tell them because he will always be too afraid of being disliked.

You have to decide what you can tolerate. Personally, I would never agree to be someone's secret. I would not endanger my relationship with my own kid because my partner is too insecure and spineless to deal reasonably with his.

Waiting isn't going to help. When they get to be 18, it's going to be a problem because now is he not only a "cheater" but then he will also have kept a Huge, major secret from the, for years. That's just going to compound him being the bad guy. There is no good solution to this now IMO. Whether they find out tomorrow or when one of you dies, the kids are going to be pissed.

Part of you worries about the hell you will have with his children until they turn 18.

The mess you have now, the problems you have now, will turn into insignificance once they turn 18.

I wonder about this "when they turn 18 mentality". It comes out on this forum many times. As though somehow when the kids wake up on their 18th birthday, they will suddenly love the non custodial parent, see all the suffering they went through, and just know it wasn't their fault. That mum lied about them and deep down this parent always loved them and wanted the best for them. Its not going to be like that at all.

When they turn 18, they are young adults, they will most certainly begin to form their own strong opinions about the breakdown of the marriage. What will they see. They will see that their father left their mother, and CAUSED her to be bitter and angry. They will not remember that the marriage was broken down long before he left. They will resent their father for doing this to their mother, for leaving them to suffer because she was so bitter, hurt, angry and resentful, and if they are still in his life, at 18, they will begin to make him pay. Now, if dad has been lying to them for years on top of that. God help you.

You can hug, kiss, cuddle little kids through anything. You cannot do that with angry teenagers who have been lied to all their lives.

Their mother is their mother, no matter what she does, they will excuse her, and in your case, they will blame their father, however, because he is their father, YOU will be the reason he did it all. They will hate you with a passion. Because YOU took their dad away, true or not, that's how they will see it. Their anger will be directed at you. Children like to see their parents as perfect. They will twist and ignore the truth in order to believe that.

If their father does not tell his children the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth now, if he allows them to grow up in this pretence of a world he has created, his children will suffer, YOU will suffer and ultimately he will pay the price.

He does not have to tell them I left your mother because she was a cow. He needs to tell them sometimes things happen, people fall out of love and no longer want to be married. He no longer wanted to be married. He should never blame her, or accept blame that is not his to accept. But he does have to be honest.

Unfortunately your DH has done what mine did. His marriage was over before their first child was born. He is Italian, Catholic and it was long before no fault divorce came about. So, he had a baby with her in order to give him a reason to come home.

He made his children the be all and end all of his world. He spoilt those people to an inch of their lives. Particularly his youngest and only daughter. She has turned out the worst of the three, she is pure evil. I believe her to be a sociopath. Both parents were miserable in the marriage, both parents stayed. Mum told them terrible things about dad, dad hated mum. Both parents doted on the kids. As they got older cars were bought for them, none of them worked, none of them so much as took out the rubbish bin at the end of the week. Including mum.

My husband created a home he hated. Children who saw him as a wallet, a wife who saw him as a worker around the house and a source of income. They hated him, he hated them. Worse, he made them all useless. When he left they were in their early twenties. Somehow he thought his job was done. Well, his job hadn't even started. The two oldest, grown men, had never worked and couldn't start a lawn mower. The girl, well, lets not even start. the wife, well she couldnt' cook, clean or wash a dish. Why, because in the early years it was easier for him to do everything so that when his Italian family came around the house was clean. The kids well their behaviour didn't matter so much as spoilt Italian kids were the norm back then. He never allowed his first wife to grow, he never allowed his children to grow. He in two words KEPT CONTROL, he was the Italian man of the house. He ran the show, and they let him. they had no choice, without him, they would not survive.

Then one day, he couldn't stand the mess he had created. Got up left for work and never went back.

The man I met, a charmer. The story I was told, was basically the same, but, instead of he wouldn't allow them to take out the bin, it was, they never so much as took out a rubbish tin. Instead of it was easier for me to impress my family with the clean Italian house, so I cleaned it, it was, she never did a tap of housework. Instead of I wouldn't allow them to work and I provided them with cars, cash etc., so they didn't have to, it was none of them would work.

I fell for it. Hook line and sinker. My case is a little different perhaps to yours, my husband is a narcissist, but the outcomes and how these outcomes arose, are basically the same.

They spoil their kids witless so they don't have to leave the marriage, then one day when they can't stand it they leave and the mess they leave behind leaves the people in that mess damned angry. They have lost their rock. Perhaps they didn't love that rock, but they sure as hell needed it, and they had been trained by him "the rock" to depend on it.

Their excuse of course, I stayed because of my kids. In my husbands case, no he didn't he would tell himself that to this day, he no longer tells me that though, because I know differently now. I know he stayed for himself, he didn't want the shame of divorce, his parents had warned him against marrying this woman and he had fought with them over it badly. He wasn't about to prove them right. In fact, he never did leave till after his mother died.

So what did I finally get when I first met them all in their twenties. Some very angry, resentful, bitter, twisted young people full of hatred and vindictiveness. People who were basically taken to the top of the world by their father, children who had lived the life of Riley, then got thrown off the top one morning when he felt like it.

What my husband did was cruel and selfish. It can be understood when you take into account his narcissism, but can anyone involved be expected to say, Oh, he is a narcissist so that's okay. I dont' think so.

His children hate him. His daughter made it know she wanted to break up our marriage and see him alone like her poor mother was, then see the two of us dead. Nice. She went out of her way to destroy me. Because she wanted me to leave him, not because I had done anything to her, but so he could know how it felt to be left. Her antics and the fact that her father was allowing it, made me physically, and emotionally ill. I was stressed to breaking point.

His daughter has no reason to hate me other than, it makes her feel better to think, that if her father had not met me then one day he and her mother would have gotten back together. She was 19 or 20 at the time he and I got together and that was her thinking. She also wanted me to dump him so he would know what it felt like, that is why she set out to work on me. She manipulated him, led him to believe all was back to normal, she would ask him for a advice, and he would fail to see, she went ahead and did the opposite. He was just happy she asked him. She played him like a fiddle. The evilness in this young woman is horrible to see. Was she born like this or was she made. Who knows. But what her father did. The living the lie, staying there for his own selfish purposes, then walking out, didn't help.

He has three adult children in their early to late thirties and none of them capable of living alone, all of them dependent on some other person for survival.

Lies, whether told outright, or by omission, or by the way you live your life, are lies. They do not make healthy, productive, understanding 18 year olds with heaps of empathy for the parent or parents who lied. Worse, it makes them turn out to be worse than their parents.

Your husband cannot undo what he has done. But if he doesn't turn around now and parent those kids as an honest man. The future is bleak. Can you blame kids who find out they have been lied to all their lives. I don't.

My husband turned 65 a couple of weeks ago. A milestone. In Australia he is of retirement age now. He can if he wishes retire and receive an old age pension. It is a huge birthday. Myself, my children and their spouses, my grandchildren and a couple of friends celebrated and marked this day with him.

Not one blood relative acknowledged it. Not his father, neither of his sisters, none of his children, and none of his cousins. The "Italian" all about family, family, completely ignored this milestone in his life. As I said, none of them talk to him, because at some time or other he lied to all of us. He has been found out, naturally, the truth always comes out. Your daughter will find out the truth. Your husband has you now treating her the way he treats his children. I do not believe that is you. I do not believe you would have gone ahead and had a wedding without your daughter but for him. The damage is done, the wedding is over, but if you have raised your daughter the way I suspect you have, she will understand, it will hurt her, but she will understand. A faith wedding is not the same as missing out on the real "big" day. And why she missed out is even worse. He spoilt his kids witless, they wouldn't like it and your daughter couldn't come because of that.

Do not kid yourself that "18" is going to make it all right. It will not. In fact, if he keeps going the way he is. 18 is going to be the beginning of his worst nightmare.

What your husband chooses to do with his children is entirely up to him. I suspect he will dig his heels in and do it his way. I respectfully suggest, you don't for the love of him go along with treating your daughter the same way.

I cannot advise you, I do not know you or your family. To try and advise you would be wrong.

I can only tell you my experiences, how my husband raised his kids and how that all turned out.

In my opinion, the damage your husband and his ex have done to their children may never be resolved. His children have been lied to since the day they were born. Understandably the parents would not tell them how they were conceived, but again, the lie was being lived from the moment of conception it would seem.

The kids have already expressed "so all the family trips and we were so happy together was a lie?" So it would appear they are on the money with their intuition.

I have no idea who these kids are or how they lived, you have only your husbands perception of how they feel and his idea of how things were at home for them. I would be prepared to wager his version of events and his wife's version of events would differ dramatically, and the kids would each have a different view on things entirely.

It does appear to me though that your husband and mine are not so different. They come up with every excuse in the book not to tell their kids the truth, and the reason is always the same. For the sake of the kids. The kids won't understand, they've been through too much, and of course, they have had enough change in their lives this would be too much.

Your husband is desperately trying to never tell his kids the truth. I'm sure in his heart of hearts he knows that he cannot pretend you are not his wife forever, but he I think will drag this out for as long as he can. The longer he leaves it, the bigger the lie, the harder the kids will take it, then of course, he will be totally convinced he was right all along and he never should have told them.

These kids are away at school. Have for years. So I'm guessing they are not 4 or 5. Your husband, like mine, is thinking for his kids. He has an idea in his head of how they will react and that's it. He is not allowing them to be individuals, to think for themselves, probably never has. It boils down to a total lack of respect for his children as people. He sees them as his kids, his babies, and he is treating them accordingly. He as a parent has always lied to his kids, always lived a lie, first with their mother and now with you. I hope you see that. Because I see that as being the root of the problem. As ugly as this is, he is a natural liar. He thinks he's putting things over his kids, and they want to believe his lies, so it all seems to be working. But underneath, they know something is not right. Now one lie has been exposed and another is on the boiler. Is he going to confront this and take some of the steam out of it, or is he going to just take the wait and see approach, if I stick my head in the sand long enough SOME THING might fix this for me. My husband always hoped if he just hung in their long enough people would forget or it would all just go away. He never dealt with anything. He also had the my kids have been through a lot excuse. Well, that's true, they had. His lies put them through it and only the truth would've fixed it. But he let it all boil over to this. He now has no contact with any of them and his marriage is on very thin ice. I love him, I always have, but, I do not like him very much. I have seen the damage he has done to his own children, and to me. Nice people do not do this.

As for his family. There is without doubt a disorder running through the entire family. He and his sisters complain bitterly about their father. Say he is a liar, that he causes trouble with his lies, and he does. That he always wants everything his own way and God help you if you don't give it to him. True. They all see that clearly in their father, none of them see it in themselves.

My brother in law years ago told me that it was best to just shut up and say nothing in this family, you would never be right, they are always right, just ask them. I was new to it then, and just laughed it off. He was right.

Several years later I met his oldest son Adrian. He came here with his partner, while she was inside with me, she literally an hour after I had met her, asks me if I think Adrian is a little bit retarded. Thankfully the shock stopped me from saying what I really thought and I just said, I don't know him well enough to comment. She however had been with him 14 years at that time. She was pregnant by him at 15.

Then the daughter's boyfriend started to make a habit of coming here when she was at work and my husband at work also. He said the exact thing my brother in law had said years earlier, if you say anything look out, they are always right, never wrong, even when they're wrong they're right. He was a mess over her. She would slam her head against the wall, scream and yell to the point he was stressing about the neighbours and what they would be thinking, if she didn't get what she wanted when she wanted it. She would also lie. He even asked my husband if he would help him get her to a psychiatrist. My husband of course said no, nothing wrong with her. Later when I tried to discuss it with him, his response was, the boyfriend was a liar.

The middle boy lived with his mother his entire life. She died when he was in his early thirties. He and the sister were both living at home. The sister and her boyfriend were building a house. The plan had been for mum to sell her house, give the daughter the money, and mother, brother, daughter and boyfriend would all move into the new house with the boyfriend. She was 28 at the time. Well, mum died, so she and her brother moved into the new house with her boyfriend. The brother is in his late thirties now, has never lived alone, never had a girlfriend and cannot live alone. The boyfriend was running that house completely last I heard. Cooking, cleaning, working, gardening, and yes, taking out the rubbish bins. What had my husbands children done. They had found a man just like daddy. They never grew up. Now there is a child in the mix.

Why have they vilified him. Because they all (including DH) think they should be the one on the pedestal. He couldn't cope. His lies were catching up with him. So his response was to run really. I may have told his daughter she could never come back here, but the day I did that, as she was ringing the doorbell I said to him, either you tell her or I will, he said, YOU tell her. I knew what he was up to, but I didn't care by then. I took the fall for him for the last time. You see, this is all my fault now, not her father's. My husband wanted this over, but he didn't want to do it himself.

I think your DH is going to follow the same road and have the same outcome to be honest and I don't see you being able to stop him. He is set in his ways, believes lying to his kids is for their own good and you will probably never be able to stop that.

You can however refuse to live the life you are living now. You are now lying to your child as he does with his, and you are living a lie, as he does. You are pretending not to be his wife. He has sucked you into that vortex of deceit and lies and you didn't even see it coming. I know, I was there. It leads to no good. It will destroy your relationship. I stayed in his world of lies for years, I covered for him when he lied to people. I too saw the emotional stress he was under and I wanted to protect him from it, be a soft pillow to land on for him. Support him and make it all better. That was not my job. It was his job to fix the mess he created. What I did was make it all worse for everyone. I wonder now if I had pulled the plug the first year his daughter was in our lives, if I had called him on his lies and refused to lie for him, would it all have been different. But I didn't I made the mistake you are making. I knew things were wrong, but for his sake I did it his way. I loved him, I saw the good in him, and I sugar coated the bad.

Your husband is doing the wrong thing. All I can say to you is in my opinion, refuse to be part of this lie. If he cannot own up and show the world you are his wife. Then you should refuse to be his wife. Move out and move on. I am not one for ultimatums, and I have never issued one in my life. When I told my husband it was over, I meant it. It was then and only then he decided he needed therapy. Would he have gotten that years ago if I hadn't gone along with him. You know what. I think he just might have. My fear of losing him, has probably done him more harm than it did me.

I finished this, then it hit me like a bolt of thunder, so I had to come back and add. What I thought was loving him, in fact I see today was enabling him.