Hi. I’m completely new to this so forgive me if I break any rules. I just need a little advice from people that may have lived experience of my predicament. I’m not sure there is anyone.
I’m a single dad. Homeowner. Entirely responsible for my own finances. I have shared custody of two bio kids 9/10yrs that I have 5of 7 days a week but also have been (until recently) being bringing up a donor conceived child (biologically unrelated to both parents) with my new (now-ex)partner. I have no legal or biological claim to this child but emotionally, she is mine and she calls me dad. I cut her umbilical chord. I’ve been there as much as is possible outside of my own obligations to my other to children. I love her. I am 40. Ex is 50. We have separate houses. Child is 4.
Our relationship has soured beyond salvation, primarily because having four kids between us, no family support to speak of and maintaining two separate houses on two average wages means we have zero time for each other. It’s the work-kids-work-die cycle that I’m sure many are familiar with. The obvious solution is “live together but we’ve tried that and it fails everytime. We tried every which way to fit (as I love her and wanted more than anything for it to work out) but we just don’t fit. I have to maintain a house for the kids I have a legal obligation to otherwise I will lose them entirely. I’ve always been a dad since new partner has known me.
I wasn’t part of daughter’s conception journey, I’m not on daughter’s birth certificate. Because I have two children that are almost entirely dependant on me, my ability to house them is the only way I have been able to guarantee access to them as they grow up as they are my world. I’m a dad because I have a house. Without that I’m a sperm donor. Many single dads I know are lucky if they see thier kids once a fortnight. It is the most important asset in my life. Sacrosanct. I cannot risk it and will not otherwise I will lose everything.
At the time donor daughter was conceived, new partner wanted another child but couldn’t naturally. We had numerous horrible miscarriages. I didn’t want to have a biological child with someone I didn’t know and love (although I did consider it and meet a potential female donor on partner’s request), but I accepted partner wanted a child so didn’t really feel I had any choice but to accept whatever choice she made with her body and life. So she funded and conceived daughter with a donor embryo. I wasn’t involved but was aware and it was done with “consent” as the only other option was to leave.
I found it difficult at first. Throughout if I’m honest. But as I saw it, I could hardly leave a woman that I love, her son (11 at the time) who I love, to go through pregnancy without any real support network. She immigrated as a teenager and so has had to work ten times as hard as native folk to establish herself. She is amazing. She is a fighter. It was either commit to this child and her or leave a woman I’ve loved more than any other to face pregnancy with a dependant (then 11 year old) alone. I couldn’t do that so I stayed.
But, i’m a man with two young biological children of my own that I have little help with on top of running a business. I cannot abandon or disregard their future needs for something that had been thrust into my life. My family said to leave. My friends said to leave. Every man I spoke to said I was “being farmed” by a desperate older woman that was probably in the throes of hormonal collapse. I don’t talk to many of those people now as even if it were half true, so what? it seemed cruel and without acute understanding of context; I love her and want her to be safe and well and happy so I yielded. Love is hard to find. I’ve known it. I know how lucky I’ve been.
She didn’t want to get married. We both have money. We both know acutely how financial independence is absolutely imperative. We are both defensive and suspicious people in that regard. She thought I only wanted her money, I thought she wanted mine. Truth be told, We both knew that neither needed to act in that way so we lived as we did; like a venn diagram! We could live together, for a while but we like our own space and own things so it usually ended up with squabbles. Alas, They were the only ways for me to legitimately adopt donor daughter after she was registered meaning I could only ever be “dad” in name alone unless we married or lived together.
From daughter’s and partner’s perspective, I have been a part-time dad. They absolutely deserve more than that but what serial working parent isn’t a part-time parent? I don’t get benefits. I have kids. I have bills no one else pays. So, I saw her every day, stayed with her 3 nights a week. Every hour of spare time I had was with them. She was a wonderful stepmom to my kids. I value her input and insight. She was the emotionally available mum I wished their bio-mum was. But she is an abuse survivor and has very deeply entrenched trauma. The echoes of it often bubble up. I am a survivor too. I recognise it when it happens so just give space for the storm to pass then try and rebuild when waters are calmer. Blokes all get tarnished with the same brush nowadays even when guiltless. Her dad was a monster. I think having a daughter who isn’t bio related to me is triggering for her. I understand that entirely. But in the same breath I am completely guiltless. Honestly, I feel so vulnerable being in that position too as one stray baseless accusation and my entire life could be destroyed. I won’t lie. It is a huge stress that has been removed from my life as things are and it’s one I’m glad to not have feel anymore. What with the way men are portrayed nowadays, we’re all made out to be abusers and perverts. It feels like an impossible path to walk; being a dad to a “daughter” you have no claim to. The only person more vulnerable than me in that position is her! So by that rational, I sit here thinking “ perhaps all of this is for the best and I just have to accept it.” But that doesn’t help her. She’s too young to understand any of this and it’s too early to know whether any of this will effect her in the long term. Her mum might want to choose a more suitable father but kids don’t get to choose their dads; you imprint once and that’s it. That was me. Surely that matters doesn’t it? She loves me, I love her. I’m not sure that deeply innate programming is something that can be overwritten can it? If anyone can offer insight on this I’m aching to hear from lived experience.
Donor daughter was breast fed til she was 4 as her mum
is amazing. She cosleeps meaning I’ve been sleeping in a 5 foot kids bed in the back room (as a 6’4” bloke) just to be under the same roof as them all when it was possible. I drive for a living. Sleep it’s important. I will go to jail if I drive without sleep and cause injury/death. I’ve not slept in 4 years 😂 I’m not complaining, I know mums have it much much worse! Neither of our houses are big enough for all six of us so we lived across two with all the stresses that that entails.
My problem is that now this has all collapsed. I cannot see her. My biological kids and I have been completely deleted. I cannot force the issue. I have to accept mum’s choice as daughter’s legal guardian. I am petrified of the negative effect that this will have on her in the long term as she is imprinted on me. I don’t want her to grow up feeling abandoned. I don’t want her to grow up thinking that I don’t love her. This isn’t my choice but I have no right to her. I can’t fight without risking the scenario where I am a lone man, biologically unrelated, not bound by marriage imposing my will on a single mother to two kids in her own house. Basically I’d be lynched by the
mob 😂🥳
So, My question is to donor conceived adults out there….What should I do? Do I matter? Should I just swallow my sorrow, assume in time she will forget us and move on when my heart allows it or do I risk my own stability and that of my kids to fight what seems to me like a battle that I have no avenue to fight? It seems like I have no choice other than to let her go for the sake of her stability but she is my daughter. It feels completely unnatural to do that. The thought of telling her that I am not her biological father is something that I have dreaded since the day she existed as I can’t give her a good answer as to who is. I wish it were me. I despise the current legislation around this but that is a discussion for another time.
Her mother wants us gone so we have no choice but to go, I am utterly lost.
It has to be said; my life hasn’t felt as stable as it currently does without any of the immediate drama of all this in it though. Being single with two wonderful kids really has many upsides. I have time for them entirely now. I have time for myself, for my friends. I feel terrible for feeling that but it is the truth. Hollow, no where near as fun and filled with genuine love, but much more stable and conflict free. My two seem much happier too albeit more prone to being bored as we did so much adventuring as a six piece that feels like half of us is missing now.
I think a lot of my initial rationale of staying was out of the horror of seeing yet another kid brought into the world without a dad. Duty, not desire. I love her now, boundlessly, but it is a different love than I feel towards my biological kids. I just cannot process so many conflicting emotions so really would like to talk to an adult that was donor conceived if there is anyone to share insights.
sorry if this rambles. I struggle to write on phones without wanting to scream and throw it across the room!
thank you x