Family member telling my children their sister is a half sister

[ohmyohmy123]

At a family party, my two younger children who are under 12 were upstairs with their cousin of the same age - cousin tells them that their older sister is only their half sister and their dad is not hers.

They come down to ask me visibly upset by this and confused that I would keep a secret from them. Mil then says "oh dear, are you going to tell them now" in earshot of the children.

Older sibling is in 20's so older but still lives at home and is close. Husband brought them up from very young so is dad in everyone's eyes.

There was no reason for cousin to even know as they are same age and wouldn't have known or needed to and definitely shouldn't have told my children. Her parents have obviously told her the details of it all.

I haven't received an apology from the parents or my mil - aibu to expect one? I am so angry about it because it's something that had nothing to do with them and was said at the wrong time. It's not that it was a big secret but I would have liked to tell the children myself and not at such an impressionable age!

Whilst the cousin/MiL etc have behaved very badly indeed, I do think that it would have been easier to tell the kids at a young age. Because when they are young, they don’t think stuff is a big reveal or a big deal, they just accept what you tell them.

Obviously they should have been told but they should have been told by you at an appropriate time.

But in the cousins defence she may not have known they didn’t know.

Really cannot understand the vitriol towards the in laws from some posters. If they were blabber mouths the secret would have come out ages ago. It is far more likely to have come up naturally in a conversation overhead by the cousin. And it was the cousin who told the DC, a cousin who is the same age as the DC. What do you then expect the in laws to do? They can't tell the cousin off for lying because no lie has been told by them.

She's their sister and that's it.
She isn't, though. That's what you are telling yourself to kick the can down the road and avoid doing the right thing, not what she deserves to hear. She deserved to know the truth earlier. I think you let her down massively and I'm struggling to feel sympathy, especially as it seems everyone in the family knew but her.

It shouldn't be a secret. Keeping it secret makes it seem like a 'dirty secret'.

It’s not the same because I’m not talking about letting out of information etc, but my kids both know their brother has a different mum, but we don’t say half brother. A brother is a brother in our book, a sister is a sister.

I don’t really like the language of half sibling.

Obviously the know he has a different mum as he’s a baby!

I'm an older half sibling. In my case even I didn't know that the person I called dad was in fact my step-father until I was 13.
I was told that under no circumstances was I to tell my younger sibling about any of this. An awful situation to put a child in and it seriously damaged my relationship with my parents.
As I got older I encouraged my mum to tell my younger sibling but she wouldn't. Eventually a situation arose in which it HAD to come out. I gave my mother a deadline.

The result of this was that my younger sibling went completely off the rails at being kept in the dark for all those years. They are hugely resentful of the whole thing.

In reality the only person being protected by this kind of secret is the adults who don't want to face difficult questions from children. You made it an issue by treating it as something that needed to be hidden.

Don't blame other people for spilling this secret. Just own it now and step up to helping your younger children cope with their emotions around this.

My friend actually has a 12 year old, 8 year old and 6 year old. She met her husband when her eldest was a baby and she has always called him dad and her real dad has never been involved. All the kids know though that the eldest has a different real daddy. Other friend did the opposite and the kids hated her for years.

@PastaLaVistaBBY

Yanbu for being annoyed but you should have been open about this from the start. The longer you keep secrets from your children the bigger deal it is, and the more likely it is they will learn from someone else.

I agree with this. It is not at all important if they always know about it. Left until they are older it carries much more weight as it then feels like a secret, so something upsetting rather than a non issue. Why weren’t you open about this from toddler years ?

YANBU

if you had kept it a secret from the older child as in who the father was then you would be in the wrong.
No reason why younger ones need to know. Like you said your oldest didn't want the younger ones to know and you respected their wishes. Every family is different and one rule doesn't apply to all. I would be super pissed off that your family member told their young children. They need to apologise. It wasn't their place.
Speak to your young dc and explain the situation. You will find that they ate very understanding and it won't be such a big deal as everyone here is making it to be x

Your DC should have been told a long time ago. YABU.

Difficult situation to be in - my 7 yr old knows her brother has a different dad. But her father has never “parented” my eldest really.... so slightly different situation to be in than yours as I had to tell her the truth when she started asking questions.

I see why it was never an issue to be discussed, but the elder they get the more risk there is that someone else may let it slip.

I would try and reassure your eldest that he is still a brother, that nothing has changed. Maybe explain how all families are different.

I have 2 kids, the eldest has 5 half siblings. 2 he has met a handful of times, 2 he has never met and 1 that is also my child. He refers to my child as his sibling, never half sibling. The others he refers to as half brothers/sisters. Being a sibling is more than what parentage you have in common, maybe you could discuss that too?

If you want to keep a secret, then keep it a secret - as soon as one person knows, it's a secret no longer, just gossip waiting to be imparted.

If you have an 11 year old, you had approximately 3500 days with them to tell them in your own terms but you didn’t. So here you are.

My dad was useless about telling me family information as a child. The most hurtful was when he forgot to tell me he got married. I guess he felt, like you, it was a need to know only situation, and I didn’t need to know. Then someone came up at a family party, slapped him on the back as asked what it felt like to be a married man again. So the truth came out. It definitely wasn’t someone being malicious, just making small talk.

My best advice to to be there now for your younger children to answer any questions and try to rebuild their trust. Now the cat is out of the bag, it doesn’t matter much how they found out but it does matter how open you are to any questions in the future.

Secrets come out, especially these days.

My husband was 55 when he found out he had an older half brother in a different country. He found out when he got a FB message saying hey, I think you’re my uncle.

I haven't received an apology from the parents or my mil - aibu to expect one?

Yes and I don't understand why you are angry, primarily at a child, for telling the truth. It was bound to come out.

I have a close friend who was adopted as a tiny baby. She always knew she was adopted, however she was told that it was because her birth mother had died. She was given the impression that, had her parents not adopted her, she would have been put in a home. Her birth mother hadn't died, my friend located her when she was in her late thirties.

The lie, totally unnecessary, really hurt my friend, it was as if they actually lived a lie for many years. All the rest of her family knew the facts which made it worse.

Her mum said she told her that because she was afraid my friend would go and look for her birth mother if she knew she was alive. Well she looked and found anyway, only ever saw her once. There was also no question of my friend going into care, she was always going to be put up for adoption.

What's done is done now, op, move on. Your children will process the information and then relegate it to the back of their minds.

I found out my older sibling had a different father when I was eight. I found their birth certificate and read it. It sent me into a complete tailspin. I was absolutely devastated that my parents had not told me. It felt to me like everyone had a secret that I wasn't a part of. I began to question my own identity. Who was my dad? Was I adopted too? I lost trust on that day and I don't think I ever regained it. It was a like a carpet being taken from under me. That may all sound completely over the top to an adult but when you're a small child it is your entire world being turned upside down. Everything you knew to be true, is questionable. You really do need to talk to them now, honestly and openly.

Two people can only keep a secret when one of them is dead.

This was always going to come out.

You’ve done your children a disservice.

Sorry OP but you've brought this on yourself. Honesty is the best policy, hiding information like that is bound to bite you on the arse eventually.

I would be very annoyed at being asked to keep secrets.

I can understand why you're upset, this has come out and you're now forced to deal with the confusion. It's not your Mil fault, or the cousin's - a child can't be expected to bear that kind of responsibility ( it was inappropriate for their mother to tell them).

Unfortunately, secrets cause these kinds of problems, as they always come out. It seems naive to have thought this wouldn't with so many people knowing.. it's so unfair for the children. I'm not really sure why you wanted it kept it a secret, the children all have a right to know their parentage - it's an important part of their identity. Had they always known, it would have been a complete non-issue. Half siblings aren't less or 'dirty' - as many pp have said they see no distinction, but the difference is that they have the benefit of the truth and choose to embrace their sibling as such. These days it is impossible to avoid the truth - birth certificates, lineage sites.. the worst possible way - organ donation, bone marrow etc where family DNA will be examined.

It's always best to be honest.

I don't see how other people were supposed to know that this was a secret the mustn't be revealed to your children. You should really have been open about the situation from the start, the later you left it the more difficult it would be for the children to assimilate.

DB is his wife's second husband and has looked after her two older children from a young age. They always called him by his first name, whereas his own children call him Daddy: the situation has been clear to them throughout their lives, they love their half siblings and they have no problem with any of it. That seems to be a much more sensible approach.

This was inevitable unfortunately. I don’t really think it is reasonable for you to expect extended family to be complicit in withholding this kind of information indefinitely and I wouldn’t blame the cousin or the in laws. Nor would I really blame you though as it must be a very difficult conversation to have. I suspect the anger you’re feeling is because your children are upset you kept it from them and you know that they have every right to be upset about that. It’s a defence mechanism because we all hate being wrong and causing upset to those we love but if you can accept it without blaming others it will enable you to be honest with your kids which might repair the damage. Good luck OP.