'When my husband died a woman claiming to be mum to his son turned up at my house’

“She demanded half of his estate, which is just an empty bank account and $40 in cash,” the furious mum reveals.

In the three years since Mary’s husband Stephen died, the mum-of-one has learned a lot about her late spouse, none of it good.

So when a strange woman came into Mary’s life, claiming she and Stephen had an affair which resulted in a baby, Mary wasn’t especially surprised.

“A process server showed up at my door trying to serve Stephen with a court order to submit DNA for a kid,” Mary said in a Reddit post.

“I gave him a copy of the death certificate and sent him on his way.”

A woman and child came to Mary’s house a few weeks later, claiming the child was Stephen’s.

“Is it? I don’t know and I don’t care,” she said. “It kind of looks like him, but also looks young enough that they would have had to have been conceived very, very shortly before his death.”

Mary explained to the woman that Stephen had died and told her where she could find his grave.

But grieving wasn’t the woman’s priority.

“She immediately started demanding ‘her half’ of his estate. I laughed and told her half of nothing was nothing.”

Want to join the family? Sign up to our Kidspot newsletter for more stories like this.

Mary wasn't surprised to learn that her husband had had an affair. Photo: iStock

Mum refuses to give inheritance to husband’s ‘affair baby’

Mary had set herself and her son up as well as she could with the money she had, and while she felt sorry for Stephen's “possible affair baby”, she had a responsibility to her own child.

“His estate was literally an empty bank account and $40 in cash,” she said, pointing out that even if she had wanted to give the other child money, there was none to give.

RELATED: A lie to my MIL resulted in a bigger inheritance

Mary said that she hadn’t told Stephen’s parents about the possible affair.

“I’ve done my best to let them keep believing their son was a saint.”

But she wondered, did she have some responsibility to Stephen’s other child? Was she wrong to not give the child money?

Reddit weighs in on late husband's 'affair baby'

The Reddit community was adamant that Mary wasn’t obligated to help the woman or the child.

“I would have said, ‘He died with a ton of debt. Let me get your information so I can transfer half of it to you’,” one person said. “She would be out of there so fast!”

RELATED: Boomer couple slammed for ‘selfish’ inheritance act

Another person pointed out that even though Mary had sold her house that she owned with Stephen, the child still wasn’t entitled to money

“Not the a**hole. There was no estate,” they said. “Even a known kid of his would have no right to the money from the sale of your house.”

“Exactly this,” agreed another person. “The best that baby mama can hope for is survivor social security benefits for the child. But she’d have to prove your husband was the dad.”

Introducing our new podcast: Mum Club! Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.

Others commented that the story could be a scam.

“It’s not a terribly uncommon scam. If you still have the papers, I’d look into if they were even legitimate.

RELATED: ‘We randomly inherited a huge cluttered house’

“They were,” Mary replied. “That’s the first thing my attorney looked into. The working theory is that she really didn’t know [he’d died] when she filed. Why she waited so long is anyone’s guess.”

*Names have been changed

Originally published as 'When my husband died a woman claiming to be mum to his son turned up at my house’