His Ex is Dying and Asked Him to Raise the Child She Had with Another Man. Should He Do It?
Every once in a while, there is a thread on Reddit that is fascinating enough that it gets people talking, and what you are about to read is one such thread. In one sense, there is no right answer to the question posed in this article, yet the opinions on it were heavily split. Since I also had a strong opinion on it, I thought it was worth talking about, even though some of you will undoubtedly strongly disagree with me.
Let’s start by reading the article in question:
My ex is dying and she asked me to raise the child she had with another man
My ex and I were together for four years. We broke up a little over two years ago. At the time, she was pregnant, but the baby wasn’t mine. She had been seeing someone else behind my back, and when she told me, it shattered me. I won’t lie, I was angry. I felt betrayed. I cut contact and tried to move on.
The guy she left me for completely disappeared. Never stepped up. Never even put his name on the birth certificate, from what I understand. She raised the baby on her own. I didn’t reach out. I assumed it was none of my business anymore.
Fast forward to now. She contacted me out of nowhere. She’s sick. Like, seriously sick. Terminal. She didn’t say how long she has left, but it doesn’t sound like much time.
We met up and she asked me something I never expected. She asked if I would take care of her son after she’s gone. Her family is either estranged or unavailable, and she doesn’t trust the foster system. She said I was the only person who ever made her feel safe. That even after everything, she trusts me more than anyone.
I was speechless. I didn’t know what to say. Part of me still feels hurt by how things ended. And this kid… he’s not mine. I’ve never met him. But she showed me pictures. She told me stories. He’s almost two now. Just a little boy who doesn’t understand any of this.
I don’t know what to do. I’m not a father. I don’t even know if I’m capable of being one, let alone under these circumstances. But I also can’t stop thinking about this little kid losing his mom and ending up in a system where no one knows him or loves him. I keep picturing him being scared, wondering where she went, waiting for someone who’s never coming back.
And as much as I want to say it’s not my responsibility… something in me can’t look away. I don’t think I can say no. Not because I owe her, but because that kid didn’t ask for any of this. None of this is his fault.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m trying to figure out what steps I’d even need to take. I just know that I haven’t been able to sleep since she asked me. I feel like my whole world has turned upside down.
As I noted, the opinions on this were quite varied. Let’s start with the side that I STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH. The people who are arguing that he should TAKE THE CHILD. We’ll be mixing in opinions from both Reddit and X:
If we were summing these arguments up, they would be almost purely emotional. Basically, it’s, “There is a CHILD INVOLVED! Sacrifice anything and everything with zero thought involved to take care of the cute, sweet, innocent child!”
That is as deep as these responses go.
On the other hand, the arguments AGAINST taking the child seem to be coming from a very different perspective:
So, let’s start all of this with the fact that the woman who is making what is basically an 11-out-of-10 ask of him is a woman who BETRAYED HIM. Can you imagine how painful it must be to be in love with a woman, date her for four years, believe you’ve gotten her pregnant, and then find out she was cheating with another man, and the baby isn’t yours? He says he was “shattered” when he found that out, and that sounds like a fairly normal, human response to that situation.
What that means is, as a starting point, he owes her nothing. Nada. Zero. Zilch. If, let’s say, the kid was a relative’s child or even the child of a friend who was dying, then you get into those webs of human obligation that make you ask some hard questions about how far you’re willing to go for that other person.
However, we’re not talking about a cat or a dog here. We’re talking about making a 16+ year commitment to another human being who is going to be 100% YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. You will spend countless hours of your time and hundreds of thousands of dollars of your money on this child. Your life will be entangled with them from here on out. That’s one thing if it’s YOUR CHILD or the child of someone you marry that you either literally or figuratively adopt as your own flesh and blood. However, if we’re not talking about that, what makes this kid uniquely worthy of help?
There are kids in the foster system ALREADY who would like a permanent dad. If you have a burning desire to have a kid, which this guy doesn’t seem to have, by the way, why not take one of those kids out of the foster system instead of signing on to take care of a kid who was conceived by a woman in the midst of betraying you?
Also, it’s worth noting here that I am not a lawyer, but even I can spot some obvious legal issues that could be involved here. To address those a little better, I decided to run a couple of potential scenarios by ChatGPT:
How does raising this kid for say 6 or 7 years and then having the dad or your ex-girlfriend’s parents beat you in court and take full custody of the kid sound? Would it happen? It’s impossible to say. COULD IT happen? Oh, ABSOLUTELY.
This takes us right back to a question, “Scriptyze” asked. Basically, where is everybody else today? Where is the dad? Where are his parents and his grandparents? Where are her parents and grandparents? Where are her best friends, who all probably knew she was cheating on this guy? How did she get all the way down to the guy she didn’t think was good enough to be faithful to then, but that she supposedly thinks is good enough to take care of her child now?
Last but not least, it’s worth noting that this woman is a person who is absolutely, unconditionally untrustworthy. Not only did she cheat on him, but she didn’t even bother to ever apologize, make amends, or even reach out until she was literally dying and had a kid she needed to pawn off on him.
So, when she says things like, “I was the only person who ever made her feel safe. That even after everything, she trusts me more than anyone,” why the hell would he believe her? Is that something she really thinks, or does she know him well enough to realize she can manipulate him into taking care of her child even after she’s gone?
This guy notes he doesn’t know what to say, but what he should say is, "I'm sorry, but it's too late for that. Good luck."
Too much baggage. This child deserves a parent who would eagerly adopt it, rather than a man who might be reminded that he was cuckolded by its mom. I think a clean slate would be better for all concerned. And yes, I did take Family Law I and II in law school, so I know exactly how it works when a blood relative suddenly "discovers" a child and decides to intervene, even years later...
Society rarely considers what is in the best interest of the child. As a teacher, I have seen many children suffer because of the mistakes of the adults.
My first thought was, this child might be best off if he were to raise it. He might be the most stable person who is willing to step up. I also considered that just saying no will put this child in a legal limbo and he will be pushed into the foster system. The foster system in this country is broken.
John brought up the legal aspect and that changes everything. If this guy were to take the child, he would need to make it legal. This could get messy in the future, especially when he enrolls the child in school. If he is not the legal guardian, social services will get involved and it will become a legal mess.
If she were to take the legal steps to make him the guardian before she passed, this will likely create another legal mess. An attorney or judge will ask about the father. They will likely want his name so he can be found because he is the current legal guardian and would need to sign off on giving up his legal custody. If he is found and does not want to take his child, then the court would inquire if any of his family members would take custody. The court would also inquire about her family members.
If he cannot be found, then they will look at her family. What about her parents, her siblings, aunts, uncles and so on?
Even if he were able to get legal guardianship, the future is still muddled. What if a blood relative that was not known to the court shows up and wants custody? There will be another legal battle, and this will be traumatic to him and the child.
We are not even considering the question of could he be a responsible parent. It is not easy raising a child.
We know she is not trustworthy from her past history. So, as John pointed out, why can we trust her story now? She broke the trust he had in her in a major way so she could be manipulating him again. Besides, if she wanted him to be the father of her child so if this situation arose the child would be cared for, she needed to marry him and not sleep around. At that time she made it clear, she did not want to have a child with him.
John is right, she is playing to his emotions. Emotions are fine but are not the best way to make major decisions. He needs to use logic. Ultimately, the best interest of the child in this situation is for him to tell her she needs to seek help from a family law attorney or even a social worker. It is best to start this process now while she is still alive. If he is inclined to do so, he can assist her with this but make it clear, he will not take the child. Even if he would be willing to as a last resort, do not put that out there. You do not want her attempting to manipulate the system to get what she wants.
The other thing not considered is adoption. The child is 2 years old. Young children are much easier to find adoptive parents for. I have friends and family members that have adopted children that were between the ages of 1 and 4. Those children thrived and I have witnessed them becoming productive adults.
If she puts her son up for adoption while she is alive, the legal process will play out and they will need to contact the father to give up his rights and they will also explore other relatives because the court will do its due diligence to ensure that there will not be a legal issue in the future when a blood relative appears asking for custody.