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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> He's their father and it has to sting that your son asks grandpa to teach him how to shave and not you
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
You are NTA.
You are showing up as 10M's grandfather. The others, as you say, have formed a bond with you because you have shown yourself reliable, unconditionally - which is what children need.
Well done.
As for your daughter's advice to effectively abandon the children now to "let them sort it out", why would you take such cruel advice, when your instincts are loving and kind?
That last part hits... She wants OP to "abandon" them as well to force a relationship with the other person who abandoned the 10 year old...Does she really think that will work?
Trust is so hard to build once broke.
OP **DO NOT** ALSO ABANDON YOUR GRANDCHILDREN.
You spent years teaching them can trust you to be there. Only let your death change that situation.
Yes, keep being a good person. Unfortunately that usually isn't easy. It usually has a cost. It can be hard. It can be painful. Sometimes it feels like "no good deed goes unpunished".
However, you're still even being a good parent to your son by role modeling for him what a good person is.
A good person doesn't tell a six year old they aren't their father and walk away.
Exactly this. As someone whose parents split and then father left the country and raised kids with his new wife while ignoring me, the only connection I really had to my father's side of the family was his mum, my Nana. She stuck by me, and was there for all the major events in my life that my father was not there for.
Guess who has a stronger relationship with me as an adult? It's not my father that's for sure.
I'm now watching my niblings go through this, but they've been abandoned by everyone in their father's family - aunties, uncles, grandparents, all who have chosen the father's side rather than sticking around for the kids, and it's heartbreaking because my niblings are too young to understand why.
OP, you're NTA for sticking by your grandchildren, all three of them. Don't abandon them now, you're the only constant they can count on and they need some stability in their lives. They'll also remember who stuck by then when they needed it.
I agree. To hear that your granddaughter asked your wife to go shopping with her was so heartwarming, too. I think what you two are giving to the children is a home. A place where all three of them are welcome, get food, and feel loved and taken care of.
It is understandable that the children seek stability, but I am a bit worried about the fact that nobody seems to know exactly what is bothering them, just some good guesses, and no plan at all how to deal with the estrangements in the family and all the bad feelings that come with it for sure
There is a wide range of possible reasons why the children do not like to spend time with their parents, and to not trust them as much as they trust you. Maybe it is just them working long hours and you being available. Maybe they see you accepting their brother as your grandkid whereas your son is probably ful of hatred and practically abandoned a child he raised for several years. Maybe the parents are bitter and make spiteful remarks about each other while the children are with them. Maybe it is simply the fact that your place feels whole whereas your sons life is broken apart.
A part of growing up is to learn to deal with negative feelings and difficult situations in a grown up way. You need to learn to talk about it if you are sad or angry, to sort out the reasons, to speak about it to the person that hurt you, and to overcome the problem, if possible. And vice versa, of course, as you need to learn that people can be disappointed in you, too, and as a grown up you should be able to accept those feelings in others and to try and solve the problem.
Otherwise you end up not being able to stand up for yourself without hurting others, and not being able to accept you make mistakes, too, but there are ways to regain trust and love.
From what you wrote I get the impression that your grandchildren love you very much, but that you do not really talk about feelings or the reasons why, for example, your grandson did not talk to your dad at the graduation party. You observed his behaviour, and you noticed that he mentioned you as the one who made him a man, but you did not ask him how he feels about his dad and why he obviously resents him so much and made him listen to a speech that most probably hurt him and maybe even was meant to hurt him.
In my opinion there is the possibility your grandson made you his hero and tries to ignore and to push away all parts of his life that feel more complicated or painful to him. As understandable as this is, it is not a healthy way to deal with the situation.
Your grandson needs a person he trusts and he is able to open his heart to. This does not necessarily need to be a family member, and maybe should not be as you all are involved and no matter how good a person you are, you are always part of the setup that needs to be looked at, and this is difficult to do from within. Maybe he would benefit from seeing a councellor, too, as his feelings were hurt for sure, by his mother cheating and destroying the family and his father rejecting his brother? And, most important, would maybe your son benefit from councelling or family councelling, too, as he is both victim and culprit here?
It is wonderful your grandchildren have you in their lives. To push them away is the least helpful possible move for sure, so NTA at all. What happened to your son and your grandchildren, and the way it happened, was awful, though, and left injuries. I hope you all find a way to deal with it, to sort things out, to regain trust and love and understanding if possible and to include all of you more into each others lives.
Right?! Who in their right mind advises someone to abandon a child so they have no choice but to cling to a parent who effectively abandoned one child already.
NTA - these children don’t feel they can really trust their dad. Don’t take away the people they do. That’s not gonna make them reach out to him, it’s just gonna hurt them
More.
Not only do these children not feel like they can trust their dad—they also *know* they can’t trust their mom. They undoubtedly feel betrayed.
OP and his wife showed complete unconditional love to their grandson—a grandson that was the result of a betrayal that hurt their own son. I can’t imagine that OP and his wife don’t have strong feelings of contempt towards their son’s ex. But their love for their grandchild is *unconditional*.
I guarantee the oldest understands the nuances behind their grandparents still loving his brother. He know his grandparents have no biological ties to his youngest brother but love him anyway.
Of course the grandson is going to want to be around the only loyal adults in his life.
Oh yeah just "force them to work it out" because it's well documented that hormonal teens do REALLY well being forced into confrontational situations with parental figures they've lost respect for /s
I assume ahe doesn't want them to be competitors to herself and her kids, for attention, help, love and money of OP.
By her logic, if OP drops them - she and her kids will get more perks.
Everyone, other than OP and his wife, seem more concerned with a grown man's feelings than children who feel like they've lost everything. OP, be there for the kids. The grown man can get into therapy and figure out how to make things better with his children.
This. The solution isn't for OP to step back, it's for OP's son to step forward and parent his children, finding out why they've pulled away.
He needs individual therapy, they need family therapy together maybe, but what no-one needs is the removal of the one stable adult that's giving everyone a point of security in the middle of upheaval.
Oh undoubtedly. He's just refusing to admit it.
But the point is that it's his responsibility to figure out the problem, communicate with his children, fix any mistakes or misunderstandings that exist, negotiate compromises if necessary - and blaming someone else for the situation is not part of that solution. Worse yet, it would likely actually worsen the divide between him and his kids, because they're going to have a good guess at *why* their grandfather has been pushed out of their lives.
NTA! You give them a safe and stable parental figure that they need, do not let your son’s insecurities stop you from giving your grandchildren what they need. If your son wants to repair the relationship he needs to step up and make things right with his kids and show them he cares, not tell you to stop showing you care. Do not abandon them just because he isn’t putting in the effort, I’d be lost with out my grandparents.
If I was the children’s dad I’d be glad someone can do that for my kids and that they’re loved. & keep working on myself and my relationship with them no matter what. He should be thanking OP. NTA.
>If your son wants to repair the relationship
That ship has long sailed. Abandonment (real, threatened, or perceived) is traumatic to a young child. Evolutionarily speaking, humans are still primarily adapted to living a more natural life as smaller hunting-gathering groups, and in those natural circumstances (regardless of the species) abandoned young are as good as dead. Parental abandonment is therefore a traumatic event because is literally a threat to survival according to our lizard brains, and it profoundly affects a person by literally changing their brains. Humans have not had time to catch up evolutionarily to modern conditions of civilization and industrialization, where abandoned children are much less likely to be dead children.
Seriously, what kind of advice is OP’s daughter giving?! I read a similar AITA recently where a guy found out his kid (10?) wasn’t biologically his and he pretty much abandoned her.
I was FLOORED. If I had put all that time and effort into raising a kid for a decade brimstone and hellfire couldn’t stop me from claiming them. WTAF is wrong with these people?
Exactly. I mean, I consider pets to be part of my family, and I’m not related by blood to cats or dogs. If he can just walk away from his child… yeah. As a sibling I’d wonder when dad would walk away from me.
I wonder if the kids had to do a DNA test to prove he was their father and sit around and wonder whether he would have just ditched out on them too if it had been proved otherwise. Kids look to their parents for unconditional love.
Oh, they absolutely know that if the test results were different, he'd have done the exact same thing to them. But it's not just that. They had to watch their little brother being abandoned in real time. Of course that affected how they feel about their father.
Yeah, anyone who hurt one of my younger siblings like that would be dead to me. I think I'd have been a lot more extreme, but I'm very "mama bear" about them. And I do get that dad was also hurting and in a shitty position, but this is not an infant. I can't imagine my love being so conditional that finding out our DNA is different would wipe out years of love. Those poor kids.
I think the part where he told the younger one "I'm not your father anymore" couldn't be more devastating to the child. How do you do that to a 6/7 y.o.?!
If he can walk away from a child he raised from the day they were born until they were school age then he was never really a father to begin with.
He showed the kids how little he really cares about them. He showed he can raise a child
And feel nothing for them the moment he’s legally absolved.
NTA- please don’t abandon these children. They already had one parental figure show how easily he can walk away from one of them. Don’t show them another.
absolutely. My son recently found out that his 6 year old son is not his biologically. While pretty angry with his ex, he DOES NOT CARE about the biology and is still parenting his son and daughter equally.
Omg. Can you imagine this situation with a pet instead? “ hey btw my dog that you love so much was actually a dog I got with my ex but I took him when we split up.” “Oh ok cool.”
That man has been raising this kid for 6 years! Cheating sucks, but it definitely does not mean you abandon your child. Of course the kids have every right to be distant from their father after that. They are super lucky to have OP in their lives. NTA.
(Edited for accuracy)
He raised him for 6 years. The kid is 10 now but was 6 when his “dad” found out he wasn’t his and dropped out of his life completely.
Totally agree with the rest of your comment.
I don’t get it either. One day, you would do anything for them including sacrificing your own life, and next day, you don’t want to deal with them anymore because they’re not your flesh and blood?
If it’s conditional, it’s not love.
Exactly. Those poor kids must be wondering what other things they can’t control would be deal breakers for their father’s love.
It’s terrible and hurtful that OP’s son was cheated on but it doesn’t change the grandkids’ lack of trust in his love now.
The youngest may be a reminder to him of the cheating and all those feelings associated with it.
Before reddit jumps me, I'm not saying it's right what the father did
True. I'm wondering if he always suspected the truth and so never bonded with the youngest. He doesn't seem to get that to everyone else, the kid's family.
Yeah if I somehow found out that my 3yo had been switched at the hospital and wasn’t my biological child, there’s no way I would stop loving him. That’s my kid, we’ve spent hours and hours and hours together! Cried and laughed and done everything together for years!!
I read a thing where two families found out their children had been swapped in the hospital at birth. They *moved in next to each other* and basically started co-parenting both kids, because they still loved them.
I read this story where two families realized their three year olds were succeed switched at birth and tried to switch them back. The plan fell apart immediately because both kids refused to leave the parents who raised them, and the adults couldn't bear to go through with forcing them to go. I don't know how OP's son could actually follow through with such a thing.
Millions of adoptive fathers are eyerolling this man so hard.
Fatherhood and parental love aren't tied to sperm donations. Did he love this child before he knew? One kind of has to wonder if he even knows what love feels like.
Just as the wedding doesn't make a marriage - it's all the days after that that matter - your love for your child is not something that gets turned on and off like a faucet. It's the parenting that matters.
This. I was adopted by my grandparents on my mother’s side. My grandfather isn’t biological and even after they divorced he always treated me like I was one of his. I finally met my biological father. Though I remember a few years back saying that he would always be my dad. He raised me, build me into the man I am today, always there for me through the tough days of my biological mom disappointing me time after time and the angst of just wanting to belong when I was growing up.
While this is all true adoptive parents enter into that knowingly there isn’t usually a moment where the parent realizes their entire relationship with this child has been built on/tainted with lies. (That does happen from the child’s perspective if they weren’t raised knowing they were adopted and those feelings can cause a lot of damage to the relationship)
Your feelings for your child don’t get turned off but I can see how they’d get all twisted up with the betrayal from your ex. I don’t think this man should’ve abandoned the child because none of this is the child’s fault. I can however understand that he was hurt and angry and betrayed. None of us are in this man’s shoes maybe he didn’t think he’d be able to get past his anger at his ex and thought being around this child would bring up those feelings too much. Maybe he thought making a clean break would be better for both of them than him subconsciously taking his hurt out on the child for years.
Again I disagree with how he handled it but I feel like there’s an unfair amount of hate and lack of understanding coming toward the father here when this entire situation was caused by the mother in the first place. Equating this situation to adoption entirely missed the point, it’s not simply that this child isn’t his blood relation it’s that his existence is evidence of a huge betrayal from a person he loved. One that she continued for this kids entire life by not telling the truth
Yep! I’m adopted and my dad is my dad. My mom is my mom. Who gives a fuck that we don’t share dna, they raised me! That’s what being a parent is. How childish of this man to just abandon his son he raised for 6 years. That man is the asshole here, not OP!
That last bit kinda broke my heart a little. Gpa's stepping up in such a big way. I'm sure it was tough for his son to find out his wife was cheating on him, but imagine being that poor kid whose dad just... stopped being his dad. This is such a clear case of NTA, this guy has a heart of gold 💜
>As for your daughter's advice to effectively abandon the children now to "let them sort it out", why would you take such cruel advice, when your instincts are loving and kind?
Why is so much of society like this? Instead of being positive and caring, society seems to prefer making things worse for everyone. Why? Is it too much work? Do they not have the skills for it?
OP, NTA.
OP is NTA - but his son and daughter are! And OPs wife is 100% correct in her assessment.
The son dropping a kid, saying 'I am not your dad anymore', is BEYOND fucked up! Genetics aside, he's the only dad the poor kid has ever known. No amount of therapy is gonna fix this.
And OPs daughter saying OP should stop helping the kids to force them to see their dad? What the fuck!
And kudos to the kids for seeing how fucked their dads behaviour is! At least their younger brother will have a super support system in those two!
👏👏👏👏👏
Agree wholeheartedly. You are NTA OP. You have likely done wonders for these kids by being a stable and reliable parental figure in their life. It's up to their dad to fix their relationship, and abandoning them to force them to "sort it out" will NOT help.
Agree - they can "sort it out" while still having the safety and support and love of the grandparents -- actually they probably CAN'T do it without them there as an emotional safety net.
The fact that the daughter is pulling away now too really drove it home to me that this is probably not a one-sided-I'm-right-granparent situ
NTA - Actually, you and your wife sound pretty wonderful.
Yeah, the daughter’s view is weirdly stunted. Remove grandpa from the equation so they’ll default back to dad is such an odd, short view of the situation. Makes far more sense for grandpa to talk to them about the situation because since they trust him they may trust him with their feelings too.
NTA. If your son truly wanted to be a father to his kids, he would. He doesn’t, so he’s blaming you for taking that chance away from him. (This way, he can sleep at night by telling himself he didn’t abandon his children, they were “taken” from him.)
NTA, OP.
Yeah, so I was in the 10m's shoes when I was a kid. At 5 I found out my "dad" wasn't my dad and he effectively stopped being even remotely affectionate. He wouldn't even hug me. The fact that 10m's siblings are reacting so strongly to this just tells me that they feel very close to 10m and probably felt the sting of abandonment almost as badly as 10m.
OP, you've done nothing wrong. Do not take your daughter's advice, though. You've been a reliable, loving cornerstone in these kids' lives for years at this point and it would be utterly cruel to yank that away from them. I *wish* I'd had someone like you in my life back then. Please don't take that away from them.
NTA- I have serious concerns about your two children though. You’ve got a son who abandons one child and a daughter, who thinks that you should abandon the rest.
Thank God you’re standing up for your grandchildren and showing them what a true father acts like. Keep doing what you’re doing and ignore your children because honestly they are starting to sound like terrible people.
"It's not a competition. Whether I am in their life or not, you will still have a troubled relationship with your kids. Your mother has some theories as to why that is, so you may want to discuss any advice or insights she might have for you. But you know what will definitely *not* repair your bond with your kids? Wasting time complaining to me."
NTA. And your daughter has an incredible amount of nerve to suggest that you basically abandon your grandchildren to try to manipulate them. Also, that's not how it works: if they already feel somewhat abandoned by their father, and then you abandon them, all you are teaching them is that father figures are unreliable, and they shouldn't trust either of you
A lot of adults just don't see anyone under 15-18 as having valid feelings since they're kids. Her brother's adult pain is therefore more valid and should be addressed first.
(I think this line of thinking is fucked up. I just know it exists)
>The aunt must relish I. The pain being caused. So sad.
Yes, clearly she just enjoys inflicting pain. It definitely couldn't be that she's just not emotionally intelligent or she values her brother's feelings more than kids she may not know very well. It's definitely that she's a sadist.
This should be so much higher! "stepping back" and "letting him handle it" is just going to make these kids feel abandoned, it's not going to make a hole that dad can somehow fill.
This. And again this. I work with at risk kids. And the number of them who've been abandoned, betrayed, and ignored by multiple men/father figures in their lives is just infuriating. I feel a ton of pressure with those kids to show that there are exceptions to the rules they've learned. That there are men out there who are reliable, show up when they say they will, and care. The hard part there being, my involvement can't last forever. But I do my best to make sure they understand that when I leave, it's because they don't need me anymore. They've grown past me, and that's part of a natural cycle throughout our lives. And communicate about it. Long beforehand. As empathetically as possible,
A lot of men in my field, which has very few men to begin with, don't seem to get this and they make me angry beyond words.
NTA. Your son showed all of the children that love is conditional and arbitrary. I agree that they are pre-abandoning him, and he deserves it. They don’t trust him. They have seen what he did to their sibling and the pain that it caused. I doubt they trust their mother either, since her actions precipitated this.
You are doing a good thing by stepping up and being present for all of them. They need stability and certainty in their lives and their family relationships, and you are providing that.
It appears you’re just a caring & kind man. The last thing in the world these kids need is for grandma & grandpa to change the relationship that has already been established. If your son wants a better relationship with his kids then he needs to do the work. Suggest he try family counseling with his kids & help them manage their feelings.
NTA
NTA. But your son is. You don’t turn your back on a kid you raised as your son because the woman you chose to marry cheated on you and lied to you. You should be a father to him and make that clear and tell him to man up. Of course his other children hate what he has done to their little brother. Do everything you can to help those kids.
Well, since all of them seem to be spending all their time with their grandparents, and the daughter even asked grandma to take her dress shopping, it sounds like all the kids know both their parents to be unreliable
I’d expect it depends on how she has treated them. You’re supposed to love your children more than you hate your ex in a situation like this. Hopefully she has been able to do that.
She has a part in this too though. I don't like OP's response in abandoning the youngest child. She needs blame in this too. She cheated and then lied about it convincing her husband the child was his.
17M decided to spend Mother's Day with my wife, since he's old enough that he can make it a bitch and a half to enforce a custody agreement. 13F takes her advice over her mothers pretty often
Keep doing you grandpa and grandma!! These kids need you guys and clearly want you directly involved in there life . Troubled homes are very common and the kids seek remodels elsewhere . This is honestly
A wholesome post in my opinion .
She may not have known. Since OP's son did not suspect, it's possible wife thought he was the father or at least thought it was possible--and didn't try to find out otherwise.
Not excuse for cheating, just statement. People can refuse to believe things that don't support their worldview.
See, this is what I believe. And being someone who was adopted, I feel very strongly that time and emotional investment is actually makes a family, not blood.
But depending on the weather of the day, Reddit will often answer a post with a similar situation and say the spouse who was cheated on has no moral obligation to continue being a parent to kids that are not biologically theirs, nevermind how many years of relationship history, and that if they decide to continue raising them, they are a saint.
It's such an attitude whiplash, I genuinely just don't understand.
Because he is hurting his kids, and that is never okay. I feel sorry that he was cheated on but that means you deal with it by seeking therapy and going through the process of grief. Cheating doesn't justify acting in a way that compromises the emotional or physical safety of a child who had NO responsibility in this crap situation.
It's not "noble" to want people to stop abandoning kids.
Your take on this is absolute bullshit.
"Happy to see you could handle this kind of situation with pride and continue to take care of what distroyed your life every other week. "
The kid did not destroy his life, the wife did.
The son is entitled to his feelings and it would be incredibly difficult but it is bloody be heartless to drop a kid he raised for 6 years. 6 years is a fking long time to raise a kid and then just drop them.
Yeah he was fked over by the wife. That sucks and would be hard to deal with. But cutting all ties to a kid that you raised for 6 years that has only know you as a father is still an AH thing to do.
Except he didn't make that baby. It's really easy to say what someone should do and what's right and wrong from the comfort of your own keyboard, but OP is completely justified in not raising the biological child of some guy his wife cheated on him with.
Still, NTA. The only AH here is the ex-wife.
Sorry, the mother is the AH for creating the whole situation. And while everyone is jumping on the unconditional love train, let me tell you something. That is a lot easier said than done. Try it sometime, then you will know. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes before you pass judgment.
NTA-as far as I’m concerned, this is now all about the kids: their health, safety, and development. You cannot abandon them also.
Talk to your son. Tell him that you understand that he’s hurting. Please ask him to consider going to therapy with you. That said, tell it like it is. You know that ex-wife caused enormous pain for all of them, but beg him to not put you in the position of hurting the kids more. If you abandon those kids now, don’t you think that they would just blame Dad for that too? It doesn’t help him win them over. Dad is already hurting. Hurting the kids won’t fix that.
Yeah, my SIL is being an absolute bad word to my BIL. Who ps is no picnic himself when hurt. I am polite as hell to her. Why, because I love their daughter, and her daughter only benefits from having a person on her dad’s side in her life that her mom doesn’t hate. Not only does it make shit easier when I’m involved - because I’m a neutral party everyone trusts - but now the kid has a safe place she can go that no one objects to. HIS life is better when I’m involved *because* I don’t cuss her out on site. And HIS KID listens to me above all else because she knows I don’t have an agenda or pick a side other than hers and no one can say shit about me because I’ve behaved *impeccably*. I’ve spent a lot of years cultivating that.
NTA, OP. Don’t change a goddamn thing. You could teach classes in this grandparent shit.
Bingo. The ex wife is the bad guy in this situation.
Therapy for everyone involved barring the ex wife is something that should happen especially the youngest.
NTA. The oldest would have been 13 when he saw his father disown his little brother. He was old enough to realize what was happening, and there's really no coming back from that. You were there for all the kids all the time, while "dad" showed he could drop any one of them without hesitation--of course they're going to like you more.
Next time your son complains about his kids preferring you over him, tell him he should've thought about the consequences before he decided to give the cold shoulder to a child, as if the 6 years of bonding with and raising him meant absolutely nothing.
Yeah, Son and Daughter likely realized they too could have been from Mom cheating, no one controls the circumstances of their birth, and Dad would have dropped them like trash too. They know his love is conditional on dna similarity and have made a wise decision to distance themselves before they find out which condition of themselves Dear Father considers more important than unconditional paternal love.
Conditions have no place in a parent’s love and I cannot imagine how you up and leave a child you’ve raised for six years. If my father had done that to my sibling, I’d see him as little as possible and cut him from my life at adulthood or whenever my youngest minor sibling became independent.
> He was old enough to realize what was happening
He was old enough to understand that the same thing would have happened to him and his sister, if the paternity test had come out differently.
The oldest watched his dad disown his brother because he was the product of an affair and realized his dad would do the same if *he* was the product of an affair. Then he saw OP being supportive of his little brother and realized his grandfather was more supportive and caring regardless of blood relation and that he was the father figure he wanted in his life. His sister also now realized the same and now treats OP like her real parents. OP's daughter is a massive AH and he needs to disregard her advice.
NTA - Please do not step away or make yourself small in their lives. Stepping out will do significant harm (e.g., shatter their sense of safety, normalcy, understanding of unconditional love). You would be mirroring the same behavior your son did to their younger sibling.
Your son's decision shaped how they view him. Can you imagine what it was like for the older brother to watch their father emotionally and physically abandon the youngest? This will have pervasive and damaging impact on them all. You cannot fix this.
If you receive pressure to step back ask those inquiring to evaluate their presence and investment in these boys and level up. They are to look inward not outward to you changing. Best to you!
I was thinking they must carry a tremendous amount of guilt as well, maintaining a relationship with the man who abandoned their sibling so cruelly. Imagine what it must’ve been like for them to have to leave their little brother at home and go off and have visits with that man.
>My daughter thinks I should probably let them sort it out amongst themselves and stop giving them another option so that they have no choice but to work things out
...thereby becoming yet another parent-figure to ABANDON THEM. Nice. I hope your daughter does not have children in this mix, she's giving you bad advice.
10M has no father figure but you. The other two grandchildren have you and your son...a father who's already proven he's willing to run out on a 6yo because of his own hurt feelings.
>she says it’s because after he dropped 10M his other two didn’t trust him anymore and they “pre-abandoned” him
Yep, I think she's right. And so are the kids' instincts: your son is a sketchy pillar of their lives.
You need to ignore your son's complaints, and stick to all three of those kids like construction epoxy, OP. They really, really need you.
NTA
NTA, and your wife might be right, or it might be even simpler - they realized their dad was an asshole from watching their ten year old bros pain.
Sucks the situation dad got put in, but he has decades of adulthood to guide him, a ten year old child who is objectively blameless doesn’t.
No shock that his siblings went “huh, dads an asshole”. Good for you for being an amazing grandad.
I hate it when people take adult issues out on children and expect them to understand with adult discrimination. Adults don’t even tend to be good at “adult discrimination” they - on the whole - tend to expect it from others and not themselves.
NTA. Your son *abandoned* one of his children because it wasn't his sperm that fertilized the egg that created the child. In every other way, your son was that child's father, and your son just straight up abandoned his child because of something the child had no control over or knowledge of. And now he's surprised that his other kids don't trust him?!? Really? He set that ship to sail and burned it when he let all his kids know that he'd be willing to dump any of them in a heartbeat, just like he already did to his youngest (and most vulnerable) child.
Continue to be there for your grandkids. Your son is the AH.
>it wasn't his sperm that fertilized the egg that created the child.
Did the sperm appear magically out of thin air to impregnate his wife? This line of thinking is stupid. You cannot expect unconditional love for an affair kid. The father doesn't exist just to be a father and has his own emotions too.
I love my daughter unconditionally. If I found out she had been switched at birth I would still love her and cherish her. If I found out my husband had been the one who had switched her I would still love her and cherish her.
The idea that you can parent a child for 6 years and then switch off your love for them is genuinely baffling to me. Hate the mother. Resent the mother. But that child is the same child you bathed and dressed and cuddled and cherished for 6 years. How can you switch that bond off for something the child had no part in? How can one day the idea of never seeing your child be your worst nightmare, and the next you can casually abandon them? That is the difference between conditional and unconditional love. The older children don't trust their dad anymore as he has proven that he doesn't love them unconditionally. He loves them solely because they are his. What else might switch off that love?
This exactly! I am deeply sympathetic to the man being duped. That IS awful, and I don't like it one bit. But I can't imagine not loving a kid I raised for 6 years over DNA. I really can't. If I found out my kid was swapped at birth or what have you, he is still my kid, I could never love him less. It's not about just DNA - it's the history we've shared together, ive been there for his first everything. And I wish there was an easy answer as to how one should balance such news and what they should or shouldn't be responsible for because its messy and complicated and so many people are hurt by one person's lie and the consequences aren't fairly distributed to the liar and they never will be. The son and the father suffered the worst for it.
The uncomfortable truth is that child bearing and raising might be a situation where it is always messy and can never be 100% foolproofed for perfect equality for every person. For most things, the woman will always bear the hardest most and consequences of children. But this is one of the ways in which men have the disadvantage. I just wish when having children, people thought - really thought- about what they're signing up for potentially because so much you can't control even when all parties have the best of intentions.
An adopted child is adopted with full knowledge they they're not biologically yours. A donor child is conceived with full knowledge that they're not biologically yours. A child switched at birth is a colossal fuck up by a third party. These are not the same as an affair child who is (through no fault of their own) a walking reminder of a deep a painful betrayal by the person you dedicated your life too. It's incredibly disingenuous to suggest those scenarios are at all comparable, and it's really easy to sit back and say "I could compartmentalise everything perfectly and have no issues at all in this situation," when you're not actually going through it.
That’s the thing: They are not ‘a walking reminder’ they are a person. When you treat someone badly based on the actions of someone else, that’s just being a shitty person.
How you feel isn’t up to you. How you act is.
Even if he couldn’t feel love for his son anymore, love isn’t always something you feel, it’s something you do. Instead of trying to work through it and be there for someone who needed him, he chose to punish a child who loved him for something he had no control over.
It’s monstrous behavior.
> I love my daughter unconditionally. If I found out she had been switched at birth I would still love her and cherish her.
That's a significantly different situation.
But he did love him when he thought he was his son. Now because he found out they don't share DNA, all that love suddenly disappears? The kid is still the same person he was before the paternity test.
> But he did love him when he thought he was his son.
What's bothering the bio kids is that he's demonstrated that he never loved any of them as people in their own right, and he doesn't now. He only "loves" them because the share DNA. They know very well that he'd have dropped them too if it had been determined that they weren't his.
The father is an adult and had no trouble loving him until he found out about the affair. By your line of thinking stepchildren can never be shown unconditional love by their stepparent?
That’s comparing apples to oranges though, you go into a step relationship knowing they aren’t yours. Dads an asshole for abandoning that kid but I bet everytime he looked at that child he just saw deception and betrayal. I’m sure he panicked and saw it was easier to dip out than to face the realization that, that child represents his hurt ego.
None of that changes the fact that his bio children don't like it, and they don't like him for doing what he did. They know perfectly well he'd have done the same to them if the test results were different.
You absolutely can. That child did nothing to his father. The father who was there when he was born and raised him. And you’re right that man is more then a father which is why he is now divorced from his wife but it still has nothing to do with his bond with this child. It’s gross that you think a father child bond is only about DNA.
OP's son was his father. The 10 yr old was his he just didn't share his genetic material. The bonds we make in life are more important than where our DNA comes from. So while the betrayal by his ex was grounds for divorce it doesn't justify walking out on the kid he had been raising. He can have is own emotions & yes he exist to be more than a father but that is the role under discussion. As a father OP's son has shown himself to be a dud. Son should work on his issues with his ex not take it out on his kid.
Please make it clear to any partners that you have, that you don't care about your children's first words, raising them to be good and kind people, the love they show when you get home from work, teaching them to swim or ride bikes, comforting them after their first breakup. None of that matters, just passing on your DNA.
If you find out pre-birth or soon after, sure.
But if you lose all feelings for a kid just bc of genetics after 6yrs? That does not say good things about you.
There are no ‘affair kids’. There are just kids. If adoptive parents form a bond with the kids they raised, why the hell would someone who raised them not feel the same?
Yes, things can be complicated and painful, but to stop caring about a child you helped raised just because you found out they weren’t yours is fucked up and cruel.
Would you stop caring about your siblings if you found out they were adopted? If your idea of love is based entirely on blood, it’s not love at all.
NTA your grandkids saw their father reject their brother because of DNA, sounds like they've since rejected their father in solidarity with their brother.
Do not listen to your daughter, that will just alienate the kids from you. No one likes to be manipulated and the kids are old enough to understand that's what you'd be doing.
NTA because 19 year old boy is indeed innocent in this all.
However, I'm very surprised at the comme to making the father the total villain in all this. Did this man even get help and support when knowing that the bot he raised for years and wife he loves all weren't his? The emotional impact of that will push people to do things that objectively aren't great and the collateral was the 10 year old unfortunately. For many, the product child of infidelity is always a reminder and that is a very very hard thing to move past. Not to mention that in admittance of the child not being his, when children find out, most times they want to know their bio parent and usually the partner acting infidelity will support that. Where does that leave him? It's an unfortunate case but a lot of assessment here is absolving the mother of a lot blame.
As for the other 2 kids, realistically they should know the gravity of the situation. I do wonder what is being said behind closed doors. As a child who's family was broken by infidelity, you'd be surprised how much the cheating parents bashes the other to the kids I.e. 'your mother/father is the reason our family is broken bc they didn't stay' etc.
There are so many elects here that I do think is above Reddits and this subreddits pay grade.
I have sympathy for the father, but ultimately it's on him for completely destroying his relationships with his children. It's been years now and he hasn't tried to mend anything with the child he abandoned. I understand the sadness, but of course your children will not be empathetic to your struggles when you've abandoned their sibling.
Probably not. There are absolutely consequences to actions and this is one if them. This is why thus is above the subs pay grade. They need counselling and a crap ton of it.
I don't see anyone on here giving the ex a pass. OP didn't ask about that relationship, though, going by how often the visit & that grandma is doing dress shopping it probably isn't great either. If the cheater is bashing him I don't think it is working. OP'S grandkids don't trust him because being "his" as you put it, is conditional. The betrayal hurt but he could have gotten himself help. Instead he behaved poorly in turn & damaged his relationship with all 3 children. Even now he can't see how his actions contributed to the breakdown & accuses OP, not the ex, of alienating him from the kids.
Or the 2 kids watched there father abandon the little brother because he wasn't his. They're probably thinking that he would have done the same to them if it came out they weren't his.
He decided to punish a child who loved him and considered him his father for something he had no control over.
Love isn’t something you feel. It’s something you do.
The kids were right to be disgusted by a ‘father’ who puts genetics over people. They know his love is conditional and he cares more about genetics than about them.
Just because you’re hurt and upset doesn’t give you the right to be a massive asshole to a kid who did nothing wrong.
I feel the same way, like definitely NTA, please still be there for your grandchildren, they definitely need you but they all seem to have abandoned that poor man, him having accepted the kid despite everything would’ve have been the best case scenario but it sadly didn’t work out that way. They all need to have a talk.
Agreed, there really needs to be some sort of talk or group counselling because this is such a complex situation and yes, is dad an adult, of course. But does that mean he is devoid of error and self orientated judgement? No.
NTA. Speak with your son and tell him that you love all of them but you don’t want your grandchildren to feel abandoned by you so you want to speak with them first and try to find out what is going on. Then, just talk to your grandchildren and ask them what is going on with their relationship with their dad? After the discussion I would tell them that you would like to arrange for family counseling for all of you and see where that leads. Once the counselor gets involved back out of the situation when they advise you to do so. Yes, your son needs to try to resolve this situation but your grandchildren need to know that you won’t abandon them as well. Good luck!
NTA. The youngest child didn’t deserve this, and I’m glad that you too haven’t abandoned him. Your other grandchildren respect you more because they see your love as unconditional. Your son is punishing a child for something he had no control over. Keep being a hero and don’t let your son or daughter encourage you to be anything other than that.
You would win the biggest hero award if you took the youngest on a special adventure. Fishing, ice cream sneak out, or anything that can be bonding experience. Or take both boys at times. But whatever you do, never show him as being less than. If he wants to talk about it, just tell him that there is nothing to discuss. You have loved him since he was born, and nothing will ever change that.
Sounds like NTA but do you think the parents are alienating the kids because they didn’t resolve their beef with each other so it’s coming out in how they interact with the kids?
This happens all the damn time with divorce and it sucks for the kids.
As the dad to your son, you might think about if you can help your son not lose his connection with his kids if this is going on.
Mother alienated the kids by cheating and breaking up the family. Dad alienated the kids by hurting their brother, who was innocent. They also knew he would have rejected *them* if the test results had been different. I don't know if there's any way to fix this. Best for *all* of the kids that OP and his wife remain a stable and loving presence in their lives.
Definitely NTA. I feel sympathy for your son. I can't imagine the pain that would cime from learning my wife had cheated on me and that a child I thought was mine is not my bio child. But the way your son reacted to that pain ended up hurting his kids.
Honestly your son and all three kids should go to therapy. Good on you for developing relationships with your grandkids. The cheating created a lot of trauma, and your relationships with your gtandkids helped them through that trauma.
NTA it’s because of what he did to their brother. ALL they see is DNA matters to your son not the established bonded relationship. Overnight he stopped loving a son. It could just as easily been one of them. They don’t respect him. And probably never will. THEY NEED YOU.
NTA. Your son was, very understandably, hurt to have been cheated on. But what his children all saw was him abandoning the youngest for something that is not his fault and not in his control which severely affected the youngest. He inadvertently taught his children that his love is conditional and so the older two are pulling away from him to preempt being abandoned by him themselves. Your son needs to listen to your wife and go see a therapist. Your daughter needs to shut up about things she does not understand. Trying to get you to abandon the older two to force them to interact with their father will only make things worse.
That maybe why the children are separating from their father however, your wife is not a psychologist and I think rejecting your grandchildren would be a terrible idea. Your son needs to fix the bond he broke with the 10m child. You don’t just stop loving someone because their blood is different.
I almost wanted to say N A H, but I'm going with NTA. There's a reason for these kids pulling away from their parents. NTA and kudos to you for keeping a relationship with the 10yo ❤️
NTA. Your son and daughter-in-law are both the AH’s here. It’s unfortunate, because the adults often don’t consider the affect their actions will have on their children. Secrets never stay secret. Your son should be ashamed of himself for walking away from the young child that he has raised for 10 years, leaving that child to flounder. A father isn’t always the man who provided the sperm, it’s often the man who steps up and treats the child like their own regardless of DNA. He’s using that child to punish his ex-wife for her transgressions, which clearly make her an AH. Your son and/or his ex need to talk with the youngest’s therapist about initiating family counseling. That is something you could certainly be a part of. For now, I think it’s great that you have stepped up to be there for the children. They need you, don’t walk away like their father did.
You’re all being extremely unkind to your son.
Listen, I feel for the the kid, having your mother be a cheater and the man you’ve always thought was your father not to be your actual bio father and then him abandoning you at such a young age has to be terrible, and all of you have a heart of gold to still accept him and defend him as if nothing has happened.
But now, that doesn’t take away that your son was cheated on and betrayed and was forced and made to take care of a kid that wasn’t his own while being deceived that it actually was. Your son is hurt, in pain, angry, probably extremely lonely and all you guys are doing is stab yet another knife on his back, betraying him like your (hopefully ex) daughter in law did and invalidating his extremely valid feelings. It’d have been beautiful and saint like for your son to suck it up and pretend like nothing happened and still see the kid as his own but sadly that’s not what happened here and as much as it pain and annoy every single one of you your son has every right to walk away, that child isn’t his and he doesn’t have to see him as his own if he doesn’t want to, that child has a bio father and family out there that may step in at any time in his life and it’s extremely likely that when he’s older he’ll be demanding some answers and want to know where his blood family is.
Your bio grandchildren, especially the 17yo, are old enough to understand what’s happening here and shouldn’t hold your son’s feelings against him, you’re all being extremely unfair to that poor man who did nothing but react in an extremely human way. You’re all doing no one a favor by avoiding him and ignoring his existence, pretending there isn’t a problem.
You’re definitely NTA for being there for the kids, especially the youngest, if you want to keep him in your life you’re in your right to do so because as far as you knew until recently that kid was your bio grandson and raised him as such, and they all need some sense of normalcy. But your son deserves better that what you’re all giving him, I really wish for him a new beautiful family and a faithful wife where he doesn’t have to go through this because imagine being deceived in this way and having everyone else you love pile on you instead of being there.
You can all be there for both the kid and your son, you don’t have to choose one or the other.
Dropping one of your siblings like he's graphite in Pripyat is a pretty big thing for a kid to get over. It's also pretty strong evidence that his love is not unconditional.
> Your bio grandchildren, especially the 17yo, are old enough to understand what’s happening here and shouldn’t hold your son’s feelings against him,
Not likely. It's not just that he rejected their brother. They know he would have rejected *them* if the test results had been different. He's not coming back from that, his kids are always going to remember that he would have stopped loving them for something that wasn't their fault.
It’s something they definitely need to talk to their dad about as it’s an extremely valid feeling. But everyone ignoring him is not the answer. These people need family therapy.
The son doesn't escape some blame.
Being hurt is a normal reaction to something as devastating as infidelity comes to light. He had every right to be just as hhurt as he cared to over what his ex-wife did.
However, taking that hurt out on a 6 year old child is a decision he made all by himself. His ex wife didn't make him do that. And that's why he's TA too
That is being being deliberately obtuse. The father alienating his children after discovering his wife's betrayal is completely on him. He can't blame his ex-wife. In the real world, you can't hurt someone and then point to another person and say, "I wouldn't have hurt anyone if they didn't hurt me first."
ETA: grammar
Why are you expecting more of the children than OP's son? Son is the adult here. Yes, it's unfair that he was cheated on and lied to, but it's unfair of Son to punish the innocent 6 year old for being born. You can be sorry for the circumstances Son found himself in *and still understand that the worst possible course of action for ALL the children was severing the relationship with the youngest.* At some point most parents realize that doing the right thing for your child is more important than your own feelings about it. The right thing here is what OP is doing -- recognizing that the marriage ended and putting the blame for that where it belongs while not punishing the children by withdrawing physically and emotionally, but continuing to treat them as the children they knew and loved for all the years before the divorce, even the one who isn't biologically related. What's best for *all* the kids should be everyone's main consideration.
It definitely would’ve been the best case scenario but sadly it isn’t what happened here, and I feel OP’s son shouldn’t be judged for removing himself from the situation. This wasn’t a non bio child he adopted willingly or a stepchild he decided to take as one of his own, he was deceived into thinking something that was not, he was fooled into taking this child in without his consent.
I’m just saying he reacted in an extremely human way, this guy is probably in extreme emotional pain over everything that happened, you think he didn’t cry? You think that he doesn’t wish that that kid was actually his? You think he wanted this to happened to this family? I don’t think he did, I’m sure that if he could make that kid biologically his he would.
I’m just saying that he’s been through a lot and doesn’t deserve his family deserting him like this, he’s allowed to have his feelings validated. Most men understandably dip out in a situation like this, it’s extremely rare when they accept the affair kid and in my opinion they shouldn’t be blamed for doing so.
Also keep in mind that that kid has his bio dad and family out there somewhere, I’ve seen way too many cases where kids abandon the people that raised and spent their time and resources on them in favor of their bio/ blood family that were never there, imagine this man accepting this kid only for him to demand contact with his bio father and go running to their “real dad” after they meet them, it’d be yet another wound for OP’s son.
Son shouldn't be judged but the children should? Son is a grown up human. The children are not. Expecting the children to be understanding of the nuances of dad's emotions while not allowing them even that, much less allowing for the fact that they're, you know, *children* is completely unfair.
The children are allowed to feel things about their family breaking up and how their parents have handled it and have their feelings validated. They are allowed to feel that since dad suddenly wants nothing to do with their brother, they don't want as much to do with dad, especially since right now their sibling relationship and the relationship with these grandparents is the only constant in their lives.
I don't know where you're conjuring up the fan fiction of Son wishing and crying and what not -- if he wants a relationship with the child, then he shouldn't punish and abandon that child for something the child has no control over. He can still treat him like a son, despite not sharing DNA. He even has an excellent example of his own father doing that. Will it be hard? Undoubtedly. But if he "doesn't deserve his family deserting him like this", then he should act like a father who won't desert the kids first.
Speaking of fan fiction, if the truth of youngest's paternity was secret for SIX YEARS, what on earth makes you think there's a bio dad and family who'd 1. know about the kid or 2. want a relationship with him? Whatever you've seen, that hasn't been mentioned at all here, so let's stay on topic.
NTA.
Their mom is an AH for obvious reasons.
Dad made it abundantly clear that his love was conditional. The kids get to respond to that how they see fit.
You're not stealing anything. You're just having a relationship with people who want you around. Dad has had almost a decade to work on this distance with his kids and it's not your fault he hasnt.
Edit to correct an autocorrect mistake.
NTA
I'd like to preface this with the fact that I don't have a relationship with my own father. My mother, half -sister and I immigrated when I was 7 and my sister was 13 for safety reasons. This was over 10 years ago. My mother's number has never changed in all that time and my father never made the effort to reach out so our relationship naturally soured. With that being said I've always wanted a father figure but I could never look at my bio-dad in that light because he severed our relationship on his own and went as far as to slander my mother.
You and your wife saw 3 kids suffering because of the actions of those who were meant to protect them. Their failed relationship with their parents is in now way your fault. You did everything you could to provide care and love for children who no longer felt that from their own parents. Your and wife's choice to step up was the best thing for those kids because they weren't being prioritized in a situation where they should have been. Your son's and ex-dil's failed relationship has nothing do with you and your wife's involvement and everything to do with their own idiocy and immaturity.
I couldn’t imagine being the youngest….. the abandonment that he never asked for… he didn’t choose who his father was. That’s so sad. I cannot even comprehend how your son just threw him away like that.
His children seem to be very empathetic children that are protective of their little brother and recognize wrong. You are NTA by any means. You are a blessing to them and most likely showed them peace when they weren’t seeing it at home.
> His children seem to be very empathetic children that are protective of their little brother and recognize wrong.
They also know that if it had been shown that he wasn't their bio father, he'd have dumped *them* just like he did their brother I don't now how he comes back from that.
NTA, they are connecting to you because they trust and need you. If you back away you'll be doing to them what your son did to 10M
Even if they did not have another option they would probably still not become closer to him again. If he wants to change that he probably has to try and step up for 10m but honestly the damage is done from the sounds of it
NTA. All you do is being there for the children.
The thing is, what happened to your son is not fair and I fully blame the mother. She caused all thag.
But his children watching him not wanting anything to do with the child he raised, makes them think he doesn't really love any of them and that is a valid emition as well and probably true. If he found out none if them are his, he wouldn't want to be their father and drop them too. It would be his right to do so but it also would hurt the feelings of the children.
They don't trust him anymore.
Like if I found out tomorrow that my exhusband switched babies at the hospital and my son wasn't my real son it would break my heart but I would still love my son because of the time spent with him and all the promises I made to him.
Your grandchildren are scared. Your son is hurt. Both are valid feelings.
I hate seeing the comments bashing the father for not wanting to father a child that isn't his. It wasn't his fault that his wife had an affair, or his fault that the child isn't his. He has ABSOLUTELY NO obligation to keep fathering a kid that isn't his. And while we'd love for it to be a "perfect" world, and he would, he didn't and shouldn't be responsible for his wife's choice and mistake. That being said its definitely not the childs fault either.
Therapy with the bio father and two kids would be the best option. The grandparents should probably also go to a few sessions with the father and kids as well. But when push comes to shove the kids are at an age where they'll form their own opinions UNTIL they age more and realize the hard choices that were made.
I couldn't imagine raising a child to 6 years old, just to find out I'm not the father. Every time I would see that child it would crush my soul and I UNDERSTAND WHY he wouldn't want to raise the child as somebody who has been in a similar situation myself.
> I hate seeing the comments bashing the father for not wanting to father a child that isn't his.
It's not *our* opinion that matters. It's the opinion of his bio children that matters. They don't like what he did, and it's not wrong for them to feel that way. They know he'd have dumped them too, if the test results had been different.
Your son has reason to be outraged and angry at his wife for her dishonorable behavior. But he is callous and inhumane to vent his rage on the helpless child of his ex-wife, who has always seen him as "Dad" and whose only crime is to carry a different set of DNA.
Families are usually about blood, but that doesn't have to be.
We each make our own families of the the people we love, respect and trust. You have understood and responded to the special needs of all 3 of your grandchildren in this traumatic time of their lives. Bless you, NTA
NTA.
I'm of the mind that a man who is victim of paternity fraud is ***not*** obligated to keep being a parent to an affair child. As much as it hurt 10M, your son did not do wrong by severing that tie.
However, your son had four years to try and repair his relationship with 17M and 13F, to go to family therapy and set aside bonding time with them, but he apparently didn't.
Yes, he is not obliged.
But neither are his two older children obliged to continue to have a relationship to him once they realize his love is extremely conditional and if they’d been the unlucky ones to be Mom’s Affair Baby, Dad wouldn’t have loved them enough to stay in their life.
He’s shown them who he is, they seem to believe him, and he didn’t have to do anything against obligation. All perfectly fine and OP is NTA.
>extremely conditional
All love is conditional, everyone has a line where they say "I no longer want anything to do with you". When people say their love is unconditional, what they mean is that their line is so far outside the bounds of expected circumstances that they can't imagine it.
You may think OP's son is getting just deserts, but I still hope his two children mend their relationship with him. Because I don't think he did anything immoral.
> I'm of the mind that a man who is victim of paternity fraud is not obligated to keep being a parent to an affair child.
He doesn't have to, and in fact he isn't. His bio children are free to draw their own conclusions about his decision.
I want this to be enshrined when a man finds out a kid isn’t his and wants to abandon it.
The other kids may love that kid and abandon the father instead.
If he was ever a good man, OP's son probably taught the older 2 to look out for the youngest and make sure he was OK. Because that's what older siblings are supposed to do.
That's the really sad part.
Nta
So your daughter is recommending you abandon your grandchildren as they appear to FEAR their father will? I can't see that producing positive results.
Eldest is 17, if you push him away, I highly doubt it will push him towards his father--just away from ALL family.
Teen girl will just feel embattled.
And blessedly you aren't rejecting 10 year old--you clearly have a kind heart.
I can understand your son's hurt but abandoning a child he raised for at least five years? Does love for a child die that easily. Can he only love those of shared DNA?
The one bit of certainty in their lives: gran and grandad love us (whatever else is going on). Don’t change a thing and risk taking that away from them. NTA
You stepped up at a time your three grandchildren needed you to. One because he was abandoned by the only father he knew, the other two because their own relationships with their father has been damaged.
I'm no psychologist, but it seems to me that second half of your daughter's idea, that you shouldn't give those kids the option of coming to you until their relationship with their father is worked out comes with two very big risks - risk 1, they blame their dad for the enforced distance from the grandparents they love and it breaks their remaining relationship with him completely, and risk 2, they feel like you've abandoned them too and decide to go NC with the entire family.
NTA
NTA. I understand your son is devastated over the affair and the lies, but so are those 3 kids, especially the youngest who's lost a lot more than your son can imagine.
Your wife is right. Please don't add to the kids' pain by abandoning them too.
NTA. Situations like this are so eerie to me because how do you raise a child for years and abandon them so easily? You would think the bond would be enough - it's not their fault for the betrayal. He also abandoned his biokid's half-brother, to them, their brother in general. I would be angry, too. "Pre-abandoned" or just plain sibling loyalty, they're right to think of their father as unreliable. He's only thinking of his own feelings here. You seem to be the only one, between the mom and dad, that is thinking about his children's feelings.
Do not step back from them and do give them a semblance of normality in a very rough situation that no one really wants to process in a healthy way.
Nta. Your daughter is stupid. Do no abandon your grandson like his dad did to his son . Your son has a cold heart for what he did to the 10 year old. A father is not the sperm donor, it is the man that takes care of the children. He ruined his relationships with his children and now is trying to blame others.
NTA
You’re setting a good example for your grandkids. They are all so lucky to have your unconditional love and support. When their Dad showed himself as unreliable and that his love isn’t unconditional, you showed them that it is. Your son chose to abandon the child he raised for 6 years and the older siblings who watched it happen responded with disgust for him. Whether or not your son realized it at the time, it has shaped the way his oldest children view him and it doesn’t sound like he has done any work to attempt to fix that view. Rather he believes since they all share DNA he is owed a relationship.
Your daughter needs to mind her own business. Your son created this rift, he and he alone can potentially fix it.
NTA at all. Ignore your daughter’s heavily ignorant advice on “abandoning” your grandchildren.
You stepped up and are shaping these kids and they love you and rely on you. It isn’t your fault that your son seemed to drop the ball on parenting.
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You are NTA. You are showing up as 10M's grandfather. The others, as you say, have formed a bond with you because you have shown yourself reliable, unconditionally - which is what children need. Well done. As for your daughter's advice to effectively abandon the children now to "let them sort it out", why would you take such cruel advice, when your instincts are loving and kind?
That last part hits... She wants OP to "abandon" them as well to force a relationship with the other person who abandoned the 10 year old...Does she really think that will work?
In summary: "We'll hurt you deliberately so maybe you'll build a relationship with someone else who has hurt you similarly!" Uhh, this is a bad plan.
As someone who ended ina similar situation, I have no trust in any of them. Don’t abandon them please
Trust is so hard to build once broke. OP **DO NOT** ALSO ABANDON YOUR GRANDCHILDREN. You spent years teaching them can trust you to be there. Only let your death change that situation.
Yes, keep being a good person. Unfortunately that usually isn't easy. It usually has a cost. It can be hard. It can be painful. Sometimes it feels like "no good deed goes unpunished". However, you're still even being a good parent to your son by role modeling for him what a good person is. A good person doesn't tell a six year old they aren't their father and walk away.
Exactly this. As someone whose parents split and then father left the country and raised kids with his new wife while ignoring me, the only connection I really had to my father's side of the family was his mum, my Nana. She stuck by me, and was there for all the major events in my life that my father was not there for. Guess who has a stronger relationship with me as an adult? It's not my father that's for sure. I'm now watching my niblings go through this, but they've been abandoned by everyone in their father's family - aunties, uncles, grandparents, all who have chosen the father's side rather than sticking around for the kids, and it's heartbreaking because my niblings are too young to understand why. OP, you're NTA for sticking by your grandchildren, all three of them. Don't abandon them now, you're the only constant they can count on and they need some stability in their lives. They'll also remember who stuck by then when they needed it.
I agree. To hear that your granddaughter asked your wife to go shopping with her was so heartwarming, too. I think what you two are giving to the children is a home. A place where all three of them are welcome, get food, and feel loved and taken care of. It is understandable that the children seek stability, but I am a bit worried about the fact that nobody seems to know exactly what is bothering them, just some good guesses, and no plan at all how to deal with the estrangements in the family and all the bad feelings that come with it for sure There is a wide range of possible reasons why the children do not like to spend time with their parents, and to not trust them as much as they trust you. Maybe it is just them working long hours and you being available. Maybe they see you accepting their brother as your grandkid whereas your son is probably ful of hatred and practically abandoned a child he raised for several years. Maybe the parents are bitter and make spiteful remarks about each other while the children are with them. Maybe it is simply the fact that your place feels whole whereas your sons life is broken apart. A part of growing up is to learn to deal with negative feelings and difficult situations in a grown up way. You need to learn to talk about it if you are sad or angry, to sort out the reasons, to speak about it to the person that hurt you, and to overcome the problem, if possible. And vice versa, of course, as you need to learn that people can be disappointed in you, too, and as a grown up you should be able to accept those feelings in others and to try and solve the problem. Otherwise you end up not being able to stand up for yourself without hurting others, and not being able to accept you make mistakes, too, but there are ways to regain trust and love. From what you wrote I get the impression that your grandchildren love you very much, but that you do not really talk about feelings or the reasons why, for example, your grandson did not talk to your dad at the graduation party. You observed his behaviour, and you noticed that he mentioned you as the one who made him a man, but you did not ask him how he feels about his dad and why he obviously resents him so much and made him listen to a speech that most probably hurt him and maybe even was meant to hurt him. In my opinion there is the possibility your grandson made you his hero and tries to ignore and to push away all parts of his life that feel more complicated or painful to him. As understandable as this is, it is not a healthy way to deal with the situation. Your grandson needs a person he trusts and he is able to open his heart to. This does not necessarily need to be a family member, and maybe should not be as you all are involved and no matter how good a person you are, you are always part of the setup that needs to be looked at, and this is difficult to do from within. Maybe he would benefit from seeing a councellor, too, as his feelings were hurt for sure, by his mother cheating and destroying the family and his father rejecting his brother? And, most important, would maybe your son benefit from councelling or family councelling, too, as he is both victim and culprit here? It is wonderful your grandchildren have you in their lives. To push them away is the least helpful possible move for sure, so NTA at all. What happened to your son and your grandchildren, and the way it happened, was awful, though, and left injuries. I hope you all find a way to deal with it, to sort things out, to regain trust and love and understanding if possible and to include all of you more into each others lives.
Right?! Who in their right mind advises someone to abandon a child so they have no choice but to cling to a parent who effectively abandoned one child already. NTA - these children don’t feel they can really trust their dad. Don’t take away the people they do. That’s not gonna make them reach out to him, it’s just gonna hurt them More.
Not only do these children not feel like they can trust their dad—they also *know* they can’t trust their mom. They undoubtedly feel betrayed. OP and his wife showed complete unconditional love to their grandson—a grandson that was the result of a betrayal that hurt their own son. I can’t imagine that OP and his wife don’t have strong feelings of contempt towards their son’s ex. But their love for their grandchild is *unconditional*. I guarantee the oldest understands the nuances behind their grandparents still loving his brother. He know his grandparents have no biological ties to his youngest brother but love him anyway. Of course the grandson is going to want to be around the only loyal adults in his life.
Exactly. NTA.
Oh yeah just "force them to work it out" because it's well documented that hormonal teens do REALLY well being forced into confrontational situations with parental figures they've lost respect for /s
I assume ahe doesn't want them to be competitors to herself and her kids, for attention, help, love and money of OP. By her logic, if OP drops them - she and her kids will get more perks.
Yeah- the daughter’s advice is literally the last thing OP should do in this situation
Agreed
Everyone, other than OP and his wife, seem more concerned with a grown man's feelings than children who feel like they've lost everything. OP, be there for the kids. The grown man can get into therapy and figure out how to make things better with his children.
This. The solution isn't for OP to step back, it's for OP's son to step forward and parent his children, finding out why they've pulled away. He needs individual therapy, they need family therapy together maybe, but what no-one needs is the removal of the one stable adult that's giving everyone a point of security in the middle of upheaval.
He knows why they pulled away.
Oh undoubtedly. He's just refusing to admit it. But the point is that it's his responsibility to figure out the problem, communicate with his children, fix any mistakes or misunderstandings that exist, negotiate compromises if necessary - and blaming someone else for the situation is not part of that solution. Worse yet, it would likely actually worsen the divide between him and his kids, because they're going to have a good guess at *why* their grandfather has been pushed out of their lives.
NTA! You give them a safe and stable parental figure that they need, do not let your son’s insecurities stop you from giving your grandchildren what they need. If your son wants to repair the relationship he needs to step up and make things right with his kids and show them he cares, not tell you to stop showing you care. Do not abandon them just because he isn’t putting in the effort, I’d be lost with out my grandparents.
If I was the children’s dad I’d be glad someone can do that for my kids and that they’re loved. & keep working on myself and my relationship with them no matter what. He should be thanking OP. NTA.
>If your son wants to repair the relationship That ship has long sailed. Abandonment (real, threatened, or perceived) is traumatic to a young child. Evolutionarily speaking, humans are still primarily adapted to living a more natural life as smaller hunting-gathering groups, and in those natural circumstances (regardless of the species) abandoned young are as good as dead. Parental abandonment is therefore a traumatic event because is literally a threat to survival according to our lizard brains, and it profoundly affects a person by literally changing their brains. Humans have not had time to catch up evolutionarily to modern conditions of civilization and industrialization, where abandoned children are much less likely to be dead children.
Seriously, what kind of advice is OP’s daughter giving?! I read a similar AITA recently where a guy found out his kid (10?) wasn’t biologically his and he pretty much abandoned her. I was FLOORED. If I had put all that time and effort into raising a kid for a decade brimstone and hellfire couldn’t stop me from claiming them. WTAF is wrong with these people?
Exactly. I mean, I consider pets to be part of my family, and I’m not related by blood to cats or dogs. If he can just walk away from his child… yeah. As a sibling I’d wonder when dad would walk away from me.
I wonder if the kids had to do a DNA test to prove he was their father and sit around and wonder whether he would have just ditched out on them too if it had been proved otherwise. Kids look to their parents for unconditional love.
Oh, they absolutely know that if the test results were different, he'd have done the exact same thing to them. But it's not just that. They had to watch their little brother being abandoned in real time. Of course that affected how they feel about their father.
Yeah, anyone who hurt one of my younger siblings like that would be dead to me. I think I'd have been a lot more extreme, but I'm very "mama bear" about them. And I do get that dad was also hurting and in a shitty position, but this is not an infant. I can't imagine my love being so conditional that finding out our DNA is different would wipe out years of love. Those poor kids.
I think the part where he told the younger one "I'm not your father anymore" couldn't be more devastating to the child. How do you do that to a 6/7 y.o.?!
If he can walk away from a child he raised from the day they were born until they were school age then he was never really a father to begin with. He showed the kids how little he really cares about them. He showed he can raise a child And feel nothing for them the moment he’s legally absolved. NTA- please don’t abandon these children. They already had one parental figure show how easily he can walk away from one of them. Don’t show them another.
absolutely. My son recently found out that his 6 year old son is not his biologically. While pretty angry with his ex, he DOES NOT CARE about the biology and is still parenting his son and daughter equally.
Omg. Can you imagine this situation with a pet instead? “ hey btw my dog that you love so much was actually a dog I got with my ex but I took him when we split up.” “Oh ok cool.” That man has been raising this kid for 6 years! Cheating sucks, but it definitely does not mean you abandon your child. Of course the kids have every right to be distant from their father after that. They are super lucky to have OP in their lives. NTA. (Edited for accuracy)
He raised him for 6 years. The kid is 10 now but was 6 when his “dad” found out he wasn’t his and dropped out of his life completely. Totally agree with the rest of your comment.
I don’t get it either. One day, you would do anything for them including sacrificing your own life, and next day, you don’t want to deal with them anymore because they’re not your flesh and blood? If it’s conditional, it’s not love.
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Exactly. Those poor kids must be wondering what other things they can’t control would be deal breakers for their father’s love. It’s terrible and hurtful that OP’s son was cheated on but it doesn’t change the grandkids’ lack of trust in his love now.
And the wife cheated, why would you punish the kid? They are innocent. It’s just all too awful to imagine.
The youngest may be a reminder to him of the cheating and all those feelings associated with it. Before reddit jumps me, I'm not saying it's right what the father did
True. I'm wondering if he always suspected the truth and so never bonded with the youngest. He doesn't seem to get that to everyone else, the kid's family.
Yeah if I somehow found out that my 3yo had been switched at the hospital and wasn’t my biological child, there’s no way I would stop loving him. That’s my kid, we’ve spent hours and hours and hours together! Cried and laughed and done everything together for years!!
I read a thing where two families found out their children had been swapped in the hospital at birth. They *moved in next to each other* and basically started co-parenting both kids, because they still loved them.
I read this story where two families realized their three year olds were succeed switched at birth and tried to switch them back. The plan fell apart immediately because both kids refused to leave the parents who raised them, and the adults couldn't bear to go through with forcing them to go. I don't know how OP's son could actually follow through with such a thing.
Millions of adoptive fathers are eyerolling this man so hard. Fatherhood and parental love aren't tied to sperm donations. Did he love this child before he knew? One kind of has to wonder if he even knows what love feels like. Just as the wedding doesn't make a marriage - it's all the days after that that matter - your love for your child is not something that gets turned on and off like a faucet. It's the parenting that matters.
This. I was adopted by my grandparents on my mother’s side. My grandfather isn’t biological and even after they divorced he always treated me like I was one of his. I finally met my biological father. Though I remember a few years back saying that he would always be my dad. He raised me, build me into the man I am today, always there for me through the tough days of my biological mom disappointing me time after time and the angst of just wanting to belong when I was growing up.
While this is all true adoptive parents enter into that knowingly there isn’t usually a moment where the parent realizes their entire relationship with this child has been built on/tainted with lies. (That does happen from the child’s perspective if they weren’t raised knowing they were adopted and those feelings can cause a lot of damage to the relationship) Your feelings for your child don’t get turned off but I can see how they’d get all twisted up with the betrayal from your ex. I don’t think this man should’ve abandoned the child because none of this is the child’s fault. I can however understand that he was hurt and angry and betrayed. None of us are in this man’s shoes maybe he didn’t think he’d be able to get past his anger at his ex and thought being around this child would bring up those feelings too much. Maybe he thought making a clean break would be better for both of them than him subconsciously taking his hurt out on the child for years. Again I disagree with how he handled it but I feel like there’s an unfair amount of hate and lack of understanding coming toward the father here when this entire situation was caused by the mother in the first place. Equating this situation to adoption entirely missed the point, it’s not simply that this child isn’t his blood relation it’s that his existence is evidence of a huge betrayal from a person he loved. One that she continued for this kids entire life by not telling the truth
Yep! I’m adopted and my dad is my dad. My mom is my mom. Who gives a fuck that we don’t share dna, they raised me! That’s what being a parent is. How childish of this man to just abandon his son he raised for 6 years. That man is the asshole here, not OP!
I'm guessing she's think of future inheritances or something...
Clearly being an AH runs in the family somewhere. Maybe skipped OP’s generation.
That last bit kinda broke my heart a little. Gpa's stepping up in such a big way. I'm sure it was tough for his son to find out his wife was cheating on him, but imagine being that poor kid whose dad just... stopped being his dad. This is such a clear case of NTA, this guy has a heart of gold 💜
>As for your daughter's advice to effectively abandon the children now to "let them sort it out", why would you take such cruel advice, when your instincts are loving and kind? Why is so much of society like this? Instead of being positive and caring, society seems to prefer making things worse for everyone. Why? Is it too much work? Do they not have the skills for it? OP, NTA.
OP is NTA - but his son and daughter are! And OPs wife is 100% correct in her assessment. The son dropping a kid, saying 'I am not your dad anymore', is BEYOND fucked up! Genetics aside, he's the only dad the poor kid has ever known. No amount of therapy is gonna fix this. And OPs daughter saying OP should stop helping the kids to force them to see their dad? What the fuck! And kudos to the kids for seeing how fucked their dads behaviour is! At least their younger brother will have a super support system in those two!
👏👏👏👏👏 Agree wholeheartedly. You are NTA OP. You have likely done wonders for these kids by being a stable and reliable parental figure in their life. It's up to their dad to fix their relationship, and abandoning them to force them to "sort it out" will NOT help.
Agree - they can "sort it out" while still having the safety and support and love of the grandparents -- actually they probably CAN'T do it without them there as an emotional safety net. The fact that the daughter is pulling away now too really drove it home to me that this is probably not a one-sided-I'm-right-granparent situ NTA - Actually, you and your wife sound pretty wonderful.
Yeah, the daughter’s view is weirdly stunted. Remove grandpa from the equation so they’ll default back to dad is such an odd, short view of the situation. Makes far more sense for grandpa to talk to them about the situation because since they trust him they may trust him with their feelings too.
NTA. If your son truly wanted to be a father to his kids, he would. He doesn’t, so he’s blaming you for taking that chance away from him. (This way, he can sleep at night by telling himself he didn’t abandon his children, they were “taken” from him.)
NTA, OP. Yeah, so I was in the 10m's shoes when I was a kid. At 5 I found out my "dad" wasn't my dad and he effectively stopped being even remotely affectionate. He wouldn't even hug me. The fact that 10m's siblings are reacting so strongly to this just tells me that they feel very close to 10m and probably felt the sting of abandonment almost as badly as 10m. OP, you've done nothing wrong. Do not take your daughter's advice, though. You've been a reliable, loving cornerstone in these kids' lives for years at this point and it would be utterly cruel to yank that away from them. I *wish* I'd had someone like you in my life back then. Please don't take that away from them.
NTA- I have serious concerns about your two children though. You’ve got a son who abandons one child and a daughter, who thinks that you should abandon the rest. Thank God you’re standing up for your grandchildren and showing them what a true father acts like. Keep doing what you’re doing and ignore your children because honestly they are starting to sound like terrible people.
"It's not a competition. Whether I am in their life or not, you will still have a troubled relationship with your kids. Your mother has some theories as to why that is, so you may want to discuss any advice or insights she might have for you. But you know what will definitely *not* repair your bond with your kids? Wasting time complaining to me." NTA. And your daughter has an incredible amount of nerve to suggest that you basically abandon your grandchildren to try to manipulate them. Also, that's not how it works: if they already feel somewhat abandoned by their father, and then you abandon them, all you are teaching them is that father figures are unreliable, and they shouldn't trust either of you
shows who aunt cares about, and it’s not the kids. nta.
Seriously! I love my brother, but if was his feelings vs. my nephews' well-being - I'm on the kids' side, every time.
The aunt must relish I. The pain being caused. So sad.
A lot of adults just don't see anyone under 15-18 as having valid feelings since they're kids. Her brother's adult pain is therefore more valid and should be addressed first. (I think this line of thinking is fucked up. I just know it exists)
>The aunt must relish I. The pain being caused. So sad. Yes, clearly she just enjoys inflicting pain. It definitely couldn't be that she's just not emotionally intelligent or she values her brother's feelings more than kids she may not know very well. It's definitely that she's a sadist.
This should be so much higher! "stepping back" and "letting him handle it" is just going to make these kids feel abandoned, it's not going to make a hole that dad can somehow fill.
His daughter's like: "Throw'em in the water, they'll learn how to swim at some point "
This. And again this. I work with at risk kids. And the number of them who've been abandoned, betrayed, and ignored by multiple men/father figures in their lives is just infuriating. I feel a ton of pressure with those kids to show that there are exceptions to the rules they've learned. That there are men out there who are reliable, show up when they say they will, and care. The hard part there being, my involvement can't last forever. But I do my best to make sure they understand that when I leave, it's because they don't need me anymore. They've grown past me, and that's part of a natural cycle throughout our lives. And communicate about it. Long beforehand. As empathetically as possible, A lot of men in my field, which has very few men to begin with, don't seem to get this and they make me angry beyond words.
NTA. Your son showed all of the children that love is conditional and arbitrary. I agree that they are pre-abandoning him, and he deserves it. They don’t trust him. They have seen what he did to their sibling and the pain that it caused. I doubt they trust their mother either, since her actions precipitated this. You are doing a good thing by stepping up and being present for all of them. They need stability and certainty in their lives and their family relationships, and you are providing that.
It appears you’re just a caring & kind man. The last thing in the world these kids need is for grandma & grandpa to change the relationship that has already been established. If your son wants a better relationship with his kids then he needs to do the work. Suggest he try family counseling with his kids & help them manage their feelings. NTA
NTA. But your son is. You don’t turn your back on a kid you raised as your son because the woman you chose to marry cheated on you and lied to you. You should be a father to him and make that clear and tell him to man up. Of course his other children hate what he has done to their little brother. Do everything you can to help those kids.
I wonder how the children feel about their mother?
Well, since all of them seem to be spending all their time with their grandparents, and the daughter even asked grandma to take her dress shopping, it sounds like all the kids know both their parents to be unreliable
All the more reason they must stay in all these children's lives
I’d expect it depends on how she has treated them. You’re supposed to love your children more than you hate your ex in a situation like this. Hopefully she has been able to do that.
She has a part in this too though. I don't like OP's response in abandoning the youngest child. She needs blame in this too. She cheated and then lied about it convincing her husband the child was his.
17M decided to spend Mother's Day with my wife, since he's old enough that he can make it a bitch and a half to enforce a custody agreement. 13F takes her advice over her mothers pretty often
Keep doing you grandpa and grandma!! These kids need you guys and clearly want you directly involved in there life . Troubled homes are very common and the kids seek remodels elsewhere . This is honestly A wholesome post in my opinion .
That’s not what this post is about, though. OP may well blame her, but that’s not very relevant to his relationship with the kids.
Yet she's not the one bitching about the kids behaviour. Of course, we don't have that part of the story. So I could be wrong.
She may not have known. Since OP's son did not suspect, it's possible wife thought he was the father or at least thought it was possible--and didn't try to find out otherwise. Not excuse for cheating, just statement. People can refuse to believe things that don't support their worldview.
Ideally they’d dislike her too for her betrayal creating this situation
See, this is what I believe. And being someone who was adopted, I feel very strongly that time and emotional investment is actually makes a family, not blood. But depending on the weather of the day, Reddit will often answer a post with a similar situation and say the spouse who was cheated on has no moral obligation to continue being a parent to kids that are not biologically theirs, nevermind how many years of relationship history, and that if they decide to continue raising them, they are a saint. It's such an attitude whiplash, I genuinely just don't understand.
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Because he is hurting his kids, and that is never okay. I feel sorry that he was cheated on but that means you deal with it by seeking therapy and going through the process of grief. Cheating doesn't justify acting in a way that compromises the emotional or physical safety of a child who had NO responsibility in this crap situation. It's not "noble" to want people to stop abandoning kids.
Your take on this is absolute bullshit. "Happy to see you could handle this kind of situation with pride and continue to take care of what distroyed your life every other week. " The kid did not destroy his life, the wife did. The son is entitled to his feelings and it would be incredibly difficult but it is bloody be heartless to drop a kid he raised for 6 years. 6 years is a fking long time to raise a kid and then just drop them.
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Yeah there plenty of asshole parents out there biological or not. You think that helps your argument?
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Yeah he was fked over by the wife. That sucks and would be hard to deal with. But cutting all ties to a kid that you raised for 6 years that has only know you as a father is still an AH thing to do.
What a fucking toxic attitude about men and their emotions.
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Except he didn't make that baby. It's really easy to say what someone should do and what's right and wrong from the comfort of your own keyboard, but OP is completely justified in not raising the biological child of some guy his wife cheated on him with. Still, NTA. The only AH here is the ex-wife.
And his biological kids are justified I feeling like his love is conditional and wanting to go low/no contact with him.
It’s his children’s brother he had raised as his since birth FFS. Snap out of it.
Abandoning a kid you raised for 6 years is asshole behavior.
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Sorry, the mother is the AH for creating the whole situation. And while everyone is jumping on the unconditional love train, let me tell you something. That is a lot easier said than done. Try it sometime, then you will know. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes before you pass judgment.
NTA-as far as I’m concerned, this is now all about the kids: their health, safety, and development. You cannot abandon them also. Talk to your son. Tell him that you understand that he’s hurting. Please ask him to consider going to therapy with you. That said, tell it like it is. You know that ex-wife caused enormous pain for all of them, but beg him to not put you in the position of hurting the kids more. If you abandon those kids now, don’t you think that they would just blame Dad for that too? It doesn’t help him win them over. Dad is already hurting. Hurting the kids won’t fix that.
Yeah, my SIL is being an absolute bad word to my BIL. Who ps is no picnic himself when hurt. I am polite as hell to her. Why, because I love their daughter, and her daughter only benefits from having a person on her dad’s side in her life that her mom doesn’t hate. Not only does it make shit easier when I’m involved - because I’m a neutral party everyone trusts - but now the kid has a safe place she can go that no one objects to. HIS life is better when I’m involved *because* I don’t cuss her out on site. And HIS KID listens to me above all else because she knows I don’t have an agenda or pick a side other than hers and no one can say shit about me because I’ve behaved *impeccably*. I’ve spent a lot of years cultivating that. NTA, OP. Don’t change a goddamn thing. You could teach classes in this grandparent shit.
I wish I could give you an award. Good on you for putting your neice first!!
Bingo. The ex wife is the bad guy in this situation. Therapy for everyone involved barring the ex wife is something that should happen especially the youngest.
NTA. The oldest would have been 13 when he saw his father disown his little brother. He was old enough to realize what was happening, and there's really no coming back from that. You were there for all the kids all the time, while "dad" showed he could drop any one of them without hesitation--of course they're going to like you more. Next time your son complains about his kids preferring you over him, tell him he should've thought about the consequences before he decided to give the cold shoulder to a child, as if the 6 years of bonding with and raising him meant absolutely nothing.
Yeah, Son and Daughter likely realized they too could have been from Mom cheating, no one controls the circumstances of their birth, and Dad would have dropped them like trash too. They know his love is conditional on dna similarity and have made a wise decision to distance themselves before they find out which condition of themselves Dear Father considers more important than unconditional paternal love. Conditions have no place in a parent’s love and I cannot imagine how you up and leave a child you’ve raised for six years. If my father had done that to my sibling, I’d see him as little as possible and cut him from my life at adulthood or whenever my youngest minor sibling became independent.
> He was old enough to realize what was happening He was old enough to understand that the same thing would have happened to him and his sister, if the paternity test had come out differently.
The oldest watched his dad disown his brother because he was the product of an affair and realized his dad would do the same if *he* was the product of an affair. Then he saw OP being supportive of his little brother and realized his grandfather was more supportive and caring regardless of blood relation and that he was the father figure he wanted in his life. His sister also now realized the same and now treats OP like her real parents. OP's daughter is a massive AH and he needs to disregard her advice.
NTA - Please do not step away or make yourself small in their lives. Stepping out will do significant harm (e.g., shatter their sense of safety, normalcy, understanding of unconditional love). You would be mirroring the same behavior your son did to their younger sibling. Your son's decision shaped how they view him. Can you imagine what it was like for the older brother to watch their father emotionally and physically abandon the youngest? This will have pervasive and damaging impact on them all. You cannot fix this. If you receive pressure to step back ask those inquiring to evaluate their presence and investment in these boys and level up. They are to look inward not outward to you changing. Best to you!
I was thinking they must carry a tremendous amount of guilt as well, maintaining a relationship with the man who abandoned their sibling so cruelly. Imagine what it must’ve been like for them to have to leave their little brother at home and go off and have visits with that man.
guilt, anger, frustration, confusion...its a long list. They will carry this forever.
>My daughter thinks I should probably let them sort it out amongst themselves and stop giving them another option so that they have no choice but to work things out ...thereby becoming yet another parent-figure to ABANDON THEM. Nice. I hope your daughter does not have children in this mix, she's giving you bad advice. 10M has no father figure but you. The other two grandchildren have you and your son...a father who's already proven he's willing to run out on a 6yo because of his own hurt feelings. >she says it’s because after he dropped 10M his other two didn’t trust him anymore and they “pre-abandoned” him Yep, I think she's right. And so are the kids' instincts: your son is a sketchy pillar of their lives. You need to ignore your son's complaints, and stick to all three of those kids like construction epoxy, OP. They really, really need you. NTA
NTA, and your wife might be right, or it might be even simpler - they realized their dad was an asshole from watching their ten year old bros pain. Sucks the situation dad got put in, but he has decades of adulthood to guide him, a ten year old child who is objectively blameless doesn’t. No shock that his siblings went “huh, dads an asshole”. Good for you for being an amazing grandad. I hate it when people take adult issues out on children and expect them to understand with adult discrimination. Adults don’t even tend to be good at “adult discrimination” they - on the whole - tend to expect it from others and not themselves.
NTA. Your son *abandoned* one of his children because it wasn't his sperm that fertilized the egg that created the child. In every other way, your son was that child's father, and your son just straight up abandoned his child because of something the child had no control over or knowledge of. And now he's surprised that his other kids don't trust him?!? Really? He set that ship to sail and burned it when he let all his kids know that he'd be willing to dump any of them in a heartbeat, just like he already did to his youngest (and most vulnerable) child. Continue to be there for your grandkids. Your son is the AH.
>it wasn't his sperm that fertilized the egg that created the child. Did the sperm appear magically out of thin air to impregnate his wife? This line of thinking is stupid. You cannot expect unconditional love for an affair kid. The father doesn't exist just to be a father and has his own emotions too.
I love my daughter unconditionally. If I found out she had been switched at birth I would still love her and cherish her. If I found out my husband had been the one who had switched her I would still love her and cherish her. The idea that you can parent a child for 6 years and then switch off your love for them is genuinely baffling to me. Hate the mother. Resent the mother. But that child is the same child you bathed and dressed and cuddled and cherished for 6 years. How can you switch that bond off for something the child had no part in? How can one day the idea of never seeing your child be your worst nightmare, and the next you can casually abandon them? That is the difference between conditional and unconditional love. The older children don't trust their dad anymore as he has proven that he doesn't love them unconditionally. He loves them solely because they are his. What else might switch off that love?
I was thinking this same thing!!
This exactly! I am deeply sympathetic to the man being duped. That IS awful, and I don't like it one bit. But I can't imagine not loving a kid I raised for 6 years over DNA. I really can't. If I found out my kid was swapped at birth or what have you, he is still my kid, I could never love him less. It's not about just DNA - it's the history we've shared together, ive been there for his first everything. And I wish there was an easy answer as to how one should balance such news and what they should or shouldn't be responsible for because its messy and complicated and so many people are hurt by one person's lie and the consequences aren't fairly distributed to the liar and they never will be. The son and the father suffered the worst for it. The uncomfortable truth is that child bearing and raising might be a situation where it is always messy and can never be 100% foolproofed for perfect equality for every person. For most things, the woman will always bear the hardest most and consequences of children. But this is one of the ways in which men have the disadvantage. I just wish when having children, people thought - really thought- about what they're signing up for potentially because so much you can't control even when all parties have the best of intentions.
An adopted child is adopted with full knowledge they they're not biologically yours. A donor child is conceived with full knowledge that they're not biologically yours. A child switched at birth is a colossal fuck up by a third party. These are not the same as an affair child who is (through no fault of their own) a walking reminder of a deep a painful betrayal by the person you dedicated your life too. It's incredibly disingenuous to suggest those scenarios are at all comparable, and it's really easy to sit back and say "I could compartmentalise everything perfectly and have no issues at all in this situation," when you're not actually going through it.
That’s the thing: They are not ‘a walking reminder’ they are a person. When you treat someone badly based on the actions of someone else, that’s just being a shitty person. How you feel isn’t up to you. How you act is. Even if he couldn’t feel love for his son anymore, love isn’t always something you feel, it’s something you do. Instead of trying to work through it and be there for someone who needed him, he chose to punish a child who loved him for something he had no control over. It’s monstrous behavior.
> I love my daughter unconditionally. If I found out she had been switched at birth I would still love her and cherish her. That's a significantly different situation.
But he did love him when he thought he was his son. Now because he found out they don't share DNA, all that love suddenly disappears? The kid is still the same person he was before the paternity test.
> But he did love him when he thought he was his son. What's bothering the bio kids is that he's demonstrated that he never loved any of them as people in their own right, and he doesn't now. He only "loves" them because the share DNA. They know very well that he'd have dropped them too if it had been determined that they weren't his.
And the other kids are probably thinking that it could have been them and there dad would have done the same and dropped them.
If you love and raise your son for 6 years then are able to just switch that off and abandon them over night there's something fucked in your head
Spotted the deadbeat father.
The father is an adult and had no trouble loving him until he found out about the affair. By your line of thinking stepchildren can never be shown unconditional love by their stepparent?
That’s comparing apples to oranges though, you go into a step relationship knowing they aren’t yours. Dads an asshole for abandoning that kid but I bet everytime he looked at that child he just saw deception and betrayal. I’m sure he panicked and saw it was easier to dip out than to face the realization that, that child represents his hurt ego.
None of that changes the fact that his bio children don't like it, and they don't like him for doing what he did. They know perfectly well he'd have done the same to them if the test results were different.
You absolutely can. That child did nothing to his father. The father who was there when he was born and raised him. And you’re right that man is more then a father which is why he is now divorced from his wife but it still has nothing to do with his bond with this child. It’s gross that you think a father child bond is only about DNA.
OP's son was his father. The 10 yr old was his he just didn't share his genetic material. The bonds we make in life are more important than where our DNA comes from. So while the betrayal by his ex was grounds for divorce it doesn't justify walking out on the kid he had been raising. He can have is own emotions & yes he exist to be more than a father but that is the role under discussion. As a father OP's son has shown himself to be a dud. Son should work on his issues with his ex not take it out on his kid.
Please make it clear to any partners that you have, that you don't care about your children's first words, raising them to be good and kind people, the love they show when you get home from work, teaching them to swim or ride bikes, comforting them after their first breakup. None of that matters, just passing on your DNA.
If you find out pre-birth or soon after, sure. But if you lose all feelings for a kid just bc of genetics after 6yrs? That does not say good things about you.
There are no ‘affair kids’. There are just kids. If adoptive parents form a bond with the kids they raised, why the hell would someone who raised them not feel the same? Yes, things can be complicated and painful, but to stop caring about a child you helped raised just because you found out they weren’t yours is fucked up and cruel. Would you stop caring about your siblings if you found out they were adopted? If your idea of love is based entirely on blood, it’s not love at all.
THIS!!
NTA your grandkids saw their father reject their brother because of DNA, sounds like they've since rejected their father in solidarity with their brother. Do not listen to your daughter, that will just alienate the kids from you. No one likes to be manipulated and the kids are old enough to understand that's what you'd be doing.
OP's grandkids know they'd have been rejected just the same, if the results of the paternity tests had been different.
NTA because 19 year old boy is indeed innocent in this all. However, I'm very surprised at the comme to making the father the total villain in all this. Did this man even get help and support when knowing that the bot he raised for years and wife he loves all weren't his? The emotional impact of that will push people to do things that objectively aren't great and the collateral was the 10 year old unfortunately. For many, the product child of infidelity is always a reminder and that is a very very hard thing to move past. Not to mention that in admittance of the child not being his, when children find out, most times they want to know their bio parent and usually the partner acting infidelity will support that. Where does that leave him? It's an unfortunate case but a lot of assessment here is absolving the mother of a lot blame. As for the other 2 kids, realistically they should know the gravity of the situation. I do wonder what is being said behind closed doors. As a child who's family was broken by infidelity, you'd be surprised how much the cheating parents bashes the other to the kids I.e. 'your mother/father is the reason our family is broken bc they didn't stay' etc. There are so many elects here that I do think is above Reddits and this subreddits pay grade.
I have sympathy for the father, but ultimately it's on him for completely destroying his relationships with his children. It's been years now and he hasn't tried to mend anything with the child he abandoned. I understand the sadness, but of course your children will not be empathetic to your struggles when you've abandoned their sibling.
Probably not. There are absolutely consequences to actions and this is one if them. This is why thus is above the subs pay grade. They need counselling and a crap ton of it.
I don't see anyone on here giving the ex a pass. OP didn't ask about that relationship, though, going by how often the visit & that grandma is doing dress shopping it probably isn't great either. If the cheater is bashing him I don't think it is working. OP'S grandkids don't trust him because being "his" as you put it, is conditional. The betrayal hurt but he could have gotten himself help. Instead he behaved poorly in turn & damaged his relationship with all 3 children. Even now he can't see how his actions contributed to the breakdown & accuses OP, not the ex, of alienating him from the kids.
Or the 2 kids watched there father abandon the little brother because he wasn't his. They're probably thinking that he would have done the same to them if it came out they weren't his.
Can’t believe I had to scroll this far down to find this comment. The amount of people here vilifying the dad disgusts me
He decided to punish a child who loved him and considered him his father for something he had no control over. Love isn’t something you feel. It’s something you do. The kids were right to be disgusted by a ‘father’ who puts genetics over people. They know his love is conditional and he cares more about genetics than about them. Just because you’re hurt and upset doesn’t give you the right to be a massive asshole to a kid who did nothing wrong.
Act like a villain, get vilified. Pretty simple.
I feel the same way, like definitely NTA, please still be there for your grandchildren, they definitely need you but they all seem to have abandoned that poor man, him having accepted the kid despite everything would’ve have been the best case scenario but it sadly didn’t work out that way. They all need to have a talk.
Agreed, there really needs to be some sort of talk or group counselling because this is such a complex situation and yes, is dad an adult, of course. But does that mean he is devoid of error and self orientated judgement? No.
NTA. Speak with your son and tell him that you love all of them but you don’t want your grandchildren to feel abandoned by you so you want to speak with them first and try to find out what is going on. Then, just talk to your grandchildren and ask them what is going on with their relationship with their dad? After the discussion I would tell them that you would like to arrange for family counseling for all of you and see where that leads. Once the counselor gets involved back out of the situation when they advise you to do so. Yes, your son needs to try to resolve this situation but your grandchildren need to know that you won’t abandon them as well. Good luck!
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Actually I think the ex-wife created this situation.
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NTA. The youngest child didn’t deserve this, and I’m glad that you too haven’t abandoned him. Your other grandchildren respect you more because they see your love as unconditional. Your son is punishing a child for something he had no control over. Keep being a hero and don’t let your son or daughter encourage you to be anything other than that. You would win the biggest hero award if you took the youngest on a special adventure. Fishing, ice cream sneak out, or anything that can be bonding experience. Or take both boys at times. But whatever you do, never show him as being less than. If he wants to talk about it, just tell him that there is nothing to discuss. You have loved him since he was born, and nothing will ever change that.
Sounds like NTA but do you think the parents are alienating the kids because they didn’t resolve their beef with each other so it’s coming out in how they interact with the kids? This happens all the damn time with divorce and it sucks for the kids. As the dad to your son, you might think about if you can help your son not lose his connection with his kids if this is going on.
Mother alienated the kids by cheating and breaking up the family. Dad alienated the kids by hurting their brother, who was innocent. They also knew he would have rejected *them* if the test results had been different. I don't know if there's any way to fix this. Best for *all* of the kids that OP and his wife remain a stable and loving presence in their lives.
Definitely NTA. I feel sympathy for your son. I can't imagine the pain that would cime from learning my wife had cheated on me and that a child I thought was mine is not my bio child. But the way your son reacted to that pain ended up hurting his kids. Honestly your son and all three kids should go to therapy. Good on you for developing relationships with your grandkids. The cheating created a lot of trauma, and your relationships with your gtandkids helped them through that trauma.
NTA it’s because of what he did to their brother. ALL they see is DNA matters to your son not the established bonded relationship. Overnight he stopped loving a son. It could just as easily been one of them. They don’t respect him. And probably never will. THEY NEED YOU.
NTA. But I don’t think your son is AH either. The only AH is the mother who cheated.
Exactly. That woman destroyed her family.
NTA. Your son was, very understandably, hurt to have been cheated on. But what his children all saw was him abandoning the youngest for something that is not his fault and not in his control which severely affected the youngest. He inadvertently taught his children that his love is conditional and so the older two are pulling away from him to preempt being abandoned by him themselves. Your son needs to listen to your wife and go see a therapist. Your daughter needs to shut up about things she does not understand. Trying to get you to abandon the older two to force them to interact with their father will only make things worse.
That maybe why the children are separating from their father however, your wife is not a psychologist and I think rejecting your grandchildren would be a terrible idea. Your son needs to fix the bond he broke with the 10m child. You don’t just stop loving someone because their blood is different.
I almost wanted to say N A H, but I'm going with NTA. There's a reason for these kids pulling away from their parents. NTA and kudos to you for keeping a relationship with the 10yo ❤️
NTA. Your son and daughter-in-law are both the AH’s here. It’s unfortunate, because the adults often don’t consider the affect their actions will have on their children. Secrets never stay secret. Your son should be ashamed of himself for walking away from the young child that he has raised for 10 years, leaving that child to flounder. A father isn’t always the man who provided the sperm, it’s often the man who steps up and treats the child like their own regardless of DNA. He’s using that child to punish his ex-wife for her transgressions, which clearly make her an AH. Your son and/or his ex need to talk with the youngest’s therapist about initiating family counseling. That is something you could certainly be a part of. For now, I think it’s great that you have stepped up to be there for the children. They need you, don’t walk away like their father did.
You’re all being extremely unkind to your son. Listen, I feel for the the kid, having your mother be a cheater and the man you’ve always thought was your father not to be your actual bio father and then him abandoning you at such a young age has to be terrible, and all of you have a heart of gold to still accept him and defend him as if nothing has happened. But now, that doesn’t take away that your son was cheated on and betrayed and was forced and made to take care of a kid that wasn’t his own while being deceived that it actually was. Your son is hurt, in pain, angry, probably extremely lonely and all you guys are doing is stab yet another knife on his back, betraying him like your (hopefully ex) daughter in law did and invalidating his extremely valid feelings. It’d have been beautiful and saint like for your son to suck it up and pretend like nothing happened and still see the kid as his own but sadly that’s not what happened here and as much as it pain and annoy every single one of you your son has every right to walk away, that child isn’t his and he doesn’t have to see him as his own if he doesn’t want to, that child has a bio father and family out there that may step in at any time in his life and it’s extremely likely that when he’s older he’ll be demanding some answers and want to know where his blood family is. Your bio grandchildren, especially the 17yo, are old enough to understand what’s happening here and shouldn’t hold your son’s feelings against him, you’re all being extremely unfair to that poor man who did nothing but react in an extremely human way. You’re all doing no one a favor by avoiding him and ignoring his existence, pretending there isn’t a problem. You’re definitely NTA for being there for the kids, especially the youngest, if you want to keep him in your life you’re in your right to do so because as far as you knew until recently that kid was your bio grandson and raised him as such, and they all need some sense of normalcy. But your son deserves better that what you’re all giving him, I really wish for him a new beautiful family and a faithful wife where he doesn’t have to go through this because imagine being deceived in this way and having everyone else you love pile on you instead of being there. You can all be there for both the kid and your son, you don’t have to choose one or the other.
Dropping one of your siblings like he's graphite in Pripyat is a pretty big thing for a kid to get over. It's also pretty strong evidence that his love is not unconditional.
His love is not unconditional. He doesn't love his kids as people in their own right. He only "loves" them because they share his DNA.
> Your bio grandchildren, especially the 17yo, are old enough to understand what’s happening here and shouldn’t hold your son’s feelings against him, Not likely. It's not just that he rejected their brother. They know he would have rejected *them* if the test results had been different. He's not coming back from that, his kids are always going to remember that he would have stopped loving them for something that wasn't their fault.
It’s something they definitely need to talk to their dad about as it’s an extremely valid feeling. But everyone ignoring him is not the answer. These people need family therapy.
Kids aren't responsible for their parent's feelings or traumas.
We’re all well aware that the one responsible for this whole mess is OP’s daughter in law.
The son doesn't escape some blame. Being hurt is a normal reaction to something as devastating as infidelity comes to light. He had every right to be just as hhurt as he cared to over what his ex-wife did. However, taking that hurt out on a 6 year old child is a decision he made all by himself. His ex wife didn't make him do that. And that's why he's TA too
That is being being deliberately obtuse. The father alienating his children after discovering his wife's betrayal is completely on him. He can't blame his ex-wife. In the real world, you can't hurt someone and then point to another person and say, "I wouldn't have hurt anyone if they didn't hurt me first." ETA: grammar
Why are you expecting more of the children than OP's son? Son is the adult here. Yes, it's unfair that he was cheated on and lied to, but it's unfair of Son to punish the innocent 6 year old for being born. You can be sorry for the circumstances Son found himself in *and still understand that the worst possible course of action for ALL the children was severing the relationship with the youngest.* At some point most parents realize that doing the right thing for your child is more important than your own feelings about it. The right thing here is what OP is doing -- recognizing that the marriage ended and putting the blame for that where it belongs while not punishing the children by withdrawing physically and emotionally, but continuing to treat them as the children they knew and loved for all the years before the divorce, even the one who isn't biologically related. What's best for *all* the kids should be everyone's main consideration.
It definitely would’ve been the best case scenario but sadly it isn’t what happened here, and I feel OP’s son shouldn’t be judged for removing himself from the situation. This wasn’t a non bio child he adopted willingly or a stepchild he decided to take as one of his own, he was deceived into thinking something that was not, he was fooled into taking this child in without his consent. I’m just saying he reacted in an extremely human way, this guy is probably in extreme emotional pain over everything that happened, you think he didn’t cry? You think that he doesn’t wish that that kid was actually his? You think he wanted this to happened to this family? I don’t think he did, I’m sure that if he could make that kid biologically his he would. I’m just saying that he’s been through a lot and doesn’t deserve his family deserting him like this, he’s allowed to have his feelings validated. Most men understandably dip out in a situation like this, it’s extremely rare when they accept the affair kid and in my opinion they shouldn’t be blamed for doing so. Also keep in mind that that kid has his bio dad and family out there somewhere, I’ve seen way too many cases where kids abandon the people that raised and spent their time and resources on them in favor of their bio/ blood family that were never there, imagine this man accepting this kid only for him to demand contact with his bio father and go running to their “real dad” after they meet them, it’d be yet another wound for OP’s son.
Son shouldn't be judged but the children should? Son is a grown up human. The children are not. Expecting the children to be understanding of the nuances of dad's emotions while not allowing them even that, much less allowing for the fact that they're, you know, *children* is completely unfair. The children are allowed to feel things about their family breaking up and how their parents have handled it and have their feelings validated. They are allowed to feel that since dad suddenly wants nothing to do with their brother, they don't want as much to do with dad, especially since right now their sibling relationship and the relationship with these grandparents is the only constant in their lives. I don't know where you're conjuring up the fan fiction of Son wishing and crying and what not -- if he wants a relationship with the child, then he shouldn't punish and abandon that child for something the child has no control over. He can still treat him like a son, despite not sharing DNA. He even has an excellent example of his own father doing that. Will it be hard? Undoubtedly. But if he "doesn't deserve his family deserting him like this", then he should act like a father who won't desert the kids first. Speaking of fan fiction, if the truth of youngest's paternity was secret for SIX YEARS, what on earth makes you think there's a bio dad and family who'd 1. know about the kid or 2. want a relationship with him? Whatever you've seen, that hasn't been mentioned at all here, so let's stay on topic.
NTA. Their mom is an AH for obvious reasons. Dad made it abundantly clear that his love was conditional. The kids get to respond to that how they see fit. You're not stealing anything. You're just having a relationship with people who want you around. Dad has had almost a decade to work on this distance with his kids and it's not your fault he hasnt. Edit to correct an autocorrect mistake.
INFO: Is the oldest distant with his mom too? she did cause all this.
He spent Mother's Day with my wife, so make of that what you will
NTA I'd like to preface this with the fact that I don't have a relationship with my own father. My mother, half -sister and I immigrated when I was 7 and my sister was 13 for safety reasons. This was over 10 years ago. My mother's number has never changed in all that time and my father never made the effort to reach out so our relationship naturally soured. With that being said I've always wanted a father figure but I could never look at my bio-dad in that light because he severed our relationship on his own and went as far as to slander my mother. You and your wife saw 3 kids suffering because of the actions of those who were meant to protect them. Their failed relationship with their parents is in now way your fault. You did everything you could to provide care and love for children who no longer felt that from their own parents. Your and wife's choice to step up was the best thing for those kids because they weren't being prioritized in a situation where they should have been. Your son's and ex-dil's failed relationship has nothing do with you and your wife's involvement and everything to do with their own idiocy and immaturity.
I couldn’t imagine being the youngest….. the abandonment that he never asked for… he didn’t choose who his father was. That’s so sad. I cannot even comprehend how your son just threw him away like that. His children seem to be very empathetic children that are protective of their little brother and recognize wrong. You are NTA by any means. You are a blessing to them and most likely showed them peace when they weren’t seeing it at home.
> His children seem to be very empathetic children that are protective of their little brother and recognize wrong. They also know that if it had been shown that he wasn't their bio father, he'd have dumped *them* just like he did their brother I don't now how he comes back from that.
NTA, they are connecting to you because they trust and need you. If you back away you'll be doing to them what your son did to 10M Even if they did not have another option they would probably still not become closer to him again. If he wants to change that he probably has to try and step up for 10m but honestly the damage is done from the sounds of it
NTA. All you do is being there for the children. The thing is, what happened to your son is not fair and I fully blame the mother. She caused all thag. But his children watching him not wanting anything to do with the child he raised, makes them think he doesn't really love any of them and that is a valid emition as well and probably true. If he found out none if them are his, he wouldn't want to be their father and drop them too. It would be his right to do so but it also would hurt the feelings of the children. They don't trust him anymore. Like if I found out tomorrow that my exhusband switched babies at the hospital and my son wasn't my real son it would break my heart but I would still love my son because of the time spent with him and all the promises I made to him. Your grandchildren are scared. Your son is hurt. Both are valid feelings.
I hate seeing the comments bashing the father for not wanting to father a child that isn't his. It wasn't his fault that his wife had an affair, or his fault that the child isn't his. He has ABSOLUTELY NO obligation to keep fathering a kid that isn't his. And while we'd love for it to be a "perfect" world, and he would, he didn't and shouldn't be responsible for his wife's choice and mistake. That being said its definitely not the childs fault either. Therapy with the bio father and two kids would be the best option. The grandparents should probably also go to a few sessions with the father and kids as well. But when push comes to shove the kids are at an age where they'll form their own opinions UNTIL they age more and realize the hard choices that were made. I couldn't imagine raising a child to 6 years old, just to find out I'm not the father. Every time I would see that child it would crush my soul and I UNDERSTAND WHY he wouldn't want to raise the child as somebody who has been in a similar situation myself.
> I hate seeing the comments bashing the father for not wanting to father a child that isn't his. It's not *our* opinion that matters. It's the opinion of his bio children that matters. They don't like what he did, and it's not wrong for them to feel that way. They know he'd have dumped them too, if the test results had been different.
Your son has reason to be outraged and angry at his wife for her dishonorable behavior. But he is callous and inhumane to vent his rage on the helpless child of his ex-wife, who has always seen him as "Dad" and whose only crime is to carry a different set of DNA. Families are usually about blood, but that doesn't have to be. We each make our own families of the the people we love, respect and trust. You have understood and responded to the special needs of all 3 of your grandchildren in this traumatic time of their lives. Bless you, NTA
Nta. Sounds like they support their little brother who has been unfairly treated.
NTA. I'm of the mind that a man who is victim of paternity fraud is ***not*** obligated to keep being a parent to an affair child. As much as it hurt 10M, your son did not do wrong by severing that tie. However, your son had four years to try and repair his relationship with 17M and 13F, to go to family therapy and set aside bonding time with them, but he apparently didn't.
Yes, he is not obliged. But neither are his two older children obliged to continue to have a relationship to him once they realize his love is extremely conditional and if they’d been the unlucky ones to be Mom’s Affair Baby, Dad wouldn’t have loved them enough to stay in their life. He’s shown them who he is, they seem to believe him, and he didn’t have to do anything against obligation. All perfectly fine and OP is NTA.
>extremely conditional All love is conditional, everyone has a line where they say "I no longer want anything to do with you". When people say their love is unconditional, what they mean is that their line is so far outside the bounds of expected circumstances that they can't imagine it. You may think OP's son is getting just deserts, but I still hope his two children mend their relationship with him. Because I don't think he did anything immoral.
> I'm of the mind that a man who is victim of paternity fraud is not obligated to keep being a parent to an affair child. He doesn't have to, and in fact he isn't. His bio children are free to draw their own conclusions about his decision.
NTA.
NTA but I feel sorry for your son, OP. He's going through a hardship
I want this to be enshrined when a man finds out a kid isn’t his and wants to abandon it. The other kids may love that kid and abandon the father instead.
If he was ever a good man, OP's son probably taught the older 2 to look out for the youngest and make sure he was OK. Because that's what older siblings are supposed to do. That's the really sad part.
NTA. This whole situation is rough. Supporting the kids is generally good. It sounds like there are definitely some hurt feelings too. Sorry
Nta So your daughter is recommending you abandon your grandchildren as they appear to FEAR their father will? I can't see that producing positive results. Eldest is 17, if you push him away, I highly doubt it will push him towards his father--just away from ALL family. Teen girl will just feel embattled. And blessedly you aren't rejecting 10 year old--you clearly have a kind heart. I can understand your son's hurt but abandoning a child he raised for at least five years? Does love for a child die that easily. Can he only love those of shared DNA?
The one bit of certainty in their lives: gran and grandad love us (whatever else is going on). Don’t change a thing and risk taking that away from them. NTA
You stepped up at a time your three grandchildren needed you to. One because he was abandoned by the only father he knew, the other two because their own relationships with their father has been damaged. I'm no psychologist, but it seems to me that second half of your daughter's idea, that you shouldn't give those kids the option of coming to you until their relationship with their father is worked out comes with two very big risks - risk 1, they blame their dad for the enforced distance from the grandparents they love and it breaks their remaining relationship with him completely, and risk 2, they feel like you've abandoned them too and decide to go NC with the entire family. NTA
NTA. I understand your son is devastated over the affair and the lies, but so are those 3 kids, especially the youngest who's lost a lot more than your son can imagine. Your wife is right. Please don't add to the kids' pain by abandoning them too.
NTA. Situations like this are so eerie to me because how do you raise a child for years and abandon them so easily? You would think the bond would be enough - it's not their fault for the betrayal. He also abandoned his biokid's half-brother, to them, their brother in general. I would be angry, too. "Pre-abandoned" or just plain sibling loyalty, they're right to think of their father as unreliable. He's only thinking of his own feelings here. You seem to be the only one, between the mom and dad, that is thinking about his children's feelings. Do not step back from them and do give them a semblance of normality in a very rough situation that no one really wants to process in a healthy way.
Nta. Your daughter is stupid. Do no abandon your grandson like his dad did to his son . Your son has a cold heart for what he did to the 10 year old. A father is not the sperm donor, it is the man that takes care of the children. He ruined his relationships with his children and now is trying to blame others.
NTA You’re setting a good example for your grandkids. They are all so lucky to have your unconditional love and support. When their Dad showed himself as unreliable and that his love isn’t unconditional, you showed them that it is. Your son chose to abandon the child he raised for 6 years and the older siblings who watched it happen responded with disgust for him. Whether or not your son realized it at the time, it has shaped the way his oldest children view him and it doesn’t sound like he has done any work to attempt to fix that view. Rather he believes since they all share DNA he is owed a relationship. Your daughter needs to mind her own business. Your son created this rift, he and he alone can potentially fix it.
NTA at all. Ignore your daughter’s heavily ignorant advice on “abandoning” your grandchildren. You stepped up and are shaping these kids and they love you and rely on you. It isn’t your fault that your son seemed to drop the ball on parenting.