Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask how you’d react if you found out your OH was once a sperm donor?

463 replies

HaleyJamesScott · 23/01/2020 00:03

How would you feel if you found out your OH was a sperm donor at Uni? How about if some of his “children” found him after using Ancestry DNA and he thinks he wants relationships with them and their children?

OP posts:
TheyDoDoThat · 23/01/2020 19:37

I can understand why the wife is upset tbh. They have a life and children. Essentially she has found out that her husband has a child with another women. While he has never met that woman your mum it must have been a shock.
He should have told her. None of this is your fault.
I would respect his wishes either way he doesn’t owe you anything. A family history of medical conditions is a useful thing to know and maybe just ask for this and leave it at this.
His wife may come around or never accept you.

OneForMeToo · 23/01/2020 19:38

Honestly it would be a complete deal breaker. He knew he might have children out there somewhere and never mentioned it and now bam ones popped up with their own children and now might just become part of my life and I would be expected to accept this new step child and step grandchild just like a new Tesco opening. Nope.

I have multiple half siblings out there and none of them are of any interest to me either they are not my family nor my friends and I wouldn’t take kindly to them being inserted into my life either.

Lambikinis · 23/01/2020 19:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Babynamechangerr · 23/01/2020 19:41

Whilst I appreciate this is obviously very emotional for you OP, I don't think you're showing much empathy to his poor wife.

It changes everything. For me and my dh, right now I know that we both have these three amazing children who we both love more than everything, and to us they're the three most important people in the world. By finding out there is (at least) one other child out there changes that dynamic forever.

It's a whole other family out there that I would be completely excluded from, my dh having another daughter, my dc having a half sister, nieces/nephews, this whole unit that I'm not a part of and have to watch from the sidelines.

It would change my marriage forever, and I'd feel cheated. Obviously people choose to marry those with existing children, but they go into that with their eyes open.

He did nothing wrong by being a sperm donor and you have done nothing wrong by contacting him. But he has suppressed a huge thing in his marriage so it's Alot to expect his wife to be cool with it.

I think you just need to give him time and space, and if necessary get some counselling to deal with your feelings about it.

Davincitoad · 23/01/2020 19:42

People saying they would divorce him- the process back then was surely anonymous no one knew everyone and their granny would be able to trace their family from something you could buy on the internet!

SandyY2K · 23/01/2020 19:44

Back in the day ppl did it anonymously. They were assured of anonymity. They wouldn't have necessarily known his donation resulted in a child.

Technology and science has developed so much in the last few decades...they would never have known something like ancestry DNA would be a thing.

PatellarTendonitis · 23/01/2020 19:46

I agree, One. Gamete donation results in human beings, it's ridiculous it's so minimised.

saraclara · 23/01/2020 19:46

He donated, what, 30 years ago (since the OP has said she has a child)
At that point there was never any chance that children from his sperm would ever know who he was.So why would he mention it to the woman he married?

I imagine that young men who donated sperm 30 years ago did so quite blithely and without thought for a future that would have anyone being able to seacrh for someone via their DNA. He probably didn't even give it a thought.

The idea that some people think this is grounds for annulment 40 years on is just silly.

HeresMe · 23/01/2020 19:47

You find it amusing that someone has created human beings and not told their own spouse about it? hmm How odd. Really sad that creating entire people is dismissed as 'just wanking'.

They haven't created humans the scientists did that.

Dress it up as how you want that is what it was that's the problem putting emotion into a medical procedure,how were the blokes even meant to have known the sperm was ever used.

This should have never come up though, contracts about anominity have been broken but noone cares about that, I'd less sperm donors come forward how is that good for infertility.

cptartapp · 23/01/2020 19:47

I'd be gutted. I'd feel like myself and any DC we have together should take priority due to the circumstances in which they were conceived. And I absolutely wouldn't want him to have contact. Sorry.

FizzyGreenWater · 23/01/2020 19:47

I understand she must be upset but also kind of think it's not her place to have a say on what he does about me?

Not her place?

That's a very confrontational phrase to use. Surely you can see that while yes technically she cannot and should not control what he does here, the fact is that he's put a bomb right into their marriage and family. It affects her in every single possible way - her own children have a half sibling she never knew existed, her husband has misled her, she is looking at potentially having an adult stranger suddenly placed into her nuclear family. Many people would not choose to have a family with someone who already has children, for all sorts of reasons - that choice has been taken away from her. She must be absolutely devastated right now, regardless of how she may come to feel in the future about you as a person.

I have to say, while you are entirely innocent in this, you using phrases such as 'not her place' when you talk about the personal relationship between two long married people you didn't know from Adam this time last year - if you are thinking you might want to be a part of your biological father's family in some way, that's probably not the best way of thinking to start off with. She has every right to be at the centre of this and every right to feel the way she does about her husband and father of her children not telling her about this. Don't take this personally to the extent that you deny that- you must know her reaction is pretty understandable.

I know I sound harsh, and I will tell you why. I think you need to tread carefully. He didn't tell his wife about this. Now he's happily telling you about how she feels - as SleepWarrior says above, my gut reaction is that he doesn't sound great. I have a horrid feeling that the kind of man who seems a bit oblivious to how big a thing this actually is for his own wife is also the type to be super enthusiastic with you until the novelty wears off, and then you won't really hear from him.

Tread VERY carefully. Try and think about the long term implications of however you handle this. Be just a little bit suspicious of a man who so readily talks about how his wife feels about such a big thing, so casually, with someone who's still a stranger.

Don't assume that how people feel right now won't be changing very rapidly - in both directions.

Don't villify his wife. She's actually the one reacting more normally, if anything. Don't assume that she's 'against' you as a person - right now she must be in shock at her husband not having told her about this - it's not really about you, it's about her and her own family.

transformandriseup · 23/01/2020 19:48

Actually a close family member and his long term GF are going through exactly this. GF is heartbroken and I'm not sure they will stay together.

VerbenaGirl · 23/01/2020 19:49

I’d hate the thought he had other children and be very cross if he never told me about being a donor.

WeeSleekitTimerousMoosey · 23/01/2020 19:50

I imagine that young men who donated sperm 30 years ago did so quite blithely and without thought for a future that would have anyone being able to seacrh for someone via their DNA

The ones I knew did it for beer money. They might have vaguely thought they were doing something nice for some infertile couple but had zero interest in being fathers or knowing about any resulting children. They were told no one would ever know about it so may well not have mentioned it to future partners.

transformandriseup · 23/01/2020 19:52

I agree with what Fizzy said

oblada · 23/01/2020 19:53

I'm a minority here but I wouldn't have any issue with it - I'd be quite proud! I encouraged my DH to consider it if he felt like it. He wasn't sure and we've not mentioned it. I expect he'll soon be too old for it anyway. If egg donation was easier I'd definitely do it. But having gone through 3 pregnancies and currently pregnant with 4th I can't imagine putting my body through that.
The children are biologically related but that's it - there was no real say or love or choice in the conception which was completely at the hand of the other couple (and science). That doesn't make him a father in my view (although I have no issue donors/children wanting a relationship later on if they want to).

PatellarTendonitis · 23/01/2020 19:53

Gametes are needed to create human, Here. Hmm Some people also inseminate themselves with donor sperm, the only tech needed is a syringe, it's not a medical procedure. And the result is a person.

No one is entitled to a child.

oblada · 23/01/2020 19:56

We're all related to loads of ppl at the end of the day - it's just biology - not a big deal! Helping a couple conceive is such a great gift!

pooopypants · 23/01/2020 19:56

Your father didn't give his wife any choice over what she accepted when she married him. He should have disclosed his being a donor before they got married and started a family.

I can't blame her for feeling how she does and I think I'd feel really upset if my DH announced that his child wanted to contact him, having had no prior knowledge whatsoever that he'd even donated. To me, it's basic and common decency and he should have told her years ago.

deareloise · 23/01/2020 19:58

Sperm donors aren’t a father in the sense most of you mean.

I wouldn’t worry, OP.

Aridane · 23/01/2020 19:59

I do not believe some responses.

The guy was a sperm donor back in uni days.

And posters are saying they would be furious, it's a deal breaker, a grave non disclosure and grounds for annulment???

😂

PatellarTendonitis · 23/01/2020 20:00

Actually a close family member and his long term GF are going through exactly this. GF is heartbroken and I'm not sure they will stay together.

I hope she's able to move on and have the family she deserves with someone who hasn't got more baggage than Gatwick Airport and treats procreating like nothing. I'd be gone!

oblada · 23/01/2020 20:01

Aridane - I know it's bonkers!! He did (overall) a pretty good deed and then promptly forgot about it (as I would have if it'd been me tbh)!
I really cannot see sperm donors as fathers in all honesty. Biologically yes but they had no real say in the conception. I rly couldn't get worked up about it.

deareloise · 23/01/2020 20:02

Sperm donors aren’t fathers; they allow someone else to be a father, or a mother.

PatellarTendonitis · 23/01/2020 20:05

So bonkers, eh, to care about your OH having created children, didn't tell you, and then springing it on you that he wants to insert that adult child or children in your life and you're supposed to be non-plussed about it. Hmm Gah, why can't we all just be cool wives/husbands?