Is it permissible to marry another woman if you have a child born of adultery?

Question:

Two penitents, or at least they think so (I don’t know about her anymore), committed fornication and a child was born (yet not being married), and the child’s mother chose to commit further fornication with other men, chose to be with others than with the child’s father. Do I still have a responsibility to marry her? Can I start a Christian family, considering that she does not want to marry and despises me? I think I’m free, although I always feel guilty.

 Thank you. 

I previously wrote an article in which there was a similar problem when someone wanted to remarry the person with whom they fell in adultery and they gave birth to a child. (translated only into Romanian at the moment) but here the situation is different. 

You can’t help but live with guilt after you have broken the commandment of the Lord Jesus Christ and committed adultery and given birth to a child who cannot now enjoy a whole and happy family. If the child’s mother does not want to marry, you are not obliged to marry her, because marriage can only be with good understanding and the desire of both parties. 

If you want to marry another woman, you can marry, because it is better to marry than to burn with sexual desire that puts pressure on you and it is written: 

But because of sexual immoralities, each man is to have his own wife, and each woman is to have her own husband. (1 Corinthians 7:2 NASB)

I assume that the woman who will agree to marry you will be very afraid and may be the first reason on your part, to become controlled and overwhelmed by jealousy; as a result, it will be difficult to build a relationship. You have to be very careful and wise and run away from anything that is bad and can lure you back into adultery. 

Remember that you are the child’s father and you have to take care of him. You must meet his physical needs for food and clothing, but his most important needs are spiritual, and you must teach him the Word of God. It will be difficult, given that by his very birth you compromised yourself by going to adultery, but this should not stop you. Be disciplined to meet with him daily, to spend time and learn from the Bible to protect him from the ways you and his mother have walked, and not to have his life full of wounds and shame. 

Translated by Nicoleta Filat