Families are built on trust. So when it begins to crumble, even our closest and strongest relationships can break.

A few days ago, a woman who goes online by the nickname Effective_Stress9076 made a post on the ‘Two Hot Takes‘ subreddit, seeking advice on how to navigate her marriage.

In it, she explained that her husband refuses to believe that their second child is his — a positive paternity test also didn’t change his mind.

The Redditor is at a loss and hopes the internet will help her figure out a way forward.

This man didn’t believe his wife when she said that their second child is really his

Image credits: Keira Burton / Pexels (not the actual photo)

So the couple did a paternity test

Paternal discrepancy is far less common than many people think

What the Redditor’s husband is afraid of is sometimes called “paternity fraud.” However, a more accurate term could be “paternal discrepancy,” or PD. The word fraud emphasizes the financial aspect of the phenomenon, while discrepancy describes the anomaly itself—the disconnect between what men think is true and the genetic reality.

There is a common misconception when it comes to the rates of PD. Many believe it is highly prevalent. For example, a co-host of the 2 Be Better Podcast said in 2023, “The last study said that 40% of men are raising children who are not theirs and they don’t even know it.” However, they did not provide any sources to support this bold claim — probably because such a paper doesn’t exist.

“With DNA tests now widely available, so-called paternity fraud has become a staple of talk shows and TV crime series,” American biologist Marlene Zuk wrote. “Aggrieved men accuse tearful wives who profess their fidelity, only to have their extramarital affairs brought to light. Billboards … provocatively ask, ‘Paternity questions?’ and advise that the answers are for sale at your local pharmacy in the form of at-home DNA paternity tests. Some fathers’-rights groups in Australia have called for mandatory paternity testing of all children at birth, with or without the mother’s consent or even her knowledge.”

Image credits: Rimidolove / Envato Elements (not the actual photo)

And people are pretty convinced there is a need for all this vigilance. But the truth is much less sensational than the content creators, who spread lies hoping to exchange shock value for clicks, want us to believe.

“According to the most unbiased research, the real incidence of misassigned paternity in Western countries hovers around 1%, with a few studies pushing that number to 3% or nearly 4%,” Zuk explained. “That’s one-tenth as common as the conventional wisdom has it. It appears that we humans are more honest, monogamous, and faithful than we think.”

One of the most thorough cross-cultural studies that you can find on the topic is called How Well Does Paternity Confidence Match Actual Paternity? This research paper estimates of nonpaternity suggests that for men with high paternity confidence, nonpaternity rates are around 1.7% (if we exclude studies of unknown methodology) to 3.3% (if we include such studies).

True, men who, just like the father from the Reddit post, have low paternity confidence and have chosen to run a test are less likely to be the fathers of their putative children but even most of them are wrong; only 29.8% could be excluded as biological fathers of the children in question.

“Unbiased studies are hard to find, because most people undergo paternity testing only if they have a reason to suspect a discrepancy between the purported father and the genetic one,” Zuk said. “Using data from the companies that sell the at-home tests, for example, is certain to yield an overestimate of misassigned paternity.”

So relax, men. Around 96.7% to 98.3% of you are, indeed, the father. And if you don’t believe that even when you receive a positive DNA test, the problem lies elsewhere.

The positive result hasn’t convinced him either

Image credits: Drew Hays / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Effective_Stress9076

People who have read the woman’s story feel really sorry for her

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