Can’t get this child out of my head

[EWAB]

Son is in this football club. It is run by the guy who ran after school club at primary. When he was asked to join I declined as I was working and couldn’t have done drop offs etc. This other mother stepped up and has taken him for last two years. I have never been.
Yesterday I was delighted that I had broken up and could collect them from this end of term party.
I arrived and there was my son in a new shirt that I hadn’t seen before but suddenly my son appeared next to me. The boy in the new shirt w him. I was stunned and son said “Everyone says that! I think he looks like B.” B is my nephew.
We leave I get son and friend in car and there getting into her car was this woman my brother used to go out with. She didn’t see me. I don’t know how I kept it together. I felt sick last night. There is no one in the world I can talk to about this. My brother is now married. I am convinced this is his child.

Storm4Star

Well for one this was several hundred miles away from where I was born and grew up, and where my parents still lived. So, while not impossible, seems unlikely we'd both wind up in the same small town if she'd been adopted out or something. Also a lot of family members were involved both during the pregnancy and after the birth and there's no way they'd have all kept that secret! Also, there would have been absolutely no reason to keep one twin and give up the other. My mum would have given up both if she were going to do anything! Finally, I definitely wasn't the adopted one because my parents weren't even married or properly living together when I was born and my mum alone would never have been approved for an adoption. My dad has other children but they all live back in the same place and look nothing like me, as I take after my mum's side.

Storm4Star (sorry pressed post by mistake) I had something similar happen to me too. I was at the theatre with a friend and went to the loo in the interval, came out to find she was bemused as she thought she'd seen me across the foyer. This young woman didn't just look like me (maybe the likeness would have been less obvious without the add ons) but she was dressed identically. Same haircut, pearl earrings but the killer was her skirt. I had made myself a skirt using liberty material with big tulips 🌷 and had cut it out upside down by mistake. She had done same. Also paired with a pink shirt! It was bizarre. We didn't speak though. Very much doubt there would have been any possibility of being related, it never entered my head.

I did wonder if you were just issuing me a command! haha.

Yes it's so freaky isn't it! They do say everyone has a double somewhere but you never expect to bump into them. Much less be wearing the same clothing! The thing with the skirt is bizarre. Yes, mine had the same hairstyle too. It's so weird.

Honestly, just have a discrete chat with your brother. "This is really random, and I'm sorry to call you while you're at work but I needed to catch you alone. Is there any chance at all that you fathered a child with ex? Only she has a child slightly older than DS who looks so like our kids that I thought DS was wearing someone else's clothes."

Storm4Star I have weird ideas about the gene pool, people with similarities are often attracted eg long lost siblings meet up and date not knowing they are related. Go back a few generations and the numbers in your "family" are huge. So we all have distant relations that we don't know about all around us. I once knew a family with four children with cystic fibrosis by two different fathers. Now CF carriers are about I:2000 and in theory likelihood of child being born with it is 1:4 where both parent are carriers. So this mother had managed to marry two men (1 in 2000) who were carriers and then each child born had it. What are the odds of that. Anyway point is she somehow was attracted to men who were carriers out of all the other 3998 men who weren't. So I suppose that's a complicated way of saying we have a type. And other people similar (or distantly related to us) have a similar type. Producing offspring that are going to be of the same type. I'm rambling

Iused2B. I am actually enjoying your ramblings interesting theories

Celtic rose. Thanks.

I'm not sure where my whacky theory goes with Rod Stewart and his string of interchangeable wives.
A whole gene pool reserved just for him!

You have to tell your brother, he can make the decision.
I'd hate to think I had a child out there I didn't know about, especially if my sister knew!!

@Iused2BanOptimist that's so interesting ! I love hearing people's theories about things!!

I have to ask what parallel universe some of you are on? you cant simply go round assaulting other children, taking lumps of their hair and having DNA tests on a whim.

Do people actually THINK before coming up with half arsed ideas?

And dare I say it - this would rip apart two families - and give your brother a massive financial headache, destroy his current relationship and the standard of living of your existing nephew. But if you feel you simply must sir up a shit storm, please come back and tell us how it all went.

Probably depends on what your brother is like. If he’s a genuinely decent person maybe he would like to be involved if the child was his. Shouldn’t he get the option to be an involved dad? I’d probably casually mention you’d seen his ex at the football club and she has a son that looks just like yours and his and see where he goes from there. If he’s a deadbeat, loser, arsehole you might not want to.

I really don't think saying nothing is an option here. If there is a chance he's your brothers child you have to mention it, surely?

I'm quite shocked that no one seems to think this child has a right to know his father, or that ops DB has a right to know he has a son walking around out there (presuming he doesn't already)

£5 says this will be in the Daily Mail before you can say 'lazy journalism'

I'm quite shocked that no one seems to think this child has a right to know his father, He might already have someone he knows as his father. Whatever the rights and wrongs it's not for the OP to go crashing in and disrupt his life.

Gossip, gossip, gossip

It’s none of your business OP. Keep out of it and stay out of it

The lunatics advocating you should swipe some hair and get a dna test are just that. Internet lunatics. Don’t follow their advice. You’ve got lots of stuff to do in your own life.

If the child's mother wanted your brother to be involved she would have done something about it by now

But it's not just her call, is it?

You do need to tell your brother, and let him decide what to do about it.

I've posted a separate thread about having a child who doesn't know their father's family, and the consensus (which I agree with) seemed to be that this could be very damaging for them.

I can't really see what harm you would be doing by asking your brother about it. If he really does have a child he doesn't know about, and only finds out much later, he may feel he's missed out on something important. Also, since it would have happened before his current relationship started, I think it should be safe to say that it wouldn't wreck that!

I have a child in my DS's class who looks an exact copy of my DS! A few of my family members looked at the pictures and mistook him to be my DS. It's such a weird conincidence.

If it is your brother's child, there's a good chance he already knows. DD's father is someone everyone else would consider a good guy, but he still refused to have anything to do with her.

Also, lused2 there wasn't a mirror in the lobby, was there?

I think you should tell your brother. It is then his decision what to do next.

I don't think that any good will come from keeping it a secret from experience my dsil (dbs wife) found out she was half sisters with a cousin of mine as her mom my aunt and sils dad had had a relationship prior to both of them marrying other people and dsils dad had chosen her mom over my aunt.

The biggest hurt for my cousin and dsil was that no one told her and everyone knew if caused a huge family rift