Discovered a secret half-brother after DF died. Should we go looking?

[SecretFrom50YearsAgo]

Hi, I’m looking for some perspective or advice from anyone who has been through something similar.

DISCLAIMER:
I've name changed, I know some of my friends are here and I haven't shared this with anyone except DH.
I've used AI to tidy up the post below to make it clear and easy to follow and understand. But it's a very real and true story!

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My DF passed away a year ago. After his death, my DM sat my siblings (DB and DSis) and me down to tell us something she’d been carrying for decades.
Apparently, before my parents married, my DF had a child (a boy) with someone in a different part of the country where he lived briefly between the ages of 18 and 20. He told my DM about it at the time, promising he would pay maintenance until the child was 18 but that he would always provide for her and the family they would have together. After that, they literally never spoke of it again.
My DF was a wonderful, devoted man who dedicated his whole life to us. This news has been a massive shock - it’s the last thing we ever expected.

The current situation:

• We know nothing about this man, other than he’d be in his mid-50s now.
• The only way to find him would be a DNA test (Ancestry etc) and hoping for a match.
• My siblings and I have discussed it, but we have done anything about it

The "What Ifs" keeping me awake:

• Does he even know his father wasn't around?
• Would reaching out upend his life or his family’s life in a bad way?
• Or... has he spent 50 years wondering who his dad was?

I’m so conflicted. I feel like once we do a DNA test, there is no going back. Once that door is open, we have to deal with whatever comes through it. I obviously need to be in total agreement with my siblings, but I can't stop thinking about it.

Should we try to find him? Or should we leave the past in the past?

Has anyone here discovered a "surprise" sibling later in life? How did it go? If you were that child, would you want to be found now?

OP you can look for a birth on ancestry, find my past, or the GRO. That is assuming your Dad is named on the birth certificate, he may not have been.
In your place I would do a test and deal with whatever arises by making choices at the time, you can’t second guess every scenario now.
I found out that my Mum had a half sibling, she didn’t know. It wasn’t an affair, her Dad had been married before but his daughter died. It has been lovely to make contact with my cousins. It was a really nice thing to find out.
I couldn’t rest knowing I had a brother out there, I would have to try and find him even if it didn’t work out.

My friend’s husband was adopted at birth. He finally traced his birth mother when he was in his 50’s and although she’d died by then, he discovered a younger half brother. The brother was also adopted and his family had emigrated abroad.

After lots of letter writing they eventually met and immediately bonded. They were even wearing the same shirt bought from Marks and Spencer when they met for the first time!

They grew very close. The younger sibling was married with no children so he was very happy to become an Uncle to my friend’s 4 children.

Sadly my friend’s DH has now passed but their two families remain very close.

My friend was contacted by a close DNA match living abroad who had been adopted and was searching for their biological family.
Friend contacted their elderly cousin in the same foreign country to ask if she had any idea how this person was connected to their family.
It turned out that the cousin had a secret for most of her life, even from her younger siblings - she'd been abused by her step-father and become pregnant at 14. It was completely hushed up and the baby taken away for adoption. She never married, never had other children. She was delighted to be reunited - she'd never searched - the baby had been sickly and she'd been scared she'd find out it had died.

I have been the "found" person by a half sibling, although my dad lived with us and we had no idea he had a previous child until she found us the year after he died. It was all very overwhelming; she was incredibly full on, claiming that she had always wanted a sister and trying to give advice as she was the older one. She also wanted me to tell her how much i had missed having her presence in my life but it wasnt true; i never knew of her, and was perfectly content with just having my brother. When i refused to play along with this she bombarded me with messages and calls about how i was rejecting her just like our father did. It was awful, and whilst i do have empathy for her growing up after being rejected by our father (who left her mother before she was born) i cannot take on that responsibility to fix. Please do just consider what you want from seeking him out, and what it may feel like if he isnt interested in a relationship, or conversley, if he is desperate for a deeper relationship than you are prepared for.

Are you able to discuss this with your dm? Does she have any paperwork of your dfs still? Did your df leave them anything in a will that would help with identification?

After my gran died, my dad discovered he had a half brother that he didn’t know about. Some of the family (that he wasn’t allowed to speak to when growing up) knew about it. Sadly, the older brother had passed away before my dad and his sisters could meet him. Not sure I have advice one way or another, but I would do the DNA test, then if your sibling tries to find you, he’ll reach out. If that’s what you want.

Granted we were much younger than the OP’s scenario but I didn’t meet my half-brother until we were both in our late teens. We have forged a good relationship, see each other fairly often given we live in different countries and I’m glad I have him in my life. I don’t speak to or about the Father that raised him but abandoned me, and he completely respects that.

In the OP‘s situation I don’t know what to suggest for the best, but just wanted to add that a shared childhood isn’t necessary for a good sibling relationship.

He likely already knows. Or has felt somehow ‘other’ if pieces didn’t quite add up.
I don’t think you can go too far wrong with the truth.
So you put yourselves out there by doing a DNA test … leave it open. It may join up, he gets in touch or you do. And he enters into a conversation with you. Or he doesn’t.
It is his choice, but you’re open and offering a conversation if he would like to go there.
It isn’t like you’re cornering him in the street and forcing him to join in with an immediate big reunion. You’re just opening the door.

I don’t think your mum would have told you if she wasn’t ok with you finding him. They shouldn’t have kept it from you all these years. But life is complicated.

theres a possibility he’s on the birth certificate. Go to the general register office and search for births for those two years using his surname and the part of the country. If the mother was a similar age it’s possible the baby was adopted.

To be honest I wouldn’t bother personally you never know how someone might respond. He might be fine at first meeting then become resentful as he finds out more about you.

at some point you’re both going to compare and contrast lives, finances, parental love and support, childhood etc and sometimes any perceived differences can be enough to cause friction. Because it’s so easy to attribute that to having your dad in/not in your life.

And that sort of friction might not come out in straight up anger but more like, and awkward/spiteful/manipulative sort of relationship where resentment and jealousy are present. You have skipped over that shared childhood phase so natural unconditional sibling love isn’t necessarily going to be there. It will be more complicated than you’re giving credit to.

My DH has a half brother who he has never met. The half brother knocked on FILs door many years ago and was turned away my FIL who made a joke out of it. We know who the half sibling is as we live in a small country and he is a very successful business man. He is also the image of my DH and his brothers.

FILs father also had a secret child and there's a high chance that DH brother has a child too. I think it's really sad to be honest.

I purchased Ancestry DNA kits for myself, DH and our three teenagers for Christmas as my DS14 really wanted to do the test. They are still sitting in my wardrobe. I'm going to do them today.

And the son is too late to meet his bio father....But he could be looking too....
I think I'd do the DNA test in case he has been looking. Then the ball is firmly in his court.

Curiosity killed the cat

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and those who have shared their experiences. As many of you say, it’s very complicated, I have no idea what the situation was who knows what. I’m a bit crossed with my dad that he never shared with us we had a half sibling but then again, there could have been a reason.
Someone has asked if there’re any financial records or a will - no, nothing at all. Only what our mum told us - she wasn’t told much by him either.

this thread has given me a lot to think about, first I’m going to have a chat with my sister (we are very close) and then our brother too.
I won’t do anything for now.

And to answer someone else’s question- my mum would absolutely be fine if we decided to find him.

Information made him fat 😋

Relatives are a responsibility and I wouldnt want any more of mine creeping out of the woodwork. I have enough of them already and am very low contact with most of them. Not because they have done anything wrong but just because I am not and have never been into family life.

You don’t need to do an ancestry test to find out more. You can trace birth records using your fathers name and city etc

I will look into that, thanks.

Everyone’s outcome is different.

i was in your position except my sibling contacted us. We welcomed them with open arms. Sent birthday/xmas gifts and gifted them my mother’s jewellery. They were lovely people but it never felt like a sibling relationship as we had lived apart from nearly 50 years. By the way I never expected a sibling relationship but we literally were very different people .

The only advice I can give you is a) make sure you and your siblings have no expectations b) be mindful that your brother may feel resentful that you were reared by your father and he wasn’t. C) be mindful he may not want to meet you, sometimes it can be painful for them especially if their own childhood was not perfect.

I have also heard some very positive stories and maybe yours will be one of them. He may be delighted to hear from you. Just go into it with both eyes open.

Good luck.

What made your mother decide to tell you?

Obviously your father didn’t want you to know about the brother otherwise he would have been open about it himself, and tracking down his first son would have been a venture you had embarked upon together as a family.

I’m guessing your mum didnt feel comfortable with the information being kept from you and that’s why she’s now told you when your dad isn’t there to stop her? I’m assuming she told you because she wants you to find him and thinks it would be good for you? Or for him? Otherwise what would be the point in the disclosure?

What a complicated position for you all to be in.

I’m sorry about the loss of your dad and I hope you can reach a decision you all agree on.

(personally I would try and track him down).

@LondonLady1980 you are asking a lot of the questions I also have myself!

I think my mum felt we had the right to know.
My dad was never one to talk about feelings or the past, maybe he thought what is in the past is best left there... and again, we have no idea what the situation was.

@SecretFrom50YearsAgo I have a half-brother too. Turns out our mother had an affair with a married man at her workplace. She didn’t tell him, had the baby in a maternity hospital and her son was adopted. Our mother shared this with DSis but not me as she felt I’d throw it back in her face… we had a strained relationship. Mother did decide to look for him but we don’t know how far she got.

After much discussion DSis and I decided we would be open to meeting him. Did a DNA test which is on Ancestry, so far no matches. Applied to Long Lost Family but never heard from them. There are no doubt other avenues.

Equally, does our half-brother know he’s adopted? Does he want to find his family? Did he survive childhood? Is he still alive now? Does he have children or did he stay single/is in a child-free relationship? We accept we may never know.

In a similar dilemma but haven’t found my sibling yet

Our Family have found an additional 7 cousins aswell after a known cousin put their dna on ancestry.
Two of them are lovely but one turned out to be aggressive and things got so bad my cousin took his dna down and everyone’s cancelled their facebooks etc.

Most of them were born in mother and baby homes in Ireland and just a few weeks ago I was told by an older relative my mum was put in Castlepollard in Westmeath run by the Sisters of the sacred heart of Jesus and Mary. I have put my information into the Irish Govn website to see if the baby is dead or alive but I have no idea what I’ll do if someone turns up

The Whole idea of what happened to my mum is traumatic and I am interested to see what experiences others on here have to say with meeting up with long lost siblings

Thankyou for starting the thread OP 🙏

i think that’s a common misconception. My closest sibling is my (half) brother who I’ve only known for 15 years. In fact I’ve never felt closer to any sibling than I have to him even though I love my other siblings. Me and my brother just clicked. It was that simple. I’m closer to 70 than 60 and he’s now 60.

I think it's likely that your dad made your mum promise never to tell. With his death, she considers that promise null and void. And I agree.

My mum kept the secret that her brother had a secret child. Even he didn't know she knew as she found out through her work. She told me the day he died.