Men who are unaware their child isn’t biologically theirs

[K8ate]

Hearing stories and seeing various online statistics, the average percentage of men who are unaware that their child isn’t biologically theirs ranges from 10% upwards.
Surely these figures can’t be accurate?

Well exactly. Obviously it is the woman's fault in these cases if they have sex with another man behind their partner's back then allow the partner to think, without any doubt, they're the father of any subsequent children. If there is any doubt around paternity then the decent thing to do is establish the facts instead of misleading two men and potentially fucking up their child if they find out the man they thought was their dad isn't at all.

Exactly. Also "wear a condom" is reasonable advice for people involved in casual dating, but many of these wrong paternity cases will involve couples who are married. If you are married to a woman and you are both supposed to be being faithful, it's reasonable to use other birth control rather than condoms, as condoms make sex less fun for both men and women, and obvious the man is not in control of whether BC is used or not by the woman. And what about when a couple is trying to conceive?

We've had centuries of double standards where women were always to blame for everything, even when it was quite obviously a man's fault. I'm not sure it's any better to have a new set of double standards where everything is always the man's fault even when it's the woman who chooses to be unfaithful and lie about it.

This is the programme about Luke, who discovered he was half Portuguesian, mentioned earlier in the thread.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001qg3q/stranger-in-my-family

@OnTheRightSideOfGeography
" can see their cold statistically-based thinking, but what they're basically saying is "in spite of your declarations to the contrary, you may have been cheating on your husband". That definitely leaves a nasty taste, when you know you've been 100% faithful."

Yes it wasn't great. When I said this they said they have to take this approach as very few women are going to admit the father may be different to the partner present with them which I took the point.

@ShouldhavebeencalledAppollo . I'm not sure as I didn't run the study so please don't try and call me out as some expert in medical studies but yes believe it was into genetics. It was an inner city hospital in a diverse area

Portuguese, not Portuguesian - although I quite like that!

I don’t know how these women sleep at night knowing they are deceiving not only their partner but their child too.

OnTheRightSideOfGeography
" can see their cold statistically-based thinking, but what they're basically saying is "in spite of your declarations to the contrary, you may have been cheating on your husband". That definitely leaves a nasty taste, when you know you've been 100% faithful."

They're not your friends or family making a value judgement; they're people doing a job.
I had a kidney problem and one of the causes could have been an STI. The doctor (who actually is a friend of DH and mine) explained she should test for an STI.
I 100% knew that neither of us had been unfaithful but realised testing was part of her job.

makeanddo · Yesterday

There is a simple solution - wear a condom every time and for men to campaign for a birth control pill.

They don't want to do either if these things do they though. Don't have much sympathy with them to be honest. It's always women's fault!

Apparently even the female pill and/or condoms aren't 100% safe.
Particularly on MN where practically every unplanned pregnancy is due to some failure of the pill or a broken condom, it seems.
Hardly anyone here is ever just careless.

Ex SIL had three children with her DH before she married my DH brother. Her middle child is not her husband's. The Husband and child still don't know, child is now 28.

BIL has doubts about paternity of "his son". He had a very casual relationship with the mother and she had a very casual relationship with his friend. Child looks like the friend the older he gets. Neither of them are on the birth certificate.

FIL has a long lost son that he denies paternity too. Son is the image of him and his other sons.

Its more common than you would think.

I knew a man who discovered that two of his three children had been fathered by different men.

He split with the mother, but continued to co-parent all three children.

I think that’s a very conservative estimate. Off the top of my head I know of 2 men who knew they were not the father but claimed they were and went into the child’s birth certificate.
Both have now split with the mother and don’t see the child.
In both cases the woman was pregnant when they met her.
I was watching a documentary on tv, not related to this issue, and the man on there was not the father yet claimed he was. Again he knew the mother was pregnant when he met her.
It’s a shame for the child.
I think dna testing before going into a birth certificate would be the only way to prevent this.
Don’t forget these men (and women) are committing a crime by doing this.
Of course there are also those who genuinely believe they are the father.
Oh I’ve just remembered another one. An acquaintance of my brothers confiding in him that his pregnant girlfriend had been having sex with another man at the time of conception.
He didn’t know what to do. Db advised him to do a dna test. He didn’t, went on the birth certificate, she continued to sleep around. They split up. He finally does a dna test. He isn’t the father and has since been removed from the child’s birth certificate.
Just awful for these children.

Also a friend of mine in school was obviously mixed race. Both parents and her brother were white. My friend would say her great, great grandfather was black and that's why she looked mixed race. Nah... all lies, came out years later that she was the result of an affair

Reminds my of watching the Jerry Springer show and 10 men were dna tested for paternity and it was none of them!! They all looked mightily relieved !!
Seriously though, it must be agony to find out you are not the biological father after bonding with the child, and awful for the child if daddy suddenly isn't daddy anymore 😪

They aren't committing a crime if they are married or in civil partnership with the mother.

Also no-one is forcing adult unmarried men to go on babies birth certificates if they don't want to. All they simply have to do is not turn up to the registry office appointment.

Was he married to the mother?

As if he was the children are legally regarded as his.

I didn’t try to call you out. I certainly didn’t say you should be a medical expert.

i didn’t comment on your ability or knowledge of tea study. You don’t how they managed it because they can’t know what percentage of the local population this applied to.

I was commenting on a MW and Drs repeating this knowing they have no idea of the accuracy of it.

All these men who aren't the fathers of their wives babies have probably been unfaithful too.

Ha ha I wasn't sure what to put!

Actually, I wanted to change it to half Portugese/Guinea Bissau after I had watched the programme, but it was too late to edit.

I think millions of men will know for sure. Everyone that meets my son and my DH say ‘good grief! It’s like two peas in a pod!’

Really?

What a sad view of humanity that is.

When I was a midwife I accidentally told a dad he wasn't the father.

Postnatal, waiting for the Babys blood group to come back to decide if mum needed another Anti D being Rhesus Neg.
Dad was harassing me all afternoon, obviously wanting to get his new family home. When the results came in, I went with the anti d to the bedside and happily announced baby's blood as Rhesus Pos. Dad looked at me and quite shocked whispered "how can it be, I'm negative too". Both of us looked at eachother and shared a look of horror as we knew exactly what it meant. Mum was sat in bed oblivious to the gravity of what had just happened.

Poor man. Poor Poor man.

He left for a bit. Came back and the new family went home. I have no idea what happened after but I've often thought of them.

I've lost track of the amount of strangers who have said DS looks just like DP who is his stepdad.

I've worked in a lab that does genetic testing for inherited conditions and they could easily check that way. The number was higher actually, can't remember exactly but something like 15 or 20%.

This was different country, 25 years ago, but no reason for it to be very different here, now.

No worries as I missed that out as well. 😃

All it means that you go for men who have a similar look about them.