AITA 23and not me

Hi all, I really just need to vent because my mind has been going in complete circles for the last few weeks. I female, late 30’s grew up in a 2 parent home, my mom and dad were married over 40 years before he passed and were together a total of about 47 all together. My mom “ Lucy” (fake name of course) was the best mom that she knew how to be, I think she came from a pretty toxic home with my grandma so she literally loved and cared for us in the way that she knew how, my dad “Ricky”on the other hand grew up in a very close and sweet family. So most of the love and attention for me came from my Dad, again mom wasn’t horrible she just showed love and care in the way that she knew how. Anyways Dad and I have ALWAYS been super close. I love and miss him everyday.

My parents are from a very very small community, where everyone is basically family. There was always this guy “Fred” that I’ve always known he was pretty well known in this community, married guy with a few kids.all of his kids are older than me but I know them all. Well I’ve always been told or made fun of by ppl saying that this guys was my biological father, growing up it didn’t matter to me because 1- neither of my parents ever said it ? At least directly ( as I got older mom would make smart commits bc I think she was jealous of my dads bond with me 2- the ppl saying if was family but again their words didn’t hold weight. Fast forward to about 2 years ago, one of Fred’s children called me and wanted to meet up, I didn’t see any harm in it bc like I said I know them all. Well they wanted to know if I would do a dna test bc Fred had told them that I was his daughter. Because my dad was still living at the time I told them that I would consider it but ultimately I wouldn’t do anything that would hurt or disrespect my dad. That’s who raised and loved me and thats all that I knew. However; I did in fact want to know if this was true so while caring for my dad I did do an at home dna test with him and when the results came back not a match I was shocked and hurt at first but after a few days I was fine, nothing changed bc that was my Dad- he raised and loved me so nothing else mattered. Now fast forward to earlier this year I wanted to actually know if Fred was my dad, I honestly believed that he was bc again all of my life family members would make slick side commits about him so I thought surely if my dad isn’t my biological dad then this guy is. WELLLLLLL I did one of those genetic test that showed relatives and were you come from and there are absolutely none of this guys or my Dads family on my profile. after seeing this I called my mom and demanded answers she stuck to the story of my dad ( Ricky) being my biological dad but when I told her that I had done the dna test and it showed that neither Ricky or Fred were my dad she was like that’s not right. I’m like please just tell me and she goes if’s it’s not Ricky then it’s Fred . I promise you I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know why but in that instance I believed her, it was something in her voice that I’ve never heard that made me believe her. The only issue is that I don’t have any idea who any of these ppl are on my this dna report. So now I’m so hurt and confused about this whole situation. I wish Fred’s kids would have left me alone and never opened this can of worms. The only reason I wanted to know the truth is bc I have kids and Fred’s kids have kids that are around the same age as my kids. if freds kids would’ve been my siblings our kids would be cousins so I didn’t want my kids mistakenly dating any of their family members. I didn’t want a relationship or anything just to really know the truth. Anyways sorry that this was so long and jumbled together I just needed to vent. Am I the Asshole

For seeking this information instead of just leaving it alone.