Secret families, how common are they I wonder?

[AnotherPrickInTheWall]

Not going to bother to name change here.
The children of my close neighbours of 20 years informed me many years ago they had a half sibling. The father had an affair and the child was born 6 months after the middle child. This child was acknowledged and accepted by all members of the family.
FFW 19 years and I am mooching in a charity shop when I see two children who look familiar. I say this because they look so much like my neighbours children when they were small.
One child pipes up; " Daddy can I have this?" and I turn around to see my neighbour with another woman and the two children.
I pretend not to have seen them and depart to the car park. As I get into my car I see he is wearing sunglasses.
I have done my maths; these are not his grandkids.BTW he's mid 50's, not at all well off/good looking or charismatic in any shape or form.
I really don't get how he can lead such a double life.
I know this sounds incredibly far fetched. I have not shared this with anyone in RL. I don't want to tell his wife or kids.
His eldest is getting married next month and I really think Its not of my business to say anything to them.

TheNaze I think this is far more common than a lot of people think. As most affairs are driven by sex & because of the obvious consequences, I think there are a lot of dual family Dads. To counter that, I read that 1 in 50 Uk Dads are also bringing up children, they think are biologically their's but, aren't, which is equally as shocking & just proves that it takes two to tango & is down to both sexes playing away. Really sad for the children on both sides, if they ever found out the truth

yes, I know two women who conceived children with a man and pretended that it was their husbands/partners when it wasn't. The husbands still don't know as far as I'm aware.

I've read about a theory that women like to have sex with one type of man (Alpha) and settle with another (Beta).

As for secret families, I've never heard of one personally but can imagine that there must be a considerable number due to the consequences of unprotected sex with other women as mentioned above.

The saddest I know of was one of my old work colleagues.

Her Father had been a German prisoner of war and married a local lass and stayed in England. After he died and after her Mother died a German man got in to contact with my friend and it turned out this man had a wife and a few DC back in Germany. Thankfully his German wife died before any of this came out.

DH uncle worked abroad he had been having an affair and living with another woman for 6 years.No DC as way past reproductive years. He left DH aunt eventually and married this woman.

My son was a secret until a few months ago. I posted my one and only thread on here about it. He is no longer a secret, wife, himself snd i have come to an agreement about the children but ours is not your typical case.

I found out I had a half sister when I was 22.

My dad had had an affair 16 years previously and she was the result.

My mum had known about the affair but not about the baby.

I think I have had a normal interesting but not exceptional Middle class life up to my mid 40s. I do however have two very good friends who have been caught up in secret families and double lives. One was the wife who found our her husband was not working away but did had another life 5 miles away. He has a fiancé and son...The other was the one that found out that her partner was not single but had a son and a wife hidden. In both cases the man had been to many family events over several years and no one had a clue.

Sudo just read your thread and that is incredible! Thank goodness his wife cares about the children as much as she does, it hopefully means that whatever happens with them, he should always have a relationship with his sisters.

smelly that never ceases to amaze me.....5 miles apart!

One family in the Uk and another in Dubai or Germany or USA or wherever, is doable. But to have them so close and still hope to get away with it is mind bending! Like the guy who committed suicide, both "wives" were very close to each other geographically.

I actually know of someone who was married with 2 children and also had a second family with another woman - who passed off his kids as her husband's. Then they both divorced and finally got together - they now have a "blended" family but none of the children know that they are actually half-siblings. A lot of it is financed by the ex who thinks he's their dad but isn't really. All very odd, they are all high-earning middle-class people, outwardly respectable, you'd think things like this don't happen but they do!

AFAIKthe statistic about the men unknowingly bringing up another man's child is based on statistics from people who had paternity tests, so therefore had grounds for suspicion in the first place. It's then been extrapolated to the general population. That statistic, though obviously flawed is used by people like the MRA and fathers 4justice in their campaigns against women. It does happen, but 1 in 10 is an incredibly high number.

I did not know about my dad's half brother until I was in my 30s. Grandad was a lot older than grandmother and had died before my parents married. His first family was known to my grandmother all along though, and was about ten years before they met, Sadly never got to meet him, as he had lost contact with dad and died a few years ago.

Just be careful if your husband seems to be 'working away' a lot!

Just remembered - a great aunt of mine (now deceased) got married during the war to an American soldier. At some point she applied for the wife's financial support, only to discover that it was already being paid out to his wife back home in America.

Apparently that happened to a few British women.

M friends neighbour thought her husband worked away a lot. In fact he was 4 miles away in his other house with his other family.
She discovered it one night when she took her two DSs out for a meal and her DH was sitting with his other 'wife' (he had married her second so not legally).
They were out celebrating his DDs birthday.

This reminds me...

Years ago I did some night work in a residential home and then stayed touch with one of the girls working there after I left. She told me that D had died, just got up one morning then BANG! He was dead on the floor. HE only had a daughter as his living relative, so I agreed to go with my friend to his funeral to pay respects.

A death announcement was put in the paper.

At his funeral there was the daughter, her partner, my friend, me - and three grieving widows !!! All unknown to each other, or his daughter.

You know that girlfriend in every port tale about sailors? Well, D., who was a travelling salesman, was doing the same, only land based, it seemed.

Married all of them, too

The Wake (drink and crisps and stuff at a local pub), was.....interesting!

No children, other than the daughter we knew, tho. But who was able to claim his company's widows pension, I've no idea.

I knew and befriended a neighbour some 20 odd years ago. We would go out for meals ( I nearly always ended up paying) walks etc.
He didn't show up for an important event and I was worried sick so called his ( ex) wife.
She asked me over and explained that they were separated and went on to tell me he had got engaged to someone else whilst they were married.
She was really lovely ( the SEXTB) and told me some stories about this man that beggared belief.
A proper Walter Mitty. He was so deluded.
Fiancé stood by him. I don't know if she ever married him.
I do know my neighbour kids by his wife are unaware of their young half siblings.
It's not my place to tell them.

One of the ladies I know thought her husband was working abroad a lot. He was bug only 1/2 as much as he was staying. The other part of each week was only 5 miles up the road: it's outisde a city though so 5 miles is a long way. She just got a feeling that he was lying. she thought he might be having an affair so started digging into paperwork etc...
With the other is was his lack of commitment to anything that raised alarm bells.. Wouldn't get a joint mortgage or various things that would involve legal documents etc Then she found receipts or credit card bill or something so she started following him!! She the decided to turn up on the othe woman's doorstep and tell her.
I often wonder how many start as casual affairs and then they claim that they have left the wife and never actually get round to it...they get in so deep that it becomes a double life.