Ex pwBPD told me I was the father of her child while pregnancy (I wasn’t..)

[Canadian017]

We had a rough patch of 2 months of constant arguing (it was somewhere during this she cheated, (conception would’ve been during July 2025)

In August we broke up, we broke up for about 1.5-2 weeks then she advised me she was pregnant. At first I thought she was bluffing so I got back with her to see. She took me to his first ultrasound and I accepted the reality the child was mine(or so I thought..)

Everything went “fine” until the baby shower, a week leading up to it she became distant.

I went to the baby shower in front her whole family (like 70 people) then she broke up with me a week later under the umbrella of me not doing enough for her and the child during the pregnancy, apparently

This kind of threw me the wrong way and didn’t make sense. I asked for a “DNA test to ensure my parental rights and obligations, and I have no doubts I am the father” after we broke up.

There was no contact for 2 months and I followed up with the dna test when she would’ve given birth. No reply.

After I filed a court application (it was ready to go) and my lawyer sent a letter to her that we will be needing a dna test and be taking this to court if she does not otherwise under the circumstances this step is not required

She sent a letter to my lawyer “confirming 2 dna tests” have confirmed I am not the father, and that I am apparently harassing and bullying her (I haven’t spoken to her since February minus one text addressing dna; and very polite/sterile)

Her mother was served the documents and after that she started complying (I do not believe willingfully..) and agreed to do the dna test shortly after but also that I “cease communication” upon the results confirming I am not the father.


Fast forward to the dna results; sure enough I am not the father.
I chose not to contact her after the results came out, to cancel costs and to advise my lawyer to tell hers not to contact me again, especially after that letter she sent him where I “cease communication” I am 26 and she is 23.

How do I heal and or move on from this? Any advice or input appreciated. I just feel a blatant “what the actual **** just happened”

[PeteWitsend]

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How do I heal and or move on from this? Any advice or input appreciated. I just feel a blatant “what the actual **** just happened”

Not to be flippant, but you just dodged a bullet.  Much worse outcomes for you were possible here.  Pop a bottle of champagne and celebrate that a little.

Beyond that, consider how you ended up with her, and why you tolerated her behavior for as long as you did, although it sounds like you recognized something was off about her and ended it reasonable soon.  If she was BPD (I assume that's why you're here) there was probably a lot about her behavior that you didn't like. 

I'd also suggest you don't take any of this personally; it wasn't your fault & you didn't do anything wrong.  You just had the misfortune of running into a pwBPD.  They're out there, and it happens.  Chalk it up to life experience & a lesson learned, and move on.  If it helps you avoid another bad relationship someday, consider it wasn't a total loss.

[Canadian017]

Honestly we got together and at first she was so sweet, kind, caring.

I put a lot of effort into her and we just clicked overnight, it felt so natural / real.

That lasted like 4-6 months where I was genuinely over the moon. I kept hoping she would go back but she didn’t.
I have a really bad knee from 3 knee surgeries from the military and I don’t date often, there’s a lot I honestly can’t do and don’t put myself out there for a lot of people. That’s the main reason.. I used to move on so fast and I just think I’m more reserved now.

I agree I dodged a bullet. I hope I can find someone healthy one day.. I am going to see a therapist.

[Pook075]

How do I heal and or move on from this? Any advice or input appreciated. I just feel a blatant “what the actual **** just happened”

Hello and welcome to the family.  I'm so sorry you're going through this and it definitely stings for awhile.  How long ago did this happen?  By that I mean when you received the DNA results.

Your ex is mentally ill and makes bad decisions because of it.  I'm not trying to defend her, but she probably figured that you might be the father and rolled the dice.  She probably broke up with you after feeling more and more confident that you weren't the father.  Who knows.  It comes from disordered thinking though.  BPDs really get eaten up by guilt and shame, they don't know how to let go of it or move past it, so it just lingers and continually changes their thinking, their words, actions, etc.

Let's talk about you- how do you move on?  Well, you're already doing it.  At first, that could mean one day at a time because the pain cuts deep, it's an ugly betrayal.  Like Pete said though, I'm sure she was saying the same things to the other guy too.  This wasn't about you at all, it was about having no idea what to do when she really messed up several people's lives because of her actions.

My advice?  Stay busy at work and get a gym membership.  Get back into old hobbies or find new ones.  Hang out with friends and family more, people that care about you.  One day at a time, one week at a time, until it's no longer this huge thing in your mind.  Everyone here healed at different speeds; for me, it was about 6 months before I began to feel normal again.  But it also took that long to realize how messed up things really were in the relationship, so my mind had new things to analyze.

So take our advice- she didn't do this to you specifically.  It would have happened with any guy she was dating at the time.  She did it because she's mentally ill and she couldn't think her way through it because she was too emotional, too unbalanced.  Even the, "You're harassing her" comment...that's true in a way.  You said you sent one text, but that text was probably on her mind 24/7 for months and weighed on her like a ton of bricks.  For you, it was a text.  For her, it was torture because her mind can't let go of trauma (even when it's self-created) and she saw no way forward without losing a lot of respect from everyone around her.

At around the 1 year mark, I finally realized that my ex was sick and that's why she cheated on me.  It's not a great answer, but its the best my mind was going to find.  So try to save yourself extended heartbreak and listen to what we're saying- she did what she did because she's mentally ill.  There's no other reason and she's probably not a bad person.  She's just sick.  

[Canadian017]

I got the DNA results just like 2 weeks ago. I wasn’t even mad or overly shocked when I saw it. It kind of explained her weird behaviours more than if I was the father. It was a moment of relief and grief knowing that child is not mine, I am mourning the fact I was ready to be a father and love a child that isn’t even mine but also glad the child is not mine because I’d be tethered to someone like her for life.

I understand that, I agree & can see that. I know she is ill and I don’t believe she is a bad person. I don’t hate her, even after what happened.

I have been doing all that, I will try my best to put myself out there and heal, thank you:)

Yes that makes sense, in a weird way it brings comfort you saying she isn’t bad just ill. I take it a little less personally.
I just don’t understand how she can throw away all the effort I put in like that but applying logic to someone who doesn’t think with it makes no sense.

That makes sense, I’m sorry this happened to you as well. Thank you for taking the time to reply and all the best for you also.

[Pook075]

Yes that makes sense, in a weird way it brings comfort you saying she isn’t bad just ill. I take it a little less personally.
I just don’t understand how she can throw away all the effort I put in like that but applying logic to someone who doesn’t think with it makes no sense.

Think back to when you were a kid and did something you knew your parents would be furious about.  Maybe you stole a piece of candy, or got in a fight at school, or failed a major test.  Whatever.  We all have different memories like that and in our minds back then, it was like the entire world was going to end for us since there was no way past it.

In all of these stories, we eventually told our parents (or they found out another way) and we did get in trouble, but it wasn't the end of the world after all.  Sometimes, we didn't even get in trouble because it truly wasn't our fault.  But our childish minds just couldn't process that sort of thing because we focused on the emotion of getting caught, our parents being so mad at us, etc.  So we just hid the story for as long as possible and walked around carrying that lie that was eating at us.

That's what BPDs do their entire lives, they hide their emotions or they explode because of them.  That great girl that you met, she's really that great girl...but she has decades of trauma that's always just beneath the surface.  And once something happens, he mind goes into that same fight or flight mode we experienced as kids where she just can't get past it.  She's thinking about this massive, unavoidable problem that's not that big of a deal to you or I, we could find ways past it.  But her mind can't, it keeps seeing all the failure and the mistakes and how shameful everything is.

That's why BPDs start random arguments over nothing; they've been fighting something else internally all day and a tiny little thing is suddenly a huge thing that makes them snap.  They can't tell you the truth, so they argue about that other thing instead because they get to release all those emotions.

To you, she threw away six months of great memories.  But to her, she ran from an unsolvable problem...and it was something that you guys could easily solve if she wasn't thinking like a terrified kid who's going to get caught for stealing a cookie from the kitchen. 

That's about as non-technical as I can make it and BPDs do this their entire lives, running from self-created problems and relationships because if you knew how messed up their thoughts are, surely you'd leave them.  They get so upset over the thought of breaking up that they leave you instead to save themselves that pain.  It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy because every relationship is doomed from the start, even when things are going great. 

Truthfully, it's heartbreaking for you and it's heartbreaking for her.  It's heartbreaking for that baby too.  But it all comes back to what I said in the last post- this is not about you, it's about mental illness and continually making the same mistakes in life.  When she gets into that mental state, her reasoning and logic all but shuts off as emotions take over and she's that scared little kid with nowhere to run.  She just doesn't know how to work through the tough stuff in life.

[Canadian017]

I don’t have time to type out an extremely long message because I am leaving for work shortly, but this was unbelievably healing and insightful, thankyou for helping me understand better.

I hope she gets the help she needs, I did genuinely love her & I do wish the best for her regardless of what she did.

I will keep this explanation in mind every time negative feelings surface from what happened.

Thanks again.

[Pook075]

I don’t have time to type out an extremely long message because I am leaving for work shortly, but this was unbelievably healing and insightful, thankyou for helping me understand better.

I hope she gets the help she needs, I did genuinely love her & I do wish the best for her regardless of what she did.

I will keep this explanation in mind every time negative feelings surface from what happened.

Thanks again.

No problem, my friend, I'm so glad we could help bring a little reason to this unreasonable stuff.  Please keep us updated on how you're doing going forward and don't hesitate to ask additional questions.