Dear Prudie,
My husband and I married about 25 years ago and had a daughter not long after. A few years later I had an affair with a co-worker. My husband and I split up, I moved in with my parents and continued to see the “other” man. I got pregnant by him and we decided to be together. But I realized it was lust, not love, and told him it was not going to work out. He immediately moved across the country. We had some tense conversations about the baby and things ended on a bad note. I reconciled with my husband and delivered a healthy boy my husband has loved from the beginning. I heard sporadically from the “other” man but he never filed for paternity and only requested a few pictures. My husband raised the baby as his own, and our son is now 20 years old. He and my husband are so close it’s amazing. Now, the “other” man has contacted me, after all this time, and wants to meet our son. It will crush my son and destroy his trust. He will question his identity, he will hate me, and it will just be awful. My husband will be devastated. He always thought we would take this secret to our graves and our son would never know. Do I tell our son and hope he can forgive us? What do we do?