Should I tell my daughter she has a half sister? (title edited by MNHQ)

[tedrekasta]

I have an English daughter aged 32. She has 2 children.

Shamefully, I had an affair 6 years ago with a Polish woman who I met abroad whilst working which (accidentally) resulted in another daughter. She lives in Poland with her mother (and elder Polish half sister).

I have never told my English daughter about her half sister in Poland.

Historically, my English daughter always yearned for a sister and my wife and I regret not having any more children. We are in our 60's. I am 68.

I have to tell terrible lies to both my wife and my English daughter in order to go and visit my daughter in Poland. Which I do about every 2 months.

I miss my Polish daughter, now 5, very much. But I love my English daughter so much and don't want to hurt her. And I love my wife very much and don't want to hurt her.

I just don't know what to do.

Should I tell my English daughter that she has a very young half sister living in Poland?

I am deeply upset and ashamed of myself. But want the best for my wife, my English daughter and my Polish daughter.

I would love any advice. Especially from anyone who has been through such a situation or similar situation.

Thank you for any help.

What haffdonga says is true. Although this is the immediate aftermath, the shitstorm so to speak, you must feel relieved too. Time will start to make things better now.

Thanks Haffdonga

(out of interest why 'haffdonga'?? )

Look Ted, it's so much easier to be courageous about actions when you don't have to face the consequences - all of us, ALL of us have wimped out and taken the easy path, the passive path, at least once in our lives.

It's not that people are wrong, but further berating of yourself for what is a common human folly is not useful and does nothing to positively move you forward in this situation.

Ted, sweetheart, have you considered that your worst fears have already materialized? You don't want to divorce because you fear being lonely but I'm going to admit that I've had a few tears reading your post because you sound SO lonely and uncared for by both yourself and those in your life. The only joy you seem to have presently is your Polish daughter and you are masochistically entering into an agreement to strip that from your life.

Whilst I STRONLY recommend that you do not place the burden of your happiness in the lap of your Polish daughter, (only you can make yourself happy, no one else and to put children in the role of saviour is a type of emotional abuse), that does not mean that you are not entitled to follow threads in your life that enable you to find that happiness.

If she reminds you that you love and are lovable in return, that your company is desired and cherished, that your presence makes a difference to someone then it is ok for you to preserve that even if others disagree. Connection is a basic human need and you have committed no crime so great that you no longer deserve that in your life.

You are not in a mutually fulfilling marriage. To divorce your wife may be the most loving option available to you and her.

Please do check out TheWork.com. You need clarity to get you through this and I think this would help you.

Wonderful post from Ben -everything I thought and found difficult to put in to words, I agree you sound a very sweet man who deserves to be loved. Your wife sounds quite cruel. Do read every word of Ben's post.

Haffdonga was the name I gave as a child to a plastic squeaky toy dachsund. Haffdonga then became a much-loved member of my own dcs toy cupboard. He's now back in the loft waiting for grandchildren

Good luck Ted. The way you choose to act from now on is going to set the pattern for the rest of your life (and of others' lives). And as many people have already said you are making these choices. They are not being made for you or done to you. So make choices that are right for you and that you feel proud of and let others make their choices too.

Sorry you just need to tell them as it's the right thing to do. They can choose to have a relationship or not & get counselling if needs be but they will find out & it would be awful if it was soon after you died.

You can help facilitate the best outcome of a bad situation & stop the lies & deceit once & for all.

Your wife said she's ok for your polish Daughter to comes to stay with you, how coukd that happen if she is refusing to tell your other Daughter.

She's also wrong about thinking child support should be cut in half as it's unfair on Adult English dd, its your eldest dd has had you contribute to her upkeep all her life. Adding up the costs of what you've provided for English child will probable be massively more than what you're contributing for your other child, your wife will probably think the contribution should stop once polish daughter is 18 too? but thinks the adult one should get regular payments? That's unfair if so. Won't adult dd think its a bit odd that her dad starts giving her a set amount of cash every month?

Also, oldest dd will still find out on death when will is read. Why is your wife preferring her having to deal with that on top of grief than telling her now? Unless thinks you should write polish daughter out of will? If she suggests to leave her out and she will give polish daughter fair share, I would not trust to give her a full share as she's already insisitng her child support be reduced.

Good for you for not signing the document that was put in front of you! Your courage is obviously growing :-)

I also think it speaks well of you that you were able to agree to many of your wife's requests while standing up for the ones that you felt were unacceptable.

I do think you may want to reconsider the 75/25% split, though. Your English daughter is grown up and already had the benefit of being fully supported by you when she was a child. Your Polish daughter is still a child. There's a difference.

YY to the poster who suggested sharing your old emails and texts with your wife; this is a really good way of showing that you've been honest about your communications.

So it's alright for an explanation of Haffdonga then

If I'd said something wrong then fair enough but I didn't. I politely answered OP's question. Wierd. Whatever

Anyway I don't blame your wife even if some of her (and likely influenced or suggested by her sister) demands seem unreasonable, she's got no reason to give much consideration to someone else's child born from an extra-marital mistake made behind her back. I can't imagine how she's feeling but like I said before good luck in getting it all resolved

JFT I have to agree that I didn't see anything in your explanation to merit the deletion but maybe it was incredibly identifying? A mystery!

Thanks JFT96
I didn't see your post that has presumably been deleted?
But thanks for the wishes and I do very much understand what you mean. Which is one of the many reasons I feel so guilty and find it so difficult to negotiate with my wife. As you say it's not her child and she has no interest in my Polish daughter.

Hi OP,

I am not going to slate you for your shitty decisions. All I can say is that your wife is an absolute LEGEND for giving you another chance.
I have to say that I don't know if I could forgive my husband for such behaviour. I feel very much that whoever instigated it, the behaviour that caused this was your fault.
You need to do what your wife has a said and not question her on it. These conditions would be absolutely non negotiable if I was your wife and any attempts to try and persuade me otherwise would only raise anxieties (to a cobsiderable level) and destroy what was left of the marriage.
If you stay with your wife and the other child is in poland, you need to understand that the periodical visits may just stop the child from being able to move on and view future male figures in her life as a father figure. You will never be a stable father figure for her anyway because of your lack of presence and also the polish woman's mother always running you down. It sounds unhealthy anyway.
You need to look at the situation from the viewpoint of the relationship between your wife and older daughter. If your wife doesn't want her to know then if she were to find out and want a relationship, that could then damage the relationship between the older daughter and your wife.
Please please for your own sake and for the sake of your marriage do not attempt to "negotiate" or you will end up with nobody. Any further need for going away a lot or going to poland etc. will need to be cut right back or suspicion will arise.
Your older daughter has grown up with you for her whole life and just because she is older does not mean she doesn't cherish your relationship, so perhaps your wife is protecting her from possible damage.
I suppose the only part I would negotiate on (as the wife) would be the money aspect. I would not necessarily need you to pay less, but this is really down to your wife.

Hope it helps.

I also want to clarify, by asking you to remember that it was your wife and loving partner who you betrayed. You have not betrayed your older daughter and remember if she is a feminista she may feel strongly that your wife should man up and leave you and possibly put her under pressure to do so (your wife may be trying to avoid this). You may both lose out on spending the rest of your lives together as a result.

Please please for your own sake and for the sake of your marriage do not attempt to "negotiate" or you will end up with nobody.

I disagree. Being with nobody is the better option, if the alternative is to turn his back on his polish daughter and deceive the english daughter.

Its a question of when his dd finds out, not if. If she finds out she has been deceived/not told by both her mother and father, as she will do at some point, then it will ruin her relationship with her mother as well. At least by owning up, there is some chance of forgiveness. Finding out at his funeral, or by the polish dd using social media, in a few years is far worse. There is no way this will remain a secret for all his dd's life.

His wife needs to make her own mind up whether she stays or goes, but there needs to be complete honesty between all the people emotionally involved. His wife has a vested interest in saving the marriage too, as she is so fearful of public humiliation. She is in a shit position but he needs to do the right thing for everyone now, and not be selfish and just think about himself. That includes looking out for both his dd's best interests.

I doubt public humiliation is a problem. I might not want people to know for several reasons:

Damage to family relations

People's expectations and pressure to leave

People (slagging him) dragging it up in conversation every time I had a minor gripe such as hubby left the loo seat up. If she still loves him that will just add to the pain.

Once it is in the public domain there is a hideous an distructive pressure from outside of the marriage to leave the person or get your own back.

Your wife would have to deal with that shit all the time.

Make a pact with your wife that when one of you dies you tell the older daughter.

Don't tell the younger daughter any more details about your family.

If your older daughter finds out in the meantime, just say yes your mum already knows about it. Ask her to explain to your daughter why she doesn't want people to know. I hope your older daughter will be mature enough to understand from your wife's perspective.

Please don't jump to the conclusion that it is all an unfixable mess (your marriage)
Your wife will feel like her world is ending at the moment and it surely is understandable.
Once she realises that you love her and that she is important to you (by you doing as she has asked) the pain will leave her and she will forgive you and you will have a stronger marriage for it.

I don't much like the comments about your wife in this thread it seems like a shocking case of victim blaming to be honest.

Assuming that you have a loving marriage, then you are very lucky that you have a chance to save it. The only vested interest I can see for saving a marriage is love.

i stopped reading on page 2 and i'm going against the grain (as it was in that stage of the thread).

if you really believe your wife is of the rather not know camp and you want to not cause pain i would suggest taking your daughter out of the will and instead setting up a trust fund for her in poland that will mature when she is 18. that way you have provided for her without having to leave that hell for your daughter and wife to deal with - grief is hard enough without a bombshell like that to complicate it and leave them hurt.

it's a shitty situation obviously - the best thing you could have done in my opinion is to have told them straight away - i screwed up, i had a purely sex stupid affair with someone and i am so sorry etc. for me personally i would have far more chance of forgiving someone who had the respect to tell me immediately. i couldn't forgive a long term deception because it would feel like so much disrespect towards me and my right to know my own life rather than living in a lie.

this would cause so much hurt. i'm surprised to find i feel this way but i would not recommend telling them. change the will back to just your english family, set up a trustfund for the dd in poland and live with the guilt. if your wife is genuinely happy and your marriage is good and stable and she is someone who would genuinely rather not know and just keep the security and normalcy of the life she has then? i can't see any gain of this coming out.

I agree honeybadger, but he has told her and I'm quite glad he did. I think it was the right thing to do. His wife has set out some boundaries, which seem reasonable and I thint she is a legend for giving him the chance to put things right.
The trust fund idea is a good one. He will need to be explicit in his will that this was how he provided for the younger child and that no other provisions is made for her in order to not put at risk his older daughters inheritance. It would be awful for his older daughter or wife to have to deal with any such wrangling.

I do also think that in the long run the youngest child and mother would benefit from cutting ties, although it is his duty to provide for her.

When I say he should provide for her I only mean he should help considerably. I do not necessarily think it should be the same as he provided for the older child because the cost of living in other places can be considerably lower.

Having been your eldest daughter in a very similar situation, I feel for you all. Have been thinking of you loads over the past few days. Take care 💐

ah i see i missed a lot in skipping reading.

Ted, as a woman of your wife's generation I've tried to put myself in her position. To be fair to her, though, I think we never really know what we'd actually do until we're in the situation.

Anyway, first off infidelity for me is a 'deal breaker' and my husband knows this, so in a sense you're luckier than he would be because our marriage would be over. BUT I do think that I would recognize that your Polish Daughter was an innocent child and was just as much a victim in this as I would be. So in penalizing her by reducing the support you send and restricting your contact with her, she is being unfair. I would also want our (adult) sons to know that they had a sibling. She would be part of their 'blood' as it were and they have the right to make their own decisions as to any relationship with her, as does she with them.

I agree with other posters when they say to give your wife some time, but to stand firm in your resolve to do right by both of your daughters.

Would your wife consider marriage counseling?

It depends on the amount he is sending I guess. It is possible he has been sending too much out of guilt.

The child is innocent in all of this, but as a married couple the affair, the changing of the will and the secret maintenance were all a huge breach of trust (let alone the visits where he continued to see this woman and talk about his daughter and wife presumably!-that would piss me right off and would be a dealbreaker for me).

The child's mother should provide over and above the basic requirements as she was probably well aware he was married. He is to blame for the destruction in his life, but she needs to pick up the pieces from the mess she made as well.

Your wife sounds like she doesn't want to know, or to have other people know. I doubt counselling would do anything more than rub salt in the wound to be honest.

Hope it all works out for all of you OP

OMG I couldn't disagree more. The OP has finally taken responsibility for some very poor decisions and owned up to his wife. The Polish daughter should in no way lose out on knowing who her father is or in having contact with him - albeit it is limited due to geography. She is a young child and as such deserves priority. If the OPs wife chooses to walk away that is her choice and at least now it is an informed one, but to suggest that the OP should all but abandon the child in Poland at his wife's say so is completely unfair to the child.

The idea that by giving in to his wife's demands his marriage may end up stronger than ever - please that is just ridiculous. The damage is done and was done when the OP slept with another woman. As I've already said the OPs wife can decide, now she has all the facts, what she wants to do but the OP should not punish his young child to appease his wife.

And 'feministas' - really

Infinity, didn't have a clue what you were talking about until I read back and realised!

Feminists!!!! Typo, my phone has obviously got a mind of it's own!! I typed something a few weeks ago about Madonna to a friend and my phone has now decided it is going to use it indiscriminately