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.

scootinFun I know, it's strange, I don't see how it could have identified me or anyone else . OP Ted no problem that you missed it just google my username and you'll see straight away what it is, I won't explain again on here as they obviously don't like it but am sure you'll be as confused as me about that when you see what it is. Still, no big deal

Btw I totally get it why you feel guilty and it's difficult to negotiate with your wife, although I'm confused as to why she doesn't want your adult daughter to know, if it was me I'd be running straight to her for some moral support.
Fwiw I agree with DesertSky's comments and think it's important you don't let this Polish woman mug you off, financially or otherwise. She seemed very keen to get you in to bed but now wants to control everything, I smell a rat and wouldn't trust her. I only hope things won't be made more difficult for you post-Brexit

Are the school holidays over yet?

She is being denied a sister who she may want to form a relationship with

Maybe, but they're a world apart in age, live in different countries, don't speak the same language and the Polish girl's mother won't let the girl learn English or visit England - so what really have they got in common. It would no doubt be exciting for the younger child to know she has an older sister in the UK but can you really expect the adult one to feel the same especially given the circumstances of this case

How did the meal go?

What is your relationship like with your eldest daughter? You need to tell her about her half sister at some point. Is your DD1 close to her Mum?

I hope you can negotiate something that works for everyone in the long run. Although you seem to have led a comfortable married life, for it to have lacked intimacy and been sexless for 30 years is not insignificant. Your wife has you strung up by the goolies and I am not sure what you are gaining in all this, so you need to assert yourself a bit more and enjoy your twilight years.

30 years of no sex is a very long time.

When you Skype DD2, use Google Translate. It will even read out the phrase you want to say. Should help with keeping in touch with her for the time being.

Google translate is good. Perhaps there is a computer game that he can play with her online. My mum plays scrabble with her friends online (obviously this would be no good but perhaps there is a suitable alternative for a 5 year old.)

I am a bit stunned that you have been seeing your Polish daughter regularly for several years, yet have learned almost no Polish. How have you communicated/spent time with her when you visited? Has it all been through her mother? Do you have plans to learn in the future, because otherwise you are tied to her as a translator.

It makes no sense to me either

You go to Poland for work you meet a much younger polish woman who flirts with you and you sleep with her and she has a baby that is yours? Cos she says the DNA test is correct?

You send over money for 5 years to support his girl BUT you don't learn to speak polish???

Why do you not want to learn to talk to "your" daughter in her language?

It makes no common sense at all that you don't want to read stories to her or play with her without somebody else there to translate between you

THANKS everyone

I am fully aware that some of you (perhaps most of you) think I am a complete (insert expletive of choice). But.... genuinely thank you to you all because it's good to see both sides of the argument.

A few quick points before I go on to 'the meal'.

1. Yes the Polish mother ALWAYS knew about my English wife and daughter. Before we had any physical relationship.
2. Desertsky. Very moving. And upsetting for me. It put some things in perspective for me.
3. "Maybe, but they're a world apart in age, live in different countries, don't speak the same language and the Polish girl's mother won't let the girl learn English or visit England " . This is one of those things that I really cannot get to grips with. It's very important. Because as you will see when I go on to describe 'the meal' telling my daughter is a big issue. And if it is the case that my English daughter would react as you suggest then it makes no sense for me to tell her if it only leads to a negative outcome.
4. RTKangaMummy . Agreed it makes no sense.

The meal

The short version:
My wife is fed up with the whole thing and feels that we have talked it to death and would like us to just not talk about it or mention it for 6 weeks whilst we both think about things. Literally not mention it.

The long version:
As I mentioned my wife just doesn't want to discuss it anymore. At all. Full stop. She feels that we have exhausted the possible outcomes and she (and I) feel exhausted. She doesn't want to even mention it for 6 weeks. I agreed to this deal.

The conditions are:
She has already reduced the regular bank transfers to 75%. And as she now controls our account - in effect because she changed the online password - I cannot do anything about it. Not that I would. But I would like to think in the long term she comes around to going back up to 100%

She will allow me to have unsupervised video chats with my Polish daughter.

I must not tell anyone - especially our English daughter - about this. I agreed to this for the 6 weeks.

I should do my best to not go to Poland for work reasons for 6 weeks. That may be possible. It just depends on events and my boss.

Anyway. Rightly or wrongly I agreed.

And all of this was a fairly brief conversation before we had our meal. My wife didn't want us to ruin our meal and wanted to move on.

So we had this conversation. Which was fairly brief because for obvious reasons I felt that I should agree to more or less anything she suggested.
Then we had our meal - at which point the whole issue was not allowed to be discussed.

And the strange thing is... we had a nice time. She was pleasant to me (despite my unforgivable behaviour). And I was of course on best behaviour.

Since the meal she has been 'normal' with me. And I have been 'normal' with her. Albeit that I am keeping as low a profile as possible.

So, that's it. I don't know what will happen after the 6 weeks of course. But I am hopeful that we can save our marriage.

The sticking points are telling my English daughter and seeing my Polish daughter. Though at least one of you suggested that it would not be a good idea for her to see me.

The biggest problem in all of this is that I miss my Polish daughter desperately. And I feel so miserable. But I don't want to be unkind to my wife.

Sorry I meant to say that the reason I don't speak Polish is that I tried very hard. And failed.

I've never been good at languages. And now that I am old I am even worse.

I genuinely tried and I do know a few words. But I just accept that I shall never learn any foreign language.

You started this thread as the reasons was you wanted to tell your English daughter. That was the one thing you wanted, to tell her, you didn't really mention telling your wife. The other thing was that you wanted to see your daughter more and missed her. Now you are doing neither.

Your wife after 6 weeks will still want it to be the elephant in the room, she will still be hurt and things won't change. Your daughter will find out on her death bed about her sister? How cruel is that?

I can't imagine her not wanting to know about her sister. You have to decide whether staying married is worth more to you than telling your English daughter and seeing your polish daughter that gave you the most joy. Without the secrecy you might learn the language better. Learning together with your daughter will make it fun. Get a cd, go to a class of course you can learn more. Even if it is a sentence a month it's still progress.

Oh, and get that DNA test if you aren't going to bother seeing your polish daughter regularly/any more and when you retire it will stop. You said she brought you joy so you wanted to not know now as you wanted to keep going even if she wasn't. But if you're not going to see her, you might as well find out before your marriage goes crazy.

And if it is the case that my English daughter would react as you suggest then it makes no sense for me to tell her if it only leads to a negative outcome

I can't legislate for how she will react but just think adults don't get excited about mystery or unknown relatives like children do, your daughter has a life and children of her own so more important things to think about. Even if she is interested initially it could fizzle out and am not sure she could ever be as attentive to the young girl as you are. That is things following a natural course it isn't a 'negative outcome'.

Then what would the girl think if she found out your older daughter wasn't so bothered

Incidentally I think it's unreasonable to expect you to learn Polish it's hard enough for a child (who learn languages easier) let alone adults

Hope the next six weeks gives you time to think things through and get some clarity and way forward. Don't think bad of your wife about cutting the money, some women would have reacted far worse than she did. You're still alive so there is hope

One observation, you seem to use your age as an excuse a lot of the time, don't you?

So glad it looks like your marriage is salvageable.
I think you did the right thing agreeing to the 6 weeks. It gives you both breathing space to absorb everything and get your marriage back on track. It sounds as if your wife wants to make it work if she possibly can. Probably for duel reasons. She doesn't want to lose you because she doesn't want the world to know as has been already established, but also it sounds as if there is genuine love.

After the 6 weeks. Hopefully by then, things will be positive still. You both will be more confident in each other. Then is the time to broach telling your Dd - not because of any potential relationship between the two daughters (that is up to them and irrelevant) but to get the truth out and to move forward from a position of honesty.
If you don't it will 100% come out in the future at some point. Your DD will be doubly betrayed, as your wife will be betraying her dd too. Your wife can ask DD to keep it quiet for her sake but please tell her so that there is no nasty shock for her in a few years time, either on your deaths or when your polish DD contacts her via social media. Hopefully if you tell her, both of you together from a position of solidarity, then after the initial shock, she will take the lead from her mother and forgive you.

I do think you should get an independent DNA test done, that you know is 100% accurate and couldn't be forged.

Try to keep up a relationship with your Polish DD. You don't have to be actively involved but she needs to know for her psychological well being, that there is a dad out there who is interested in her welfare: who wants to know about her interests, thoughts and activities. Someone in short, who cares about her, even if distance and money prevents seeing each other much.

Please update us Ted. For some reason I'm overly invested in this thread and really hope you can manage to rescue your marriage. Maybe when you stop taking each other for granted, you can come out of this with a marriage even stronger. But it does need to be based on total honesty with your dd too.

dowhatnow

Thanks for an inciteful and helpful post.

Well done, Ted. I also think you have done the right thing to agree not to discuss it whilst you both think more for a limited time.

Just don't let it drag into the "status quo".

Telling your eldest daughter was always very important to you.
You need to know - with clarity - why your wife does not want your DD to know. What is she afraid of? Is she worried for your DD, or worried for herself?

I second dowhat that perhaps an acceptable compromise would be telling your DD about it together with your wife, letting her know that the matter is primarily between your wife and you, and then asking for her absolute discretion. That you love everyone and wish to be fair to everyone involved, hence telling your eldest DD, remaining married to your wife, and supporting and being a father figure to your Polish DD. I think that is the honourable thing to do for all involved.

Betrayals by your parents can have lasting effects on even adult children. Don't let your DD find out after your death that you were a different man to the father she always knew.

Good luck, Ted.

Also, perhaps after 6 weeks are up you could ask your wife to consider coming to counselling to discuss it in a neutral space with someone impartial to hear everyone's concerns?

You could look up some options for this while you have your cooling off period.

Been sort of lurking on this thread.

I've heard (think friend of family friend) had similar experiences.

I would definitely get another DNA test.

I would also look into beginers Polish language classes for you. You can learn a bit of languages when you're older, my stepdad has been learning French from scratch for past 5 years. All you need is conversation and perhaps simple reading and writing.

As NoSquirrels says counselling would be a really good idea if your wife agrees to this.

Just don't let it drag into the "status quo"

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Time breeds 'comfort' with the way things are and a desire not to disturb it. Please don't let this happen. You are (you've admitted yourself) very weak when it comes to standing up to your wife and it will be very easy for you to just 'go along to get along' if things are running calmly at the end of the 6 weeks.

To do so would be a disservice to both of your daughters.

I think pressing the issue after 6 weeks is direspectful and will result in your wife thinking you are trying to twist her arm when she is already being more than reasonable.

I would suggest giving it a year or two for trust to be re established before telling your older daughter.

Counselling will just rub salt in the wound.

Whether a DNA test is the right thing to do or not IDK but the Polish mother's refusal to allow your daughter to visit seems almost vengeful. Could she have been hoping you'd give her somewhere to live and now that hasn't happened she's turned on you?

I think the dd would be very upset to know that her mum has known for one or two years, and she hasn't been told.

Thanks again all of you.

I do know that at some point the two main issues need to be resolved. But both my wife and I feel very bruised by this last week or two and neither of us are in the mood to discuss things at the moment. I actually think that a 6 week cooling off period is a good idea - now that I have given it some thought.
BUT.... I do agree that it could easily slip into being the status quo. And so I do need to prepare myself for trying to move things on. Especially with telling our English daughter and seeing my Polish daughter.

Sadly, and I am very ashamed to admit this. I have started drinking. I used to hardly ever drink. In fact I was tea-total for many years. But recently I have been buying wine. I know there is no solace to be found in a bottle and that I am being stupid. And that it is probably the road to hell. But I find the pain unbearable. Especially not seeing my Polish daughter.

Perhaps I should visit my doctor.

Thanks again everyone. And thanks superflyhigh for encouraging me to have another go at learning Polish. I got out my text book and puzzled over it for an hour this morning!

Oh Ted. Maybe seeing a doctor is a good thing. It's been a traumatic time.

Try to cut down on the wine and keep focused on the long term x