Actually I was very much in that situation. When I was very little my very sadistic sister would tell me all the time that my father was not my father. I would ask my mother and she would deny it. I got a little older (9, 10 years old) and I got to see my birth certificate and the name on their under "Father" was Jeff, not Jessie.
I asked my mom about it, being a stupid little kid I asked "Dad's real name is Jeff?" thinking Jessie was just an odd nickname. My mother's response was "no, he was just some guy I was with." So that's how I found out that Jessie was actually my step-dad.
It took my mother three more years to tell me she had been married to Jeff. Her flippant comment had made me believe he was actually just a guy she had been with. Two more years passed and I start finding out that my biological father was an abusive, alcholic, drug-abuser who tried to kill me in the womb....thanks dad.
My step-father was a better man than my biological father, but he was also extremely selfish and mentally and verbally abusive, manipulating others into believe he was just a good guy while treating my mother and I like slaves, indebted to him because he provided the family financial stability. He never resorted to physical abuse...but I was not crying when he died in april of this year.
So yeah...fuck 'em both. Not happy in that situation.
I am curious about my biological father, I've never met him in person since my mother left him when she was about 4/5 months pregnant with me. I haven't even seen a picture. I don't really want to meet him exactly, just...want to know what the fuck he's been doing the past 25 years.
Internet searches have pretty much given me nothing and the only thing that I could find even hinting of him was an obituary for his mother back in 2010 which stated he survived her, so I guess he's still alive, but since I can't find any other record of him, I think he may be in jail, but that's just a guess.