Reddit Stories - CONCEIVED a child with an ACQUAINTANCE but was UNABLE to locate them to

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #pregnancy #conceived #acquaintance #searchingSummary: A Redditor CONCEIVED a child with an ACQUAINTANCE but was UNABLE to locate them to discuss parenting responsibilities. Seeking advice on how to handle the situation and whether they are in the wrong.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, relationships, pregnancy, parenting, acquaintance, search, advice, responsibility, dilemma, communication, legal, support, community, help, guidance, decision-makingBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Conceived a child with an acquaintance but was unable to locate them to share the news, only to discover later that they had become my new supervisor. As a result, I had to disclose our previous relationship to the Human Resources Department, but they forced me to quit when I finally told him he helped me get a job. The backstory, I went back to university in my late 20s to do my PhD, and shared an office with a few other students for many years. One of the students, Jacob, completed his thesis and was moving back to his home country,

so we all went out for congratulatory farewell drinks. One thing led to another in Jacob and I spent the night together. A few weeks later, I realized I was pregnant and I had no way to contact Jacob. His university email and mobile number had been deactivated since he'd left the university and the country. I didn't need anything from him and was fine to raise the child alone, but I thought he had a right to know. I googled him a few times over the years but never found him. This last week, our department had emailed everyone to introduce and welcome our new manager, Jacob, with a photo and a blurb

about his education and work history so I know for sure it's him. The night we spent together changed my life because it made me apparent, so I've thought about Jacob from time to time when my daughter asks about her dad or I notice a genetic trait she didn't get from me. However, I doubt Jacob has given that night a second thought. I have no idea whether he will have any concerns about being my manager given our history, or whether I'm making a bigger deal of this than I should. For what it's worth, in my years of sharing an office with Jacob, he seemed easygoing and practical. In our company, it is common for everyone in the department to reply all to these introduction emails and introduce themselves, welcome the newcomer aboard and explain how

their role will interact with theirs. I'm not sure if my email should know that. that Jacob and I studied together years ago as a way to get that out in the open? Or should I email him individually and offered to have a discussion about keeping our history out of the workplace if he thinks it's needed? I'd appreciate any suggestions for language that indicates I'm not concerned and will be completely professional. And then, in direct contradiction to that, I'd also appreciate a script for a separate email saying, can we please meet outside of work because I need to tell you something important about our history so I can tell him about his daughter. If you or any commenters think I shouldn't tell him, or I should let him settle

into his new country and new job first, I would definitely take that on board. Additional information from OOP, thanks for your comment. The extent to which I tried to find Jacob wasn't relevant to my question so I didn't include the efforts I went to. For the commenters who are curious, understandably, I really did try when I first found out I was pregnant. I asked the other people we shared an office with but no one had any information. We were students who shared an office and sometimes went to the uni bar together. We never spent any time together outside of uni. I asked Jacob's thesis supervisor, but it was Christmas slash Australian summer here so he was on leave for two months. When he got back, he gave me the address on Jacob's file, which was of course

the Australian address he didn't live at anymore. The uni had a next-of-of-kin Australian contact number on file for his aunt, but no one ever answered it when I rang. Jacob is Chinese with a very common surname, and Jacob is just the name he used in my country. I don't know his actual given name. So attempts to find the correct Mr. Wong, in a country where they don't use Google or Facebook, went nowhere. I searched for recent publications about Jacob's thesis topic and found a paper with Jacob Wong as one of the authors.

I contacted the corresponding author and asked for Jacob's email but they never responded. By this point, I had to give up because I was so sick with hyper-emesis gravidarium and needed to focus on my baby's health. Update 1, thank you for answering my letter. You were right, it was a really big deal. I was viewing the Jacob as my manager problem from his perspective, until I told him otherwise, it was just a simple one-night stand over a decade ago, and it didn't seem like a huge problem. I hated and appreciated the reality check.

I regret reading the comments, but thank you also for moderating them as quickly as you did. A lot happened in a short space of time. Thankfully I already had a therapist. First, I spoke to my union rep who said, Say nothing but call us if HR tries to set up a meeting with you. Staying silent and having Jacob independently declare the prior relationship when he arrived would have been problematic because I'd still end up in the same position and I would have lied by omission. Our HR team can be gossipy and they know the age of my half Chinese daughter, so I needed to have as much control as possible over the disclosure.

I spoke to an employment lawyer who reviewed our policies and, at his suggestion, I wrote an email to HR declaring a prior relationship with Jacob. And then I was immediately pushed out. Even if you have all the legal support in the world, you can't prevent someone from doing something illegal, you just have recourse afterwards. In a meeting with my lawyer, the union rep, HR, and a member of the senior management team, I was asked to resign. When I said no, they insisted on a statutory declaration about the relationship with Jacob stating what happened, when it happened, how many times it happened, and who initiated it. I also said no to that. We ended the meeting with each side agreeing to think about possible solutions.

The company's solution was to start messing with my pay, my benefits, my services, my side. swipe card access to my office, my computer login, and my email slash calendar account. They spread rumors about me and I heard coworkers whispering that I'd had an affair with a manager. They sent me for a random drug test at a time when I was scheduled for an important meeting with clients. They canceled accommodation that had been booked for upcoming travel, which I only found out about because I was getting paranoid and called the hotel. I can't describe how awful it feels to know that someone with this kind of power over your job is devoting their time and energy to thinking of ways to screw with you. Every day I was going into work wondering what was waiting for me and it was

wearing me down fast. The advice from the union rep was to go back in time and follow their first piece of advice, or just keep documenting everything as we prepared to take legal action. The lawyer estimated that it would take at least a year to get any kind of resolution, and I didn't even want the job anymore. By this point, I wasn't sleeping much and I had to be able to. I had to had cried a few times at work. I was beginning to crack and we were only just getting started. So, I resigned. I wish I'd held up better under the pressure, but it was all just too much with the looming deadline of Jacob's start date at our office, and whatever way HR was going to drag him into this. I'm lucky that I can take my time looking for a new job, so I've had some space to process

everything. Outside of the work stuff, I spoke with a family lawyer who outlined all the possible ways this situation could go, and what the most likely outcomes were. Basically, my daughter is old enough that what she wants would get heavily waited by a court if it came to that. I have spoken to my daughter many times about her father. I told her what I knew about him and that I had tried to contact him. I've offered for her to see a therapist if she ever wanted to talk about it with someone who wasn't me, and she has always said, thanks, but no thanks. The family lawyer helped me write a letter which I left for Jacob. I told him about his daughter, said I wasn't trying to get anything from him, and gave him the

contact details of my lawyer. After a few weeks of me freaking out that HR had somehow intercepted the letter, he emailed my lawyer. He was the easygoing and practical Jacob I remembered. He was still processing it, but said he wasn't going to take any legal steps. He offered us his family medical history, he apologized if I resigned because of him, and he said he would like to meet our daughter if she's interested. She also has some siblings. I told her all this. She said she's happy that she has her father's contact info, but she doesn't want to meet him right now. She's of the view that having him in our lives would cause unwanted disruption. And she doesn't even know about the work cluster fudge. Update 2, June 9, 2025. I'm incredibly grateful for the

support you and the Alm community gave me at a stressful time, so I thought I'd share a final update. My daughter changed her mind and has been in contact with Jacob. It's still a bit awkward between them but they have some hobbies in common, which they've bonded over. My daughter also seems very excited to have some siblings who adore their cool new big sister. I know some people were wondering why my old company reacted the way they did. For reasons I can't go into, my work gets scrutinized by outside authorities and my manager's role is primarily a quality control one. Any suggestion that my manager had not checked my work impartially enough due to a personal relationship could have been career-ending for both of us. Additionally, the work I do

is in a very specialist field and there are only a handful of people in the country who do it. Another company in a similar field had initially approached Jacob, who has had an amazing career by the sounds of it, to start a new department at their company doing the same thing. My old company paid a buttload of money to lower him over so that he wouldn't be in direct competition for clients and employees. All of this meant that I couldn't report to Jacob, there was no other manager I could report to, and the company couldn't risk him going back to their competitor. Between the two of us, Jacob was the better asset to keep and the worst threat to lose. I'm not excusing the behavior of my old company, but there was a logic to it.

I'm still angry about the way they treated me and how helpless I felt, but that is slowly fading over time. I had trouble finding a new job. Financially, we were okay, so I was being picky, for example, wanting to stay in my current city. After almost a year out of work, Jacob told me he'd been approached by the first company who still wanted him to start their new department. He was happy at my old company but he offered to take the new role if I wanted to try to get my old job back.

I would never ask him to do that, and I also never want to go anywhere near that company again, so I said no. turned the other company down but gave them my name. It's a step up from where I was but they interviewed me and I got the job. I've been here about six months and it's enjoyable so far, plus I've never procreated with anyone in my chain of command so it seems like a good place to work. I've hired one of my former co-workers, plus two recent graduates from my alma mater who are bright, motivated and quickly getting up to speed. Unlike my old company, we don't have a lengthy waitlist for our services, yet, so a few clients have started coming to us instead of them.

I am delighted that I am becoming the very threat my old company was trying to avoid when they pushed me out. Next story, inherited my grandpa's house and let my father live their rent-free, but when he demanded I give up my room for his pregnant stepdaughter and change the locks to keep me out, I evicted them with police. I'm 25M, not from the U.S., not looking to get into legalities, I know where I stand on that. Some context. My father married his now wife when I was 15.

She was really pushy with me because the relationship with her own daughter was almost non-existent. My father did nothing and I ended up moving with my grandpa, father's father, a few months later. Grandpa passed away suddenly when I was 17 and I inherited all his properties. Instead of moving back with them, they moved with me to Grandpa's house. I left when I was 18 to go to college and I got. go back home a few times a year. I let them stay there, rent-free, as long as they don't touch my room and grandpa's office. The house has four rooms. Now, I got a call from my family and they told me that I need to clean my room because they planned to turn it into a nursery room.

Apparently, my father's wife got in touch with his daughter because she is pregnant and doesn't have a place to stay. I denied his request and reminded him from who is the house there staying in and better not touch the rooms unless they want me to kick them out. I told them there is an empty room, she can stay there, but he claims it's too small for both of them. I said that if they have a problem, they can go back to his own place, there she can take my room, I don't know if he still has the house. I think I've been more than reasonable, but my uncle, father's brother, who doesn't have the best relationship with my father called me to say to think about it and not kick them out. So I wonder, Ida. Update 1.

The day I wrote the original post I called Mrs. Lawyer to accompany me to the house to deal with this in a civil manner. Well, Saturday we went early in the morning with the paperwork. Once we arrived and I tried to open the door, I got the pleasant surprise that my father had changed the locks, big mistake. We talked through the door and he told me that until I changed my mind, he wasn't going to let me in. I told him that I wasn't planning to kick them out and I was there to solve this the right way, but if he wasn't going to let me in, I was going to do it my way. He didn't let me in. On my way to the police station, my uncle called me and said that my father called him in order

to make me change my mind but he wasn't going to do it and will support whatever I decided. In the police station, Mrs. Lawyer explained the situation to them and they came with us so I could evict them without issues. Once there, the police spoke to them and told them they had to let me in and get their things out as soon as possible. I hired a moving truck for them. My father tried to fight saying that he sold his house and doesn't have a place to go, and he also claimed that he was the rightful owner but the dimwit doesn't have any paperwork to prove it. In a last attempt, he brought up the fact that my stepsister is pregnant but unfortunately for them,

she is in the early stages and doesn't matter either way. After their circus was over, the removal of their things was quick. Most of the things in the house are mine, except for the things they have in their room and my step-sister stuff. I'm currently in the house and plan to stay here the next few days. I have changed the locks and I'm installing security cameras. I talk to my GF about moving here and she's more than happy to do so. I'm going to talk to my boss about the possibility to work from home but it's not a real problem if I can't. Without having to worry about the house, figuring out the rest is easy. That's pretty much it. I think I covered everything. Thank you for taking your time with this mess I

family. Update 2, my GF found this space and asked me to share our last encounters with my father, so here it goes. We hadn't heard from him until a few days ago when he showed up at the house. I wasn't there but girlfriend was. My GF told me that my father was there to tell us that since we are now living in the house, we have to host them for the Christmas holidays. Not only that, he gave her a list of the food they wanted and the gifts they expected to receive. My GF. told him to go away before she called the police. I again thought it was over, but I was wrong again. Yesterday we received another visit from him. Apparently, he called my mother to invite her to spend the holidays with us. She blew him off and told him she will take us, G.F. and I, to Europe for

New Year's Eve. He had the balls to demand she take them too. My mother just hung up. Mind you, this was the first time they had spoken after divorcing 16 years ago. He came to the house to demand I convince my mother to take them to or that we pay for them to go with us. At this point, his attitude stopped being disappointing and turned comical. My G.F. and I just laughed at him. We laughed so hard that we didn't notice when he left. I can say that we didn't have the best relationship, but he wasn't entitled. I mean, it was already clear why my grandfather, his father, was completely disappointed in him, but it seems that he wants to take it to another new level.

I don't know if he will stop, but I hope he does for the rest of the year. Edit, I have a security system. There are cameras everywhere. I know if he is there. I have other properties. My tenants and people close to G.F. and me, even my neighbors know what to do if my father approached them in my name. I doubt he will try to break in when we're not here.

When I evicted them, my lawyer and the police were more than clear that he could face serious problems if he tries to enter the house or any other of my properties. Unfortunately in my country, any kind of restraining order is pretty much useless. It is more helpful to call the police right then and there and he knows I have no problem calling them. Update 3, some have messaged me for an update, so this post can be considered one. After the last incident with my father, everything was quiet in my GF and I left to Europe. Christmas passed and there was no sight of my father, my friends that were taking care of the house reported no incidents.

Everything was going well until I received a call from my uncle, father's brother, on December 28th. My uncle called me to tell me that he's leaving the state and is selling his house. He asked me if I was interested in the house because he was pretty desperate to leave. He didn't tell me the reason why he was leaving and I didn't care. What matters to me is that he was desperate and this was the opportunity to fulfill my grandpa's wish. Before I continue, I have to give you some context. My uncle's house was my grandfather's childhood home. My grandpa gave it to him but later regretted it. He left me the task of recovering it and, if I succeeded, to give it to my cousin Marie, my uncle's daughter from his first marriage,

he never recognized her and that is one of the many the reasons of my grandpa's regret. My uncle doesn't know that I have contact with his daughter or that I know everything that happened in the past. If he did, he wouldn't sell me the house, yes, he is that petty. Now, I decided to use the family card and my uncle's desperation to get the house cheap. I know more or less the value of the house, so I made him an offer, way below the real veil, but that I was going to pay him in three installments. My uncle declined because it was too low and because he is not coming back, what he really meant is that he is not going to contact me again. I told him that if he could wait until my return, January 3rd, I could pay him the same amount in one go, but I would also

take care of the legal fees and his moving expenses. Meanwhile, he just needed to pack his things, have his paperwork ready and everything would be done that day, surprisingly, he immediately agreed. We returned and I could buy the house without problems and my uncle left the same day. The next day, I called my cousin to tell her to come as soon as she can to my country, she lives in Europe, because there is one more thing that my grandparents left to her. She came a few days ago and I gave her the house and the rest of the money. She had to stay a few days to deal with paperwork and in those days, who decided to appear once again. Yes, my father.

Unbeknownst to me, my uncle had another buyer and that person was my father. My father asked my uncle to wait a few days so he could gather more money. When he got it, he called my uncle, but he already sold me the house. My uncle in order to avoid dealing with my father told him that I bought the house. My father knowing that he can no longer approach my house, he decided to go to my new one, but he was going to receive a surprise. He knocked and demanded that I give it to him, but no one is in there for the moment, so he decided to break in, yes, yes he did.

We saw everything through the doorbell camera. My cousin doesn't speak our language, so I was the one. one who called the police in her name. Thanks to the area where the house is and the fact that my cousin is a foreigner, the police took action faster than the previous times. It is a pity that I don't have a photo of my father's face when he discovered that the house wasn't mine, it was glorious. My cousin with my lawyer's help and mine, pressed charges and combined with my father's previous actions. He will spend a few months in jail. Thanks to a few people I was able to find out why my uncle was desperate to leave, he pissed off his wife's family, like really bad. I send him a text telling him

that if he likes to ratting me out to my father, I can do the same with his wife's family so he better know come back unless he wants to play stupid games. He blocked me after that LOL. He already told me he wasn't coming back but I better make sure he doesn't. In the end, if my cousin decides to keep the house, this will benefit her since she doesn't want to cross paths with my uncle. So yeah, the year started off with a bang. I pretty much got rid of my so-called family for what I think is forever and can finally start building one with my GF without the worry of unwanted people showing up.