There are different reasons why people might ask for DNA or paternity tests. But the five stories below show how it can hurt relationships and end marriages.
People deal with children differently now that they can get DNA tests. In the stories below, five Reddit users talk about how getting DNA tests changed their lives in big ways.

Both Parents Discover Their Child Isn’t Biologically Theirs
On Reddit, a 29-year-old woman said that she met her 31-year-old husband in college and loved him very much. Their relationship was going well until her husband chose to get a DNA test. They had a five-year-old daughter together.

The test came back negative, and the woman’s husband began to like her more. It shocked the original writer (OP) that she had been caught cheating on him. She insisted that since she and her husband were already married when they tried to have a child, no one else could be the father of their girl.
“I never cheated; I never would cheat.”

OP had only slept with two other guys before she met her husband. Because of the effects, OP’s husband started working longer hours and wouldn’t talk to his wife as much as he used to. They both had blue eyes, but the little girl had brown eyes, which made him suspect. He told her he had taken the test.

At one point, he told OP to leave their house, but after he cooled down, he agreed to talk about it more. They decided to test a few things to find out the truth. He said he would go crazy if the tests didn’t show that his wife wasn’t guilty.

They shocked everyone by taking a blood paternity test that showed neither of them was the girl’s biological dad. The police were called, and an officer came over to take the family’s accounts. Their lives were drastically changed.

When OP and her husband sued the hospital where she gave birth, they stood together. As she thought about where the child might be, the thought of her real daughter scared her. The thing that scared her the most, though, was what would happen when the little girl was found.

Even though she was interested in her birth daughter, she was still her five-year-old’s guardian and didn’t want the child to find out they weren’t her birth parents because it would ruin her youth. She was also afraid that the child would tell her friends and school about her, which would cause people to talk badly about her.

A few weeks later, OP went back to Reddit to say that they had found their real daughter and was taking care of her. The child’s fake parents picked her up right from the hospital, but when the cops found out she wasn’t their real child, they put her in foster care.

OP and her husband tried to adopt their biological child from the foster parents of the child. They got about $2 million as settlement money from the court case about how negligent the hospital was. They told their daughter, who they had lived with for years, that her sister was coming to stay with them.

Even with everything going on, OP and her husband told the little girl they still loved her. This time, she and her husband were going to move to a different place to start over with their kids. Lucky for us, that story had a happy finish. But what happened to the father who took a test because his child had darker skin?

Man Secretly Takes a Paternity Test to Appease His Family
A 30-year-old Brazilian-American woman on Reddit asked for help with her problem in the “Relationship Advice” subreddit in 2022. She said that she and her 29-year-old Serbian husband had a girl who was three years old and looked different from them.

People in her husband’s family were fair-skinned, but people in her family were light brown and of mixed race. The Redditor and her husband were close to their extended families and took their child to see them often to learn about other cultures.

The couple’s daughter was born with smooth hair and fair skin. As she grew up, her hair turned darker brown. The rest of the family is interested in how the child’s face is changing because even her hair is getting curlier.

Their daughter was interesting to the Redditor’s husband’s family, who were always interested in their lives. There was a joke in her husband’s family a year before she wrote the post about “the milkman” and how she got too much sun while she was pregnant.

The mean jokes kept coming out, but the child’s mother didn’t respond until they stopped. She looked through her husband’s phone’s gallery for days before posting on Reddit. While they fixed a fence problem, they were looking for a certain shot.

She clicked on the picture of the document because she thought it was what she was looking for, but it turned out to be a paternity test result! The test showed that her husband is the father of their daughter. When she asked him about it, he admitted that he had done it a year before because his family was always asking him about the child’s darker skin.

He said that his family made him take the test because they thought his wife might have been cheating on him. The issue of his child’s fatherhood came up every time he went to see his family, and she remembered how angry and stressed he would be when he got home.

He generally said that his bad behavior was because of problems at work or with his family. The person on Reddit got mad and asked him why he was even thinking about it and how rude it was to her and their daughter. The man said he had never really thought about it and that he only took the test to make his family happy.

He tried to defend himself by showing her old messages in which he had backed her and tried to calm his family’s fears. Even though he tried to act innocent, his wife was still angry, especially since he had chosen to hide the test.

She knew that the memories of the times they spent with his family were tainted by their false views of her and her daughter. Her husband said he didn’t tell her because he didn’t want to bother her.

The Redditor’s husband admitted fault and apologized, but being with his family no longer made her feel better. She was upset, but she also found it hard to let go of the problem for her daughter’s sake.

The mother of the child asked her husband if he trusted her after what happened. As a result of the trust breach, the pair was not as close, honest, and lively as they used to be. The fight was their first major argument, and she didn’t know what to do next. Although her story didn’t have a happy finish, this one will not leave you hanging.

A DNA Test Exposed One Woman’s Twin Brothers as Her Husband’s Children
There was also a 40-year-old woman on Reddit who shared her own DNA story. She said that she fell in love with her future husband when she was fifteen years old. After being together for two years, she got pregnant and decided to have a family with him.

They moved in with her parents and got married when she was 18. Soon after getting married, they moved next door to her grandparents’ empty house, which she had inherited. Later, the couple had more children together.

When she was 40, she went on a girls’ trip with her friends. She was seven months pregnant with their last kid. The woman came home from her trip early so she could sleep in her own bed, but she was shocked when she got there.

When she went into her bedroom, her mother was having sex with her husband! Her mom yelled at her and told her to get out of “their bedroom,” which shocked her. The parent left with a bedsheet over their head, leaving the Reddit user to talk to her husband.

He told her right away that his mother-in-law had raped him when he was 18 and they were still living with her parents. The man said that after that, they slept together every month and made sure no one caught them. Her heart broke when she heard the truth.

It got even worse when she realized that her youngest brother and twin brothers might be her husband’s children! She called her dad and told him everything. He was so upset that he went straight to her mom and told her what was going on.

The Reddit user wanted their family to know the truth, so she threw a party and told everyone about the affair between her husband and mother. She was shocked when some family members, like her husband’s whole family, thought she was wrong for sharing the truth.

Sadly, her mother’s friend and church leader found out the truth too, which made them call to make sure it was true. The Redditor’s mother had nothing to do with being the kids’ teacher. But her mother didn’t take responsibility; instead, she blamed her, and the sign said:

“She claims I’ve essentially ruined her reputation and life.”

Her husband kicked her out, and she moved in with her 38-year-old daughter. It was also important to the hurt husband to get a DNA test for the three younger boys. The tests shocked everyone by showing that the Redditor’s husband was actually the father of the twin boys!

When she heard the news, she threw him out and got a divorce. The poster and her father held on to each other for support. Her father told her that they were going to sell the grandparents’ house, which brought back bad memories. He was going to let her buy a new house with the money from the sale.

Their mother and husband would not get anything from the sale. Her ex-husband now had seven kids of his own. She bought half of his business because she helped him start it and ran the office while she took a break from her job.

The most upsetting thing for her was losing touch with family. Her younger kids don’t know why she got divorced, but her 14-year-old daughter did and chose to stop talking to her dad. In the end, the man’s ex-husband admitted that he began seeing his mother-in-law after the picture made him mad.

In order to feel better, he turned to his mother-in-law, and that’s how they became close. The Redditor’s ex-spouse said he would have split her but thought it would be better for him to stay together with her.

Paternity Test Vindicates Woman Shunned by Husband’s Family
A Reddit user who is 24 years old told other users a story about her family. The OP said she had three boys who looked just like their dad, but when their daughter was born, she didn’t look anything like her dad.

Her skin was very pale, and her hair was golden blonde. Her eyes were green, which was different from everyone else’s. OP became close with an older male coworker while she was pregnant with their daughter. The coworker was extra nice to her and another female coworker.

Sometimes he left flowers on their desks and brought her and the other woman coffee in the morning. She didn’t think much of his behavior because he was married and always talked positively about his family. He also never tried to get close to her.

Even though they knew what their relationship was really like, OP’s husband didn’t like it and wanted her to end their relationship, but she refused. The couple fought about it, but it seemed to go away in the end. But after their daughter was born, the husband became angry again.

The girl was born with the same skin tone and eye color as her mother’s older male coworker. The girl’s father couldn’t stand to hold her when she was born. He asked for a pregnancy test, but his wife wouldn’t do it because she thought it would be embarrassing and pointless.

He wasn’t buying it when she said that their child looked just like her great-grandparents. He was more interested in finding out if she had cheated on him. She already had to deal with him, and his family adding to the stress made things worse.

Even her in-laws turned their backs on her, and her husband wouldn’t help them care for their daughter. OP was hurt that he wasn’t the same person he was when they had their boys. When her son’s birthday came around, no one talked to her. That’s when she chose to take the test.

During the event, her mother-in-law didn’t include the little girl in a picture of her grandkids. But OP got the last laugh when the DNA test showed that her husband was the father of their daughter. The whole family felt bad about how they treated her and said they were sorry.

When OP’s husband finally held his daughter for the first time, he broke down in tears. He also told his wife he was sorry a lot of times and cried every time he held his baby girl. She forgive him because she thought he was sincere when he said he was sorry.

But she didn’t want anything to do with his family, and she finally told her husband that they had to move to her home country or get a divorce. It became clear to OP how serious she was when she told him she was talking to divorce lawyers. He agreed to do anything she wanted to get her forgiveness.

She was sorry, but she didn’t want to ever talk to her husband’s family again because she didn’t want her kids to go through what she did. After that, she and her husband both went to solo and group therapy.

OP said that things with her husband were going well and that she hoped they would stay that way. The woman on Reddit isn’t the only one whose husband asked for a pregnancy test because they looked alike; the person below also shared her story on social media.

Woman Threatens Divorce after Mother-in-Law Insists on DNA Test for Grandson
Late in 2023, a woman posted on Reddit that she and her husband had been together for five years, three of which they had been married. The mother of her husband was too controlling and made things difficult for them. She often said things she wasn’t asked for and acted badly, which bothered his wife, but she tried not to show it.

OP thought it was unfair to be mad at him for things that were out of his control. The things she was talking about were the mean things his mother said and did. She didn’t like it though that he didn’t stand up to his mother when his wife was annoyed or uncomfortable with her bothersome behavior.

At one point, OP’s mother-in-law began to wonder who the father of her child was. The mom had said that the boy didn’t look anything like her toddler son. The angry OP thought the woman was saying she slept with other people.

The Reddit user strongly rejected the claims while being upset about what was happening, but her husband did nothing. Because he didn’t defend her against his mother’s claims, there was a rift in their relationship.

Because OP was getting more and more angry and felt disrespected by her husband, she mentally pulled away from him. He lightly said one day that he was going to get a DNA test for their son to try to make his mother happy, and that was the start of the end.

Because he made her feel like his words were an insult to her honor and face, his wife quit putting up with the toxic behavior. OP hired a lawyer and began looking for a new place to stay away from the chaos.

She didn’t change her mind about what she wanted to do, and she planned to file for divorce when the DNA test came back in a few days. OP knew that getting a divorce from her husband wasn’t about her, but rather to protect her kid. Since she had a hard childhood because her parents fought a lot, the poster knew how hard things could be for her son.

She didn’t want him to have to go through the same things she did. OP was also lucky because she had a stable job that let her be independent and safe. In the middle of her rough life, she found comfort there. She felt grateful that she kept her job even though she could have quit after she got married because it helped her stay financially stable.

The Redditor said in an update that she called her father-in-law on the day of the test to take care of things herself. That evening, she asked him and her mother-in-law to come over. The tests that showed he was the boy’s father were given to her husband at home.

After admitting that his mother had gotten in the way of their marriage, he also promised to talk to her.

He then sent her the results and said he would talk to his mother about it to make things right. During the phone call, she did tell him that she was going to talk to a counselor and start the divorce process. The call turned into a heated fight, and he defended what he did.

He said he didn’t think she would act the way she did, but she told him that his lack of concern for her hurt their relationship. Even though OP didn’t want to sign the divorce papers, she gave them to him and left that night.

Even though she had left, her husband was still torn between being loyal to his parents and fixing his broken marriage. He asked his mom to say sorry, but she wouldn’t. Instead, she said that her son’s wife was causing problems in the family.

Finally, OP and her husband were able to talk, and he asked if they could try to save their relationship by going to therapy together. He also asked if they could keep being co-parents. The Reddit user said that her husband was set on keeping their son even if they got a divorce.

After admitting that his mother had gotten in the way of their marriage, he also promised to talk to her. There was no moving for OP for now. She hoped that therapy would help her husband learn how to put their marriage first.