my mum told me I have a different dad to my brother and sister...

[TheSquodgit]

I have suspected it for a while after a friend told me that someone who used to live next to my mum had told her I had a different dad.

I asked my mum and she denied it and has done so until she spilled it all out a couple of days ago.

I am the one of the youngest in my family generation of cousins and everyone else knows inc aunts, uncles, cousins and my brother and sis who are 7 & 9 years older than me.

I am 26 years old and I have just been told.

My mum and who I thought was my bio dad were actually divorced well before I was born as he was abusive to my mum but when I was born he came to help with my bro and sis and mum and dad came to an agreement that he would bring me up as his own...even though he has been a fucking lousy father and has never had any relationship with my DS.

My dad's side of the family accepted me as one of them and the only Gran and Grandad I have ever had (my mums mum and dad died before I was born) are not even my blood relatives.

So my mum had a fling with this guy and got pregnant. I don't know all the ins and outs of what was said and when but apparently this man turned up to see me when I was born and my mum refused to let him in to see me.

When I was around 2yo my mum and I saw him in the street and he bent down to give me some money and I didn't know who he was.

My lousy non-dad ran a pub and he was in there when I was sat on a barstool in my teens. He made the effort to sit next to me and lousy non-dad ordered him out of the pub.

So he has made an effort in small ways but was obv put off big time...my mum has a gob on her when she gets going and I'm sure if she had lousy non-dad stood behind her giving him shit then he would run off with his tail between his legs.

I am extremely hurt and my emotions are all over the place. I have told my mum that what is done is done and she has apologised. I have all this bottled up anger but cannot say what I want to say for fear of falling out with her.

One thing she did say was 'you didn't lose anything by finding out'. I said 'I lost the opportunity of maybe having a dad that loved me'.

My stepdad brought me up from about 5yo and we get on well now but we didn't always. He didn't have his own kids so living with a teenage girl was hard for him and we fought like cat and dog. Was v.stressful.

Also I am v.different from my family - esp from my brother and sister in looks and personality so always felt I stood out a bit. This is why I have persisted every so often in questioning my mum about who my dad is.

I asked mum what she was protecting me from by not letting him near me and she didn't have a bad word to say about my biological father...just that she didn't want anything to do with him.

I want to type so many angry and nasty words about their behaviour but I can't let those feelings surface because I'm not sure what I will do.

Her and my sis (the only 2 I have seen since I was told) seem really blase about it all.

Don't forget they have had 26 years of getting used to the fact I have a different dad and they start sighing when I bring it up as if I am being tiresome.

I NEED to know what is going on/who he is etc and no one is willing to help me.

slightlycrumpled - i think if you are willing to be open with your son about you will avoid a lot of the hurt that myself and Squodgit are feeling. The most hurtful and frustrating thing for me has been having questions that no-one wanted to answer when i needed to know. I have a lot less anger about it now than i did, simply because i have answers. It's unclear whether my parents stopped B from seeing me or not in the early days, but knowing what i do i am sure that even if that isn't the case he would not have been a stable fixture in my life. I was much better off growing up without a drug addicted globe trotter in my life.

Squodgit - i'm sorry your family are being obstructive about this. Give Genesreunited a chance.....who have you contacted and what have you said? if you don't mind me asking. It is frustrating.......
The contact i got from B came via a message i left on a missing persons website 6 years previously. I posted on here when i received it, i didn't dare believe it was really him to begin with.

I contacted someone who I think might be his son or nephew (but didn't realise that until after I sent msg). The other two I'm not sure who they are but have different surnames and are a similar age to him so might be in-laws or cousins or whatever.

I just said that I am trying to get in contact with bio dad and asked if the guy with the same name in their family tree lived in my hometown around the time I was born (but didn't mention it was the time I was born, just asked if he was around in early 80s).

I am thinking that they are either consulting him about it or their email addresses have changed since they registered there.

Also I didn't mention he was my bio dad. Just that 'I am looking for a man called xxxx' etc.

i think that's sensible. I started by being vague about who i was when making initial enquiries. Then when i drew a blank i left the message on the missing website stating i was his daughter.

They may well have changed their e-mail addresses. Oh i do know how frustrated you must feel. I hope you hear something soon.

6 years is a long time...hope I don't have to wait that long to hear either way. So glad you feel a kind of peace with it all though now and have a decent relationship with your bio dad. It could have been a lot worse but I know you have been through what I'm going through and only hope I can have as much 'success' that you have had.

I have checked birth/marriage records and have found his mum and dads (my bio grandma and grandad) names and when they got married. Through Genes Reunited I have found who I think are his brothers and sisters which has opened up a few leads for me so have sent another few 'vague' emails.

At least someone has to come back to me.

I checked death records and thankfully there is nothing on there in his name.

It is all in my head again today and am v.stressed about it. I just made DP go to the shop for some wine so am having a glass to numb the brain.

Oh and the guy who I thought could be my half-brother is probably my half-cousin. I checked his birth record and this showed his mother's maiden name and it was the same surname as my bio dads which means it must be bio dad's sister's son who must not have been married when she had him.

Bio dad has 2 sisters according to Genes Reunited so he must be one of their sons.

My brother and I found out in late 20's/early 30's that my father had been married before and had 2 children that he had had no contact with. About 25 family members on both sides knew this - the other children even kept in touch with my father's side of the family (who live abroad) - called my grandmother gran, played with my cousins etc. I was furious when I found out - not so much at the previous relationship - nothing to do with me iyswim, but at the level of secrecy and the naivety that led my father to think that it could be a secret indefinitely. If I think about it too much now the anger wells up again, so I try not to. It has changed my view of my father - of course I still love him, but he is not the man I thought he was. On the other hand, I have quite a good relationship with the one of my half-siblings and family who now live in this country - the other I have amicable occassional contact with, but lives too far away to expect to see any time in the next few years.

Interestingly 2 of my friends only found out about each their father's previous marriages by accident - one when checkign census reports as part of a school project, and the other found the wedding album in the attic. Somehow it reassured me to see that mine was not the only family to act in this way.

That's dreadful that he didn't want to tell you but other people in your family knew.

I think parents can get stuck in what is best for the here and now and not think about the fact that someday their child is going to grow up and start asking questions...some things just don't add up.

Maybe they start off with their best intentions 'we'll tell them when they are old enough', then it doesn't happen and then it is too late.

IMy mum never wanted me to know...in fact it was pre-meditated that I wouldn't find out. The crappy dad of my bro and sis said he would bring me up as his own. The reason that she blurted it out was because I had been asking and also she felt awful whenever I was complaining about crappy non-dad's involvement in mine and DS's life (my DS he has never seen apart from at a cousin's wedding when him and his wife turned their noses up at him).

So much for wanting to be involved in my life. I have so much upset and confusion in my head and heart right now (and have had a couple of glasses of wine) so I will just stop typing.

Good night guys x

Squodgit - it may have taken me a long time to establish contact but in my case my bio dad had left the country. He last had contact with his family via a letter he sent in '83. He has led a nomadic life and so left no real trail. It's very hard to find someone who doesn't put down roots.
I'm sure that you will not have to wait as long as i did.

Okay well we have had a breakthrough - who I think is bio dad's younger brother (managed to trace through Genes Reunited) has responded.

He has said that bio dad is in his family but wants to know a bit about me before he speaks to bio dad about passing his tel no etc onto me.

I have told his brother my age, my mum's name and the reason I want to get in touch with him. Mentioned I was hurt I had only just found out but my mum and I are fine (to prevent bio dad from being even more scared about wanting to get in touch). Said I wanted him to tell bio dad I am looking for him and want to get to know a bit more about him. I also stated that I know bio dad knows about me and I am fully aware of the circumstances surrounding why he was never allowed into my life and that no bad words have been said against him.

I keep checking my email to see I have had a response...eeeek!

So nervous.

i'm so pleased that you have had a response and it sounds promising so far.
Will keep watching this thread to see how you get on.
Good luck and i hope it's good news for you.

Well I have had a response from the guy and he called bio dad. Bio dad confirmed to him that he knew about me and was obv v.surprised that I was trying to get in contact with him.

Bio dad doesn't have internet so they are going to forward the emails that I sent to a 3rd party that lives near him so they can print them off then he can read them. I have forwarded my address and phone numbers to him as asked but it was also stated that they were going to leave bio dad to decide about contact.

The end of the email was nice though. The chap said 'oh and btw if you hadn't guessed it already well I am your uncle. lol'

Wowwwweeeeeeeee!!! I'm so pleased that the response was cheery. It seems v.positive.

I sent a really nice email back thanking him for helping me and that I hoped we got the opportunity to know each other better.

Let's see what happens next then eh...

that all sounds good so far....hope it works out for you

any news?

(i´ve namechanged for this)

I´m so sorry you are going through this. Just reading your op made me feel sick to my stomach. I thought you might be my sister . Our family story is much the same, same age differences, same ´all about me´ mothers. Except I am not the hurt party, i am one of those ´not telling´.

My mum told me my little sister´s dad was not my bio dad (they are still married, mum had a rel when they were seperated) when I was 18. I think everyone who knew them at the time knew about it, her rel with this other guy was not a secret. Why they weren´t open about it i will never understand. My older sister found out through a friend (who overheard her mum) when she was 9. She was threatened with being ´disowned´ throughout her childhood if she ever told our little sister. I hated finding out, hated knowing, hated having a secret from my sister, hated feeling deceitful. I still feel like that and if i think about it, it really eats me up inside. My older sister and i have only spoken about it once or twice, i think we both feel it´s wrong so we don´t. I used to badger my mum when she was going to tell and there was always an excuse. Until she finally finished uni (the last excuse) and i realised she would find excuses til the end of time and isn´t planning on telling her.

i don´t know what to do. Everyone is different, some people say they would want to know, others say they wish they´d never found out. I don´t want to be the one to hurt her and blow it all up but i DO think she has a right to know. Or is that my guilty conscience wanting a release?? I don´t want her to hate me, or feel hurt or sad or confused. She makes ´jokes´about her parentage all the time. So much as to be very noticeable, it makes me wonder. I wish she would just ASK so i could know. And i think, if my mum does blurt it out one day, when she´s pissed, or senile, then dsis might want to find him, and it might be too late. It might already be, i don´t know. i think my mum could find him, if she wanted to.

Sorry to offload on your thread, I have tried to start ops of my own but couldn´t take the flaming of people ranting about what an awful person I am for being complicit in this. Maybe it helps you to see what your siblings might be feeling. Not that their feelings matter at the moment but you know, it´s just hard to know what the right thing to do is.

Hippityhoppity - how awful that must be for you. I have a half sister and while i knew that her dad was not my dad, she was never told. I eventually gave my mum an ultimatum to tell her or i would, but for in my situaton i had regular contact with my bio dad's family. My sister was coming to live with me for the summer, and my uncle used to come round for coffee every week so she needed to know. My mum left it til the last minute......
My sister said she had known for years that something wasn't right, and to be honest she has a bigger problem with it than i do.