Ask HN: I'm having an affair with my co-founder, and she is pregnant | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I'm having an affair with my co-founder, and she is pregnant

OK HN,

I know this is not the typical kind of question that comes through here, but I am hoping you could advise me. For the last six months, I have been cheating on my wife with my co-founder. We run a profitable company that employs 15 people and has taken roughly $1M in financing. She told me last night that she is pregnant. She is not married, but does have a boyfriend, so we are not sure who the father is, although given when she found out she was pregnant, there is a good chance that it's me (the timing works out).

What would you do in my situation? My wife does not know, and her boyfriend does not know. I suspect one or two of the employees knows, but nobody has said anything to either one of us. Our investors certainly do not know.

Posting from a throwaway account for obvious reasons.

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First, you need to talk to a lawyer.

Second, you need to do a paternity test.

If the baby is not yours, or if the baby is yours, and your cofounder decides not to keep it, then you are a douche, but you got off lucky. Your marriage is probably destroyed, but your standing in the company might not be.

If the baby is yours, and your cofounder keeps it, and you do not take responsibility for it, expect to be booted from the company. Your marriage is probably destroyed.

If the baby is yours, and your cofounder keeps it, and you do take responsibility for it, expect to lose significant property to your wife during divorce proceedings. With lots of luck, you and your co-founder can both raise a child and maintain the company. Considering how much integrity you lack, I wouldn't count on it.

In sum, you were a knucklehead and dug your own grave. More power to you, but no one on HN can help you out.

At this point, the only worthy advice that anyone can give you is to be honest. In this situation, honesty is by far the best policy.

Don't even try to "hide this" or "keep it a secret". Inevitably it will come out. Deal with it now before it snowballs into something much, much worse.

Whoops. My advice, wear a rubber. ;)

Really, what kind of advice could someone here possibly give without being in your situation? It's easy to give advice imagining some sort of perfect situation. Personally, I would wait until I could get some sort of confirmation the child is really mine before making any big decisions. If the child isn't yours, then nothing has really changed from what your situation was before (except that your "girlfriend" is going to be getting a bit bigger.)

Otherwise, banging the co-founder seems like a bad idea. Ask Tiger Woods how "gettin' some on the side" can cause headaches for business. And Tiger Woods wasn't even "doing" his co-founder.

Dude - Ive been having an affair with my co-founder too. No pregnancy (as far as I know). Dang. Both of us are married. I want to stop it, its fucking crazy. Its like work stress plus lust stress. We banged in the office the other night. Its a bit out of control.

Only viable options at this point:

1. divorce your wife, make a life with co-founder

2. have an abortion, try to work it out with wife

3. divorce + abortion + move to new city

It's not really fair, but the question comes down to which girl you want to be with (if any) I think.

If you want to save face get a test to see if you are the father. If you are, then abortion might be something to consider.

why should we care?

Your fifth comment on the site should contribute more than that.

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