Topic : 12/25 Parent Trap

This topic absolutely bothers me like no other. i cannot beleive someone is actually argueing that a woman should be able to trick a man into raising another mans child. is dr. phil telling the world this is okay? sure a pancake has 2 sides, but this is NOT the right topic to using this analogy with. it is simple: the woman cheated. she has to be responsible and take actions. what did this man do? his only crime is loving his supposid daughter.

i agree, the child should always come first.  he was a loving parent when she was his child but the hard truth is that she is NO LONGER HIS DAUGHTER!!! yes, there is emotional attatchment so why cant the father and daughter still have a loving relationship without the need for him to pay child support.

I believe without a doubt that enrique was wrong. Granted his wife had an affair with another man but i think the blame should go on both the parents. Both parents are at fault with one another. I also think that Enrique's wife needs to seriously back out of this one. She has no right to be talking to her husbands ex wife at all. If it weren't for her, Enrique and selena would probably be just fine. Look at the damage that she has caused to this poor child and i'm sure that she said it just to have more money to spend. I think that if you really question whether or not a child is yours than you should get a paternity test the moment the child is born. 10 years later is not the time.

when my ex husband and i met i was a month pregenant and i told him that the minute we met he became m friend and soon my husband he took full care of OUR son we then had 2 other children after the divorce he tried to say i will have fisitation same as the others but no financial help !!

litle did he know a law protected OUR son and he must provide for a child that he had call him daddy for 5 years ... he treats him with the same considaration as the 2 others maybe sometimes more .

that is what i call a father if a man can walk away from respondsabilty after loving this child then shame on you . you will save money but loose all the pride you have in raising THE CHILD YOU CALLED YOURS

i think when he was told he should have kept on being dad unless he dint care ?

During our first year of marriage and when I was expecting our first child, we were faced with TWO paternity tests.  These suits came 6 weeks apart and during my third trimester of pregnancy.  Talk about stress!  While he admitted he had been with both of these girls, (both of these instances happened years before we even met) he didn't believe he was the father and had been involved with conversations with one of the girls where she said another man was the father.  In the end, we were told to simply submit to the tests and if they proved to be negative (both were...) then we were to just go on our merry way.  My problem was this...had our relationship not been as strong as it was, where we stood by each other whether thick or thin, this might have ruined our marriage regardless of the outcome.  I had friends telling me to leave!  I told each of them that we would cross the custody bridge when we came to it, but I could not leave him over something that happened before I even knew him.  This caused great stress and strain in our lives and yet he had no recourse.  I don't know what the answer would be, but I know of many marriages that would not have endured what we went through.  PS We have now been married 15 years, have two beautiful girls and couldn't be happier!

Dear Dr. Phil:

The only thing that I agreed with today on your show was that Enriqui should not have told the child about her status the way that he did.  But the rest of it as far as I'm concerned is right on.  That woman Maria is worse than the lowest kind of tramp.  To let a man believe that a child is his when she knows that it isn't is totally disgraceful.  And as far as Gloria Allred is concerned she's just an obnoxious, egotistical loudmouth.  She feels she's always right and men are always wrong.  Maria should be made to pay back every cent that Enriqui has paid her for that child.  Why should he be held responsible for a child that is not his.  There's enough trouble trying to get men to pay for children that belong to them.  Now you have people like this Maria person knowingly duping a man.  Now she wants him to continue to pay child support. That is just ludicrius.  I can understand it if he never wants to have anything to do with the child.  Why should he?  You say that your main concern is the child.  That's fine, but shouldn't the mother be arrested for fraud?  If the father had duped the mother out of money for any reason she could get him arrested in a heartbeat. 

I don't know if my e-mail will be acknowledged or not but this is something that I had to get off of my chest, because this time I feel that the focus was on the wrong person.

I think that the woman should have owned up to telling her husband about the child and not hide it..This seems to have really hurt this child and the father acted out his feelings on the child..All it boils down to is this child is now confused and scared and that is a sad thing.. Some men are being used by women like this mother because they are hurt that the marriage broke up.  They should try and work out their differences and help this child deal with this problem.. The kids are the ones that get hurt the most..I know I am a divorced mom and was lucky to have an ex that cared about his children..We became best of friends until he passed..I even worked for him..I did not hate him I loved him but just could not live with him and this was not my sons problem it was ours..  So you see it can be done.  Help the children is the key.

Thank you