My (28m) ex (28f) just came to me and told me that I am the father to her 4 year old son.

Before anyone says this, yes I got a paternity test and it is my child.

Me and “Alyson” were high school sweethearts who dated for 6 years until we broke up amicably 4 years ago due to us being at different stages of our life and us eventually realizing that this relationship wasn’t enough for us anymore.

After we broke up, we stayed in contact for a little while until we eventually just drifted apart and after a while we didn’t talk anymore.

Three weeks ago, I got a Facebook message from Alyson that said that she wanted to meet up with me and talk about something. Considering that we ended on decent terms I figured there was no reason for us to meet.

We met up for coffee last weekend and imagine my apprehension (and surprise) when she shows up with a kid. She tells me, “Meet your son Ben. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you but I didn’t want to burden you with this. But I’ve decided that I want my son to know his father. I’ll understand if you don’t want a role in all this, but I thought you should know.”

I started freaking out, asking her why she thought it would be okay that she not tell me about my own child for four years. She never consulted me and I didn’t get a say in this.

Everyone always talks about how when you see your child, you fall in love. I don’t want to sound like an asshole, but I didn’t feel that. I was too busy bordering on a panic attack.

She told me to take my time deciding on an answer and that she wouldn’t contact me until I was ready and that if I wanted a paternity test she would consent to one, as I stated above.

What am I doing to do? Financially, it’s not an issue. I make enough money where if I had to I could pay child support and whatnot but I don’t know what to do with everything else. I don’t think I’m ready to be a father and I know nothing about raising kids, let alone having missed the first four years.

Any advice or thoughts on what I should do would be helpful.

Tl;dr: I just found out I have a four year old son and I don’t know how much I want to be involved.

Submitted October 28, 2018 at 05:04PM by Yoshmin https://ift.tt/2yCY490