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??