Found out I have half brother my mum stopped my dad from seeing

[MayaYanney]

Hey guys

a few months ago I learned from a relative that I have a half brother one year older than me.

my father fathered a child in Russia when working there.

the story is allegedly my mother learned about him when she was about to give birth to me.

Allegedly the woman kept quiet she was pregnant and till the kid was one and then decided to tell my dad when my mum was about to give birth to me.

my father kept in contact by phone and visited him till I was 3/4. Think this Lady didnt know about me/my mum, not sure.

then one day she calls mother told her over the phone when she called “it was your choice to give birth. You were 38, last chance to have a kid. You wanted the kid for yourself so now raise him yourself” and hanged up.

some time later this woman called my mother had her friend say wrong phone number, this phone was sold.

my father never spoke to him after that. I guess he thought she disappeared again and wanted nothing to do with him? Idk? I am not sure if he continued paying child support.

now obviously you can’t stop a father who wants to see his kid but my father is a very weird man. He also has a relationship with my other much older half sister from previous marriage because her mother kept in contact. I really believe if my mother didn’t do this he would still be in contact with this boy.

now my mother says

it’s not her fault she found while married and pregnant he has a kid and she was very sick of this woman being annoying and calling non stop, very often, for hours when they were busy chatting about their son. Says “I was just sick of her calling constantly! We couldn’t get anything done! Maybe if she didn’t call everyday and wasn’t so annoying!!!”

I don’t know how to feel about all this. I am disturbed my mother did this. Am I right to think this was very cruel? And look at her differently now? My sister says I’m over reacting.

Calling repeatedly for hours at a time for 3/4 years would absolutely grateful my gears too

But I don't for one second believe that the woman after all those years took that one declined call as verbatim and I'm sure she would have called again or sent a text etc.

Her mother said she couldn't get anything done because this woman was constantly calling.

People's reactions are interesting.

Your mother was wrong. It was terrible behaviour.

Ok so ur mum wasn’t so kind to the single mother but her actions shouldn’t have lead to them loosing contact. Thats on the single mother and your father.

Its certainly not the villainous actions your making it to be. I’m sure you’ve snapped at some point too. Cut her some slack and judge how she treated and raised you

I think it's pretty bad, OP. While I can understand your DM's anger, her actions were unjustified and hurt a small child. She should have got herself together, decided whether or not to live with the man your father was and either made a better life for herself without him or made peace with the existence of another child in his life.

But it's done. And it was probably quite a momentary thing, snapping after years of building frustration. Being upset with your DM, letting this substantially colour your view of her and all the things she has done daily for you, all the good things you've seen in her, all the help and sacrifice she's made, would be unfair. I would just take it as a reminder that we are all flawed. Even the people we look up to and admire.

And your dad just left his phone with your mum enough for her to secretly answer and tell her to get lost, more than once, it sounds like? Are you just adding parts to your story as people tell you YABU?

and it wasn't your Mum that stopped the contact. She put up with the other woman calling the house for years. Rather than assuming the other woman no longer wanted contact, your father could have called from work, he could have purchased a mobile phone, he could have called the OW from a pay phone. It was HIS choice to cut contact. It wasn't up to your mother to ensure your father kept in contact with his other child.

Just because you think he looked like your dad in the photo, it doesn’t necessarily mean he is the father. The Russian woman could have been trying to scam them out of money. I think you’ve been very harsh on your mother even if perhaps she should have kept the details for you to make contact when you were older. I found out I had 2 half siblings through my father growing up but to be honest I’ve never reached out. I know everybody feels differently but I think before you start attacking your mum, you need to be sure you are even biologically related.

Are you actually the son in this situation? I can't see why else you'd be banging on about this 'innocent single mother' when you have no clue about what actually went on.

I think your mum acted in her best interests. It wasn’t her responsibility to foster a relationship between you and a sibling on another continent. Personally if an OW contacted me I’d tell her to leave me alone too

"now my mother says

it’s not her fault she found while married and pregnant he has a kid and she was very sick of this woman being annoying and calling non stop, very often, for hours when they were busy chatting about their son. Says “I was just sick of her calling constantly! We couldn’t get anything done! Maybe if she didn’t call everyday and wasn’t so annoying!!!” "

So - Russian woman phones daily, the calls are long, monopolising your parents' evenings ("We couldn’t get anything done!"). Think yourself into your mother's shoes, @MayaYanney .

She's there with her three-years-old daughter and her husband who's on the phone to his Russian ONS. He's there, but he's not. Every evening, the hours which she'd expect to be a couple, or to be a family with your father and you, or to have him take on some domestic chores to lighten her load - none of that's happening because his Russian ONS has phoned again and she's got his attention; not her, his wife, or you his daughter - no, this woman on the other side of the world is his focus, and your mother's sitting there feeling small, having her life chip, chip, chipped away at, whilst his Russian ONS phones for hours every day every week what does she want, is she pushing for her husband to travel to Russia again, oh God what if he does that and brings her and the boy back with him, or even just the boy what then, what can they possibly talk about for all these hours if not plans for the future, he doesn't listen to me for hours talking about our daughter so what are they talking about this is bad, so bad, what will happen to me and my daughter if he brings them back to the UK or if he stays in Russia because he'd prefer a son to a daughter what will happen to us, why does she keep calling, they can't have anything to talk about unless it's making plans this is so bad bad bad bad bad bad ...

That's what I mean by thinking yourself into her shoes @MayaYanney . You've so far shown a remarkable inability to consider your mother as a person. The Russian ONS is an "innocent single mother", her son an "innocent boy". For your mother you have no empathy at all. Why is that?

What are you hoping to get from this thread?

You seem to assume that this other lady was a vunerable single mum (maybe true, or maybe she had great family support) but it sounds like your own mum was also not in a good place at the time either.

In a relationship with a very difficult man, heavily pregnant/mum to young child knowing he was also having another child at the same time. If it was a ONS before he even met your mother, your mother didn't know him very long or very well before falling pregnant and given what you'be said about him she must have been scared and vulnerable too. It was just extra stress at a bad time and she made it go away the only way she knew who.

It doesn't excuse it or make it right but it certainly helps explain it.

Your father did nothing to help. Two women pregnant and made no effort to support either of them or their children in any meaningful way. He could have done things differently and should have. Your mother couldn't have stopped him having a relationship with your brother if he wanted to.

The phone number is a red herring. It wasn't the only means of contact. He had a name, photos, could have sought the number from phone records.

Your father could have done a lot better.
Pardon the crude expression, but it sounds like he's all cock and no balls.

You have two choices here, remain mad at your mother for things she did in the past that she could have handled better or try to understand she propably did what she thought was right when she was young, pregnant and vulnerable

Your angry won't do you any good because you can't change the past and the only one it's damaging is you.

OP, I am with you. If my mum did that, I would be extremely disappointed. I would be more understanding if there was an overlap in their relationships, but even then.

I think it's also not fair on you - this is your half-sibling, whether she likes it or not, and I don't think it's right that she unilaterally denied you the potential connection.

Ok op you have asked AIBU, you have been told you are but you don’t seem to think so so why on earth start a thread if you are so sure you are right?

I understand where you are coming from OP.

Both your parents have disappointed you. The children are the ones who have suffered.

The way I see it, your mother and the other mother were both sort of victims of him in a way. Instead of your mother being able to see that about the other woman, her actions suggest perhaps she felt threatened and upset by her. If so, she lashed out and tried to get rid of the 'problem' so she didn't have to deal with her fears about her relationship with your father anymore.

To have a baby with someone and then find out they already have a baby with another woman that your mum knew nothing about must have made your mum feel very vulnerable. Then to allow that to just 'be' and for the other mother/child to have a contact-based relationship with the father/her partner would have required a very strong sense of self from your mother. There would have needed to be no feeling of threat and no concern about what would happen if he decided to leave your mother and go back to this other woman.

Assuming this happened years ago when life was different - your mum might have been worried about how she would have coped by herself from a financial and practical perspective. Even if your father would never have left her and you, this is a legitimate fear that many women would have had in the circumstances.

You can feel disappointed and upset with how your mother acted, at the same time as having empathy for what may have caused her to behave like that.

You cannot change the past. You can only deal with things from now on. So perhaps you can focus on that and see if you can find your half brother and foster a relationship with him.

Except OP doesn’t actually know that this is her half sibling.

She didn’t unilaterally deny OP anything. The only person that did that was OP’s father, who was free to pursue a relationship with his alleged son regardless of how his wife felt about it. Considering he didn’t bother to even after he and OP’s mother divorced rather suggest he wasn’t particularly interested himself.

Go and contact one of those find my family
member services and make sure you do a dna test because a one night stand is well a one night stand and lots of people can look a like.

Your mother makes bad choices in men clearly.

Don’t let anger at one phone call ruin your life.

Though id still say ultimately your dad should have told you about your sibling as well.

Your Mother shouldn’t of done that , maybe there was more at play that she was worried about and she acted out of fear/ anguish , you say your father visited his son until he was 3 or 4 , that the ONS was ringing a lot when your father was at home and the ONS didn’t know about you and your mother , and that your father isn’t a good man , what if your mother suspected he was in a long distance relationship with the ONS after getting back in touch , your mother answering the phone and telling her to get lost could of stopped that once the ONS knew he had a wife, it just seems strange that your father then cut all contact , he could of got the number if he really wanted to , maybe your mother put it all behind her so never spoke about it once her relationship with your father broke down , your father should of been the one to tell you, I’m sorry your Mother did this which has added to the pain of it all but ultimately it is on your father , if he’d carried on contact you’d possibly of ended up knowing your HB after your parents split

This went through my mind too. The OP is acting like I would expect the Russian woman to behave. She is extremely defensive of this woman.

Firstly, why should women on here agree with you purely because you both have a vagina?

Also...

Your mum is a woman, yes?

Ironic that you are so upset and disappointed in the women on here being rude about this woman, but you are saying many worse things about your mother......... a WOMAN.

Doesn't feel very feminist......

I thought the might be the Russian woman. I did consider the son, but she seems to know too much about how the mother was feeling/acting.

@MayaYanney are you from the estranged, Russian family? You might have received more sympathetic replies if you’d posted from that viewpoint.

OP if you really are who you’ve said you are, and we are wrong about you being from the Russian family, is it possible that you are angry at you mother because your father isn’t there to be angry with? Hear me out…

Im assuming you are estranged from your dad because he left you, just like he did to that little boy in Russia. And now you’re blaming your mum because you think she should have seen what he did there and not had a baby with him, because then you wouldn’t have had the heartache of him abandoning you. She should have realised he was a deadbeat.

But here’s the thing - it sounds like he didn’t know about his son until you were being born. It was too late by then to change her mind about having you. She had no way of foreseeing that he would leave.

You then say she went on to another deadbeat. I don’t know if she knew how little he was seeing his kids, or if he spun her tales about his ex not letting him see them or maybe she was just desperate for someone to help her and be a father figure for you.

You need to forgive her. Not for her benefit, for yours. This is eating you up. The pain and anger in your posts is clear. She didn’t know your dad would leave you. I think some counselling sessions would be beneficial for you to really work through your feelings and help you work out why you are so angry with your mum.

All the stuff about the one night stand - you are going by things you’ve been told. There may be things they’ve never told you. Their memories might be fuzzy and they’ve paraphrased or summarised what happened. It might be too painful for your mum to talk about, so she’s told you that she you this woman to go away but maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was actually your dad and she’s covering for him so you don’t question how he could do that so many times? The point is, unless you were old enough to have been part of the conversation, you cannot possibly know the full truth. Yet you seem to think you do.

Your mum has single handedly raised you. Where’s your empathy for her?

I found out I had a half sibling I knew nothing about when I was in my late teens, circumstances were different but it had been kept from me by both parents until the sibling got in contact.
OP you will have a lot of mixed emotions right now, this is huge news to process. I was incredibly angry when I found out about my sibling and not always for the right reasons/at the right person. I agree with a previous poster that maybe you are so angry with your mother because your father isn’t around to be angry at.
I think you need a break from your mum to process the information, but if you normally have a close relationship I think that after you’ve had some time away from her to process it, you need to consider forgiving her and rebuild your relationship. She will have her reasons for what she did, and you’ll never know the full story.
I wish you well, take care and I hope that one day you are able to get in contact with your brother.

She literally cannot have deleted the number. All your dad has to do was look at his itemised phone bill. He did have access to that number. Your mum did not have the power to remove the number from 3/4 years of itemised bills.

they were both victims in this situation. But my mother chose to attack her instead of my father and placed blame of her

You are now doing the exact same thing to your mother.