I found out I was not my daughter’s biological father when she was a toddler, she’s 16 now, and though her mother and I are no longer together and haven’t been for 10 years, I continued raising her. however, it has always bothered me that she doesn’t know the truth, I feel she has a right to know her history. Whats everyone’s opinion ? Should she know the truth or should I hope she just never finds out at this point ?
Im sitting here with the information of knowing my bio dad.
Early last week....
7 am Got my dna results and people i didnt know showed up. Originally I thought my dad had a extra brother. Assumed my grandfather had a extra kid before digging, he was a mailman so you never know. Which would have been slightly shocking but he has passed. Just gotta roll with the information. I asked my dad and uncle if they knew the person. My dad was thinking of taking a dna test. I asked my mom she sat silent all day well Im researching.
I messaged some folks asking if they knew this person.
6pm
My mom admits I have a different dad.
Next evening.....With getting my DNA results and this new information I had my bio family mapped out. Ive done geneolgy for years so this was easy. Just no idea who my biological dad was. Based on dna, ages of cousins/ uncles kids.... I know who it is. He is in denial and floored which I dont blame him at all. Getting hard evidence with one more match to help him.
The people that I messaged have started responding. Everyone is super nice and helping add a couple more pieces. Explaining to them I dont want anything just trying to find answers. Having heart issues be nice to know if hereditary.
My mom's family... I have close family asking why bother talking to this bio family. They say we understand but why bother talking to them. Well if you understand why say why bother. Im a mess than ok than numb and cycle all over again.
Hello! So, I'm going to try to summarize this as much as I can. (I'm on mobile so sorry for formatting)
My mother had an affair with a man and got pregnant with me. At the time, my bio dad asked her if I was his and she said no, and he left it at that and they lost contact. My mom continues having an affair with other men and eventually my dad (the man who raised me) found out and they got divorced. When I turned 33, I took a DNA test for fun and found out I wasn't related to the man that I thought was my father. About a year later I met my bio dad and we have been talking but...I feel some resentment towards him for not trying harder to find out if I was his or not. I know my mom is largely to blame for the deception obviously, but I guess I just wanted him to take accountability for the affair and maybe even just "sorry I wasn't able to be in your life".
But is that an unfair expectation? He basically just shrugs and says "what was I supposed to do?"
So I did a dna test through ancestry years ago just out of curiosity. I really was more looking for my origins (like what percents I am made of) and not necessarily my matches. But I started looking at my matches once it came back and didn’t notice any of my ‘father’s’ family surnames in those matches. My ‘paternal grandmother’ doesn’t know who her father is so I really chalked a lot of the matches I had that I didn’t recognize as possibilities through that relation. I kind of left it alone for awhile.
I recently came back to it and finally messaged my closest cousin/grandaunt match to see how we were related. To my surprise, she told me her family’s surnames to see if I recognized any. Well I did. One of them was my ‘half’ sister’s family’s. I found that odd but talked myself down about all the possibilities. I knew my sister had done 23&me and so did my ‘paternal aunt’ so I was like you know what, I’m going to do that and see what comes up. Well I got the results. My sister comes up with being listed as my full sister because of how much DNA we share. My ‘paternal aunt’ does not show up. Actually, nobody from my ‘father’s’ side comes up there either. A lot more people from my ‘half sisters’ family shows up on there as well. I have another half sister who I asked to take the dna test for 23&me to see what comes up as well and she comes up as my half sister, with no where near the amount of dna I share with my evidently now full sister.
I matched with my mother on both sites, so it would appear me and my now full sister share the same father as well. I’m 30 years old and feeling sick to my stomach. I don’t know how to tell my sister that we share the same dad especially since she has thought for 35 years she was his only child.
I don’t want to tell the father who I’ve always thought was my father this information but I do want to contact my bio dad to find out information. I’ve never been close to my father but I have been close with the rest of the family and I do think this will destroy them.
I have asked my mother how this could have happened and why she never told me. Her story is that she didn’t know and she never slept with her first husband (bio dad) while she was married to my ‘father’ but she has a past of cheating and being untruthful so this is hard to believe.
How do I tell my sister? How do I get the truth out of my mother? How do I feel not guilty for not wanting to tell the family I’ve grown up with my whole life this?
Are there any benefits in waiting until a kid is 18 and out of high school to tell them the truth about paternity? I raised a child because the mother said that if I didn’t she wouldn’t have a dad, being that I already had a child with the mother I raised her as my own, along with her sister. I left the mom years ago. Main issue with this is that I don’t think the mother knows who or where the father is, I suspect it might’ve been multiple partners at the same time so I would not know how to even approach this should she ask those kind of questions.
(36f) Took a DNA test (ancestry) and thought it odd that I didn't match with anyone on my dad's side. I have had suspicions of my dad not being my bio dad ever since my mom got high with me and a friend at age 20...she jokingly said he might not be my father. Has NEVER brought it up otherwise. Some folks have commented how I don't look a lot like my dad or my siblings much, but I didn't think anything of it since I just look like a clone of my mother.
Fast forward to my sister taking a test and I saw we matched as half siblings. Told my other sister and she overnighted a test, more so to have another data point to bring up to my mom. Another half sibling match and both of my sisters matched with people on my dad's side. Closest match I have on my bio dad's side is a 1st cousin with a last name I've never come across before. I am the oldest of 4 kids, all born between 1990-95...
So, my mom is coming back into town this weekend and I plan on getting her back to my apartment (telling my bf to buzz off) and I am going to try my best to simply tell her that I am not mad (even though I am...but also not...ugh) and I just simply want the truth. I've informed my siblings of everything and they've been quite supportive, telling me nothing will change and just checking in on me.
I just want this conversation over with but my siblings and my in-laws pretty much all think she is going to clam up on me (as she has when I've soft confronted her before). In the likely event she does clam up on me, I've got 3 approaches: 1. Remind her that we've both been through a lot in life and everything is going to be okay etc. 2. I am not going to blow up this secret if my father and others don't know 3. My final "threat": I will utilize all my ancestry and librarian friends as well as social media to try to get answers if she gives me none.
Any advice/support would be appreciated. Thanks and wishing you all the best on this rough, odd, hard-to-describe journey.
TL;DR: Confronting my mom about 36 year life about my father. She's likely to stay in denial. Would appreciate support and suggestions.
When I was pregnant with my son, his dad accused me of cheating and demanded a paternity test. I was furious and vented alot to my mom. I said many times to her face things like "What kind of garbage woman would trick a man into raising a man into raising another man's baby?! That's the worst thing you can do to 3 whole other people including the man that wouldn't know he even had a kid". Our relationship didn't last long since he believed I was the type of person to do that.
Well, 11 years later, turns out, it was my mom, she did that. I did an ancestry dna kit and I thought I was OK with it at first. Then I found out my bio father has been dead since 2013 and I can't even find a picture of him. Luckily, the dad that raised me is amazing and reassured me that nothing has changed, but a part of me is just heartbroken.
There was a man that deserved to know. My dad deserved to know when I was born so he could have had a choice to raise me or not. I have been so angry at my mother for taking that from them and I don't know how to cope. I also have a genetic eye disease that is causing me to go blind that doesnt run on my mother's side. I dont know if I would have had a child if I'd have known. I got pregnant before my diagnosis, so I didn't know it was a risk.
I found 2 half brothers but can't find any way to contact them to get any more health info. I really just want to rage and yell at my mother but there has to be a better way to deal with all this.
I am a 27F, and my mom and dad are divorced. They divorced for the first time before my mom got pregnant with me but were still seeing each other. My mom found out she was pregnant and they remarried and had my brother later, before ultimately divorcing again. I have three more siblings from their partners after their divorce.
I have done 23&Me in the past and recently decided to try Ancestry as well. My mom is on Ancestry and I wanted to compare the breakdowns in DNA. My dad has never done any of those tests but I was eager to make him do one, too, although he hasn’t been able to do one yet.
I just found out today that my dad isn’t my biological father, because my actual biological father has done ancestry too. My biological father is someone who lives in the same town we are all from.
To say I’m shocked would be an understatement. I have no idea who this man is but the resemblance is unmistakable. After looking into him more, I learned he has two daughters that are younger than me as well.
My dad was absent for my childhood after I entered elementary school and came back into the picture when I was in high school. We have had a tumultuous relationships at times since then, but I am closer to him than any of my other siblings and I have supported him through his struggle with alcoholism drug addiction. Despite his shortcomings as a father, I love him very much and none of this changes that.
Can anyone offer any advice? How do I approach this subject with my mom? How do I tell my dad I am not biologically his? That my youngest brother who my dad had after he divorced my mom is not biologically my sibling? That his granddaughter isn’t biologically his?
I know family is who you choose and not necessarily who you are related to by blood. I just feel completely blindsided.
Innocent family tree DNA test, nek minute here I am another shocked surprised NPE member. Like most on here I had no idea that there was a name for it and there was so many of us. I don’t know why I guess, I didn’t even think about it before. God I’ve watched the shows find my family on tv and cried with them, maybe my subconscious knew. Anyway I went straight into overdrive and didn’t even look to see if communities like this were around. I went into denial and got another test this time Ancestry which came up with much closer matches like half sister, uncle, niece and cousins all from the one family it turned out after research, so it was undeniable.
I went to my mum 87yo to early thinking I was going to get all the facts before I’d done the research myself. Wrong move. As I say I didn’t have all this knowledge on here until now. Anyway She had a melt down, then after that she denied at first then gave me a name (the wrong name) it turned out, then denied again, then blamed me for bringing it all up and ruining her life. This was over a few days back in the week I got my results. Her reaction made me worried that maybe it was something sinister or awful but then I did get one more thing out of her before she clammed up, that it was a one night thing while she was engaged just sex. This also turned out to be BS it was more than once so I don’t know if she even knows the truth herself.
This was all 6 months ago and we haven’t spoken of it since. I see her most days and it’s like it has never happened we talk about stuff but nothing involving this.
I have been lucky to find out all my information without her help and I’m in contact with two of my 4 half sisters. My bio father has passed in his mid 70s I’ve been able to do all this thru ancestry and social media. My half sisters have been wonderful as we keep finding similar traits. Life was difficult for them so I feel blessed my life went as it did and mum married my father ( rip) that brought me up. My mum has no idea of any of this or that the name she gave me wasn’t the right one anyway. (It was His brother) I keep on thinking I will try with her again one day but most people that know this secret say not to bother but meanwhile our once close relationship is suffering as I have started to resent her selfish attitude; not the act itself or the lying that’s just life and youth; just not being able to put it all aside and talk about it all now that’s what hurts.
I keep on thinking is she going to bring it up when we are together but no I think it’s all gone back in that deep dark place in her brain where it sat for 68 years. Oh well that’s her loss she would have a lot more goss to talk about if she knew, she would have loved all this if it was happening to someone else I bet. I just thought I would pass on my story to show you how not to do it although, Is there a good way to go through this ?
I just hope you find one x