These stories are both beautiful and incredibly sad.
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Updated 8 years ago,June 2, 2017
I was accused of being an 11-year-olds father.
The mother encouraged me to meet her.
Natalya Zaritskaya
She looked like me, so I figured she was mine.
I got to know her, and she was adorable.
Test came back negative.
I stopped being invited around.
In retrospect, I think the plan was to get me to want to sign the paper.
Ex wife got mixed up with drugs, had an affair and a baby.
Natalya Zaritskaya
We got divorced and she ended up on the streets with her newborn daughter.
CPS took the child away and shes been with me for almost 2 years now.
Adoption should be final next month.
The situation sucks but its not the childs fault and she shouldnt have to suffer.
I raised a child for two years thinking she was mine.
I didnt want kids before she was born but I loved every minute of being with that little girl.
I was also paying $200 a week in child support.
We did a paternity test and she was right, I was not the father.
I had the option to continue to be in her life but I couldnt deal with it emotionally.
The court continued to make me pay child support while she tried to find out who the father was.
$20,000 Ill never see again.
I fell into a really dark place personally and professionally.
Its been about a year and a half since this happened and Im still not over it.
I have a lot of trust issues with people that I didnt have before.
I also regret leaving, every day.
I miss that little girl a lot.
My youngest daughter has no contact with her mother or her real father.
But She considers me her dad, and I consider her to be my daughter.
I am taking the proper measures to adopt her this year for her birthday.
Im just happy to have her in my life.
It was a very strange, but very eye opening experience.
We were a summer fling and her ex and I were around at about the same time.
I took the role of father for her entire pregnancy and through his birth.
Timothys birth was beyond emotional and I felt an insanely intense connection form with this only seconds old child.
His mother and I were on good terms and we just held him and cried.
He had some heart issues and was in the NICU for a few days.
I held him for hours.
I was so deeply concerned for my sons well being.
I got an email about six weeks later with the results of the paternity test my mother insisted upon.
0% chance of being Tims father.
How do you deal with that?
The emotions had been established.
Did I simply let them go?
I still havent really figured it out.
I was furious that I was forced to grow up for no reason if that makes any sense.
Regardless, I had a strange mixture of grief lined relief and loss based sadness.
I feel better for the experience and hope to have a friend-of-the-family jot down relationship with him one day.
However, its simply been dismissed from my mind for sanities sake.
I kept him and continued to raise him as mine.
His mother left us when he was 1.
I went to a lawyer when he was 2 asking about the process of getting custody.
Apparently, from that point on, he was requiring them as a matter of course.
Waited a few months, called the lawyer back.
The first question out of his mouth was about the results.
I told him I was my sons father.
He said thats fine, but what did the paternity test say.
I told him the truth.
He paused for a second, asked me if I was sure about what I wanted.
I didnt even take the time to think before blurting out yes.
That was 13 years ago.
I dodged this one.
Dated a young single mom once before I got married, she had one daughter barely a year old.
I said, Cool, lets organize a DNA test before we talk any more about this.
Never heard from her again.
Hell, that may be the only reason why she went out with me for all I know.
In 2015, while still stationed in Pearl Harbor, I took leave to visit my family back home.
During that time I hit it off with a girl who was a Navy veteran.
My brother was the One who introduced us.
She told me she was on the pill and I believed her.
I freak out but theres nothing I could really do.
I had work during the evenings so she stayed in my barracks room.
In hindsight, maybe I should have rented a hotel for her.
Come time for the birth, I travel out to be there when the kid is popped out.
The nurses asked since I was not marriedif I would sign papers saying that it is my child.
I objected and asked for a paternity test.
Faced with the prospect of a newborn, a scowling woman, and pushy nurses, I signed anyways.
I fly back and start sending her child support money.
First, it was about $600 a month (I only made $2300/mo).
One solitary text from her saying Im sorry.
Moral of the story: always get a paternity test.
Never pay child support without one, or in absence of a court order.
I lost my house to my ex-wife and lost my car to my ex-wife.
I left the country and live and work overseas now.
I left her because she would never admit it.
It was the lying.
It wasnt that I wasnt the father.
It took 4 yrs to break me down far enough to leave.
Called me a year or so later and asked if it was OK to come home.
I have no idea why that made sense at the time, but it did.
I married and had 3 kids.
The state took the kids and put them into a crisis home.
They had set up living arrangements with a member of the church for the child.
She agreed to go.
She had to attend Catholic school and church, and couldnt handle it anymore after something like 9 months.
Her craziness was ready to deliver.
The old lady couldnt take it anymore either.
They were planning on placing her in a group home in the next couple of months.
My wife and I looked at each other and decided right there, we had to help.
We contacted the church to find out what was true.
They confirmed everything I shared here (I left out all the traumatized teen girl lies).
Custody was easy to get because on paper I was still the father.
I remembered her, but she had zero recollection of me.
I totally wanted to hug her, but she was like a feral animal.
Good thing I brought a bag of homemade cookies.
It was insanely hard to live together for the first 3.5 yrs.
We have high expectations of our kids, but were fair as well.
Not a place where you feel insecure constantly is what Im getting at.
She tried to take advantage and got shut down right quick every time.
Shes still crazy as hell, but the lying is obviously knee-jerk and gets turned around quickly now.
Her risk-taking behavior is incredibly curbed compared to how she started and even curbed for most kids her age.
She started learning how to think critically and to care for herself.
Its been a wild ride.
Yeah, I got screwed for child support a couple times during that decade.
Those are the people who say you cant have a bank account for 5 yrs just because.
That happened twice, and both times they attached my wages as well for a few months.
I always sorted it out, but not without getting screwed hard first.
How did I know I wasnt the father?
Her mom and I are white.
The child is black.
Couldnt convince her to abort, accepted the fact I was having a kid.
I say yes Im happy to pay child support after a DNA test.
Small town…
Has taken me years to recover, not sure I actually have.
It has ruined other relationships that should have been amazing.
28 now and happened when I was 21.
I havent met anyone in person who I can even remotely relate with because of it.
Any woman who does this to a child and man should be ashamed.
The mental anguish can be horrible.
Got with a girl when she was young.
Had sex a couple of times and were together for about a month and a half then broke up.
9 months later I get a call that a baby was born and she was mine.
I met this tiny angel when she was 6 days old.
We get along great and everything is going well.
She finally tells me one morning that she has a confession.
Little one was born and she didnt look black so she went with it was mine.
We instantly broke up and she moved back in with her parents.
I ended up adopting her and now she is all mine.
Couldnt imagine my life any other way.
I found out my 3-year-old wasnt mine about a year ago- when she was two.
I wound up leaving the mother of the child and, for a time, the child.
I stayed broken up with the mother but I took her to court for visitation.
Now I have my daughter half the time and Ive never once regretted it.
The most challenging thing has been my families reaction.
Several members of my family strongly disagree with my decision which has created friction.
But at the end of the day, I respected their choices to be involved or not be involved.
Its just about the only thing I can truly say Im good at.
The whole ordeal has made it clear that biology, to me, is overrated.
Watching her step over an ant pile, look up at me and say We dont step on ants.
Theyre friends or listening to her exclaim Balls!
I came back to two envelopes.
One was my university results and the other was a DNA test.
I was sure the kid was mine and had put off the test for three years.
In the process of fighting against paying child support.
I know my confession isnt going to be popular around here, but its true.
Furthermore, found out the pregnancy wasnt accidental, but completely orchestrated to rope me into a marriage.
Also, she was fucking them and moving in with them.
After about three months of that, she moved across the country and disappeared.
He lives with his mom now.
I see him sometimes.
I was living as a single dad with full custody.
I had him till he was 8.
From pregnancy to the moment I held him at birth.
But I was 18.
I tried to do the right thing.
It kind of slowly destroyed me inside over years until I got a test done.
I guess it finalized my feelings.
But he isnt mine.
He should be with his mom.
He has a step dad and two brothers there.
He still calls me dad and he knows.
But I have no rights I am not legally a parent.
I see him when my mom takes him for visits sometimes.
I dont want him to think I abandoned him but I couldnt continue a life based on a lie.
A falsity that I would never have agreed to.
I kind if suspect to get downvoted to hell as people tend to scream how blood doesnt matter.
Its not about that.
Maybe I cant explain it, even to myself.
But this path feels like the right thing to do.
I have to believe my choices are right.
