I (16m) have two dad's. One died before I was born; daddy. He was my non-bio father and his best friend was my parents surrogate. She's my Aunty Giga. My dad is my bio parent and my daddy's widower. And yeah, I say dad and daddy, and still say daddy as a 16 year old guy. Dad always referred to daddy as... daddy to me so I use it.
A month before I was born daddy died. My dad changed completely that day. Because of where we live, even back then, my daddy was still able to be recognized on my birth certificate. It was a fight and involved the courts. But it happened. It was really uncommon back then but he won the case thanks to Aunty Giga and other family members recognizing my two dads.
I grew up always knowing about daddy and I always cherished the connection to him. I was always glad my dad won the right for both of them to be legally my parents. I was also always treated like their son, not just dad's or not dad's and Aunty Giga's.
When I was 4 my dad tried to date again and he met Sam. They dated for about 3 months but dad wasn't ready and Sam didn't like what he saw. He felt jealous and insecure that he wasn't being brought in as another dad for me.
They reconnected when I was 8 and got married when I was 12. My relationship with Sam is complicated and weird and he wants to adopt me. But I don't want him to be my dad, I don't want to be adopted by him or to have him take care of me if I become an orphan. He has always made it a point to bring up the fact daddy wasn't my bio father in the first place and how legally it was a miracle he's even on my birth certificate. I hate it. It feels so gross. He has told me at least I'll know him while daddy is someone who's just saintly in my mind because I wasn't allowed to process only having one parent. Even though I know I was raised by one parent. But I still had two. He just wasn't here. But I read the book he was putting together for me. He documented a lot of the parenting journey and surrogacy stuff and the pregnancy until his death. He was so excited. He loved me so much. He wanted me so badly.
On Father's Day we had a big fight over adoption. Dad was out and Sam brought up the adoption to me. He told me he's tired of feeling like an outsider because I always treat him like dad's spouse instead of my stepdad or my parent. I told him because that's what he is and he has to learn to accept that. I told him nothing changed for me. He told me it's stupid because I love one stepdad so much more. I told him daddy is more than just a stepdad and then I told him I don't want him to adopt me ever and bringing up daddy isn't winning me over. I told him if anything he's making me wish dad had found someone better. Dad doesn't know what happened but things have been tense since and Sam said I went too far.
AITA?