Man takes DNA test behind parents back; 'My WHOLE world has turned upside down.' UPDATED

When this man is freaked out by test results, he asks the internet:

"I just took a dna test, turns out I’m 100% not my dad’s son."

For as long as I can remember, my parents’ marriage has been happy and stable. They were high school sweethearts and my dad proposed to her at their senior prom, or so they say. Nowadays they’re your stereotypical old couple, just as in love as the day they married.

For Thanksgiving, one of my friends bought dna kits for our whole friend group. He’s super into genealogy and family trees, and wanted to share his hobby I guess. I just got my results back, and my biological father was found.

Except, he’s not the man who I grew up calling my dad, he’s some rando from New Jersey. He hasn’t reached out to me, and I have no intention of reaching out to him. I have to admit, he does look like me, but he doesn’t look like my sister at all.

That means that either my sister is my dad’s real daughter, or that my mom cheated multiple times. I do know that my dad’s family has a history of fertility issues and that his identical twin brother can’t have kids at all.

I don’t want to blow up my parents’ lives, and regardless of my dna, my dad is still my dad. He raised me and loved me like his own, and that’s all that matters to me. But there’s a voice in the back of my mind telling me to tell my dad deserves to know that his wife cheated and that he raised another man’s child.

But then, will he ever look at me the same? What if he disowns me out of rage? And what about my mom, she lives off his pension and home business. But she’s a cheater, so maybe I shouldn’t consider her feelings.

I don’t know, I had to tell someone so I figured Reddit might be a good place. I’m going to think about what I should do for a while before taking any drastic action, I have the power to destroy my parents’ lives and I don’t take that lightly.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

bored-panda55: Kind of depends on the couple. Age, religion, etc

You literally have no idea what happened around your conception unless they told you something. It is very possible something else other then cheating.

Maybe talk to mom first. I know you are angry now but cheating is only 1 of multiple reasons for this.

Last question- did your dna come back 100% your mom as your mom? Cause that happened on reddit before - guy dna tested his daughter found out she wasn’t him and flipped on his wife. After tons of work and testing mom, they found out their child had been switched in the hospital.

OOP: Her family’s never done dna testing, so I don’t know. My parents have been honest with me about other embarrassing things, I just can’t see them keeping something like that from me, but I suppose it’s possible.

XenaSebastian: How old are you OP? It doesn't really matter, I'm just curious. You should definitely talk to your mom first. Your dad may know that your not his biologically.

OOP: I’m 27, and you’re right that it doesn’t matter. I know people think I’m acting immature by jumping to cheating, but my gut is telling me that it can’t be something as simple as a sperm donor or adoption.

We’re family, we tell each other everything, me and my dad especially, and I can’t believe that they’d hide something as important as who gave me the blood in my veins. I don’t know, and I guess I won’t know until I talk to my mom.

Diligent_Course_6616: Lemmi ask you some advice from a step parent in similar situation. Would you have preferred been told the truth since you were old enough to understand or have it continue be kept a secret knowing how you feel now?

I don’t want to lie to my step daughter (who calls me daddy and only known me as so) but obvi being a 5 yr old wouldn’t comprehend much anyway. Idk guess I’ll figure it out when the time comes

OOP: I’m pretty raw right now so take it with a grain of salt, but I wish I’d known. Either way, I’d’ve known my dad loves me, as I’m sure your (step)daughter does, but if I’d known then I wouldn’t feel so shocked and betrayed right now.

Also, what happens if your daughter grows up, moves out, then gets sick? She won’t be able to give the doctors an accurate family history, and if she gives them your family history thinking that you’re her bio dad, that might lead her medical team astray. She deserves to know where she comes from.

Update:

Alright, so first off, i just want to say y’all were half right. Secondly, I want to explain in more depth why I didn’t think it could be a sperm donor. My family, my dad especially, hold honesty as one of, if the, highest values.

The angriest I’ve ever seen my dad was when I covered up a bad grade in highschool. Now, he never hit me, or even really came close, but he shouted and made me feel like a piece of s.

My point is that lying is considered the greatest sin in my dad’s eyes, he always told me that a man is only as good as his word. The thought of my dad keeping something like that from me was nearly unthinkable.

The reason I went straight to cheating rather than something like SA was that I don’t look at all like my dad. Because of this, my cousins teased me my whole childhood. They called my mom a whre behind her back, and combined with my rocky relationship with my mom,

this made me always suspect that my mom had cheated. The dna tests only confirmed my suspicions, which is why I was so adamant that that’s what happened. Now, with a clearer head, I realize how those biases were affecting my judgement.

Anyway, I called my mom the other day and explained about the dna test. She chuckled, and instead of confessing to cheating like I thought she would, or to using a sperm donor like you guys thought she would, she said to me “I guess we couldn’t keep this forever. Okay, I guess it’s time you knew.” And then proceeded to tell me this absolutely wild story.

She told me what I’d already guessed about my dad’s fertility; that he’s completely unable to have biological kids. Apparently, my parents didn’t have the cash to pay for a sperm donor or an adoption, but they wanted a kid more than anything in the world.

What they agreed to do was for my mom to drive to the next state over and have unprotected intercourse with men in the hopes she’d get pregnant. Apparently, she tried to chose guys who had similar features to my dad so that the extended family wouldn’t get suspicious. Luckily for my parents, my sister came out looking like a clone of my mom. Three years later, my parents did the same thing, and that’s where I came from.

As I said before, I look nothing like my dad. I do have some features from my mom’s side of the family, but absolutely none from my dad’s side, other than that I have lots of freckles and so do my dad and a few of his relatives. Turns out, my biological father is also covered in freckles.

I asked my mom if my sister knows, and she said that my sister doesn’t know. My mom asked me for help telling my sister, because my sister has been hinting that she wants a dna test before having kids, which she wants to have soon. I agreed.

I’ll be going over to my sister’s place to talk to her soon, and the current plan is to have my parents on zoom. I don’t think I’ll be updating again, so get your “I told you so”s out of the way now lol.