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A 55-year-old man was shocked when doctors told him he'd been infertile since birth – but what was worse was the realisation the three sons he'd raised for more than 20 years weren't his.
After Richard Mason, from Rhos in North Wales, Britain, sued his ex-wife Kate (54) in a rare paternity case a court ordered her to pay him £250 000 (R4.4m), The Mirror reports.
However, she's been allowed to keep the identity of the real father a secret.
The couple divorced in 2008 and Kate received a £4m (R71m) divorce settlement.
Richard, a businessman, had no idea he wasn't the boys' biological dad until 2016 when he was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, an inherited disease that prevents male sufferers from fathering children naturally.
Doctors told him there was no way he was the father of the three boys since he'd had the disease since birth.
Richard confronted Kate about the diagnosis. She first denied the allegations but later admitted to having had a four-year affair with another man in the late 1990s.
DNA tests confirmed the businessman wasn't biologically linked to his eldest, now 23, and his 19-year-old twins.
Learning the truth threw Richard's life and relationship with his sons into turmoil, Daily Mail reports.
"You don't know what's real and what isn't – it's as if I'm living in The Matrix," he said.
"Someone says to you, 'All that you know and everything you thought to be solid and true isn't real and never did exist. You're not a father, you're not able to have kids, your name won't continue.'
"I walk past a toy store and it reminds me of buying Christmas presents for them and other family occasions.
"And when friends post things on Facebook about their own families, like their first grandchild or saying they're proud of their boy for something, I just think, 'My God, that's all been taken away from me.'"
Richard took legal action against his ex-wife to win back the divorce settlement and sue her for paternity fraud, The Telegraph reports.
He also hopes speaking out about his ordeal would make the biological father come forward, for the sake of the children.
However, a source close to the family told The Telegraph the sons don't want to know their biological father and still consider Richard their real dad.
While two of the boys still spoke to him after learning of the legal action the third refused to. But Richard was overjoyed when he received a text from him last month: "Dad, as I explained from the beginning, you'd never not be dad to me regardless of all this. Of course I'll stay in touch, that'll never change . . . I'm always here for you too and you'll always be Dad. Love you, X."
Richard says the pay-out has done little to ease the pain inflicted by the life-changing news.
"In an instant I discovered I didn't really have any children . . . If I could wave a magic wand I'd want to be in all their lives."
Sources: The Telegraph, Daily Mail, The Mirror
