to ask if having a secret second family is that common?!

[trob22]

I've seen a couple of posts in the last few days about men who not only have a long-term OW in their lives but also have kids with the OW - and somehow manage to keep this a secret from their wife (and kids from that marriage) for YEARS while still seeing the OW and other child fairly regularly?

Is this really that common? How on earth do they keep the secret? How does it work with the man paying child maintenance etc?

I've only heard of one person in my life who had a secret second family but judging by MN it seems fairly run of the mill!!

A distant relative did this, two families, four kids with his wife, three kids, a few years younger than the first four, with the OW. His wife definitely turned a blind eye, and only divorced him when it all came out and the wider family found out.

A distant family member has a son from an affair. The son has the same Christian name as the father's son with his wife!

I'm a child of a second family. A few years ago I found out I had 6 half siblings. I was born in the sixties along with my 2 brothers. I only knew something was amiss the first time I needed a passport. Long story but my mum and dad's marriage was bigamous (although he was a catholic) so my birth certificate had to be altered when I was 6 to account for my parents marrying legally and making us kids legitimate. At least they married properly before he died so mum had the widows pension (leaving his first wife and kids destitute I should think).

I'm sure it happened a lot in previous generations. How would anyone get found out?

Cross post with your last OP.

My best friend was the secret child from an affair. She found out at age 12 and doesn't have a relationship with her dad.
My Mum's friend found out when he applied for his first passport at 19 that his mum had never been married and that he and his sister had made up surnames. Their father was 'married' to their mum but had another wife. He came and went for a few weeks at a time. One time he just never came back. The woman was too ashamed ever to tell anyone and nobody knows who he really was or what happened to him.

My partner is pretty certain his dad has one. So I guess a lot of these women will have some idea but aren’t really that bothered enough to rip apart their families

BugBumus. I’m glad your DS is doing well 😊

Hindsight, and calmly reading something written out clearly on a forum, it’s easy to ‘do things differently’ but when we are desperate for help and someone is recommended it’s easy to grasp at the help offered. Even if looking back we think ‘WTF did I think S/HE could help?!’ (I’ve had health issues I’ve sought help for and think a few of those weren’t wise, in hind sight).

I hope your DS continues doing so well 🌷

Yes, when I was a teen, my best friend at the time confided that things were very bad at home. Her mum and dad had allegedly been married for 20-something years but it had just came out that her dad had married before her mum (her mum had no idea) and had 2 children who were now adults. Total bigamy job. I don't believe their marriage was legal? after 20 odd years.

My dad was married with two kids when he met my mum. I believe they had an affair and she became pregnant. Very weird situation that the details are scarce on but I've been led to believe that he moved my (18 year old) pregnant mum into this family home with his wife and 2 kids. They then placed the baby up for adoption.
My mum and dad ended up getting married years later and had me. My dad (unsurprisingly) had a lot of affairs but one of the affairs resulted in a pregnancy - think a girl.

Shit show basically!

This thread makes me never want to get married or have children.

Came home from work one day, knock on the door from next door neighbour asking how Dad was. I had no idea what neighbour was talking about but manged to find out eventually that Dad had been taken to hospital after suffering a life threatening stroke. Arrived at hospital to find a group of strangers waiting outside Dad's room and a middle aged lady literally sobbing by his bed. Turned out to be Dad's "adopted" family who he had been sharing a part time life with for over 10 years. Mum had been suffering with severe MH problems for decades and although Dad had continued to support and care for her he had made a life outside the family home for companionship and to maintain his own sanity.

This shows up how usual it is that it is the woman who does the day to day drudge of childcare . Does this EVER happen the other way around? Imagine racing from one house to do tea for one set of kids then racing across town to do tea for the other lot.

I don’t know a secret family but I know a man who has a wife and son, plus another woman and a son- everyone is aware of it and his two sons run the family business together!

Couldn’t quite get my head around that one

My BIL has three children that were born within months of each other to different women, all while he was married to a woman with whom he had no children. None of the children knew about each other, his wife kicked him out and he moved in with one of the women while supporting the others behind her back. It is a huge mess. They are grown up now and two of them are aware of each other but the third isn't.

Yes, ex BF had a relative who had a second family in Asia (he'd go out for 6 weeks twice a year. Was self employed and wealthy) It was "known" by everyone In the family but the wife, even their kids knew.

Was good friends at secondary school with a girl who was part of a second family. Her and her sister were so matter of a fact about it. They knew they were the second family, they knew they couldnt see their dad at certain times (Xmas for example). The dad was older and they knew if he got ill, they couldn't visit him etc.

The mother was lovely but I often wonder how the girls ended up with this kind of morality instilled in them?

The dad was an utter creep and even in my teens I knew someone who could be so deceptive for such a long time was a nasty cunt.

Am watching Mrs Wilson on BBC, one more episode to go, based on a true story of one man's very complicated life with two separate families. Maybe even three families, don't know how it ends yet

I watched all three episodes back to back last night, I was gripped.

We were/are a secret family. This was my AMA thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/AMA/3307727-I-had-a-secret-family-with-a-married-man-Ask-me-anything

I'm not sure how he supported us at the time or how he continues to give child maintenance now. All I can imagine is that he is quite wealthy from running his business and manages all of the finances himself.

In all honesty, it has ruined my life and is likely to mar the lives of plenty of other people. I think on some level it was a thrill for him to play god, so to speak. Or perhaps it was just a mistake that led down a rabbithole.

My grandad did apparently. Even went to prison for bigamy. That was back in the 40's or 50's though.
Grandma (1st and legal wife) took him back though. My mother's half siblings are like a family urban legend. I'm not sure how many or who they are.

did anyone watch that drama series - Bliss i think it was called,. was about a man with 2 families. he would pretend to work away every other week and had 2 cars that he would swop over at the airport, the boy and girl kids had the same name etc

Not quite the same but my friend discovered in her mid-twenties that her three older siblings were actually from her mum’s first marriage, ie had a different father. Her father had raised them as his own and they didn’t want her to feel like the odd one out. Amazing that the three older children never mentioned it, let alone the adults! It was her grandmother who finally let it slip.

Grandchild of a secret second family here. I don’t think for one second his family know about us. Although it’s becoming much harder to hide with the advent of Family History DNA tests.

My DCs are adopted, my DC2's likely birth father has older children and then my DC2 who is the spit of his older DCs, I've seen pictures on FB and birth mum despite her difficulties caring for children has to give her credit tried to make him aware of his other DC, but he won't respond to either birth mum or any social worker approaches.

I feel really sad for my DC as they will never get to know their siblings. But he knows.

It definitely happens. My grandfather had a second family, and then a third... with only his first and third being legitimate ones. The children from the second are adamant that they were born within wedlock, shall we say, when they can't be - because my grandparents didn't divorce until my dad was in his teens, and the youngest of the second family was almost 9.

It's all very tawdry, and very sad - and reflects more upon the shitty nature of the men who do this, than the women and children they entangle into their libido driven lies. Fifty odd years later, and I still have to catch myself when talking to my cousins from the second family, because they don't know that their grampa wasn't married to their nan. Because their parents didn't know, either. I know, because I inherited all of my grandmother's papers when she died - including her divorce papers.

Honestly, 'Mrs Wilson' was accurate. Except it wasn't just men masquerading as spies who got away with such bullshitty behaviour... it was Joe Bloggs, too.

@Raspberry10, does that mean it was your parent who was the secret child? How did it play out? Is there anything you wish had been done differently?

I am really curious about the long-term implications and keen to think about how to minimise damage (if possible).

Imagine being a man, and your second family just having a new baby born into it, and being able to go back to your first family, and act like that joyful time of life isn’t happenning? Isn’t that quite sad?

That’s what my ex did, he was more of a cheater because he didn’t support either me and our DD or the other girl and her baby.

To this day he still denies that she exists so I hear, she is the absolute splitting image of my DD, and even 9 years on, I can’t quite understand that sort of coldness to the birth of his own child.

I don't think second family is anything like as common as men bringing up DCs they have no idea aren't theirs biologically.