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I pretty sure I 24yo daughter. I was friends with the mother in high school and she was my first. A few months later she started hanging out with her ex-boyfriend and stopped hanging out with me. Around the same time my mom had a heart attack and nervous breakdown and abandoned me at 17 and I moved away to my dads. A year later a common friend told me the girl I slept with got married and had a kid. I saw her one time after that 2 years later I think and she didnҒt say anything about the child being mine she was married and I moved on. My life was in chaos at the time and I was oblivious to a lot of things. Over the years I have looked for the mother with no luck with the little information I had. I got married and had three children of my own. Last week searching online killing time and I found her and the daughter. I found out when she was born which would put the conception date exactly to the week we were together and the daughter looks like me. My wife thinks she looks like me and all the date lines up perfectly I only know when all this happened because it was my first time and a day before major holiday. I contacted the mother and she said no it cant be mine because her doctor said the baby was three weeks late and that she already went over all of this in detail in the past. I asked if she ever did a paternity test and she said no. She was very cordial and we chatted for about an hour and I brought up how she looked very much like me, and she just said it couldnҒt be. The mother has been married twice and the daughter in question looks a lot different than her siblings. I am losing sleep over this and its killing me I have always been a great dad, and this is unraveling me. I dont know what to do. My wife thinks I should write her a letter explaining all of this. She knows I wear my heart on my sleeve and that this has devastated me I have three wonderful children and the thought that I have a daughter out there is killing me. I know I would be opening up a can of worms I donҒt know what kind of response I will get. A big part of me just say let it be and that I will hurt daughter coming forward and just deal with it and seek therapy. I want a paternity test, and would like to at least have a friendship I know I didnt raise her. If you had a father out there that wanted to meet you would you even want to know he existed?
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Of course, her mother said that. Her secret has been blown out of the water. She didn't have the right to keep that secret. If you are this young woman's father, she should have known you from the beginning. Sure, this is an emotional mess right now. Hopefully, things will settle down, so you can talk to your presumed daughter. You didn't act maliciously. You did what you did for the best intentions.
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Dad text me to stay away and that his ex-wfe said she was never with me and I must have my dates and who I was with wrong. I text him how could I not know who and when this the first girl I was ever with and that I wrote it down when it happened, (I even know what time and what song was on the radio). I text him that way back when all this happened she told me to keep it a secret that I thought at the time was so our friends didnt know. And I text him that I understand why he is upset, that we are both fathers, I just want the truth and I will never contact anyone anymore and that if he wants to talk to me he has my number I am not trying to replace or hurt anyone. Mom is in full denial. I would think curiosity would be to much eventually somebody is going to check either the father and daughter or she will check against one of her siblings with dna test.
You don't need to continue to talk with the parents. Your presumed daughter now apparently has the information. She needs time to think things through and to decide what she wants to do. She hasn't yet asked you to leave her alone, right? That might be a good sign that she potentially wants to keep the door open for future communication. Give her time. Give her space.
Dad replied totally understanding to my reply to him and believes me after putting thought into everything thats been said. He told me he thinks that his daughter is just not emotionally able to deal with all of this at the moment. The mom sent me another message to not talk to any of her family; I donҒt think she knows that the dad made contact with me. I am now just waiting I dont know where any of this will ever go but even if it goes nowhere I donҒt have this weighing on me any longer I did all I can do. The girl that I believe is my daughter can contact me and has my information; I will not initiate contact again.
Itsshiney - I'm sorry to hear of this whole situation. Its awful that this went on for so long. I've learned on this site; that when men think the child is theirs most of the time they're right. But as you stated, you've reached out to your daughter, she's going to need time to process all of this and if her Dad says she's not in a good place right now I'd believe him. Chances are it's going to take a while to settle in but I imagine she too will come around. After all she just found out half her life was a fraud. I can only imagine the trust issues she'll have with her mom for keeping such a huge thing secret. I imagine if she does make contact, it will trigger another round of panic in your wife. So talk to her and reassure her, make a plan should your daughter contact you so that she feels like she's secure in this situation and prepared. But most of all good luck. I can only imagine the pain of knowing that you didn't know. So sorry that you were deceived.
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She contacted me. Wanted a paternity test, I ordered one and had it mailed to the both of us. I am her father but I knew I was when I saw the photos of her. She told me she just wanted medical history and didn't want a relationship. I feel pretty devastated I had held out hope that I could get to know her. I feel like have been cheated out of something in life, I know I have a good life but this is just really hard. I hope she has a change of heart and is just trying to process all of this. I have always felt like something was missing from my life, I blamed a lot of the feelings on my parents neglect but now think this could have been why even though it may sound silly. I don’t know why it is so hard for me to get over this, you would think I have no bond to this person and being a guy it would roll off of me but I can’t shake the way I feel it’s such a horrible sadness.
I just wanted to share with you a bit of my own journey. I am reading your pain and praying she will at least give you the chance to be friends. You are one of the first I've read about who is a father wanting to find his daughter, or confirm. I was adopted in a closed adoption - so I decided to dna test.My own biological father was never told I existed. I was contacted via nasty letter by my birth mother stating my bio father was married with children when I was conceived. She went on to say she never wanted me to find her, should I continue "digging" she would pursue legal action against me. (That was part was funny to me). I had no idea what to do - do I still search for my bio father and possibly destroy a family? I had an idea of a gentleman or his brother. Either one would be possible, both were still married to original wives. One of the men had lost 2 children in an accident, I was so depressed, I wonder if they would even want to know about me. I thought maybe I was being selfish to think my desire to find my biological past should trump these decent people who had no idea of me. SO I left things alone and battled internally.Well long story short, my biological aunt (his sister) dna tested and she contacted me!! I gave her all my info, copies of adoption, some of my research etc. I even showed her a copy of the letter from my birth mother. She & her granddaughter expressed joy and excitement in "finding me". This was all a few weeks before christmas. I sent a friendly email just saying hi about a week ago. She emailed me back, stating she told her brothers of me & they wanted to discuss with immediate family. She knew nothing else. I have heard nothing....So now I wait. I am curious as to how hard it must be to find out you have a 41 year old daughter and 4 grandkids. I pray he is able to except me - but in reality I am sure I am nothing but an embarrassing mistake. I wish life worked better, those of us wanting contact would be able to connect. The truth seems to me a bit one sided, one person wants a relationship the other doesn't. But as a woman who has searched for biological family and not had the greatest journey - I applaud you for your effort. Keep it light and easy, she may come around and be curious as to who you are as a person - not just wanting medical info. Don't pressure her, but maybe keep in contact lightly. Best of luck - please don't give up on her.....
Thank you Jill, I am holding out hope it’s just really hard I am the type of person that always has to solve and fix things. I sometimes think if I just had a chance to meet her in person make eye contact and give her a huge it would make everything better even though I know that’s wishful thinking. I have no idea what is going on in her head, but from what I can gleam of her looking online we have many things in common some things which just seem too extraordinary to be by chance.
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Thank you Jill, I am holding out hope it’s just really hard I am the type of person that always has to solve and fix things. I sometimes think if I just had a chance to meet her in person make eye contact and give her a huge it would make everything better even though I know that’s wishful thinking. I have no idea what is going on in her head, but from what I can gleam of her looking online we have many things in common some things which just seem too extraordinary to be by chance.
Thank you Jill, I am holding out hope it’s just really hard I am the type of person that always has to solve and fix things. I sometimes think if I just had a chance to meet her in person make eye contact and give her a huge it would make everything better even though I know that’s wishful thinking. I have no idea what is going on in her head, but from what I can gleam of her looking online we have many things in common some things which just seem too extraordinary to be by chance.
Last update on June 29, 10:11 am by Jesse Morgan.
I had a very similar experience in my own life and found out in August of 2018 that I have a 28 yr old daughter. I can go into the details of what happened all those years ago, but I will focus on where we are today and how it relates to your situation.I can relate to all the emotions you are going through as well. I am a good father to my children and finding this out devastated me. I thought I would never get over the incredible heartbreak and that it would eventually break me. I cried for days and weeks on end. I went through every emotion from sadness to extreme anger. There is a term for it, anger grief, it can drive some men to terrible places and some take their own lives because of it. I can tell you that if you focus on getting help for yourself that it will get better. You will never completely understand why any of this happened though and cannot let this drag you down.Thank you for posting, you are the first dad I have seen in a simuMy daughter initially wanted to keep me at arms length, but we began exchanging messages that led to phone conversations and began figuring out where we wanted this to go. I let her take the lead and made sure she felt in control of this. I wanted her to be comfortable as she is a bit withdrawn and somewhat shy. I wrote her other father, who knew he was not her biological father, letters that I shared with her before sending to make sure she understood where I was coming from and that I wasn't in this to hurt anyone. I just wanted her to know me and my family. She eventually agreed to meet and we slowly began figuring out how this was going to work. There are no instructions or manuals to guide any of us in these situations. It was with patience and understanding of our potential impact on the others lives that we inched our way along on this path to know one another. I had to remind myself, and still do, that she is not to blame for any of this and that she is responsible for how I feel or react to her identifying herself as a member of her "step" family. Its extremely difficult at times not to just blurt out things I want to say about her bio mom and step father's actions. They lied to her all these years and had no intent of her ever knowing I existed or who she really was. But that would put my position in her life at risk and because of that I keep it to myself. I am as cordial as can be when talking to any of her other family. It pays dividends again and again when I do. Much of her early reservations were based on fear of hurting her other family and I focused on reassuring her I would do all I could to avoid hurting anyone she cared about. Again, I gave her control over the relationship.I am happy to say that we have built a relationship that I could have never expected. I see her as much as possible, we live in separate states, and I step down as an executive in my company to get the flexibility I needed to be able to see her, and my grandchildren she has, at least once a month. We talk everyday and the day she called me Dad, I broke. I cried as hard as I had done in the very beginning of this experience. She means the world to me just as my other two children do.I hope you can eventually have a similar situation develop and begin to connect as her and I have. I will warn you that it doesn't get easier either, at least in some aspects of how you two might view things differently when it comes to her other family. But it's worth every moment of struggle to have her a part of my life. I do not know you and as odd as it might sound, I am here to help in any small way I can. I hope you do reach out if things haven't changed for you and her. An Understanding Dad
UpdateWe are starting to text back and forth with questions and photos, I think we will be meeting soon and see where it goes from there. We are both trying to be positive about this, we are both I think a little guarded with our feelings along with all sorts of other traits we share and going to take it slow. Her father in-law just had the same thing happen to him through 23andme, I think it made her rethink it all. With all of the gene testing going one now I have the feeling these kind of things are going to start happening to a lot of men later in life.
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Thank you for sharing your 4 year journey. Our story is very similar and we have been struggling with this for two years.Two years ago, my husband approached me about a dream he had and couldn't shake the feelings he perhaps may have fathered a child before meeting me. Through social media, we discovered his ex and determined a daughter who would have been born around the time they ended their relationship almost two decades ago. We reached out to get the answers only to be road blocked by the mother denying she even knew him but all the evidence provided to me before our search (photos, birthday, maiden name, birth town) lead me to believe it was her. The father who raised his "potential" daughter passed away on the very day my youngest was born which I found too coincidental and freakish. I'm not one to believe in signs and dreams....and asked for a DNA test which they are denying. I hope one day, the daughter of his ex will find compassion to go through with the DNA test regardless if she wants us or not in her life and hopes she understands that if it is positive, our intentions is not to take over the place of her late father who raised her but to allow us to be a part of her life which ever capacity she needs and wants. We have three boys and it tears us apart that they may have a half sister out there that they may never meet.Thank you for sharing your story and we hope we can find closure and answers.
Jesse. thank you so much for posting, you are the first father other than myself that I have seen in this situation. It gives me hope that I will be able to get to a better place with all of this. How did your wife and kids deal with all of this? My wife acts as though she is ok with it all but I can tell it hurts her underneath it all and that she is worries about how this will effect our own children which are all still very young.
Last update on November 18, 10:37 am by Jesse Morgan.