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A man revealed in a now-viral post that he "ruined" his brother's family by telling his niece Lily that she was the product of an affair.
The man, u/username52819101js, shared his story in Reddit's "Am I The A**hole" (AITA) forum where it has garnered over 9,500 upvotes and thousands of comments from supportive Redditors while providing a first-hand look into a rather rare phenomenon.
In his post, the man explained that he was engaged to Lily's mom when Lily was conceived.
I was led to believe Lily was mine throughout the entire pregnancy and almost signed her birth certificate...
"I was led to believe Lily was mine throughout the entire pregnancy and almost signed her birth certificate before my ex [Lily's mom] confessed, out of guilt, that Lily was probably my brother's," the man wrote, adding that a DNA test later confirmed that to be the case.
"My ex ended up marrying my brother [and] I'm somewhat cordial towards them but I can't bring myself to fully forgive them for what they did. And although I know Lily is blameless, whenever I see her, I'm constantly reminded of how I was once overjoyed with holding her in the hospital thinking she was mine, so I can't bear to look at her for too long," he continued.
All these years later, the man is still "single and childless," and while he's kept his distance from Lily and her parents, he's spent a lot of money on his other nieces and nephew.
"When my oldest nephew turned 18 I decided [to] pay for his college education since I could afford it while his parents couldn't," the man said. "Since then I've done the same thing for two of my other nieces."
Last week, Lily approached him during a family event and asked if he would pay for her college tuition, too, but he refused. In response, Lily called him a "jerk," and demanded to know why he wouldn't pay for her education as he did the rest of her cousins.
"I told her that her parents have enough money to afford her education and asked her how she could possibly expect me to be ok with watching my ex and brother, who had an affair behind my back, play happy family in front of me," he recalled.
Upset, Lily left the event early and has since moved in with her boyfriend's family.
"I got a call from my ex yelling at me for ruining her family, apparently she and my brother didn't bother telling Lily about what they did to me all those years ago," the man said. "AITA?"
A Rather Rare Phenomenon
According to Dr. Phil, three percent of children born in the United States are a product of an extra-marital affair.
And sadly, marriage and family therapist Susan Berger said adult children of these affairs—or, children who, as adults, learned they were the product of an affair—often have a difficult time forming lasting bonds with others.
"They experience great difficulty forming secure, deep and long-lasting bonds with others, and struggle with addictions and self-hatred. There is usually a sense of not being able to completely relax, a feeling that something isn't quite right. They can be perceived as cold, or uncaring, but remaining emotionally unavailable is a way they have learned to protect themselves from further betrayal," Berger wrote on her website, About Affairs.
Redditor Reactions
Though learning about an affair can have such long-lasting, negative impacts on children, many Redditors maintained that u/username52819101js was right to tell Lily about their family history.
"NTA [not the a**hole]...She deserved to know it and she will appreciate it in the long run. It also gave her an understanding of why her uncle treated her so differently, which clearly has plagued her. I'm sure her parents are upset to be caught in their lies for the second time in nearly two decades but they are THEIR LIES...They should have told their own daughter first. Someone was going to tell her eventually, inside or outside the family," u/lmchatterbox wrote.
"NTA, I'm sure she's asked her parents at some point about why you're so cold to her. They had 18 years to explain things to her," u/thedeebag added.
Newsweek has reached out to u/username52819101js for comment.
Other AITA posters to go viral in recent weeks include a mom who filed a report against a hospital employee for touching her baby without permission, a woman who talked her friend out of taking a paternity test, and a mother whose son's ex-girlfriend showed up at their house eight-months pregnant.
About the writer
Sara Santora is a Newsweek reporter based in Florida. Her focus is reporting on viral social media posts and trends. ... Read more