Totally confused, what do I do now that I have found my bio dad on networking site?

[lillee]

Hi to anyone who reads this and hopefully give me some advice.

I'm in my late 30s and mother fell pregnant out of wedlock - not the done thing in the 70s aparently. Anyway, lived with my mother and her eldest sister and family until my mother got married to a man when I was four, she was pregnant with my sister. Anyway, life completely changed for me and not necessarily for the better. I was very close to my aunt and uncle and her dc were like siblings to me really and I took the seperation of not living there quite hard. Into the bargain her new husband wasn't overly keen on me but accepted me as part and parcel. He was very strict and from then until I left home I was beaten by him for everything and nothing. All in all, not a particulary happy childhood. Him not being my father was never mentioned but I knew.

I told my aunt when I was 11 that I knew he wasn't my father. She did the right thing I suppose and told my mother I knew, I was then sat down by her and 'stepdad' and told that I was right but that I wouldn't want to know the real father anyway. Being a child I just wanted to please and not rock the boat so said I didn't want to know who he was.

Roll on 19yrs later, aunt dies and uncle very ill and I suddenly get a real panic about identity etc and more or less force my mother during our grief to tell me the name of my biological father (name not on birth certificate). She tells me and the name is pretty uncommon other than that she can only tell me his age at the time of my conception, that his family were local and saw me growing up and always asked after me, but that she didn't know anything about him now - where he lived, married or family etc. I kind of just put it to the back of my head, just needed the info at that point.

Over the years I have searched on the net for his name and found nothing. I have two very young ds's and found it hard not being able to give full medical history from both sides when preg.

Anyway, just before Christmas I came across his name on a social networking site and found out where he lives, a picture of him, (there is a resemblence!) and that he has two sons and a daughter grown up. Now I don't know what to do, I would like to ask questions and fill in the blanks about me I haven't known my whole life but I don't want to cause upset for him and his family either. I don't have any family around me at the moment, no contact with mother or sister to discuss this with or get support.

Have looked online for possible help with contact but only found a site relating to adopted children (I was not adopted by stepfather).

Does anyone have any advice or been in this situation?

Sorry for very long post!!!!!

Oh no, after reading that heading back it sounds like a line on that weekday ITV circus with the Kyle plonker. Cringe!

I have been in this situation, but in my case my father found me. My mother had left him when I was 1ish, and prevented him from seeing me due to DV on her. He wrote a letter to me via my mother when I was 26. I wrote back, and we met, and became part of his family (have 2 younger half siblings). Even though he has since passed on, I'm still in contact with the family and they consider me to be part of it.

As a first off, what else do you want from him other than to answer a few questions? If this is all you want, this could be done by letter, or private message through the networking site. If you want more than that, you'll have to work out what you'll do if he doesn't want the same thing.

It is tricky and overwhelming, my advice is a slow and soft approach. I was a little overwhelmed by my new family (too much involvement, but this was them excited and wanting me around) and backed off quite a bit and as a consequence didn't see a lot of my father, although in some contact, before he died.

your op could have been written by me except ive never found or known my bio father - so id say go for it. drop him a line and see what develops. nothing ventured, nothing gained. take it slow though and dont expect too much. best of luck.

My half brother went in search of my dad in 2008 Excellent some would say...but no he did not find him he found me. My dad died in 2003 and never got to see his Grandchildren from his son...

My Advice go for it!!

I now have a niece and nephew i never knew about!

Like several other posters here, I too grew up in a similar situation, Lillee. I agree with realrabbit that it's really important to feel as prepared as it's possible to be for whatever the outcome might be.

I wanted to go and meet my father when I was 18. My mother was completely supportive of that, but asked me to have a meeting with a counsellor first, which I did.

It REALLY helped. I realised that I wasn't ready to cope if he shut the door in my face. I also realised that there was a lot I had to understand about my own feelings before I was able to go to his house and start asking questions. I wouldn't have known what to ask, IYSWIM. I was too young.

You're at a very different place in your life than I was, and I am sure that for you it is time to make contact and ask the questions you want to ask. But I would suggest that having a one-off appointment with a counsellor beforehand might really help you.

At the very least, you would be speaking to someone who has no involvement in the emotional side of the situation, and who will be able to give you advice and listen to what you have to say with no agenda. They might be able to suggest ways of handling potential outcomes.

In my experience, the absence of knowledge about my father was one of the fundamental 'forming' elements of my life. I am, I believe, as settled and content with the situation as it's ever going to be possible to be, but it took a LOT of time to get here, and it wasn't easy.

Sorry for the ramble! I guess I am just trying to say that you need to take care of yourself through this time.

You may feel as if you are giving him access to your most inner self - raw and very easy to hurt - so the more care and protection you're able to put in place for yourself, the better.

Hopefully you have someone in whom you can confide and who will be there for you throughout the process.

My heart goes out to you. I don't know if it will help to hear this, but you are not alone in your situation. When I was growing up there were virtually no other kids who didn't have a dad or at least know him. I thought I was so different, and it felt lonely sometimes.

Please let us know what you decide and how you get on. I wish you all happiness.

I've just been thinking about your question about how best to make contact. It sounds as though you don't know much about what went wrong between him and your mum. You say that his family knew who you were and asked after you. I had the same experience. My father decided for his own reasons that he didn't want contact. I'm assuming the same is true of yours (i.e. that it wasn't your mum who kept him away).

Assuming that is the case, it's probably worth treading very gently in your first contact. It may be that he thinks what he did was for the best. An overly detailed or emotional first message might make him run a mile. If, on the other hand, he thinks of you as a mature woman with her own family, he may be more likely to agree to correspond/meet with you.

However unfair this might seem, I think you are going to have to try to think of this from his point of view. If you don't, you could end up scaring him into refusing to respond. In the end it's all about trying to get some answers, however you have to go about that.

Some people, having made difficult or unpopular choices in their life, seem to be able to put those actions and decisions in a box, close the lid and forget about them. IF he is that sort of person, getting him to open that lid could be difficult. He may have faced what he did, worked through it and decided how he'll react if you ever come looking for him. On the other hand, he may (like my father!) have chosen to pretend it all never happened.

I think that it might be best to make your initial approach friendly and not too detailed. Presumably he will know your name - perhaps writing to him assuming that he knows who you are rather than spelling it out might be the best first step? It depends on your character of course - you ultimately have to go about this in the way that makes most sense to you.

But for what it's worth, these are some of the things I would think about:

Rather than saying the words "I think you're my father", perhaps say "I think you knew my mother." for example. Words can be very powerful. If someone writes something hurtful or something that pokes at your rawest/most hidden feelings, it can make you feel sick.

If you approach him with anger, or with a pre-determined idea of who he is, or with a judgement about what he did, you may miss out on hearing the truth as he sees it. FOR YOURSELF, I think it's important to try to enter this situation without anger. (I do know that's easier said than done!)

If your approach to him should fail, i.e. you receive no response (this happened to me), there are other routes. Mine was through his mother. I'm saying this because you may feel that he holds your only chance to find some peace about the situation. I felt that for a long time, but it turned out not to be true.

We're different people in different situations, so it may be that nothing I've said resonates with you, but I hope it may be of some use!

I really WILL stop banging on now . . .

Thank you everyone who responded. Have been having connection probs since I posted so only just getting the chance to check in.

I'm so very grateful for your advice and for sharing your experience with me too. For some reason I expected at least one to say leave him and his family alone, what would you gain from this but all of you have been very positive and advise caution too which is good.

Wordweaver you are not banging on, you have given very sound advice, and I've reread it a few times cos you are right about words being powerful and wording this properly. I have no anger to bear towards him though, I don't know what happened all that time ago.

JeMeSouviens your situation must have been overwhelming, a good point that moving too quickly on either side might be frightening. Glad you have worked it out with your dad's family though and got to meet him.

Thanks VicarInATuTu for your positive advice, have you/do you still search for your father?

TheLadyEvenstar you make a good point, missing the chance of at least attempting to kake contact before it was too late would probably be worse than the possibility of rejection I think. And good to hear from your side of things too you seem to have dealt with it really well, your niece and nephew are lucky to have a new aunt too!

And realrabbit I think that, if I'm really honest with myself, your 'calm' relationship with your dad is probably what I would wish for from this situation. Again, it's lovely to hear that it can turn out for the better too - maybe laying yourself bare would be worth it for that opportunity.

Wordweaver how did you go about finding a councillor? I think that this would probably be the most sensible way for me to deal with this initially. I don't have anyone to talk this through with or support either. Speaking to someone who is not emotionally involved would definitely help me sort through what I want to know and gain from this. My ds's are very young, 3yrs and 4mths so I have waited a few months until the hormones have calmed down mainly but I think I will implode if I don't act on it in some way soon. I think I have decided, if I'm honest, that I would like to send a letter rather than any other form of contac - messaging on the site I found him on doesn't fit right with me for some reason right now. I don't know, maybe a bit familiar - not sure why.

Anyway, I've gone on enough! Thanks again folks you have been very helpful, even to have responded to my mixed up initial post.

LOL Counsellor not Councillor!!!!!!!!!!!

Lillee - to find a counsellor it might be worth contacting [[http://www.norcap.org.uk/birthrelativesofadoptedadults.htm NORCAP] even though you were not formally adopted.
I do sympathise with your feelings - I was adopted as a young baby and though i have not traced my bio parents I get spells of thining about it.

Thank you SGB! I did look at their website but wasn't sure if I 'qualified' for their help. I was like you, just thinking about it now and again really until this one time the same search I always did left me with this dilemma. Anyway, good luck to you should you ever decide to pursue a search.

Thanks, Lillee, I'm glad if anything I said helped!

I think that my mum arranged the counselling session I had through the doctor, but that does take time and it sounds as if you have reached a point where you need to do something fairly soon.

You could try looking at the BACP website - you can search for an accredited counsellor at wam.bacp.co.uk/wam/SeekTherapist.exe?NEWSEARCH. You can search by speciality, and they have categories like 'relationships' and 'adoption' - as SGB says, it may be a similar area in terms of the feelings that can come up.

I imagine private counselling can be expensive, but I should think it's manageable if you're just thinking about a one-off session.

I agree with you about sending a letter. I didn't realise that you had also found his address, but if that route is open to you, I would take it. I think that social networking sites make it far too easy to rattle off a response without thinking, which of course you won't want him to do!

I also think that if he is going to respond in any way, a letter is the best thing to receive. It is infinitely more valuable than just printing a copy off from your computer!

I think that you are going about this in a very wise and thoughtful way. I'm full of admiration.

Although the situation is different as l was adopted lfound my half brother via genes reunited.

My birth mother died a few years earlier.

I honestly wish l had had counselling to help deal with the fall out.

So much information from one family conflicting with information already known. I thought l was having a breakdown.

Only now having had belated counselling -4 years later- can l get my head around the information and resulting relationships.

I think wordweaver give excellent advice. Good luck

Hi

Hope this thread has managed to hel you come to a decision about what to do. My heart goes out to you. I always knew I had a biological father out there as he flitted in and out of my life when I was a child. Not seen him for many years and like you found him last year. I dithered over it for ages and did not make the move and sadly never got the chance as whilst I was thinking it all over her passed away, however he knew he was dying and never contacted me but I wish I had had the chance to see him face to face alive and will never have that chance now.

I say go for it - dont have any expectations and just go with the flow. You may be pleasantly surprised and if he does not welcome you well you cant miss what you never had and you wont have to wonder anymore.

Good luck with whatever you decide, just dont leave yourself in a position where you could have regrets. I wish every day I had made a move just 4 weeks quicker!

Come back and let us know how you get on.

Oh no Broodymomma that is so sad. To have gone on that rollercoaster of emotions and then get that news within weeks of making contact must have been devastating for you. Were you able to contact any of his family to fill in the blanks or did you end your search there? Thanks for your advice, you are right about regrets - I will most certainly report back whichever way it goes.

Doha, I'm so sorry that you too had searched and had that awful news of the fairly recent death of your birth parent, like Broodymomma it only complexes the already heightened emotions more. So awful but I hope that now that you have had the counselling you are in a better place with it and enjoying a relationship with your brother/extended family?

Wordweaver, again thank you so very much. Will check out the website you suggest and would probably be willing to do the private counsellor thing if easier/quicker if, like you say, it was only one session. Problem I was having on these websites was not being 'adopted' and also what 'category' I fitted into. Don't have a postal address, yet but his name is pretty unusual and I found the town he is living in (quite a small place) so didn't think it would be too difficult to do a bit more sherlock work! ACtually, in a way I feel like a stalker, delving into and trying to find out so much about a person I've never (knowingly) met. Just hope that I can pull the words together in the right order and tone to pitch my side of things to him. Hopefully, the counsellor can help me sort this out a bit in my head before the though. As for having admiration for me, thank you. I'm not sure I deserve that but you certainly deserve my gratitude for your time and advice here. You have most definitely helped me decide on my next step. Now to do it quickly, as has been pointed out before, probably best not to leave it too late and have even more regrets. Will start on websites tonight and calling round tomorrow.

Thank you ladies, from the bottom of my heart.

Lillee as long as you proceed with the knowledge that things may not work out and feel that you can face possible rejection--l would say go for it.

Don't go in all guns blazing but start gently and let responses dictate the pace.

Do l have regrets making contact with my brother--sometimes yes the fall out has been tough. Would l do it again -definatly yes.

Life is too short for regrets and l wish l had had the nerve to do it earler before my birth mother died. SO many unanswered questions.

Sometimes the need to know is overwhelming.

Itwascertainlyasurprise how bloody awful that you ended up in the middle of this situation. So unfair on you and you need it not at all when being pregnant that's for sure. God, I hope the situation eases for you, at least that they back off and give you less pressure anyway for now. Can understand the reactions of all three parties here though, not to say your dad and 'sister' have necessarily dealt with it in a way to spare you mind. I was going to say that maybe your dad could try and resolve the situation in a way that you don't feel like you are stuck in the middle but that's probably unfair of me to make assumptions.

But, I totally appreciate hearing it from your side. This is a situation I would fear more than being rejected really. I hope that by sending a letter it involves only me to him unless he decides to let his family know and get in contact with me. The internet is a powerful thing in that I have found my half siblings online, however it is never my intention to contact them online or otherwise unless invited by them to so. If no response/contact from my blood father I'll deal with that rejection - and not in the way of hurting more people either.

You have reassured me that the letter would definitely be the right way for me to go about it. Thank you and congratulations on your pregnancy.

for Itwascertainlyasurprise after congrats on your pregnancy - disappeared for some reason!

Doha, that is huge that you would still go down this route even though you went/are going through so much because of the contact. The need to know and fill in the blanks is indeed overwhelming. I just don't know, all I do feel is that I don't want to cause any more upset because I exist.

Blast, I keep sending the post before I finish! Was probably prattling on a bit too much anyway.

Point is, I will send the initial letter and hope its worded in a way that contact will be resumed and I don't come over too strongly and scare him off. Probably a good reason why the counsellor will help as you all tell me, at least I will have faced the possibility of rejection and worked it through. Hopefully that will lessen the impact should that be the case. He could just as easily deny any involvement as he's not on the birth certficate either so I'm starting with low expectations, but I have allowed myself to think about how it could be if all went really well.

You're not being in the least bit stalkerish, Lillee. It's not casual snooping! You are curious about your father, and I think it's very natural feeling to want to know a few practical facts about your parent, let alone the more emotional aspects.

The way I see it, by trying to find out as much as you can online, you're:

(a) Preparing yourself as best you can for what you might find out, see or be told in the course of actually making contact with him. This is just giving yourself a bit of armour.

(b) Trying to satisfy the overwhelming 'need to know' that you have felt all your life in as kind and measured a way as possible. You just don't want anyone to get hurt by this, including you.

As you say, I'm sure that a counsellor will be able to help you think about how to phrase your first letter. Hopefully they will also be able to help you imagine how you might handle speaking to him and/or meeting him.

I don't think there is any harm in imagining how it could be if everything goes well. That's essentially just a way of identifying what you want at the moment. What you want may and probably will change as you work through this process.

I know you are a grown woman, but I think it's important for you to keep in mind that in this situation you are also the child, and he is the parent. You do DESERVE to have your questions answered.

Somewhere inside you is still the little girl you were, who wanted answers and felt hurt. As she still exists, she can still be comforted.

This may sound weird or unclear in a typed message, but it's something I felt very strongly when I finally felt at peace with my situation. My feeling was that I, as an adult, was actually protecting and helping myself as a little girl.

It was almost as if I was standing in front of her like a shield, protecting her from the pain of the situation and enabling her to stop feeling so hurt. Only I was able to do that, in the end. By taking control and being proactive, I brought myself peace and calm.

For me, after the helpful counselling, I kept evaluating how I felt about going to see my father. But each time I thought about it, I was certain that I didn't feel ready to handle rejection - and I was fairly sure that's what I would find. I believed that there was a time in the future when I would feel ready and it would happen, but I was wrong. He died when I was 24.

It was devastating and I went through a very real grieving process. I was grieving not for the man himself, you understand, but for all the things I had missed out on; as well as all the hopes I had had for the future.

However, even in the midst of the grief, I never regretted not having gone to see him sooner. Even though he had died, that didn't change the fact that I wouldn't have been ready, and that having a door slammed in my face would have hurt too much to bear.

Since his death, I've worked hard to find some peace. At first I thought I never could - I thought that his death meant the end of my potential for a resolution. But I was wrong. I met his mother.

Before her son's death, she abided by his decision not to have me as part of his life. But after he died, everything changed. I only met her a couple of times, but we exchanged a few letters and seemed to have a quiet understanding of each other that was incredibly soothing.

The first time we met, it was a bit like treading on eggshells! I think we were both acutely aware that there were things each of us could say that could deeply wound the other. But neither of us wanted that. So instead, I think we found a bit of comfort in each other.

I could find nothing on the internet to prepare me for that first meeting. To glance sideways at her and see that a side section of her hair grew with a kink, exactly the same as mine, was one of the weirdest feelings I have ever experienced.

In fact, as a slight side issue to all this, I find it interesting and sad that there are so many similar stories here, and yet seemingly no website where people in a similar position can go for advice, guidance or comfort. Perhaps we should all start one!

The other thing that helped me was talking to one of my father's friends from around the time I was born. He was very honest - perhaps brutally so - and what he said actually gave me access to my anger, in a healthy way.

I don't know if it is the same for you, Lillee, but for me, one of the hardest things to deal with as a child was the lack of knowledge, because that forces you to create an image in your imagination, and by its very nature, that image is going to be exaggerated and skewed.

My mum was honest and open, but it's never enough to have just one point of view - you need more than that to get a sense of a rounded personality. It was like being in the dark, with my mum's point of view being just one beam of light.

When I finally saw a photo of my father I was 16, and that was another beam of light. Then meeting his mother and his friend finally enabled me to see him as an ordinary man, not a monster or a fantasy. I think in the end, that was the thing that gave me most relief. He was just an ordinary man who made mistakes. When I FELT that, instead of just 'knowing' it logically, it was as if something was released inside me.

I hope you don't mind me going into a bit of personal detail here, but I thought that some of it might be relevant. I very much empathise with your situation, and I would feel really delighted if you could find some peace about it.

Oh, and on the Sherlock Holmes front, I have found the following website helpful:

www.findmypast.co.uk/post84BMDSearchStart.action?redef=0&searchType=B

Hiya ladies. Thank you very much for your reply itwascertainlyasurprise this is why I stopped myself making assumptions. I'm sure your dad must have had the shock of his life too and everyone deals with situations differently.

Wordweaver I have reread your post several times. You have totally hit the nail on the head with your references to being the child although now an adult and of the fantasy of what my dad would be or look like. This is so true, whether I had wanted to or not, over the years I had built up a picture of what I thought he would be and looked like. From the pictures I have found though, it seems I went a bit wild there! LOL

On another note, I have to say, you are very aptly named here. Your post stuck several chords with me. I could actually imagine your meeting your grandmother and stealing looks at her, to see the similarities between you must have been surreal to say the least. Overall though, the way you write about your experience (for which I am very grateful) you sound as though you are at peace with it all - I hope that I may say the same one day too.

I am deeply humbled by all of you ladies coming on here and sharing your experience of such a personal nature, thank you so much for this. But, as Wordweaver said, this is also a sad sign of many people out there going through or having gone through the same situation. I have found nothing else online to help me with this, a thread might not be such a bad idea?!

I have to apologise for not posting or responding to your posts sooner but I do have a reason. I made an appointment on Monday to see a counsellor for yesterday morning which I attended. I suppose I was gearing myself up for it, little bit anxious as well and also dealing with my two little ones exhausted me on Monday and Tuesday night. I went for the counselling session yesterday and spent the rest of the day with a banging headache, felt completely raw and drained. Unfortunately, after explaining my situation and reason for attending the counsellor picked up on my situation with my mother and sister and totally unravelled me. So, she has recommended that I attempt a first draft of a letter to my birth father but do nothing else on that score yet - I am to have further counselling to deal with everything else first!! I thought I'd dealt with the hurt and pain of losing my aunt and then my uncle and the part my sister played in it all and more recently my mother, in fact I'm not as together as I had myself pegged to be. It's come as a bit of a shock really, but the fact that so many emotions came up and hit me like a brick wall tell me that the counsellor is right.

I will, in the next week, start my attempt of a first draft of a letter to my biological father - I'm sure it will take me a while! But I will take the advice given and do only that until I can deal with the exisiting hurt I have before I potentially dredge up any more. Just goes to show eh, I thought I was pretty together too!!

It's great to hear how you are doing, Lillee.

I think you're immensely strong and brave for seeing the counsellor and facing the things it threw up. You must be exhausted. I can relate to the way such an experience can give you a headache and make you feel drained.

The good thing is that she is enabling you to face these things in a relatively safe environment, with her support. It seems as if it's possible that meeting your father would throw these issues up for you to deal with, and you would be in a position of less control as a result.

I don't think you are being fair on yourself to think that you are not 'together'. Far from it! In my opinion, you are extremely self aware and courageous. It is by far the easier way to get angry or to lock things away and never address them. From what I have learned through my choices:

-- The hardest path is the one where you face things as they are, and take the time to find a way to live with them.

--There is no quick fix or shortcut. This way takes time and strength and energy.

--The peace of mind and understanding of yourself you come to at the end of it makes it all worth doing.

I've just been re-reading To Kill A Mockingbird. There is so much wisdom in there. My mum read parts of it to me when I was a child, and one of them that always stuck was Atticus saying that you never really understand someone until you climb into their skin and walk around in it.

I imagine it's bound to be that thinking about your father brings up feelings related to other family members. I think that I was probably more conscious of holding on those people I DID have as a child because I felt aware of the person I did NOT have.

It sounds as though the counsellor is on the right track, as long as you continue to feel that she's helping. I'm glad you found someone nice. How did you locate her in the end?

I hope that you have a relaxing weekend. I'll raise a glass of wine to you tonight!

P.S. Perhaps one day, when you have come through this and found peace (as you will), we'll get together and set up a help website! How does www.absentfathers.com sound . . .