They had no legal custody. He volunteered and did she did not commit paternity fraud cause she didn't put him on the birth certificate. Unfortunately, legally, he has zip to stand on.

@@justinenicole3926 true, but that seems to be a failing on his part. He should have been proactive on that part from the beginning. I personally had some fwb get pregnant and I said I needed a court paternity test before I give a penny. I was sleeping with other people and so were they. With me the condom broke, but I am not sure about their other partners. Never heard anything back from them after that. People are too trusting, I even had my wife take a paternity test for our son. I have been cheated on before and kids I believed were mine, turned out not to be, thankfully I was too young to be working and having to pay before the truth came out.

This is why you do paternity tests period. I don't care if she's a one night stand or your wife of 15 years, they real way to be sure is with a paternity test

Give the guy a break. The dude's entire world was just turned upside down, of course he's going to start questioning everything

You didn’t listen to the whole story as the dad isn’t bio dad at all and was essentially lied to his whole daughter’s life

​@@ADR-xn6dg sure, but stepmum didn't know any of that when she chose her parenting approach, did she?

I definitely think that she's downplaying the role that she might've had in her stepdaughter's mental state leading to that bullying. Like, not that I think she's treated SD maliciously, as much as I think she has sidelined SD. And even if it's for understandable reasons from the outside - I don't think SD owes OP that same understanding, because she is a child. But I get the feeling that OP might think she does, in terms of the difficulties caused by the youngest's disability. Like, SD being around and needing parental/adult attention is *just* as much of an unavoidable thing that needs to be addressed as is the youngest's disability, but I kinda get the vibe that even pre-plot-twist, OP didn't see it that way. I think in these kinds of situations, parents often fall back on mantras like 'we all have difficulties,' 'nobody's perfect,' 'we are doing the best we can' etc - and that may be true, but I think what's also true is that sometimes, parents fall back on that stuff to avoid facing the fact that they've played a role in making life very difficult for a smaller, more vulnerable person than themselves. Maybe they have too much else on their plate to face it, but that doesn't make their role in it go away. Even when the difficulty for the kid manifests in behaviour that others can't tolerate, the role of the adults is still not erased. I honestly really feel for the stepdaughter, despite the things she's said. I definitely get the sense that she's reacting to a situation for which the adults bear far more responsibility than her (in a broad, her dad deciding to start a new family in the first place way, we don't know how she felt about that and the fact that OP doesn't address her feelings at all makes me wonder) - but the way our POV adult talks about her, it sounds as though a common theme among the adults is treating SD's bad behaviour as its own isolated thing, devoid of a cause... because admitting that it might have a cause would mean admitting their own complicity. And even if the reason for not admitting it is that they have Too Much Else going on - that still means they're pushing a vulnerable, clearly damaged child further out into the cold, as the sacrifice to try and amend the problems that they've decided *are* theirs to navigate. And this is all happening LONG before the paternity revelation.

There's no way you watched the video.

​@AMinibot at age 12 you should know not to physically abuse your little brother or threaten him.