I just want to say before I type this that this is a new account, but I have been on MN for years under basically the same user name but for a few digits. I had to start a new one under a new email address as had trouble getting back into the old one. So anyone is free to check that if this seems odd for a newish account.
A few years ago I met this guy on a night out. We had what I thought was a one night stand, but then a week later, bumped into him again in the same club and history repeated itself. He told me he was 19 and I had no reason to think otherwise. He looked 19, he was confident and was being served alcohol at the bar. He later admitted he was 17 and I felt bad about it but I liked him by then. I was 22 or 23 at the time.
I developed feelings for him and we wanted to be together but I was ashamed about the age gap and that he was a student when I was an adult woman with a young child, so kept it under wraps and it fizzled out eventually.
After a while I met a new partner and we later had a child together. We were argumentative and frequently split up and got back together. He was a bit abusive in some ways and I wasn't happy but found it hard to leave. So, I started texting this guy again and we met up and had sex and it led to a casual sex thing that went on for about 2 years, every time I split with my now ex, I would go back to this guy. I wanted there to be more between us, he did too, but we were afraid of other people's reactions.
I went on to have another child with my ex when we got back together.
Everyone comments she looks nothing like him. I'm now married to someone else and ex isn't in my children's lives at all anymore.
I recently saw this guy in my doctors surgery. He lives relatively local to me but we've never crossed paths. This was the first time in years. I saw him looking at me but we never spoke. I can't stop thinking how much my child looks like him. He will have moved on and I'm a distant memory now and he won't be expecting this. He deserves to know but I don't know if this is just opening up a can of worms. She has a father figure, my husband and doesn't need the confusion, but I'm unsure what to do. I feel shame around the fact I potentially had a baby with a teenage guy, although he would have been around 19 when I conceived. And she could be my ex's although she looks nothing like him, or me for that matter.