Lying about parentage , I can’t be impartial but need to be (long)

[CommanderDaisy]

My best friend died several years ago while his wife was pregnant with his son. He lived long enough to see a 5 month scan of the baby and was so happy he would have a child , even as he was destroyed that he would never meet him. It was really fucking tragic . He was an amazing person with more charisma than anyone I have ever met. I still miss him, every day.
His death was after a long illness and very protracted, and his wife experienced PTSD after watching him die, and having a traumatic labour .
Since then, she has tried to move on. Her first relationship post my friends death was with a very controlling man who manouevred her into isolating herself from friends and family. He was horrible. He’d had his eye on her for years he admitted , and essentially made a move when she was vulnerable. She ended this relationship after a time with great difficulty and began to feel better about herself and heal.

She has now remarried to a man who has children from a previous relationship, and gone on to have another child with him.
I was really happy for her, as she has had a very difficult time since my friend passed. I hadn’t heard from her for a while which was strange so got in contact and we have been texting regularly.
Now, here is the crux of this post.
Her new DH was unhappy about her talking to her son about his father. He also insisted he be called Dad as it was too confusing to her son in his opinion. She expressed to me that she agreed to refraining from talking about her sons father with the best intentions, but now she feels stuck. Her DS is the absolute image of his father, and has some very similar character traits - she wants to talk to him about his Dad but her partner won’t let her. Her DH also won’t let her visit people who knew her first husband , in case they mention that he was the father of her DS4. This is why I hadn’t heard from her for a time..

I don’t quite know how to advise her. I’m kind of stunned and worried for her, I don’t get why this bloke thinks this is a good idea. Calling him Dad doesn’t seem odd, but the moratorium on telling a child about his ‘real’ Father seems abusive.

I’m adopted, and my family kept this secret from me till I found out accidentally in my teens. It was such a big thing to have been lied to about that my relationship with my adoptive parents never recovered. I would hate for a similar scenario to happen to anyone else, as it really messed me up.

I am incredibly sad for my friend that due to some dudes pathetic ego driven jealousy that his son will never hear about him. I also can’t quite figure out why she thought this was a good idea in the first place.

What do I say?
She asked me what I thought she should do.
Is she right to hide the fact that her DS real Dad existed? Is this DH a controlling weirdo? How do I gently say your DH needs to get over himself?

Help! I am struggling to be impartial due to my own personal experience and from love for my friend.

my friend went to great lengths to make sure her son didn’t know he wasn’t a full sibling to his 3 younger brothers
She bought his passports as an adult, short birth cert the works
And then a half sibling from his dead birth father messaged him on Facebook at the age of 25 ...
He wasn’t even living at home at that point and rang home. Dad answered and got the ‘yiure Not my dad?’ Question
Shocking

Has she had proper help with her PTSD? The effects of trauma are far reaching and long lasting. I’d suggest she is nowhere near having “dealt with” that - unless she has some very skilled and specific professional input.

The controlling relationship in the interim suggests she perhaps hasn’t?

Do you see her, face to face at all?

I have half-siblings who lost parents as babies and young children - they have known all their lives and are not confused over their relationship with us their half-siblings. I have a friend whose children are half-siblings in a similar way. So your friend has absolutely no excuse for keeping this from her children.

The real issue is with her current partner. He is controlling. If he actually properly loved the boy then he wouldn't fear him being told that he isn't his biological dad as I know plenty of adults who have very strong relationships with the step-parent who brought them up. In fact the boy would have likely ended up calling him "dad" unforced if he was told the truth due to his age. If the child was told the truth now there would probably be some shit around the teenage years but later on lots of gratitude, there as hiding the truth until adulthood will more likely lead to distrust and hatred towards all family members for the rest of the son's life.

She has moved away from the area, and the only means of contact is via text as she doesn't like the phone. I've tried to schedule visits several times but the current DH has always found something else they should be doing when the date rolls around so she has cancelled repeatedly.

Her DS is 4. She started seeing douche number one about 6 months after my friends death. That lasted about 12 months. He also insisted on being called Dad. The current husband I think she has been with for nearly two years. Her second child is 4 months old.

My. concerns are both for her, but also for her DS4. I do not think she has allowed herself to recover from the loss of my friend. She is definitely in a controlling relaionship. I can't imagine complying with such a request as I know from experience how horrific it is when your family lies to you about your parentage. I don't think she gets how badly that can effect you later.

I am also really sad that my friend is being erased from his sons life because the new DH didn't like her talking about him. I promised my friend I would tell his son all about him, how much he was loved and what he was like. I'm not even allowed to visit due to her DH.

She has apparently had counselling of the spiritual healing type, with a bit of sage waved around her and crystals under her pillow type thing.

I just don't know what to say to her. She 100% knows I will have something to say about this or she would not have told me. She has not told many people that she remarried. She has not told me directly.

Poor woman. Poor DS.

She sounds very silly and tbh I’d be furious with her.

Obviously you can’t go in all guns blazing but maybe musing on what her lovely late husband would have thought would be a way to go.

“Gosh Fred is totally different from George isn’t he? George was so lovely. I wonder what he’d think about all this”

This isn’t something you can deal with via text, OP - it’s a conversation fraught with difficulty.

She sounds very vulnerable and there is potential for domestic abuse here, if it’s not already happening.

I think I’d be keeping channels of communication open - is her son starting reception this Sept? Perhaps suggests she talks to the school about some of this? The important thing is to try and get some other eyes on the situation, both to support but also to check if things are escalating.

Is she “anti” more robust counselling?

Is there more to it with you mentioning that his parents thought his death was to do with drugs? Might his step dad think he's proteating him?

Such a sad, messy situation.

Families can be blended, and still be full of love. Your friends new husband can a father to her son and they can be a family, while talking about and acknowledging the man she loved and had a baby with. If he wasn't willing to accept that he should have walked away.

I have an adopted brother with SEN who is a teenager and knows very well he is adopted. My parents fostered him and then adopted him, and have since carried on fostering, and I think this normalises his experience and has meant he knows lots of children who are adopted and he just doesn't care. He knows he has a birth mum and a forever family (hate the phrases but hey not my choice!) and there are ZERO issues.

Your friends wife and her son deserve better, but also your friend deserved better and trusted them to remember him and keep his memory alive. Is there anyway of saying something like that, gently? Can you go round to there's when husband is at work or something, meet her alone to talk?

I echo what other posters have said about the importance of the son knowing the truth. Sadly, her husband's approach in this regard could be indicative of his attitude towards the relationship as a whole.

Can you ask you friend if she is a member of WAY, an organisation for Widowed and Young? She can still join even though she has remarried.

As a member of WAY she will be in contact with other people in her position and who may have experienced this problem with their new partners and who will be able to give her guidance as to how to handle the situation.

She will also be able to access resources - books, charities etc - which deal specifically with children who have been bereaved to help them with their loss.

More importantly they may be able to help in this situation where a parent has had to delay telling the child the truth.

This is the link: www.widowedandyoung.org.uk

RedHelenB there is no reason for this guy to be protecting anyone.
My friend and his family were chalk and cheese. There was no legitimate reason for them to deny he was ill.

I think that might actually be illegal, to lie to a child re parentage. Article 7 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (to which GB is party): every child has the right to know his or her parents. So that’s abusive, definitely.

This thread is so sad. 😥

I think your friend is looking for a way out and she can't do it alone. The new asshole cornered her in well, marriage and baby after 2 years of knowing each other, keeping her from friends and family, now she's likely on maternity leave without much if any money of her own. The probably just have "family money" that he controls completely.

So is it likely she would have anticipated your views on this subject?

I'm wondering if she texted you to try and grab hold of her own sanity. He sounds textbook (making important plans to prevent her meeting up with you), so I don't doubt he's told her she's stupid, crazy, overreacting, selfish, probably even called her abusive, for wanting to tell her son the truth about his dad.

When you are living with someone like that it becomes really hard to hold onto what you believe is true and to trust your own judgement. Texting you for your input might have been a way to try and reaffirm that she's not crazy and she's not in the wrong for wanting to be honest with her son.

In which case I'd be inclined to view it as a tentative step towards disentangling herself from him.

You've seen enough of this man's controlling behaviour to abusive he is. Imagine how much worse he is behind closed doors without an audience. This won't be easy for her. It won't be easy for her to stand up to him. You have no idea what kind of threats he might make in private.

Bearing in mind the traumatic loss she's experienced, she may find it really hard to face the idea of losing this relationship regardless of how abusive he is. Try and keep some compassion for her.

If she agreed with the abusive husband and had no concerns about it she wouldn't have texted you, would she.

I think you need to let her know that she risks losing her son if she lies to him.

OP is there a way of you turning up with very short notice or no notice particularly if she is on maternity leave? The fact she only talks to you by text is extremely worrying.

You have all been wonderful in clarifying my thoughts.
She absolutely will have known I would react to what she has said. She had no reason to tell me otherwise - she could not have expected me to not have an opinion.
I was the one who did everything for them both when my friend was dying- called his family, called all our mutual friends, fronted down his many many friends when they were intruding on their last days together in hospital, supported her wishes for a small cremation - not a three ring circus, organised his wake, lent her money ,organised an ultrasound to be brought to the hospice so he could see his child, raised money for her - eveything my friend asked me to do. I was his best mate for decades - we shared houses, he shared a house with my husband, he stayed with us regularly when we lived in whoop whoop. He was even my bridesmaid.
I took him to hospital appointments and fronted doctors who were more interested in the rarity of his condition rather than him. Got him a better standard of care etc.
I have an amazing Dh who was fine with all of that. He loved him too.
He was a very unique guy who lit up a room whenever he was in it. He was the brother an only child never had.

I'm going to have to write her a text, as I simply can't afford to fly to where she is. She's due up here soon, and wants to meet up- but I want to speak to her ( via text) before hand. I shall try to call her but she has always hated talking on the phone - even before the new Dh.

I am planning on telling her the following

• that she would've known I'd have something to say so ..well here it is.
• my experience at discovering my adoption and how it fucked me
• that her sons right to know about his father out weighs her partners insecurities ( and that it is illegal under the International rights of a child to hide parentage)

-that step-dads can be amazing but a relationship built on lies will always end badly . And she risks later loosing her son.

• that it is perfectly okay that a step-dad can be called Dad, step father do awesome jobs most of the time

-that my friend would be devasted and betrayed to know she has put a mans insecurity above his existance

• that it is not confusing to a small child, that stories can be told a bedtime about his Dad who left him without detracting from the cockwomble she married - one dad in heaven, one dad on earth
• that is far more damaging to a child to discover this type of thing in teenage years
• that how would the DH feel if his ex-wife was attempting to deny he ever existed to his chidlren
• that I am worried for her that she felt this was necessary to keep the peace and is the relationship okay otherwise/ because it seems a cruel thing to inisist upon and agreed to
• and that my DH and I are always here for her if she needs a place to stay ( her parents live near us but their house is full)

I am also going to call a mutual friend of mine and the new DH to find out how much of a dick he is. They have fallen out. And he was close to my friend as well. The new Dh met her through this guy.

any other ideas?
sykedilic come back!

This is so sad to read about, my heart goes out to you @Commanderdaisy.
My concern with texting is that it’s very difficult to be sure that she will take it the way it is intended. It sounds like quite a tough read and you’ve no way of knowing where she is and what mood she’ll be in when she reads it, how she’ll react or what’s going in around her. She could easily be very upset, her husband could end up seeing the text.

I really would try and speak on the phone if you can, or arrange to meet in person to have this chat. Only when these plans fall through send a message. Even then I think I might be incluned to send it as a letter. She’ll have more control over when and how to read it, and it will force you to take time over writing it and prevent any impulsive text conversations that may follow on from a text message.
Good luck x

My concern with texting her is the controlling H. He probably monitors her phone.

First I'd call the mutual friend that isn't talking to them and find out what happened and what he knows.

Then I'd message the friend: "[your dh] and I are looking forward to catching up if you have time when you're in X next. Give me a call when you get the chance so we can chat about it". Mentioning your DH would make the H less likely to react badly thinking shes cheating or some nonsense.

Depending on what the mutual friend says and her response to the above, when she calls I'd try and get an email address. I'd probably start the emails carefully to see how shed respond: "so I've given some thought to your texts but first, how are you and [child]. Are you doing okay?" And then go from there