'I don't know how to handle this': Man's identity shattered after wife pushes him to do fun ancestry DNA test, discovers he has a half-brother, and that his "dad" isn't his biological father, causing huge family rift

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  • Woman comforting her boyfriend in front of a pile of DNA tests
  • My wife and I submitted Ancestry together and I wish I hadn't

    I (34M) had never done DNA testing before. When I was in the military there was a fear that troops' DNA results could be sold to third parties and/or exploited by adversaries so I never went in.
  • I was raised to know dad's side was French and Dutch, and mom's side was Portuguese and Swedish.
  • After we got married, though, my wife (29F) really wanted to do Ancestry. She wanted to get an actual breakdown of her heritage and I told her I had no interest in doing it.
  • But there was a package deal for 2 so she pressured me into doing it, making jokes that I'd been switched at birth or was adopted.
  • I have heard this my whole life because I have a brown complexion and my siblings are white, but it was easily explained away because much of our Portuguese family have dark skin.
  • I've been mistaken for so many nationalities or ethnicities that I kind of just tuned it out.
  • We submitted our samples after Thanksgiving and got our results on Jan 8. My wife opened hers first and it was what we expected.
  • I opened mine when she wasn't looking and was stunned to see no French or Dutch ancestry; on mom's side it was English and Portuguese as expected, but dad's side was Spanish and Puerto Rican.
  • I had never known my dad's family to be Hispanic. My wife wanted to see my results and when she did, she laughed and told me she had always known I was Hispanic.
  • I had never used this before so when she asked for my matches, I didn't know how to access it.
  • She opened it for me and I saw that I had a half-brother on my father's side.
  • Gentle girlfriend comforting her stressed boyfriend
  • I didnt believe it at first, my parents divorced when was little so I figured maybe Dad had a fling and had a kid he didnt know about.
  • A good friend of mine had a situation like that, which I figured wasn't a big deal.
  • I reached out to my dad with the names and he said he didn't know anyone by those names.
  • I told him over text that one came back as my half brother, and he called me right away.
  • He told me in a shaky voice that he didn't know how to say it but he wasn't my biological father.
  • He said my mother called him in 2004 to tell him and he'd been devastated and couldn't accept it.
  • He told me he didn't know who the bio was or what had happened. I contacted my mom and she basically said "I came from a broken home and was in the wrong crowd and I don't even remember what happened because I was drinking" and I was blown away.
  • Elderly woman sitting with her hands on her head and her back to her partner
  • We have always had a contentious relationship mainly because she refuses to take responsibility for how she treated me when I was younger so I took this as her making this about her and being dismissive of my feelings.
  • (I also have no idea how she knew in 2004) I don't know how to handle this or what to feel but this whole situation has been so surreal, it feels like its not happening to ME.
  • I've been emotionally shattered and I don't know what to feel, but I feel lost and sad and angry.
  • My wife is also devastated because she feels bad about pressuring me into it. Anyone with similar experiences: help me.

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