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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to have told a young woman she's actually my sister

182 replies

Irons · 29/05/2010 20:51

16 years ago I was given the name of a little girl (9 years younger than me) who is apparently my half-sister. Apparently my father had an affair with her mother but because it was an affair she grew up thinking her mother's husband was her father. He however passed away many years ago.

I waited until she was an adult and she is now 21 and I found her on Facebook and introduced myself, telling her what I know. I've since had a phone call from my angry father who had had a phone call from her mother "asking me to back-off" because they don't want her to know the truth.

It's really bugging me now. Do I let it go or push on in finding out the truth at the risking of upsetting everyone including my father? Ultimately the truth can only be resolved by DNA testing which is very expensive.

Was IBU to contact her?

OP posts:
pigletmania · 29/05/2010 21:30

Yes she is an adult fgs and has to know the truth, its going to be even worse the older she gets.

Original poster
Irons · 29/05/2010 21:30

NorthernSky - is there ever a right time. I've waited 16 years so that she would at least be an adult before I made contact. I would never ever know what is going on in her life at any one time because I don't know her.

I tried all other avenues of getting contact details and nobody would help me. I type her name into Facebook and there she is - what would you have done, asked her for her phone number?

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 29/05/2010 21:30

Her hasn't told hern he truth. A complete stranger has.

NorthernSky · 29/05/2010 21:31

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

SoupDragon · 29/05/2010 21:31

Let's try that again...

Her sister hasn't told her the truth, a complete stranger has.

PrettyCandles · 29/05/2010 21:32

Why does she need to be told the truth? What's so all-fired holy about the truth? The truth for her is the life she lives now. Unless the truth can help her, can make her life better, why disrupt her truth for the sake of a stranger's truth?

pigletmania · 29/05/2010 21:32

How many people do we hear whereby they have been adopted and later find out they have a brother or sister parts of their biological and its too late.

ticktockclock · 29/05/2010 21:32

Their family dynamic is that this girl has been LIED to. That is Never right. She has a right to know, she is 21, she is not a child that would not understand the complications of human relationships.

Maybe it would have been better for her mother to tell her on her death bed so that the daughter could have hated her mother in the last moments of her life!

Morloth · 29/05/2010 21:33

You don't even know that it is the truth. As you say you have no idea what is going on in her life, what if her mother had found out previously that her DD is in fact her husband's? And decided to not mention her affair etc because it wasn't relevant.

NorthernSky · 29/05/2010 21:34

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

SoupDragon · 29/05/2010 21:34

And it's SO much better that a complete stranger has told her that wasn't her father and that her mother had an affair.

zabyzoo · 29/05/2010 21:35

Hang on - the OP only told the truth, I can not believe how people are reacting. What is wrong with FB?
It is akin to sending an email, she can be blocked by the recipient.

However, I can see that it may have been more appropriate to contact the mother first.

But.. Irons you are not a dreadful person at all. If I was the sister I would want to know for sure.

Gigantaur · 29/05/2010 21:35

Of course it is unreasonable to tell someone something so life altering over facebook.
The mature thing to do would have been to speak to your father and this woman's mother.

see where they stood on the issue.

It should have been your father or her mother that told her.

AuntieMaggie · 29/05/2010 21:35

Actually I think the OP sounds pefectly reasonable - she's made contact and told her the truth and the 'sister' has agreed to be friends with her so although she doesn't believe it this shows she doesn't have any bad feeling towards the OP either.

braidsherhair · 29/05/2010 21:35

Gosh OP, I think people have been very unfair on you here.
You don't have a right for a relationship, but you certainly have a right to ask for a relationship.

And like others have said, she's not a child - she's 21.

I wish you luck. I hope it all works out well for you.

MarshaBrady · 29/05/2010 21:35

I'm surprised that people can't look at the strong relationships they have with their own siblings or between their children and not see that there would be a natural drive to make contact.

ticktockclock · 29/05/2010 21:37

What's so all-fired holy about the truth? Seriously??* Oh yes the world is so much a better place filled with lies and deceit to make certain people feel better! What a nonsense. I hope that you don't complain when politicians lie to you, or your friends or fellow employees!

This is the truth of this family!

Why can't this make her life better? She could end up having a fantastic relationship with her sister, enjoying other family that she does not know about.

5inthebed · 29/05/2010 21:38

Did you at least discuss it with your dad first?

I've grown up thinking one man was my dad, then told off handish at 19 by a drunk relative that he isn't. My mam won't speak of it and the man I call dad doesn't know I know (it would break his heart and I want to know the facts first). If someone contacted me on FB claiming to be my half brother or sister I'd be intrigued, but only because I know what I know and nobody else will tell me what I want to know.

I can see from your other posts that she had heard things, so I retract what I said earlier.

Morloth · 29/05/2010 21:39

And she could end up with a permanently damaged relationship with her mother and it may not even be true.

How do you know there wasn't a very good reason that she wasn't told about the affair? You don't.

ticktockclock · 29/05/2010 21:40

If she has a damaged relationship it is on her mother, the mother did not tell her the truth. That is bullshit.

Original poster
Irons · 29/05/2010 21:40

As I have replied previously - I did discuss it with my father. He has admitted it but doesn't want to help me make contact with her.

Many of you have said I am a complete stranger to her (that's no one's fault but the parents) - two sisters - complete strangers - sounds so wrong to me.

OP posts:
cath476 · 29/05/2010 21:42

I have direct experience of this sort of thing in my family (from various angles and perspectives) and, although I very much believe that everyone has the right to know their genetic history, this sort of information given out of the blue can be very damaging. Your sister needed to be told by someone close to her, who cares about her and knows her well. It is not the kind of information to given by a stranger on facebook. You may feel you care about her and you may feel she is your sister but the truth is, she is a total stranger and you know very little about one another.
I understand totally why you have done what you have done but I truly believe that it wasn't very well thought out and quite ill-advised. There are lots of intermediary services who have ways of contacting people and are trained to be discreet and careful about not upsetting people.
I do believe your heart was in the right place but, to answer your question, I think you could have approached it in a more sensitive way, therefore, YABU.

SoupDragon · 29/05/2010 21:44

How does your mother feel?

Original poster
Irons · 29/05/2010 21:46

Cath - the people closest to her were never going to tell her. As for intermediary services - I'm not sure what you mean.

OP posts:
Original poster
Irons · 29/05/2010 21:48

SoupDragon - my mum is very supportive of my decision to make contact. In fact she is the only one who has tried previously to get contact details and she has even discussed it in full with my father but to no avail.

OP posts:
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