'My coworker accused me of sleeping with his wife and fathering his child.' UPDATED + CONCLUDED

"My friends are mad at me for telling my friend's wife about him demanding a paternity test from me, but seriously, I’m gay."

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry over this entire situation that’s unfolded in the past six weeks. I (23m) have a coworker I’ve been friends with for four years, pretty much since I started working at the factory I’m still in. Robert (32m) just had his first daughter Chelsea (2mo) after 4 boys.

The boys are dang near carbon copies of him; bleach blond straight hair, freckless skin, and I swear to god they were just born with tans. His high school sweetheart/wife Danielle (32f) is a tight curled redhead with freckles for days, and burns like there’s no tomorrow.

Their daughter from the jump had a full head of red hair that’s already starting to curl. When I got to meet her, she was 2 weeks old. I gasped (a fellow red head myself here with long curly red hair) and said something along the lines of, “Omg it finally happened! The red is alive!” Just being dramatic and funny.

Robert goes, “Yeah don’t bank on that staying. My genes are strong after all.” Danielle rolled her eyes and I shrugged it off as a weird joke at first, but the entire time I was there, he pretty much kept going on about how his genes would prevail. Jump forward, Chelsea is now five weeks old. For three weeks, every single day,

Robert would be complaining about how little of himself he sees in his daughter, how much of a “stranger” she is for it, that somedays he thinks he’s looking at another persons baby. He only ever seemed to want to complain to me about it as it was. After the fifth day in a row, I started trying to explain how genetics work, pretty much saying genes aren’t going to always drastically go one way.

Three days ago, Robert came into work just itching for an argument with everyone. Our mutual friend Jessie asked him wtf his deal was on our break after he shouted at another friend for asking a work related question. He blew up saying he knows Chelsea isn’t his, that his cheating wh@re of a wife just won’t admit it and he knows exactly who she was F’ing around with.

He then looks over at me and points at me and yells at me to get my A$$ outside. I asked why? And he starts screaming he’s not stupid, he knows I’ve been trying to kiss a$$ to avoid this beat down. I’m gay. I have a male fiancé. I have a pride stickers all over my car. Outside of work I am a parrot of colorfulness.

I just couldn’t help but laugh at him, it was just so bizarre and I know I wasn’t the only one looking at him like he was insane either. I told him Chelsea is literally half of Danielle’s genetics, that Danielle isn’t a F’ing incubator for his genetics, and asked him why he was so obsessed with their kids needing to look exactly like him? What’s the point of that?

He wouldn’t answer and just kept telling me to get up before he dragged me out to the parking lot. I told him I’m not going to fight him on something this ridiculous and asked him if he was trying to get fired? He started demanding I take a paternity test and I again asked if he was completely serious.

He said he was because I spend so much time with Danielle. He’s not necessarily wrong, but she’s a part of the girlfriend group I’m apart of, there’s five of us in total and We do artsy stuff, try new places, just hang out and do whatever but never stuff like THAT.

I told him to go take a paternity test for himself. He argued that he’s not paying for a test he knows the truth to. I told him well I’m not paying for a paternity test and then asked which redhead in the factory was he gonna accuse next? The exchange ended when our shift manager came in for her break.

I texted Danielle and told her exactly what happened. Next day was my day off, so my phone was on silent and I slept in. Woke up to Elliot (my partner) getting off the phone and telling me I should check my phone. I’d been bombarded with dozens of messages and missed calls/threatening voicemails from Robert because Danielle had kicked him out.

He’d decided to get Elliot’s number out of Danielle’s phone to tell him his version of events. I’d already told Elliot the night before so he was just baffled how certain Robert was. Danielle did text me a few times, apologizing on his behalf and then updating me they were getting a paternity test/she’s filing for divorce, that she has no idea why he’d think such a thing.

My partner thinks it’s hilariously sad Robert destroyed his marriage like this. This morning while getting ready for work, Robert texted me saying he has the money and “when” the test comes back with “the truth” he’d F me up in court for what I’ve done, how I’ve ruined not only his life, but his kids lives and everyone in their families lives too.

Idiot really has gone around telling everyone I’m the dad. I agreed to the test and told him he may as well quit his job and just vanish after this because it’s gonna be real embarrassing when I walk in with the paperwork and wave it around saying I’m not the daddy to his red headed child and he has to explain to everyone including his own children what an absolute idiot he is.

Our friends have been giving me the cold shoulder all day, pretty much saying yeah they don’t think I’m the dad “for sure” but I’m a trash friend for going straight to his wife and getting him thrown out of his own house and being forced to sleep in his truck and that I should’ve just agreed to the paternity test to begin with instead of stirring up drama and getting unnecessary people involved,

but it’s one thing if he decided he wanted one for himself, but he expected me to not only get one but pay my own way and just not say anything? But yeah. I’m the trash friend and trash person I guess.

Edit to add: I’ll definitely update here or make a new post when the time rolls around. Trying to get it done Monday or even Tuesday at the latest because it’s all over Facebook now. Robert’s family is doing nothing but slandering Danielle and I’m being mocked for having the reverse version of a beard (like when a man uses a woman as a cover so people don’t know he’s actually gay)

and it’s causing issues now with Elliot’s family because their logic is “well they wouldn’t be so sure if there wasn’t proof” my family is 100% with me and knows I absolutely have zero interest in women. Even if I did, I’m not a cheater.

Update, posted a week later:

The paternity test has been scheduled for this Thursday, but the woman I spoke with over the phone informed me they’re a bit backed up right now for the actual processing of their tests, so the 3-4 business day wait is actually more like 5-7 right now.

Regarding my coworkers, Ive had a mixture of being approached and doing the approaching to figure out why everyone flipped on the dime the way they had at work considering we’ve all been friends for so long. I was wrong in my initial post that Robert was only complaining to me about Danielle and his paranoid suspicions. I was just getting the filtered version.

He’d been gaging my responses, trying to trip me up and intimidate me into a confession from what I’ve gathered. What got me was these paranoid thoughts have been going on for a better part of two years, roughly since I became a permanent fixture in the girlfriend night. Robert was suspicious of me because I apparently don’t act or look like a gay man should.

There’s no guide book to being gay for starters. Me Personally that just didn’t make sense, considering this man has seen me in a unicorn onesie (the full length body ones, not the baby type looking ones), getting face masks applied, and having my hair done by his wife and the other ladies. I can’t wear nail polish, have false nails/lashes, or wear jewelry to work because of safety and sanitation or else I would.

A few coworkers did enlighten me that when Danielle got pregnant with Chelsea, Robert started making weird jokes that this one may come out a redhead with how much Danielle hangs out with me, but he slowly started changing, seemed like he genuinely meant it, grasping at straws when our work friends would call him paranoid,

claiming he’d come home to the bed all rumpled up as if they don’t have three big dogs that exclusively sleep in their bed with them. He’d sworn that he’d caught us kissing on more than one occasion (yet never confronted us?) I’ve at most given Danielle a peck on the cheek, I have a thing about kissing anyone besides Elliot, even my own parents and siblings.

Swore that we were always acting like intimate lovers, so much so that he apparently has “DOZENS” of messages from people frequently messaging him asking if they were divorcing because of us. I personally don’t believe that for a second because he’s a confrontational guy. Doesn’t think before he acts kinda deal.

What has new drama unfolding is that when Robert’s over analyzing searching for any legitimate proof turned up with nothing he saw in person, he put up cameras. I didn’t know at any point cameras had been installed, Danielle never mentioned them, but they had been for quite some time.

Little ones in the book cases around the living area, their bedroom, kitchen, and dining area. I did know about the ones on the garage, back door and the ring camera, waved or flipped them off playfully plenty and yelled weird stuff at them. I wouldn’t have minded as much if the conversations the five of us were having weren’t sensitive topics and meant to remain just between us.

I don’t even discuss things in person with Elliot about what’s said, if they wanted him to know, they’d tell him themselves. I know what it’s like to have secrets violated and voiced without my consent. My cousin was the one to tell our family I’m gay, I was terrified despite coming from a very liberal family. Our friends don’t come from very accepting families like mine.

I reached out to Danielle to confirm it as more than a rumor. She called me and did confirm the locations I listed above. All of these locations (save for the bedroom) are areas we mostly hang out to have these conversations. I asked if they had audio, she admitted they did, but that she doesn’t even have access to them and they’re linked to an app on Robert’s phone only he has access to.

I asked what she meant by that and she emptied her guts in tears that a few months before she got pregnant, he confronted her about her friendship with me, several times in fact, none of this I heard and the reasoning was, because he didn’t trust her with any male friends, hardly liked her talking to her own male family members.

For her to prove herself that she’s loyal to him, her phone was set up to where text messages she received and sent also went to his phone, he had all her passwords to all her apps like she was a child needing supervision on the internet.

Didn’t matter to him, he still wanted her to drop me, when she refused over his personal insecurities, especially since he has many “sisters” who aren’t actually related to him, he’d decided right then and there we were having an affair and got cameras installed. She told me she didn’t give me a heads up because she was worried if I knew the cameras were there, I’d confront him, he’d leave,

and she couldn’t afford the house or taking care of the boys alone and once she got pregnant again, she definitely couldn’t afford it anymore. I asked her if he’d accused her from the start of Chelsea not being his and she admitted that he kept bouncing back and forth on accepting that she’s his and then pulling a 180 saying he knows she’s not.

When we had girls nights in and out while Robert would have guys nights out or go over to a buddy’s house to play cards, drink, and watch the game. Sometimes he’d take the boys, other times they’d drop them off to their grandparents. I used to think they were such couples goals for that, knowing they needed not only some nights away from the kids to have their own identities,

but also nights away from each other to maintain individuality. I was wrong. He’d sit over at his friends houses and just watch us in the cameras. She admitted that she knew he was watching us all the time and possibly saving the videos because he’d try striking up a conversation or start making fun of us for the things we’d talked about. She didn’t know for sure if he was saving them, but it doesn’t matter.

I told her she could have told us during a night out. There were plenty of instances and if she had explained all of this to us, made it known so we wouldn’t be discussing private matters anymore. The other three women in our friend group have vented about their own martial issues, fertility struggles, trauma, family bs, etc.

To know now that he’s been not only listening in on things we’d shared in confidence, but also saving them to his phone to do who knows what with, show to whomever, was really upsetting. I voiced as much that we weren’t voicing very private matters as his source of personal entertainment and potential blackmail, that these types of conversations could result in something horrific happening to any of them.

She pretty much said she can’t undo it, but that she’s taken down all the cameras for the time being until the tests come back. I asked if she was seriously considering taking him back, what exactly her plan was then for when it does 100% come back he’s Chelsea’s dad? Just to carry on like the slandering and lies didn’t happen, the privacy breach didn’t?

She said that he’d agreed to couples counseling if it did and would make sure everyone knew the cameras were there. I felt like I was talking to an actively thickening wall, telling her that from what I’ve gathered,

he’s alienated her from being able to vocalize her marital problems to her friends and has to walk on eggshells not only in her house because of constant surveillance she doesn’t even have access to, but also her messages and texts. She claimed things would change, I dropped that conversation because we can cross that bridge in a week or so.

I told her she needs to tell the others about him having potential harmful videos on his phone of them. She tried to argue that he’d never post them or send them to other people, he isn’t that kind of man. I argued back that this is the same man that tried to take me outside to fight, posted all over what a wh@re she is, slandered my name, still is actively slandering us,

having his family do the same and based on all the random crap they’ve posted, they’ve been feeding into his paranoid delusional crap he’s been spouting off at them and conjuring up stories to go along with his accusations. It was a lot of back and forth, me going off on her for lying to me about knowing this was pretty much going to happen,

hang ups on both ends to cool off, me ranting at Elliot about it, before she finally agreed she would tell them. The backlash she got was pretty intense and is still an ongoing current festival of panic and fear. Two of them blocked her off everything, called/having been texting me to tell me that they just don’t feel safe anymore being her friend, the third is on the fence,

because she doesn’t want Danielle to feel anymore alienated than she already has been, but is also worried about him posting the videos or sending them to their families out of petty revenge since she vented about an abortion she never told her VERY prolife family about that could very well get her disowned.

I understand Danielle, but I don’t at the same time. I understand, since I personally have been in a romantic relationship with an abusive person, I know the desperation to be validated as telling the truth about something can be blinding to red flags of the whole picture, but I don’t understand why I had to be the one to ask her about it,

why she didn’t immediately tell us. What if he’d decided to start posting those videos all over Facebook for their partners and family to see and something awful happened to one of them? It’s just a hot mess, I need a drink, and it’s only f’ing Tuesday.

FINAL UPDATE - CONCLUDED

Robert got his results today and surprise, surprise, he’s the dad. What a shock. I haven’t gotten my results back, but I don’t care even when I do. Robert’s pretty much destroyed a lot of lives now, Danielle successfully alienated herself, and I had to block his entire family off Facebook and have actively blocked some of her siblings trying to call me an AH when I’m not.

Last week the day after I updated about testing date and Danielle admitting to our friend circle what was going on, one of the other girls in our friend circle decided to reach out to Robert and demand to know if he was saving videos of our private conversations.

He got all high and mighty, taunting her and by extend the rest of us that he does have videos saved on his phone and there’s nothing she or anyone can do about it because it’s his house and he has the right to put up cameras.

Big fight ensured between them, lots of back and forth of her basically telling him to delete them and him telling her he’ll do whatever he wants with them and she better back off before she pushes too far and I guess she did or whatever, so he decided to forward a lot of videos to her partner.

Her partner is a POS all around guy, he’s a serial cheater, compulsive liar, and recently she had to bail him out of jail for a second time for retail theft. Dudes well off and stealing clothes, nothing he needs. They have two kids together, so she didn’t want to leave, but now had no choice and is crashing at another friends house because POS Miles decided to beat the hell out of her for “shit talking him”

Robert may not have posted them directly to Facebook, but POS sent them around to the rest of the friend group. I have complained about some stuff in the past with Elliot, things we ended up talking about, so it wasn’t much of a surprise for him, but obviously our girlfriends don’t all have that type of relationship with their family or partners.

To make it all worse, Danielle defended Robert, telling our mutual girlfriend that she should’ve never instigated with him, should’ve known better pretty much. They got into a massive fight that ended with Danielle pretty much telling her that it’s her own fault. Everyone else cut her off after that, I went and got the test done because she was begging me not to back out, and I haven’t gotten my results,

but today Jessie texted me (I took some vacation days for an extended weekend) and told me Robert came in all shitty and was asking about when I’m coming back. I asked why he was wanting to know when I’m coming in and Jessie called me and said that Rob’s the daddy and I basically said yeah no shit, but why is he trying to find me?

Im still being blamed. Danielle is now suddenly switching gears because everyone at work is giving Rob a lot of hell for the crap he’s been pulling and telling him to apologize, Danielle lost all of her friends because she never disclosed the cameras that have caused all sorts of hell for us, her own family thinks she’s crappy,

but somehow it’s MY fault STILL, all because I should’ve just taken the test and moved on when it revealed I’m not the dad. I put in an application at Elliot’s job to see if I can just switch and work there. It’s around the same distance from our house, but in the opposite direction. I really didn’t want to cut her off,

but I’m not going to take abusive messages from her/him from her phone and listening to her flip out on me on the phone and blame me for everything. I’m just done. Done with Danielle and Robert, just the whole situation in general. I blocked them from every social media account I have and if I get this job, I’ll just quit there.