AITA for ruining both my parents marriages for disowning me?

A Reddit user shared a deeply complex and emotional story about discovering their origins as the child of an affair, which both parents had kept secret from their respective families for years. After years of secrecy and limited contact, the user reached out to connect with their father’s side, only to be met with rejection.

Feeling hurt, they decided to reveal the truth to both parents’ families, ultimately leading to the collapse of both marriages and upheaval in their siblings’ lives. Read the full story below to understand the full scope of their decision and its consequences.

‘ AITA for ruining both my parents marriages for disowning me?’

I am the by-product of my parents extra-marital affair. Both of them had spouses at the time. My birth-mother got pregnant and had to tell her husband as he was overseas when I was conceived so there was no way I was his. A few months after I was born they decided not to divorce. I was given to my grandparents on my mothers side to raise with my birth father secretly paying child support without his wife’s knowledge.

Both my parents had other children, my dad’s side knows nothing about me but my siblings on my mum’s side were told that I am adopted by my grandparents. Recently I decided that I wanted to know more about my dad’s family and I sent a friend’s request to one of my siblings and my dad so I could get to know him.

Well he freaked out and contacted my birth mum and they asked to speak to me over Skype. They both told me that they couldnt risk staying in contact with me and told me that they were going no-contact and to please respect it and move on with my life. Well I did pretty much the opposite. I contacted my dad’s wife and shared screen shots of our conversations and told her everything.

She is now divorcing him while on my mother’s side I told both my siblings who then went on to tell extended family including her husband’s side so now they are seperated and my siblings hate my mother. Currently my siblings on both sides lives have been upturned and after the satisfaction has worn off I feel like I unnecessarily hurt them through my parents. AITA for ruining my parents marriages?

Here’s the comments of Reddit users:

Barrel-Of-Tigers −  NTA. You didn’t ruin anything – they did. Your birth parents have been and continued to be completely s**fish arseholes, and everyone deserved to see who they really were. The only people who upended anyone’s lives are your parents. You did not deserve to be told to go away or hidden.

Keanucordonbleu −  NTA your parents are f**king s**fish. So many other options for them instead of just pretending like you don’t exist. If you don’t want your spouse to find out you cheated, how about not ducking cheating.
All you wanted was a little contact with family. They rejected you. Well they don’t get to choose whether your half sisters and brothers want to know you or not. Maybe sharing screenshots was not the right way to go but honesty if you keep such a huge secret from your spouse, you deserve to get found out eventually.

outtodryclt −  NTA. It’s really s**tty that they would try to deprive you of having *literally any family* besides your grandparents so that they can cover up their bad behavior. I don’t blame you for what you did. You’re definitely going to have to deal with the fallout, but at least you can now have a relationship with your siblings.

mowermachine −  They were expecting you to actively participate in erasing your own existence from their world. They basically wanted you to not exist. Of course you got angry and wanted to hurt them. So the fact that you wanted to punish them is…well, I won’t go so far as to call it assholish, but the fact that you feel like a schmuck for deliberately kicking the keystone pebble that led to this particular landslide tells me that you are a decent person that doesn’t like to see other people in pain as a direct result of events you played a minor part in engineering.

But please remember that the people who set up this whole situation made it so, so easy for you to trigger that landslide. All you had to do was publicly exist at them. Sure, you were pissed, but literally the only thing you did was say “Hey! I exist!” And if all you have to do is breath and exist to blow up someone’s tower of lies…then you are so NTA.

agirlhasnoscreenname −  You’re NTA here. Your parents couldn’t have expected to hide a living, breathing *human being* forever. This is their lie and their problem. You were born into inauspicious circumstances but you didn’t choose who your parents were. You don’t deserve to live hidden away for the rest of your life. Try and be supportive of your siblings on both sides, but embrace being out in the open.

Take this opportunity to learn about your relatives on a deeper level (while also respecting their boundaries when asked). Forget your parents, they were never worth knowing to begin with. But see if you can build new friendships and relationships with your siblings, who are also victims of your parents’ lies. EDIT: Saw in the comments that you’re 17. This is a lot for anyone, much less a teenager to go through. Talk to your grandparents about therapy in the future, and best of luck to you.

KjellRS −  NTA for ruining their marriages, they did that by cheating. Sure exposing a c**ater’s cheating will hurt the family that’s being cheated on, but in my opinion that’s never an a**hole thing to do even if it’s now in the distant past. You didn’t make them cheaters, you just exposed them for what they were.

Rellax_ −  I dont have a coherent answer. But I will say this, lies almost certainly eventually unfold. For 17 years they did not own up to their mistake, they literally passed it over to someone else, well, that mistake has asked to be recognized, they thought they can just brush it off like they did, so they faced the consequences from the worst perspective.
They could’ve tried and make it right opening things up slowly and carefully, but I guess they got what they deserve. Props on the balls, karma is a b**ch.

SamwisethePoopyButt −  INFO: When/how did you find out the truth about your parentage? If it was later in life I’m particularly interested in how your “adopted sister” acted towards you.

[Reddit User] −  I’m gonna go against the grain and say ESH. Your parents for obvious reasons, and you for intentionally ruining someone’s life for your own satisfaction. Did you have a reason for it, sure. But being a vengeful a**hole is still being a vengeful a**hole. Note, I’m not saying that you’re a bad person by any means, most people including myself probably understand why you’d do what you did. But I do think you’re a bit of a d**k for intentionally doing it.

Now, if it had happened accidentally for example because your father’s wife had accidentally seen the message on your dad’s phone, that wouldn’t have been explicitly your fault, and you would not be an a**hole here, but purposely doing this is a different matter. Edit: Because people somehow have trouble reading it, here’s a clarification:. MALICIOUS, VENGEFUL = A**HOLE. NOT MALICIOUS, ACCIDENTAL = NOT A**HOLE.

Motivations matter, people. Unlike legal matters, intentions are important when judging whether a behaviour is assholish. E2: Enjoyed the discussion, at least with the civil fellows, but I’m a tad o**rwhelmed with the sheer amount of replies, so gonna just go sleep. Everyone remember that it’s fine to have differing opinions here, and have a nice day 🙂

SamwisethePoopyButt −  NTA. The effects of your actions did worsen the lives for a lot of people, but I blame you as much as I would blame a force of nature. They were really stupid if they thought they could keep a lid on this. I wonder after how many years they got cocky enough to believe they deserved the comfortable life they had. Sucks for your half siblings, but if you can build/maintain a relationship with them that would be the best possible outcome.