Recently, I stumbled upon a Reddit thread where u/Urisk asked "Men who have discovered a child you raised isn't biologically yours, how did you find out, and what did you do about it?"
As you can imagine, the stories the men shared were a total emotional rollercoaster. Here are some of the most insightful ones:
Note: Some submissions come from this other Reddit thread.
1. "I found out when my daughter was 4 that she was fathered by a guy my then-wife had had an affair with. I had been a stay-at-home dad for her for the first two years of her life. I only found out after my wife left to pursue a relationship with another guy she had been having an affair with. It was her parting shot to tell me that my daughter wasn't mine and that she wasn't going to let me see her anymore. I have since spent almost three years (and around $40k) fighting through family law court to finally have orders allowing me to see her four days a fortnight. She's always going to be my daughter."
2. "When I was in the Navy, I had an on-again-off-again relationship with a girl back home. On my last deployment, my girlfriend told me via email that she was knocked up. I accepted it, emailed my parents, and told the military. I ended up getting discharged, so I returned home and cared for my pregnant girlfriend. She had the baby, and I thought I was the father for five months. While she was on vacation with a 'girlfriend,' I got an email from her boyfriend telling me they had been together for the last four months and also for the week in Myrtle Beach I was bankrolling. After that, I got a paternity test and found out it wasn't mine. The weird part is my parents still babysit and treat the kid like their grandkid, so she's at a lot of family functions and such. Also, that guy wasn't even the father, either."
3. "At the time I found out, I flipped out. There were other reasons why my then-wife and I were having marital problems, and she thought she could make the situation better by going through artificial insemination behind my back. I really reacted badly, and we're now divorced."
—u/anonymous
4. "I found out after my son started to have none of my features at all. I got a DNA test, and sure enough, he wasn't mine. I quickly got out of that marriage, won my house in court, sold it, and moved to a different country. Haven't looked back since, and moving to England was one of the best decisions of my life."
5. "I was married for 13 years and had two sons. The youngest son was 8 years old when we divorced. I was ordered to pay $236 a week in support. That was nearly half of what I earned, so I was forced to work two jobs just to keep my head above water, including weekends. So even my visitation sucked because I had to work all weekend and had no extra money. Well the older my youngest son got, the more he looked like my best friend, and by the time he was 16, it was obviously clear that he looked nothing like me or my other son and looked exactly like my best friend. Even his voice and mannerisms were identical."
"My oldest son finally confessed to me at 19 years old that he once had walked in on his mother and my friend one time when I was at work. He was only around 5 or 6 years old at the time, so he had no idea what he was seeing. Well, I managed to get hair samples from both my friend and youngest son without them knowing it, and paid to have them tested. My suspicions became a reality. At this point, my illegitimate son is 25 years old, and I don't see what it would accomplish to tell him. I am sure my ex-friend knows I know, but I just told him to get out of my house and to never even walk on the side of the street I am on."
—u/anonymous
6. "I started dating this woman when I was 19 and she was 22. She had recently moved back to the area after moving to California and then got divorced because she found out her husband was doing gay porn on the side. She and I were dating for about a month or two, and she said she needed to go back to California to get her stuff because she left so quickly after her divorce. She disappeared one day, and wouldn't answer my texts or calls. I didn't know what happened, and it was strange, but I figured she moved on. I got a call two months later where she told me she flew to Louisiana to hang out with some friends. She called me to let me know she was back, and we should hang out. I declined. Four months later, I got a call from her the day before I was supposed to deploy for five months, but I ignored it. When I return, I have 20 voicemails from her, one a week yelling at me for being a piece of crap, and not accepting that I am her son's father, all kinds of stuff."
"I had no clue what was going on. I called her back, and we talked. The kid was only a couple of months old, but he had my hair color, and if you squinted hard enough, you could see me in him. I decided I should take it on, I'll be a dad, but I wouldn't get back together with her. When I told my siblings, they all told me to get a DNA test. I said I would, but I had already bought a bunch of baby stuff, and I tried my best to be a dad in the meantime. When the result came back 99.8% positive I was not the father, she was pretty upset, but I peaced out of that place fast."
7. "I was dating this girl for over one year. The relationship was crappy; one day she caused a scene at my mother's house, and I ended the relationship on the spot. I started a relationship with his German girl, and I made plans to move back to Germany. Fast-forward, I came back home after my month-long vacation with my family, and the girl and my ex told me she's pregnant. We basically decided to work things out for the sake of the child. I ended my brief relationship with the German girl. Fast-forward, we had the baby...our relationship got worse, and I ended it right before the child's first birthday. She took me for child support, and I basically suffered through paying for four years. I met my now-wife and mother to my kids... I tell her the story and basically say I always had this hunch the child was not mine."
"I did one of those at-home paternity tests, and the results were a resounding no! I was devastated. I loved the kid and was working toward fighting for full custody. When I confronted her, she basically admitted to it all. She immediately stopped the child support although under current state law, she doesn't need to. This all happened 14 years ago. In the end, I should have gotten the paternity test done, and she should have told me there was another guy. The one who loses out the most is the kid. I am sure he remembers me to a point, and the biological father is not in his life."
—u/anonymous
8. "My brother found out around the time his daughter was 7 or 8. He never told anybody except me and his current wife. His ex still thinks their daughter is biologically his, and he paid every penny of child support until she was 18 even though she lived with him the entire time. My brother is the man I wish I was."
9. "My dad found out I wasn't his biologically when I was 18. He didn't speak to me for 10 years. We've reconnected fairly recently."
10. "My boyfriend's daughter is not his. He broke his hand on a door when he found out. But he never once denied her. He is on her birth certificate, and she has his last name. She is his baby girl, and he is her dad. End of story. His ex-wife likes to hold it above his head, though. She says, 'If you don't do XYZ, I'm getting a DNA test on the baby, and you'll never see her again.' It burns me up!"
11. "This happened to a really good friend of mine. He was a teenager at the time, getting ready to go to university for the first time. He broke up with his ex who came to him a few weeks later and told him she was pregnant and that it was his. He immediately accepted it and dropped out of university before he even started it. He got a full-time job, took care of her all through her pregnancy, and got everything they needed for when the baby arrived. He was even in the delivery room when the baby was born. Upon the birth, his ex wavered and asked for a paternity test. All this time, the kid wasn't even his. He stuck around for about a month before he realized that it wasn't his burden to bear and then re-enrolled in university. He just picked up where he left off and basically got on with his life."
12. "I knew someone who had found out on his son's 18th birthday that he wasn't the biological father. When he was younger and first found out the kid existed, he wanted to be responsible so he paid child support and spent time with the kid as much as possible. After the day he found out he wasn't the bio dad, he told his son that no matter who the kid's bio dad was, he loved him, and he was his real father no matter what. They ended up moving in together, and the son resented his mother for trying to hurt his father and lying to both of them his entire life. Last I heard, the son still won't talk to his mother."
13. "This happened to a friend of mine. The mother passed away, and the dad moved abroad. He wanted to live with his two daughters abroad and had to do a paternity test as part of the process. Turned out both daughters weren't biologically his. But I heard that they're on good terms."
14. "My friend had a kid with this woman who was a mess. Just after she gave birth, she said she couldn't cope and abandoned them both. My friend loved that kid. He looked after him for two years by himself. Then she came back. She said she had postnatal depression but was OK again. They moved in together and rekindled their relationship. A year later, she ran off and took the kid. She told my friend he probably wasn't the dad anyway. He's not the smartest, so he didn't go to court to try and get his son back, and as far as he was concerned, the boy was his son. Another few years pass. He pays her money regularly."
"Eventually, she starts to let him see him again. My friend spent a fortune on toys and games and more. When the child was 6, she decided that the money she was getting wasn't enough and rather than talk to my friend, goes to the CSA (Children Services Act). My friend was angry and said he'd pay more, but he wanted a blood test first. The kid wasn't his. He offered to pay her money the same as before (which was a good chunk of his wage in all honesty) as long as he could keep seeing his son. She pretty much disappeared again, and he hasn't seen either of them since. Poor guy was cut to pieces."
