35 Paternity Stories That Went Completely Wrong

Imagine discovering the children you thought were yours aren't, and your spouse has been deceiving you all along. Many people globally have found themselves in such situations. While some chose to take responsibility, others walked away.

People have secrets, but nothing hurts like raising a child who is not yours without your consent. When it comes to families, things don't always turn out the way we expect. Picture this: you take a DNA test to find out more about your family roots, but instead, you discover something you never saw coming.

A simple test ends up leading you to a tough realization that your significant other has been deceiving you all along, and you have been raising other people's children.

These netizens found themselves in such situations and had to share their heartbreaking paternity stories that changed their lives. Let's check out what they had to say.

Comments have been edited for grammar and clarity

1. Hospital Baby Visit Took a Surprising Turn

u/[deleted]: My husband and I were visiting our friends who'd just had a baby (we are the godparents), and we were standing in the hallway talking to both sets of grandparents.

The hospital had a rule that only five visitors may be present in the hallway, but the security guard had to let all six of us in for some reason, and we didn't realize it.

This nasty nurse comes up to us, notes that there are six of us, tells us someone will have to leave immediately, and then turns to my husband and says, "Oh, are you the daddy?" Without missing a beat, he says, "That's what we're all trying to figure out here." She gets a look of horror on her face and backs away.

2. He Didn't Have to Find Out This Way

u/timmg: I had a vasectomy. While chatting with the doctor, he told me about another patient. This guy had three kids and came in for the snip-snip because he and his wife decided they were done having children.

The doctor opened up his sack and found nothing to snip. This guy was born without the ability to have any children. The poor doctor had to explain to him what happened. Imagine finding that out that way.

3. The Numbers Didn't Add up

u/Mjrfrankburns: Worked in the army hospital on ft. Lewis. A woman came in for belly pain, and we found out and told her she was ten weeks pregnant.

The husband at the bedside started laughing, grabbed his coat, and left the room, explaining to us that he had been in Afghanistan until three weeks prior. He looked back at her and said, "Well, that's that, Brittany." I always liked how classily he left her while she just silently stared off into space.

4. The Unexpected Paternity Twist

u/Leafschick: Not in the hospital, but a friend and his girlfriend were on and off, and she got pregnant. She swore the baby was his, but the guy wanted a paternity test.

He moved in with her and her mom, and she took the test when she had the baby. The results took a while to come out. Meanwhile, the guy and his family were over the moon with the baby and forgot about the paternity test results.

One day, the guy mentioned it to his girlfriend's mom, and she responded, "Oh yeah, she didn't tell you? The results came out a while ago, and the baby is yours."

A few months later, while they were moving out, the guy found the test in a box; guess what? He was not the father. They eventually broke up. Even though the guy tried to stay in the baby's life, the girlfriend wouldn't let him.

5. Unveiling a Lifetime Secret

u/toss_my_potatoes: One of my favorite cousins just turned 23. The dad and I discovered that they were not biologically related at all. This was horrible because my aunt (her mother) is among the most ridiculously zealous and judgmental people I have ever met.

She screams at the baby cousins when they don't behave perfectly. She once threw a pocket bible at a woman in a grocery store after the woman was on the phone and cursed her.

She likes to send me unsolicited long letters about "God's plan" for my life. Surprisingly, her husband is the most fun and laid-back person I've ever met. He did not deserve this or her.

6. The Dual Delivery Dilemma

u/ThrowDiscoAway: I'm not a nurse, but my professor was an L&D nurse. She once saw a man running between two delivery rooms. Both women he had impregnated went into labor and gave birth the same day.

Supposedly, the one he was married to was angry because the woman he cheated with was impregnated after the wife and had her kid ten minutes before the wife.

Labor and delivery is apparently the most drama-filled section of hospitals. My significant other plans to be a nurse, and he will work in L&D/neonatal this year. I'm excited to hear any dramatic stories.

7. A Colorful Surprise in the Delivery Room

u/rootberryfloat: I used to work in the newborn nursery at a hospital. We got the babies right from delivery, cleaned them up, footprinted them, checked vitals, etc.

The dads usually came in with the newborns. This dad comes in with this baby. He and the mom are white, but the baby is obviously not white. The dad stood quietly beside this baby, watching us clean it up.

He says quietly, "I don't think this is my baby." You could tell he was devastated. We advised him not to sign the birth certificate until he was sure. Not sure what happened after we sent the baby back out to the mother, but I felt awful for the guy.

8. The Repairman Turned Out to Be Her Dad

u/Kjwells94: A coworker's aunt just found out her dad wasn't her father. So, she was big into genealogy and mapped out her family tree as far as she could.

She took one of those ancestry DNA tests about two months ago, and her father's side didn't align with what she was expecting. She didn't recognize a single name that she was matched with paternally.

She casually asked her dad if he knew any of the names, and he recognized the surname of the maintenance man at the apartment complex where he and his wife (aunt's mom) lived after they had married.

The dad claimed the guy was a lousy repairman who always flirted with his wife. Aunt's mom had passed away a few years ago, so she decided not to tell her dad the news.

9. Honesty in the Delivery Room

u/tornado28: My grandmother was a nurse. She once assisted with delivering a baby, and the apparent father commented that the child looked good for a premature baby.

Without thinking, my grandmother said the truth. "That baby is not premature." So, I guess I know where I get my social obliviousness from.

10. Uncle's Secret Affair and the Hidden Legacy

u/Lycanthrowrug: I'm too young to have witnessed it, but back in the late '50s or '60s, my uncle had an affair with a woman who later divorced her husband and became his wife.

She had two children with her first husband -- or at least that was the official story that everyone maintained. However, based on appearance, it was extremely obvious that the second of my aunt's two children, while married to her first husband, was my uncle's biological child.

She looked nothing like my aunt's first husband or her older (half) brother and exactly like my uncle. As the years went by, the pretense was dropped and was never mentioned again.

11. Unraveling a Family Secret with Unexpected Paternity Twist

u/cannibalisticapple: My mom's friend knew her parents had a third child and gave it away, so she and her sister used an online DNA test to find them. They ended up discovering they had different dads.

12. Hats off to My Dad

u/[deleted]: Not the same, but my biological father raised my older brother and sister(each from different men) as his own when my brother was six and my sister was three. I happened to be a happy accident. My brother and sister don't talk to their biological fathers, and they recognize my dad as theirs.

I've never once heard him refer to either as stepson or stepdaughter. He explained it to his angry mother. He said, "I married a woman with children; they are my children now."

13. Blood Type Blunder

u/fuzzus628: I am not a doctor, but my mother used to work in a medical lab many decades ago. One day, another woman who worked in the building was visiting the lab.

During the conversation, she mentioned that she was blood type X, her husband was type Y, and their child was type Z (I don't remember the specific types).

One of the younger lab techs blurted out, "That's impossible," and the doctor in the lab just stared daggers at him. Luckily, the visitor either didn't notice or didn't care and moved along shortly after. My mom still remembers it as one of the most awkward moments she has ever encountered.

14. He Chose Love over Paternity Text

u/annieasylum: Not a father, or even a male, for that matter. But a buddy of mine was taking care of a child that he was pretty sure was his. When I asked why he didn't have a paternity test, he said, "Why would I? Even if she isn't mine, she still needs a dad.

Growing up, my father wasn't around much, and I couldn't sleep at night knowing I allowed that to happen to her." He's a good dude.

15. Biological Connection or Not, I Will Always Be Her Father

u/CNNFDDR: I found out when my daughter was four that she was fathered by a guy that my then-wife 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 she wasn't mine and that she wouldn't 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.

16. A Father's Love Beyond Blood

u/TreebeardEntShepard: My stepdad married my mom when I was five. My biological dad was out of the picture my whole life. After they married, I started calling him my dad because he was.

He worked to feed me, clothe me, and let me participate in things I was passionate about. In third grade, he asked me if he could adopt me. He explained my last name would change to his, and if anything happened to my mom, he would take care of me, not my biological father.

I was so happy. I went to the courthouse with my whole family, and the judge gave me some books and a teddy bear. I will always remember that day. To this day, he is my dad, not the man I share DNA with.

With the modern family becoming increasingly complicated/convoluted, it's difficult to figure out who the mother and father figures are in our lives. But I don't think that matters too much because, in the end, it's whoever fills those shoes the best, whether they be blood-related or not.

I love my dad just as much as my dear mother and owe him my entire life. He always comments that he "got to choose his son" (he has no biological children), which always brightens my day. On the flip side, I got to choose my dad, and as far as I'm concerned, it was the best choice I've ever made.

I'd erase my biological father from existence if he ever tried to harm the man I call dad (not a realistic situation, but true). So, to any person raising a child that is not biologically yours, my hat is off to you. I'd be lost without my pops.

17. He Didn't Deserve This

u/tortugaborracho: When I worked as a journalist, I got involved with reporting on a father whose son had a rare medical disorder that guaranteed his death before the age of ten. It was a heartbreaking story. The family were incredibly kind people.

This kid couldn't feed or clean himself, was regularly hospitalized with seizures, was on all kinds of expensive medication, and required 24/7 supervision. As I researched the disease, I found that both parents had to be carriers of a specific gene for the child to get the disease.

I asked the dad one day after working with them for several months how he felt about the possibility that this could happen again if he ever remarried and had kids. The sick kid's mother and he had divorced, so the dad's parents were the sick kid's caregivers.

He revealed to me that he had been tested for it shortly after they found out the kid was sick, only to discover that he didn't carry the gene and his wife had cheated on him. The boy's real father was nowhere to be found and wasn't involved at all.

Also, the boy's mother was barely involved with him, so this poor guy was suffering heart-crushing agony at watching this kid — who wasn't even his — wither away and die tragically. It was gut-wrenching. As I said, the father and his family were among the best people I've ever met.

18. My Brother's Silent Sacrifice

u/worksafemonkey: My brother found out he was not the father when his daughter was seven or eight. He never told anybody but me and his current wife. She still thinks she's his, and he paid every penny of child support until she was 18, even though she lived with him the entire time.

19. My Non-Biological Father's Unwavering Love

u/st0n3dguru: My Father was in this situation. He raised me and my brother like we were his own, and we never thought anything different up until the day he died. He gave us everything we could ever want, regardless of his limitations of being a quadriplegic.

My sperm donor, T. Sorak, was and is a jerk who couldn't be bothered to answer a simple phone call to try and get a medical history.

20. She Found Out We Were Not Related through My Gossip Auntie

u/Imsquishie: My youngest sibling is not my father's, and he has known it since she was born. But nothing has ever stopped him from treating her as one of his own.

He wouldn't tell her until she was old enough to understand, but we have one of those gossip aunties in our family who tells everyone everything. So she found out.

She asked my father if it was true, and all he said was, "Yes. But you should have been my daughter from the start." She hugged him, and that was it. Who cares if it's not your biological child? If you've been there for them since birth, they might as well be your kids.

21. My Wife and Best Friend Betrayed Me

u/[deleted]: I was married for 13 years and had two sons; the youngest son was eight when we divorced. I was ordered to pay $236 a week in support (mind you, I did not make all that much money, so it pretty much ruined my life). Imagine having nearly half of your earnings taken before you can pay any of your bills.

So, I had to work two jobs to keep my head above water, including weekends. Even my visitation sucked because I had to work all weekend and had no extra money.

My eldest son looked like my best friend, and when he was 16, it was crystal clear that he looked nothing like my other son or me and resembled my best friend; even his voice and mannerisms were identical.

My oldest son finally confessed to me when he was 19 years old that he had walked in on his mother and my friend when I was at work. He was around five or six years old then, so he had no idea what he saw.

I got hair samples from my friend and youngest son without them knowing it and paid to have them tested, and my suspicion became a reality.

I have not told my son, nor have I confronted my ex-wife or former friend, and what hurts the most is all those years of paying all that support (my friend watched me suffer financially), and I feel that the sacrifices I made all those years and the hours I spent working is a crime.

My illegitimate son is 25 years old, and I don't see what I would accomplish by telling him. Additionally, my ex-wife has no money due to total irresponsibility, so getting paid back will not happen.

As for my best friend, as soon as I had confirmed that he was banging my wife all those years, I cut ties with him. I am sure he knows I know, but I just told him to get out of my house and to never walk on the side of the street I am on and then shut the door on that part of my life.

It's one thing to cheat or even have a child due to an affair, but to rip somebody financially for years just to keep your secret is inexcusable, and I hate her and him for doing that to me.

22. This Woman Was Heartless

u/twistedpants: My friend had a kid with this woman who was a mess. She was crazy and nasty. Just after she gave birth, she said she couldn't cope and abandoned them both.

My friend loved that kid, so he looked after him for two years. Then she came back claiming she had post-natal depression but was OK again. They moved in together and rekindled their relationship.

A year later, she runs off, takes the kid, and tells him he probably isn't the dad. My friend, not being the smartest, didn't go to court to get his son back; as far as he was concerned, the boy was his son. As a few years passed, he continued paying her money regularly. Eventually, she started to let him see his son again.

When the child turned six, she decided the money was insufficient, so she told my friend to go to the CSA. My friend got angry and said he'd pay more money, but he wanted a paternity test first. It turned out the kid wasn't his.

Still, 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 disappeared again, and he hasn't seen either of them since. The poor guy was heartbroken.

23. A 70-Year-Old's Take on Parenthood

u/sever-sonda: I'm 70 years old and have never understood this biological parent stuff unless it had to do with a health matter. I think to most people, any man can just be a sperm donor, but the real father is the man who steps up and raises the child as his own.

In my generation, we were taught that if a person married someone with children, those kids were his by marriage, and they were to take the parental role and love and protect them as if they were his/hers.

Sad to say, I think a lot of men nowadays use the fact that they aren't blood relatives to escape responsibility emotionally and financially.

24. This Was My Turning Point

u/throwaway69686988838: I found out the kid was not mine after he started having none of my features. I got a DNA test, and he wasn't mine. I quickly noped 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.

25. Medical Twist Unveiled an Unexpected Pregnancy Revelation

u/PlacentaSoup: Not me, but some people I know. This guy's girlfriend went to her employer's Christmas party, got drunk, and banged a coworker. She became pregnant, and she just let her boyfriend believe the child was his.

When she delivered, there was some medical issue, I don't know the specifics, that exposed the fact that she cheated and he could not possibly be the child's biological father. They talked about it, and he decided to raise the child as if it was his own. His name went on the birth certificate.

A little while later, the mother got into drugs and left him and the child. Now, this guy is alone raising a child that is not his. Whenever I see him, he just looks so down and depressed. I feel like hugging him.

26. My Journey as the Child Born from a Mother's Affair

u/MortimerMouse: I found out my dad wasn't my biological father when I was 25. My mom had cheated, resulting in me, and I lived the next 25 years with that hanging over her head.

Everyone in my family, my parents, and two brothers, found out before I did. It hasn't changed anything. I have never met my biological father, and I don't think he is interested either.

27. How I Discovered the Truth through DNA Results

u/zerofocus: I started dating this woman when I was 19 and she was 22. She had 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 had been dating for about a month, maybe two at the max, and she had talked about how she needed to return to California to get her stuff because she left so quickly after finding out what her husband was doing.

She disappeared one day and wouldn't answer my texts or calls. I did not know what happened, which was strange, but I figured she had moved on. I got a call two months later where she told me she flew to Louisiana to hang out with some friends, who drove her to California to get her stuff, then drove back to the East Coast with her.

This woman called to let me know she was back and suggested 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 and thought nothing of it; the woman clearly had some issues.

When I returned, I had 20 voicemails from her, one a week yelling at me for being a piece of sh** 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 to talk and discovered that the kid was only a couple of months old but had the same hair color; if you squinted hard enough, you could see me in him. I decided I should take it on. I'll be a dad but won't get back together with this person.

When I told my siblings, they all told me to get a DNA test. I said I would, but I had already bought some baby stuff. I tried my best to be a dad. When the result returned 99.8% sure I was not the father, she was pretty upset, but I left that place fast.

I brought her the results right before I went to work that night, so I had an excuse to leave. I later saw the actual dad, who happened to live in Louisiana and looked a lot like me. He seemed to embrace the fact, and last I saw, they were together.

I'm now married to my wife, whom I started dating almost as soon as I got back from my deployment and who went through this whole ordeal with me. We now share a son.

28. She Got a Baby and a Divorce!

u/ceose: I'm friends with a girl 20 years younger than her two older siblings. Her mom liked to party, and one year, she partied hard with this guy she didn't know, who was not her husband.

About a month later, she told her husband, "Guess what? We're going to have another baby! Isn't that great?" Only it wasn't great because he had gotten a vasectomy a few years before that and hadn't told her.

So, she got a baby and a divorce. The ex-husband was a pretty cool guy, and my friend called him her grandpa. He was always really nice and loving with her.

He just wasn't going to stay with a lady who cheated on him and was knowingly going to pass off a kid that wasn't his to him. Her mom's a nice enough lady, but she had some serious issues that took about twenty years to get over.

29. Man's Shocking Discovery after His Wife's Passing

u/juhtag: Not me, but a friend of a friend. The mum passed away, and the dad moved abroad. The dad wanted to live with his two daughters abroad and had to do a paternity (or DNA?) test as part of the process. Turns out both daughters aren't his. Last I heard, they're on good terms.

30. Ungrateful Daughter Got a Taste of Her Own Medicine

u/[deleted]: This didn't happen to me, but I have a friend who discovered the daughter he'd been providing for wasn't his. She was an ungrateful, spoilt girl who used to say how she hated him and hoped he was dead.

The real father tried to contact the mother, and he recognized the real father's features in the daughter. He demanded a paternity test, and when it came back that he wasn't the girl's father, he dropped her and her mother like a hot rock.

He was gone and took every penny he was putting into their lives with them. The mother and daughter were in bad shape because they couldn't get together enough money for the rent on their apartment and had to move in with the grandmother.

My friend often said that he hoped such a thing would happen because he was sick of trying to take care of a daughter who hated and abused him. He was glad he had been putting money into a college fund for her but decided to spend that money on himself instead.

As far as the bio-father goes, no one knows where he is. Supposedly, he saw what a brat his daughter was and noped right out of there.

31. Artificial Insemination Lead To Our Divorce

u/[deleted]: At the time, I flipped out. There were other reasons why we were having marital problems, but she thought she could make the situation better by going through artificial insemination. I reacted badly; we're now divorced.

32. The Harsh Truth

u/BeachBum09: I just have to say some of these stories sicken me. Women cheating on you, not using protection, getting pregnant with a bastard child, continuing the lie, and then staying with the woman.

I get that feelings and situations are crazy, and there isn't any set protocol, but I know there is no way I could be with that woman anymore. I am not saying you need to cut contact with the child, but I wouldn't be with the mom.

She lied to you, and by doing so, you thought you had a child. You put your time, love, and money into providing for a child that another man put in your significant other due to her cheating. Cheating is the lowest thing someone can do in a relationship. The worst is lying to the guy, and having him raise the child as his own is psychological abuse.

How sick and twisted can one person be to lie to their partner that they have received one of the greatest gifts in life, knowing your horrible actions caused this and knowing how unethical and horrible of a person you are for lying to someone that they are the parent.

Not only that, but after you spend time raising a child that is not yours, if you leave the woman, she has legal grounds to sue you for child support for a child that is not yours that came about because your partner has no self-respect and sleeps around with anyone. It is so sad. Don't sign the birth certificate unless you are 100% sure, guys. Just don't do it.

33. Is This Just a Resemblance or There's Something More?

u/wrestlechick: I've always been told I looked like my dad, but I've also been told that I looked like I would be this girl's sister. The weird part is her dad used to like my mom and always wanted to date her. It makes me wonder because I've been told I favor him and his daughter.

34. Did My Dad Have a Hidden Marriage?

u/khegiobridge: My biological dad left his family and two daughters in Washington and married my mom in Los Angeles five weeks later. I found his first marriage certificate but nothing about a divorce. I'm pretty sure he was a bigamist.

35. Unveiling My Father-in-Law's Secrets

u/froglover215: My father-in-law was married to at least two women at a time. He was a nice guy but a womanizer, and I think he didn't want to let each woman down when they got pregnant or started bringing up marriage.

My mother-in-law says he was already married when they tied the knot, but we also know he has a child three months younger than my husband.

Plus, the woman and child both go by my father-in-law's last name (and that's NOT the woman my mother-in-law claims he was married to when they got together). So, he might have had three wives at the same time. My husband has upwards of ten half-siblings from his dad.

Despite paternity tests proving that they are not the father, some men have chosen to take up responsibility and become a father figure in their children's lives. Such acts teach us that being a dad is more about caring than just having the same blood. Still, it doesn't mean the men who left are less of a father figure; some people just can't handle betrayal and deceit.