by Elysia McMahan
Have you ever wondered if you were raising another man’s child? We sure hope not! This sounds like something you’d hear on a soap opera. Unfortunately, that was the nagging question on Richard Rodwell’s mind soon after his marriage to his wife Helen fell apart.
As their marriage began deteriorating, Helen would disappear for several days at a time without letting her family know where she was. And when she would return and he would ask where she had been, she would say, “It has nothing to do with you.” This woman would never even leave a note or message letting her husband or children in on her whereabouts.
Come to find out, the daughter and son he had raised into their teenage years were not even his. The poor man finally caught on to her deception when rumors started floating around that his daughter Laura, now 20, was someone else’s. And this is after the fact that Helen was granted custody of the children and he was paying child support every month for four years, which totaled around $25,000.
“People said that Laura didn’t look like me and that Helen had been seeing a teacher who lived next door on the caravan park,” explained Rodwell. “I confronted Helen on the phone but she insisted that I was Laura’s father. Finally, I said I wanted DNA testing.”
Geneticists have been seeing rising cases of deception, infidelity and adultery among couples, which has recently made DNA testing very popular. For a man that once thought he had it all (happily married, two healthy children, a house and a good paying job), he was so terribly wrong!