A woman has revealed how a dark family secret concerning her younger brother’s paternity left her feeling sick to her stomach, after catching her mum in a lie.
The anonymous poster explained in a Reddit post that she and her sister began to question the paternity of their younger sibling after their parents’ divorce.
The woman shared: “When they got divorced, my mom acted completely insane, trying to get us and our children to abandon our dad and choose to have a relationship with her.”
She added: “Our dad said a few cryptic things out of frustration that made it clear he had big secrets and that he felt stuck watching her try to isolate us and not being able to tell us the truth about who she […] is as a person.”
In an unexpected turn of events, an old friend of their mother’s later had her first grandchild.
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The Reddit poster and her sister were invited to meet baby David and were immediately struck by the uncanny resemblance between the tot and their brother.
She noted: “That was almost two years ago. We knew, but we didn’t know.”
As suspicions grew about the paternity of their brother, the woman told her dad how upset she was that their mum seemed to favour him over her other siblings. He cryptically replied “that there was a reason for that, that he was her son,” she wrote, adding: “I said, ‘but she’s our mum too’.
The father explained that their mother “had her reasons and that he wishes he could tell us everything, but that it was the wrong thing to do”.
On a whim, she told her father that she was aware of their brother’s real dad, prompting him to share more details about their mother’s affair with a man named David.
The confirmation that her brother was born to another father left her stunned, leaving her in the uncomfortable predicament of choosing whether or not to tell her half-sibling the truth.
“We don’t want to ruin the relationships our brother had, but they are built on lies,” she wrote. “Now my brother is about to undergo an exploratory surgery based on a medical history that isn’t his.
“And I’m left wondering if it’s worse to have unnecessary surgery or to learn that your life and relationships are built on lies.”
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Other Reddit users were quick to chime in, with one writing: “Even if there’s a small change of something life-changing, they must know anyway.
“Family relations will sort itself out in some way with time. But medical needs might only take a minute to turn a life upside down for good.”
Another Redditor commented: “Amazing how parents can completely mess up their children’s lives through their selfishness.”
“Why is your dad continuing to protect your destructive mother’s secrets?” pondered another commentator.
One person simply added: “Not a good look.”
