findoing out you have a half sister after 28 years

Zini, Welcome to the forum. No you are not wrong to feel this way or to not want to bottle up your feelings. Obviously your mom is a different personality than you or is this a sister that she placed for adoption? If yes then there is years of bottled up feelings surrounding the surrender. Be angry and get it out but don't let it consume you. Do you want to meet your sister? Get to know her? It will be different than you relationship with your other sister because you have no shared memories but you can create new shared memories. As to your mom - tell her it is important to talk and if necessary ask her to go to family counseling with you so you keep your relationship and if your sister was placed by her for adoption then those feelings as well. Secrets and lies are not the way to live... Kind regards,Dickons

yes its a sister she placed up for adoption, i told my mum i couldnt trust her no more, and she told me thats my problem, and if i was in her shoes i would understand, i understand what she did but i dont understand all the years of not telling us, the lies, and continous lying, if my half sister had not contact her, we might never have known about her and we would have been kept in the dark still, its like she blurred out what she did and still wants to continue to do so, im trying to talk to her but i get yes and no answers, at the moment we aint talking instead of talking it out to her. i feel if i dont ill grow to hate and resent her.but again its just me been told im over reacting and to act my age, i recently met my haf sister and found it rather odd especially when there is only a year between us, it made it more real seeing her and i felt so much anger for my mum,I found out we have missed out in so much, i wanted to know how she felt about been adopted, she told us she knew since her early childhood, i explained to her how angry i am to be just told after so many years, She understood, while i was trying to ask my step sister those kind of questions my mum tried to talk about general things, as if brush it all aside and sweep it under the carpet. trying to play happy families all of a sudden. it seems just so false.

Zini, Mothers were told over and over again to not think about it - don't talk about it - continue on - pretend it never happened. Don't tell. It's shameful. Literally the list is endless of the brainwashing that happened to mothers. Even your mothers era there was shame and stigma about being an unwed pregnant woman. Losing your child is something you carry inside your soul for the rest of your life. My son died when he was an infant so that gave me a lot of empathy for what mothers who surrendered go through and truthfully, I think it was/is easier for me because there was a finality. Mothers who surrendered children had to live with the knowledge that they would never know if their child was loved, healthy, happy, sick, in pain, dead...unbearable feelings when there is no way to find out. As to why she never told you - if she had no expectation of ever being about to meet her daughter then most likely she wanted to keep you from feeling pain - right or wrong. But she DID come clean once she knew you could have a relationship. Take that as strength of character that her intentions are honorable. Closed adoptions mean closed sealed records with little chance of finding each other. Your mother would not even know for sure that your sister knew she was adopted...not everyone tells their children. She was strong enough to tell the truth so give her some time to process her story and the outcome, trust me the emotions are overwhelming and it is easy to shut down. Its a tough road. Stay here and vent and hopefully it will help. Kind regards,Dickons

thank you dickons you have been very kind, and great words of wisdom

zin, I too have half brothers and sisters I do not even know about. I recently found out through closed adoptin information I got in the mail. I am so exicted to learn that . I have 2 sisters and 1 brother. 2 are older and 1 is a younger sister. I wish you all the best of luck. I have missed out on so much about my sisbling. I will never get that back.

I sent you a PM.

I just found out recently that I have a half sister. I am in my mid thirties and she's some years older. My mom was not in a strong relationship and had no contact with the father after she told him she was giving up her baby. My mom and I have an extremely close relationship and I thought we could talk about just about anything. Turns out not. My first thought is that I would lvoe to meet her but I also feel betrayeed by my mom, for keeping this a secret for so long. I am a professional counsellor and am experienced in dealing with tough family issues but it's so much harder when it's my own family. Her birthday is the day before mine so my mom told me that my birthdya has always been a really hard day for her. Then I felt guilty! I don't think that's fair; while Ihave read the history and know a bit about how it was back then, that doesn't give her the right ot put this on me. The other problem is that my half sister posted information on an online search a few years ago but my mom just decided recently to contact her and watned to give me the heads up first. I guess I should be grateful for that. However, my sister's contact information is out of date and we only know her birth name, not her adopted name, so we can't even go searching for her. I may never get to find out more about her, so I almost wish my mom had kept it to herself after all these years, until she actually had firm contact. My mind and emotions are all over the place in the few weeks since she told me and I don't know how to handle this. Please, thoughts are welcome.

I was adopted and my family became a family after they gave me up. I have ruminated on this for awhile because it puzzled me how someone could keep this secret for so long. I look at it this way. There was a 50/50 chance I would want nothing to do with them. So my parents likely felt why open a wound my brothers would carry for the rest of their lives if I wanted no contact. The other piece to the puzzle is I was a ghost in that marriage they had to deal with. They married each other. I wonder if they didn't talk to each other about me or if I was a constant source of discontent, mistrust who knows. They likely felt some guilt and contented themselves with the Disney land fantasy that I would be better off. 50/50 chance of that too. At what point do you start telling a child that you gave a child up before they came along. What kind of stress would that cause? I don't know. There is a 50/50 chance a small child would grow up anxious wondering if the chips were down would they be given up too. So they made a choice. I don't imagine it was too easy to break the ice on that pond but they did when my brothers were in their late 30's. I have mentioned that an Inlaw's parent gave a daughter up prior to her marriage who she had no desire to contact after everyone was grown up. Didn't want to delve into the quagmire. But two of her son's and their families met their half sister. She wanted nothing to do with meeting her for whatever reason. She didn't tell her husband about this girl's existence. According to all sources He was a catch and she felt enough shame or lack of self confidence that she felt she would be judged. She died recently and the family just found out that the other thing she didn't tell her husband or anyone else is that she hadn't been claiming any income for herself for 12 years. Out of the blue recently her husband who is 77 years old finds out he owes 300 thousand in income tax due to her deception. Guess who steps up to the plate to help. One of the sons who went to meet the half sister. If this son wasn't willing to sell his house and move in with his father this poor chap would lose his house. The whole thing is wild. Here is a woman who internalized deception as a practice so deeply that she thought it would all go away. It's a good lesson about hiding your head in the sand and making it a way of life. I wonder if it wasn't some passive aggressive, deep seated fury at the situation. She risked her husband's security by doing this. She exchanged her financial security for a relationship with this girl not willing to take the risk that her husband would look down on her. 50/50 chance it was residual anger at the world and he became the focus. Resentment is indeed a strange bedfellow. Now her legacy is having screwed not one but two people over royally. She could have come clean and if she were not so greedy paid her income tax as it was due and be remembered as someone who accepted responsibility for her actions. Now she will be remembered as fraud or a lesson to all not to be deceptive. Sad isn't it. I think she could have been forgiven for having a child from a former relationship she couldn't manage to take care of much more easily. Food for thought isn't it?

If there is anything we should remember out of all these tales which would tweak Grimm's interest it's this that both sides of this dilemma are painful and everyone has issues. I feel for this woman who I never had the chance to talk to about her daughter. That I regret. I wonder if it would have made a difference. When people discuss her if I am in the right frame of mind....I think I will tell them this. [url=http://search.yahoo.com/r/_ylt=A0oG7qbAMNhQOjkAiVAXFwx.;_ylu=X3oDMTBybnZlZnRlBHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2FjMgR2dGlkAw--/SIG=120di46bd/EXP=1356374336/**http%3a//www.youtube.com/watch%3fv=NBZMmTH_uag]Etta James - Try A Little Tenderness - YouTube[/url]