u/Diligent_Hippo_8456

Part 2 : The Wrong Turn

I finally knew who my father was. There was no doubt anymore. The ancestry results, specialists, and confirmation of a situationship through my mom were enough. All I had to do now was find and meet him. Luckily for me, my mother was already two steps ahead.

One Sunday after church in our hometown — which also happened to be the city they met in and where my biological father currently lived — my mom looked at me and said, “Follow me.” I knew immediately what time it was. The entire drive felt like a movie. Every swerve, every turn, and every stop was leading me closer to my dad.

While trailing behind my mom anxiously, a car pulled out in front of me. I stopped and let them go. As they pulled out, I saw my mother turn onto a street in the distance.

“HURRY UP!” I hollered at the other car.

What I thought was my turn was actually the wrong turn. Eventually, I made it. As soon as I hit the corner, I saw her car parked. She was outside talking to a man. I pulled up behind her slowly as both of their heads turned toward me.

I’ve never parked my car slower. I was nervous, but I knew this had to happen.

I got out of the car.

“This is your son,” were the only words that left my mom’s mouth.

He looked right at me and said, “Wow, you look like your sister.”

(His daughter.)

I couldn’t help but smile. I showed all my teeth in that moment. For years I had wondered who I was and where I came from. Now I was laying eyes on my dad. I felt complete.

We began talking, and then his question came.

“Your mom didn’t tell me much. How did this come about? How did you find out I was your dad?”

I understood his doubts. I mean, I came out of thin air. The fact remained: he and my mom had a relationship, and I was what came out of it.

I briefly told him about Ancestry and how I met distant relatives from the Johnson family. He stopped me right there.

He told me that his whole life people would walk up to him saying, “Hey, Lil Tony,” or, “Oh my God, you look just like your dad, Tony.”

“Who was Tony?” he said.

It always left him confused, but he would brush it off and say, “Wrong person.”

Until one day, his girlfriend called him crying.

“I found a mugshot of a man,” she said. “He looks identical to you. Something isn’t right. Do you know him? His name is Tony Johnson.”

My dad said his body went numb in that moment, but he insisted that his mom and the man who raised him loved him and that this had to be some kind of mistake.

“Nope. Never heard of him. I don’t want to talk about this either.”

Click.

He didn’t have the strength to question his mom or the upstanding man who raised him, so he shut it out, started a family, and never looked back.

Although he tried not to think about it, we were from a small town, and nothing stays hidden for long.

One evening, my dad pulled up to a gas station with his girlfriend. She parked and went inside while he stayed in the car. As he sat there, he noticed a man outside picking up trash in the parking lot.

When he finally got a clear look at the man’s face, his heart sank into his chest.

He said the man looked identical to him. Same height, same complexion, even the same shape of head. It was like looking at a carbon copy of himself.

The door opened, and his girlfriend got back in the car.

A few minutes later, she looked at him seriously and said, “The man you just saw in the parking lot was the same man from the mugshot.”

He didn’t look at her. He didn’t want her to see the tears rolling down his face.

That was the moment he knew something wasn’t right.

At that point, I just stood there with a blank expression. No emotion. No reaction. He looked like he wanted to cry.

I knew I had to choose my words carefully, but sugarcoating things was no longer in me anymore. The truth is the truth no matter how you tell it, so I told him everything.

Ancestry. The Johnsons. The couple who helped me.

I was building a case — not to convince him that his father wasn’t his father, but to solidify the fact that I was his son.

I didn’t want to overwhelm him, so I stayed calm, but I needed him to understand why I believed I was his child.

He took it well and said a lot of heartwarming things. We exchanged numbers, hugged, and then I left.

Before I left, he told me I reminded him a lot of one of his sons — my brother. He told me his name, but that was it.

For about a month, we communicated here and there, barely. Eventually, I worked up the courage to ask him to lunch or dinner with my siblings. He pushed back, explaining that he traveled for work and barely had free time.

I didn’t pressure him because I believed eventually we would get our chance.

Still, I decided I wasn’t going to wait to find my siblings.

I reached back out to the couple, this time searching for siblings instead of my father. Once again, it was a success.

I found out I had more than ten siblings through my dad.

I was overjoyed.

At first, I was able to meet two of them. After meeting them, I reached out and found another brother — this one closer to my age.

This was the brother my dad said I reminded him of.

When I reached out to him, I thought he looked familiar.

I called a couple of old classmates, and that’s when it hit me.

My ex-girlfriend always had a third wheel around — a young guy I assumed was her little brother. I never paid much attention because he would do his own thing while we enjoyed each other’s company. But whenever our parents came to pick us up, I noticed he would always make his way back to her and leave with her.

Eventually, I found out he wasn’t her little brother at all.

She had been babysitting her little cousin.

If I had paid more attention, I would’ve known that. And if I had asked the right questions back then, I might have discovered the truth sooner:

that little boy was my brother.

Part 1:

I honestly believe there could be a healthy destination, but I’m driving in the direction of disaster. In order to tell you where I’m at, I have to tell you where I came from.

When I was a child, my mother and the man believed to be my father got a divorce after a DNA test revealed I wasn’t his kid. When I became old enough to ask questions, my mom said they had made a mistake and that she would one day clear it up. I believed this until I became a teenager and started asking more questions. That’s when she told me that if it wasn’t the believed father, then she truly didn’t know who my real father was.

Questioning her and the life she lived hard enough for her to be so confused about the father of her child wasn’t easy, but I had to apply pressure. She eventually suggested an ancestry kit. I wasn’t really interested because, deep down, I wanted concrete answers. Who is my dad?

I reluctantly took the ancestry test and found distant family members. I wasn’t impressed, and honestly, I walked away from it. My mom, however, became invested. She asked for my account information and said she would take the puzzle pieces from there because she felt it was only right. It tainted our strong relationship because this information had the potential to change everything for both of us.

Eventually, she came back with information, but it was still blurry. She found relatives who believed they knew family in our state with the last name “Johnson.” We had never heard that last name before, and that was it — back at square one, back to confusion and unanswered questions. At that point, I felt like I was just picking at a wound.

About two years later, one random night, I got the urge to find my dad myself. I eventually came across a group similar to Reddit where people were trying to find lost family members. I posted my story, and a buddy of mine — who I didn’t even know was in the group — picked up on the age and city references I had made. Before that, I had only told him vague “I got dad issues” type of details.

After messaging me privately and realizing it was actually me, he told me about how he had been adopted and found his biological family through that same group. Then he said, “Hold on one second, I’ll put you in a group chat with the couple who helped me.”

This couple had admin privileges through Ancestry and allowed me to share my profile with them. They immediately got to work. By the next morning, they had answers.

They told me they had found my biological grandfather and grandmother on my paternal side. One of their children was my father, but they needed my mom to identify which one. Ugh… here we go again.

On top of that, my biological grandfather’s last name was “Johnson” — the same last name my mom had mentioned years earlier. So now, I was finally getting somewhere.

I immediately called my mom and asked, “Do you know anyone with this last name?” Since all the children they found shared the same mother, I used my potential grandmother’s last name.

My mom responded, “Yes… yes, I actually do.”

I asked her, “What’s going on? Could this person actually be my dad?”

She answered confidently: “Yes.”

I was shocked. That confident “yes” was insane considering she had spent years telling me she didn’t know — no clues, no leads, nothing.

She explained that, years ago, when she tried to get a DNA test from him, he told her there was “zero chance” because he had worn protection and was certain the child wasn’t his. She believed him and let it go.

So, she contacted a family friend of my now-believed father. Through them, she found out where he was and learned that he was alive and doing well. But while asking questions, the family friend revealed something unexpected:

“My dad’s mom’s name is Jamie Lee, and his father’s name is Curtis Simpson.”

None of that matched the “Johnson” last name connected to my grandfather and the distant cousins we had found, so once again, we were confused.

Then the family friend continued:

“But there’s something nobody knows, and I’m only telling you this for the sake of your son… Curtis Simpson is not his real father. When Jamie Lee was a teenager, she got pregnant by a man named Tony Johnson. She buried the truth and never told her son.”

That was the link.

That was the moment the butterflies started twerking in my stomach.

Now, I not only had to tell this man that I was his long-lost son after more than 20 years… I also had to tell him that the man he believed to be his father wasn’t actually his father at all.

My truth revealed his truth.

Check feed for part 2 of “Am I wrong for trying to navigate incest “

Part 1:

I honestly believe there could be a healthy destination, but I’m driving in the direction of disaster. In order to tell you where I’m at, I have to tell you where I came from.

When I was a child, my mother and the man believed to be my father got a divorce after a DNA test revealed I wasn’t his kid. When I became old enough to ask questions, my mom said they had made a mistake and that she would one day clear it up. I believed this until I became a teenager and started asking more questions. That’s when she told me that if it wasn’t the believed father, then she truly didn’t know who my real father was.

Questioning her and the life she lived hard enough for her to be so confused about the father of her child wasn’t easy, but I had to apply pressure. She eventually suggested an ancestry kit. I wasn’t really interested because, deep down, I wanted concrete answers. Who is my dad?

I reluctantly took the ancestry test and found distant family members. I wasn’t impressed, and honestly, I walked away from it. My mom, however, became invested. She asked for my account information and said she would take the puzzle pieces from there because she felt it was only right. It tainted our strong relationship because this information had the potential to change everything for both of us.

Eventually, she came back with information, but it was still blurry. She found relatives who believed they knew family in our state with the last name “Johnson.” We had never heard that last name before, and that was it — back at square one, back to confusion and unanswered questions. At that point, I felt like I was just picking at a wound.

About two years later, one random night, I got the urge to find my dad myself. I eventually came across a group similar to Reddit where people were trying to find lost family members. I posted my story, and a buddy of mine — who I didn’t even know was in the group — picked up on the age and city references I had made. Before that, I had only told him vague “I got dad issues” type of details.

After messaging me privately and realizing it was actually me, he told me about how he had been adopted and found his biological family through that same group. Then he said, “Hold on one second, I’ll put you in a group chat with the couple who helped me.”

This couple had admin privileges through Ancestry and allowed me to share my profile with them. They immediately got to work. By the next morning, they had answers.

They told me they had found my biological grandfather and grandmother on my paternal side. One of their children was my father, but they needed my mom to identify which one. Ugh… here we go again.

On top of that, my biological grandfather’s last name was “Johnson” — the same last name my mom had mentioned years earlier. So now, I was finally getting somewhere.

I immediately called my mom and asked, “Do you know anyone with this last name?” Since all the children they found shared the same mother, I used my potential grandmother’s last name.

My mom responded, “Yes… yes, I actually do.”

I asked her, “What’s going on? Could this person actually be my dad?”

She answered confidently: “Yes.”

I was shocked. That confident “yes” was insane considering she had spent years telling me she didn’t know — no clues, no leads, nothing.

She explained that, years ago, when she tried to get a DNA test from him, he told her there was “zero chance” because he had worn protection and was certain the child wasn’t his. She believed him and let it go.

So, she contacted a family friend of my now-believed father. Through them, she found out where he was and learned that he was alive and doing well. But while asking questions, the family friend revealed something unexpected:

“My dad’s mom’s name is Jamie Lee, and his father’s name is Curtis Simpson.”

None of that matched the “Johnson” last name connected to my grandfather and the distant cousins we had found, so once again, we were confused.

Then the family friend continued:

“But there’s something nobody knows, and I’m only telling you this for the sake of your son… Curtis Simpson is not his real father. When Jamie Lee was a teenager, she got pregnant by a man named Tony Johnson. She buried the truth and never told her son.”

That was the link.

That was the moment the butterflies started twerking in my stomach.

Now, I not only had to tell this man that I was his long-lost son after more than 20 years… I also had to tell him that the man he believed to be his father wasn’t actually his father at all.

My truth revealed his truth.

Part 2
https://www.reddit.com/r/FamilyIssues/s/sadMj8L6m8