To regret finding these relatives?

[dottymakeupbag]

I while back, I manage to find a sibling of one of my parents. Parent had always known about this older sibling but turns out sibling had no idea. I contacted the sibling and shared the news that they have 5 siblings (including my parent).
Chatted for a while and I also got chatting to the grown up child of this person, who is a similar age to my sister and I. Chatted online for a few weeks and our parents were placed in contact with each other. All good so far.
Arranged to meet, all of us together. Parent's sibling pulled out (ill health reasons), so my parent, sister and I all went to meet the grown up child.
Lots of red flags that worried us. The grown up child's house was almost squalid, no carpets, filth and dust everywhere. Bad smells.
Went out for lunch at a nearby place and the new partner of this person appears. They mentioned moving in to the said house 3 weeks earlier and they were engaged. I asked how long they'd known each other, my relative said "about a month". So in effect, moved this stranger into her home with her young child. How can you be so reckless?
I wouldn't even want to give a new bf my address after a week, let alone moved him into it with my children!
Something didn't sit right so I did a bit of fb searching of this bf. He had an open profile, no privacy settings in place so I could see everything. He'd been "engaged" to another woman (also a single mum with young kids from what I could see) just 7 or 8 weeks earlier.
A few weeks after getting back from this meet up, relative casually told me he's gone now, the social services safeguarding people contacted her with concerns that he's a risk to children.
Can't help feeling we've opened a can of worms in connecting with this previously unknown branch of our family.. Anyone ever experienced this?

You sound incredibly judgemental, nothing bad is evening happening to you, you just don’t like being associated with people like this. Maybe it’s best you just leave these people to live their lives.

How does your cousin's life affect you and your parents though?

I don't understand what you mean by 'can of worms'?

Oh dear, not what you expect! Probably best to cool things down and reduce or stop contact.

Thankfully from all the research about my heritage and family over the last few years, no regrets at all.

And yet if a mother posted here about getting engaged to a man who is a risk to children, after knowing them for about a month, you wouldn't be judgemental?
I can see why the OP feels she's opened a can of worms by making contact with previously unknown family who have totally different standards & ethics to her.

Edited to add that I meant to quote the poster who says OP was being judgemental!

My ex Sil was adopted as a new born and tried to find her birth mother. Finally found her, met her a couple of times and then cut contact as she said she was "trailer trash.". It isn't always like the TV programmes.

Delete

I would cut out.
I have made a decision not to associate with anyone that displays behaviour that makes me feel uncomfortable. Drug taking, breaking laws, living in squalor, long term severe MH problems, poor parenting etc, I just don’t any more. I don’t want people like that in my life or my kids’ life. I just hang with normal nice people.
It’s meant we’ve lost contact with a couple of family members and some “friends” (who weren’t really friends any more, just people we knew and kept in touch with out of guilt) but I feel so much better.
If I make a new friend and they start displaying any of the above then they are out. I don’t owe anyone anything, so I prioritise protecting the peace of me and my family.

That sounds so sad & it could be difficult to row back from wanting contact initially. I had a third cousin contact me on Ancestry (our great grandparents were siblings) and thought it would be lovely to know him but it turns out he's the most boring man in the history of the world. Nothing like as bad as your situation but lord I wish I'd never got involved. How to say that tho?! Sorry you're too tedious, let's go back to not knowing each other.

Maybe stop contact and forget about it!

If they are not the sort of people you would normally associate with, you are not being unreasonable to feel the way you do.

They are strangers. You have no affection for them or shared past with them, so you do not owe them any duty to stay in touch just because you are related to them.

I suggest you don't make any effort to contact them again. It sounds like you have made all the effort so far, so hopefully it won't be too difficult to go back to how you were before.

Oh no. I wouldn't be surprised if the same sort of thing happened in my family if we went looking for long-lost relatives... We already have a few known relatives that are so dysfunctional we're no longer in contact. They're not people I'd want to spend time with or have around my dc.

Presumably your parent wanted you to contact them?

Tbh I think this is one of the risks when you go for looking for long lost relatives.. it's also bit shit that you sought them out but now want to drop them however you have free will and can do what you want