DH's "daughter" from brief fling appears on doorstep 29 years later

[gusting]

My DH, who is 55 now, had a fling with a girl when he was in his 20s. It was very brief, and after it ended she said she was pregnant. Some time later my DH remembers someone coming to his parents house asking for child support for the child, but he had never seen the girl again or heard from her, and so was not prepared to entertain any suggestion of paying child support.

Anyway, last year, my DH received an email (he has a website , so that will be how she tracked him down) from a woman claiming to be my DH's daughter, and asking him to get in touch.

My DH, who is computer illiterate anyway (I deal with all his emails!) was fairly flabbergasted, to say the least, and his reaction was simply to ignore the email. He said he would think about how to respond, but basically in true male fashion filed it to the back of his head. His dad was very ill at the time and has subsequently died, so he had plenty else to think about to be honest, and we have a 2 year old DS (I am 39, by the way!).

Anyway, last night we had people round, and the doorbell rang. I was on the phone so my DH went to answer the door. I recognised the woman straight away as I had looked her up on facebook! It was this "daughter", who introduced herself. My DH was completely dumbstruck- apart from the fact we had people in the house, which was a godsend, or he would have had to ask her in, my DH is completely inept in difficult situations like that.

He told her that it was not a good time, and she asked if she could have 20 minutes of his time to "talk" to her, sometime before she left the area (she was here on holiday) tomorrow evening. He took her number, but because he was so taken aback by the whole scenario, he failed to save it in his phone.

He and I discussed things later, and he is very reluctant to speak to her. He does not want to have a relationship with her (assuming that she is indeed his daughter, which is a strong possibility as she looks a bit like him) and just wants to bury his head. He is annoyed that she just appeared at the house without warning. He says he feels nothing towards her, so doesn't think it appropiate to risk unsettling us all and causing his family possible upset by dragging up the past now.

I do see where he is coming from, and my primary goal is to protect my nice happy family unit from any upset, of course. But part of me thinks that the right thing to do by her would be for him to at least talk to her. After all, it's not her fault she was the result of a quick fling, and she has a right to find out about her dad (if he is her dad) and to get to know him. I keep thinking how curious I would be in her situation and how upset I would be if my dad refused to have anything to do with me.

I know I can convince him to talk to her if I really try- he says he will do it for me, if I want him to. But it could turn out to be a whole can of worms opened, and the effect on our family could be very negative.

Anyone got any views??

yeah, maybe she is desperate. What's wrong about that? She's desperate for some contact with her Father who has repeatedly shirked his responsibilities. If he'd bothered to respond to any of the opportunities he's had, she wouldn't have had to turn up on his doorstep, would she?

And no, I don't think there are 'plenty of scammers' who turn up on the doorsteps of men who know full well they have fathered a child and say 'I'm looking for my Dad'. Can't remember hearing of a single case, tbh.

The daughter may have wanted a medical history. It could be very important.

Other than that, she already knows her Father is a feckless, unfeeling, irresponsible fuckwit. Why would she want him in her life anyway?

Has your "D"H no balls and no backbone?

He sounds like a total and utter spineless wonder.

Why the actual fuck are you driving this anyway? It should be up to him it's got fuck all squared to do with you.

And BTW she is his DAUGHTER not "daughter" in inverted commas which implies doubt.

That's rude of you. And nasty. And implies you think she's lying. You sound as bad as him.

SGB, where has there been any mention of a deep, mystic connection or any blaming of anyone by this woman who showed up at the doorstep? You are the only one who has projected this into the situation.

If this weak excuse for a man didn't want contact with the daughter he fathered when he knew she had found him, then he had an opportunity to tell he so by returning her e-mail. Since he failed to contact her at that point she was perfectly justified in continuing to make efforts to contact him. Absent a No, the woman assumed Maybe, and persisted. This is not stalking. This is a rational assumption. She didn't have to retire with her tail between her legs.

She obviously got her gumption from someone other than her father.

A rational person would have replied to communications from a daughter he had every reason to believe existed. If he didn't want to have even a meeting, let alone a relationship with this daughter, then the rational response would have been to e-mail her back and tell her so. He has in very irrational fashion buried his head in the sand for almost three decades.

What you are saying is that she should have assumed that she wasn't wanted when her e-mail went unanswered, Poor Little Match Girl style, and then accepted that. She would have known she wasn't wanted by this man since whatever age she was when she found out he had bailed on her mother. Very clearly, she has decided not to accept what he chose to dictate by his silence and absence, and she has every right to reason that silence is not an answer.

Good for you if you have no problems with your adoption, but you can't accuse others of whinging etc., because they are different from you.

'Bafflingly hardarse comments' hits the nail on the head here.

As far as how the meeting should go -- he needs to listen to her, answer her questions, and apologise from the bottom of his heart. It should not be too hard for him to put himself in her shoes since he has recently dealt with the loss of his own father. Maybe I am being over-charitable to him in this assumption.

He should bring family photos and should wrack his brains for medical information.

So........'scammers' regularly turn up on people's door steps pretending to be their daughter or son?? And they also happen to look like the person they say is their parent but, wait, that's a scam too?

How odd - I have never heard of this happening ever before.

SGB, I'm guessing you are in the happy position of knowing who your biological parents are? I got in touch with my birth father when I was about 28 or so. It had never bothered me until I had kids of my own and like another poster wondered how you could walk away from your own child/ren. Like 008, using the magic of google I found his work number, rang and left a message - he called me back and within a month we had met.

It resolved a lot of issues for me. It's hard to explain but it feels good to know my roots, to know where bits of me come from and to meet other people who share DNA with me.

We (he and I) don't have a close relationship, the issues that caused the relationship with my mother to break down are still there. But at least he acknowledged me, answered my questions and took an interest.

I'm intrigued. And a little confused.

In your first post you say

" Some time later my DH remembers someone coming to his parents house asking for child support for the child, but he had never seen the girl again or heard from her, and so was not prepared to entertain any suggestion of paying child support."

If your DH wasn't there, and was only told afterwards of the visit of the mysterious man in a suit, how can he remember someone coming to the house?

Poor woman.
I have been in her position where it all went tits up. I know exactly how it feels.
She sounds very strong and noble. Good for her. I hope you do the right thing by her.

And from your second post

"and do not worry, I still have her email address and have already drafted an email to her which I am going home to send once I have spoken again with my DH"

Why the actual fuck are you drafting the email?

Totally Maryz - it must have taken some guts for that girl to knock the door, already having been ignored.

Poor woman

I apologise for responding without reading the whole thread. My DUncle was in a v similar situation but very happy to accept the potential dd into his life and first knowledge of her was in her early 30s. She was really welcomed by our whole family and still is very welcome. Unfortunately her mum had lied to her for years and DU is not her father. Heartbreaking.

What does a 30 year old want from you apart from a very small amount of time. If your DP is her father he owes her that. Man up time.

Alistron: I don't know who my bioparents are and don't care. I just find it wierd that so many people think that persistent attempts to contact someone who doesn't want anything to do with you are brave and noble. Surely it's better just to shrug and move on.

How would she know that he didn't want anything to do with him, SGB?

Platy of people have multiple e-mail addresses. People stop using addresses and start new ones. Could she assume her e-mails were floating around in the ether, unread?

Is it really that outrageous to want actual words in response to your attempt to contact him -- either a 'yes I will meet you' or a 'no I will not meet you' from someone who gave you life?

What if she has a child who needs a bone marrow transplant and is trying to find a match?

What if she is getting married and wants her father at her wedding?

What if she has a healthy child and wants her father to know he is a grandfather?

It's not always emotionally overloaded catching up with 29 years stuff or throwing the kitchen sink of blame and bitterness at an absent parent that motivates people..

I think it's the fact he has not responded at all that kind of makes the whole thing worse and probably even more confusing for his daughter. My dd's bio father did the same thing. He has never engaged with me in a discussion about her and refused to face up to it in any way at all.

SGB, I was also adopted as an infant. I also have no desire to find my birth parents. I also think people who can't get over the 'missing piece of the past' can be a bit suspect.

However, adoption is very different from arse-of-a-father-who-ran-off-and-left-my-mum-and-I. I grew up with mum and dad in a very stable home and no missing pieces that I considered important. Maybe she didn't.

I think doorstepping the fucker has worked out well for her. After 29 years of denial, he's contacted her. Even if he hadn't, she would have seen him, and been able to walk away convinced that he was every bit the wanker mum always said he was.

Sorry, but he's not a sibling. And he wasn't a teenager when he heard that the mum needed help; he was a man with a job who could have - and should have -helped.

I'm glad he's emailed. It is better than a big, fat, self-absorbed, astonishingly neglectful, drawn-out nothing.
Not much, but something.
If he could stretch himself to asking her about herself and finding out about anything they have in common, it would mean a lot to her.

Why would she want to know this pig anyway?

I read the OP with a heavy heart, as I am starting to try and track down my biological father. I was the result of a very short relationship (fling? Not entirely sure as my mum doesn't like to talk about it) and have very little to go by, although I have managed to find his entry on a birth register . Not sure where I'm going from here though!

I am, in theory, fully prepared for rejection, as he doesn't know 'me', if you see what I mean, so I will try not to take in personally, although, of course, this is me trying to distance myself emotionally and very easy for me to say now. He wasn't in my life and only saw me once or twice before we moved away. I had a 'dad' and it wasn't him. If he doesn't want to know me, his loss. A photograph and some info would be nice though In all fairness though, I may never find him (having a pretty common name doesn't help)

Good luck with that PurplePantherPants. My story is very similar to yours, with other complications. I doubt very much I'll ever find my biological father as I have even less information to go on, plus he's not British. If you manage to track him down, you could try talking to one of the agencies for adopted adults such as Norcap - I spoke to them a while ago about my situation and, even though I wasn't adopted in the end (my mother changed her mind when I was 6 weeks old), they said they could still act as an intermediary when approaching biological parents.

Thank you. I can imagine how difficult it must be tracking him down if he isn't British. Thanks very much for the info about Norcap- I had to idea this could be an option if I do have him. Weirdly, I managed to find another long lost relative on Facebook (other side of family) but no luck with bio father- too common a name and I have no idea where he is (was militray so could have ended up anywhere?!)

Good luck to you as well, maybe one day we'll both have more answers