Long lost family aibu

[Oneonesock]

found some papers after my dad died and realised I have a half sibling out there.

aibu to try and contact this person or shall I just let things be? I don’t want to create any disruption in someone’s life needlessly but

She’s around a year older (mid 30s) and I don’t know anything about her beyond she was born from an affair between my dad and her mum (that I never knew about)

It's up to you, personally though I would leave it. Can of worms and all that. I have half siblings that I've never met (my prince of a dad fathered 5 kids with 4 different women) it's just far too much drama.

You can't change who you get once you look so be careful with your choice

I would have to go for it! That's your sibling, flesh and blood. Good luck x

I'd try.

She may have lived for years with the fact that her family haven't wanted to make contact.

This could change her life!

Do the papers indicate he wanted to be a father to her or would you be just telling her 'my dad was also your dad'? Is she going to get something out of it or is it to satisfy your curiosity?

It could be she doesn't even know that the man she thinks of as dad isn't really her dad. You could bring her world crashing down. Anyway it isn't always that easy to find Jane Smith or whoever. Janina Smithella is obv much easier to find.

I would say quietly look for her if you want but give it some long hard thought before you actually make contact.

I wouldn't do anything about this because I wouldn't want anything to do with her mother.

Thanks for the feedback.

it’s so tricky to know what to do.

i dont want to set off a bomb in someone’s life but am happy to provide knowledge of our dad if she wants it

the papers are court papers/blood test results nothing personal

I think I’ll just wait and see if she gets in touch

I would try to find her. My best friend was contacted by a man after her Dad died. He was her half brother and she really valued having him around.

I would get in touch. Life is too short. I have half siblings too.

But she is going to be loyal to her mother isn't she? And her mother was having an affair with a married man. You have to be loyal to your mum but how is that possible if you're bringing this woman into your life?

Rather than simply this being about you providing information to this woman, you also have to be prepared for the impact on yourself. You might end up learning things about your dad completely at odds with the man you knew and thought he was; you might be making contact with somebody who has no interest in you, doesn’t think of you as her sister, and is quite happy to tell you so; you might be opening yourself up to a load of anger and abuse from people who don’t want to be reminded of the past; you might be making contact with the sort of person you’d actively try to avoid in your day to day life and then there’s no taking that contact back. I’d think carefully about all the eventualities before you poke this bear.

One of my parents has a large and complex family. They are one of eight children, who have 5 different fathers. Two were adopted, and my parent was brought up in care, with their brother.
One of the children who were adopted found us a few years ago. The other hasn't ever come to look for his birth family. The child who found us has caused a lot of disruption in the family, and although they have found the siblings they never had, it's not been easy.
I would just caution you in that it's not all sunshine and rainbows. There's bad feeling around what happened, and the situation at the time. People have loyalties to their parents, and views on why things happened.

Its not about the mothers.

Can you contact the mother if she is alive? So you don't caise issues as pps mentioned

I have half siblings I've never met due to my father's multiple marriages (4). We all know about each other but nobody has ever made contact. I'm not interested, and clearly they're not either, though in one case the stepmother was hostile and I would never dream of contacting the sibling from that marriage.

I don't know if it's sad, but it doesn't mean much to me. It's just some shared genes. I'm more likely to contact someone from Ancestry DNA.

Perfectly normal to want to know who they are. I found out in my 20s I had half siblings, when my father contacted me after 25years of silence! I spoke to them for a while online. We don't live close by (but no more than a 1 hr flight) so we never met but easily could have. I have since stopped talking to them and my father.

For me it's better that way, so just be prepared they may reject you. But I can certainly understand the desire to know.

Court ordered blood tests? So your dad refused to acknowledge he was the father and was forced by the court to take a dna test to establish if he was the father. So presumably he didn't want to pay maintenance? Not sure you will get a warm welcome in that case.

From the other side, my Dad had an affair with my Mum and I was the result (and my sibling).

I reached out to my half-brother in my mid 20s. He and my half-sister had no knowledge of our existence. I rocked their world and it must have been devastating for them and it devastated me when neither wanted any contact (we were barred from attending his funeral (just further confirmation that we were his dirty secret)).

Can you try to establish contact with your half-sibling's Mother, as you no clue what your half-sibling knows or does not know about your Father and his circumstances.

I would have to try and contact them, I couldn't live with not knowing. It's such a personal decision as half of this thread wouldn't want to. She was totally innocent in all of this and you have no idea what the mother knew or what he told her.