Ever get the feeling that your family is hiding something from you? Though it may seem like something that only happens in soap operas, people withhold devastating secrets from their loved ones all the time. Here are 5 signs that your family has a second father they aren’t telling you about.
1. Your whole family frequently goes on “business trips” without you: Does your family often take sudden business trips all at the same time, leaving you at home alone? Investigate the details of their travel, and you might find out that all those “work conferences” they’ve claimed to be at were just cover stories for long weekends they spent at roadside motels being secretly fathered and loving every second of it.
2. Your family members have previously implied they want more dads whenever you’ve mentioned that you’re fine with having just one dad: It’s possible that your family has dropped hints that they aren’t content with the number of dads they have now, even though you might be. Think back: has your first dad ever mentioned how fun it would be to have another guy around to raise the kids and be married to your mom? Or has a sibling ever implied that they’d always hoped to have a family with two dads or more? Subtle comments like these could actually speak to a hidden desire for more dads that your family is acting on behind your back.
3. Your family always has a convenient excuse, like all their phones being dead, for being unreachable on Father’s Day: “Our phones were all dead because we were so excited about Father’s Day that we forgot to charge them the night before.” “None of us had service—can you believe our phone carrier crapped the bed on Father’s Day of all days?” “We didn’t see your texts or calls, we were stuck in Father’s Day traffic all day.” Major red flags. The more elaborate the excuse, the more you can bet that they’re simply lying about spending Father’s Day with a dad they’re not telling you about.
4. You discover the Facebook account of a guy whose profile photo is him with everyone in your family except you, and he’s holding both your parents’ hands: This is one of the most common ways people find out their family has a second dad, and yes, it’s one of the most devastating.
5. Your family has a record of hiding other dads from you in the past: Even if you’ve caught your family playing flag football or baking cookies with a second dad before, and they’ve pleaded for forgiveness and sworn it would never happen again, it’s always possible they haven’t broken the habit just yet. Don’t let yourself be manipulated again. You only need to find out that your family is hiding another dad from you one time to know that you deserve better.
