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Hi
This is going to a long one, sorry.
My parents sat me down when I was 12 and told me that my Dad wasn't my biological father. I was earth shaken, I loved my dad and this destroyed my self identity. They didn't want to tell me, they had to. I was getting older and my parents relationship was going to start raising questions. My Mom gave birth to me at 16 and my dad is 9 years older. Kinda creepy if he was my birth father. I was getting to the age where I could put it together. My father and his whole family have jet black hair and brown eyes, I have bright blond hair and sky blue eyes. My brother came onto the scene with my Dad's striking features.
So they made the decision to tell me before I found out on my own. They could only give me a name and a school that my mother went to half way across the country. She told me the story of a young love, an accident and that while biological father wasn't ready, his family offered to take me in. She wouldn't leave me behind and eventually moved away to be close to family in another city. She met my Dad when i was young and they built a family. They told me not talk about it at all. To this day my brothers don't know this story and they are unwilling to tell them for fear of fracturing the family. The youngest has made some remarks over the years, but never flat out asked.
I have always been curious to learn about my birth father. But with my great family have never been super focused on tracking down someone who had walked away without paying a cent of child support or attempted to be a part of my life. When I turned 25 I spent 6 months working in my birth city and my curiosity finally caught up to me. I called everyone with my BF's last name in the city ( over 250 in the phone book) without so much as a lead. My curiosity was defeated by the rejection. Strangely I felt proud of myself, I tried, I failed but I tried. I moved on from that moment secure in how I felt about my identity, my family and my history.
Every year I would get the itch of curiosity and casually google his popular name, looking for a yearbook collection from that school and checking facebook. I always found what I expected to, which was Nothing. 2 days ago Nothing turned into Something.
I found an Obituary in the newspaper archive from 2009, he was still living in my birth city when he died. Almost 2 years after I had been in the city looking him up. There wasn't a picture, with such a common popular name this obituary could have been another dead end. The only clue was his birthdate. 1 year older than my mother. There were 20+ names listed including a daughter. I went on a facebook and ancestry , searched and researched everyone, I quickly found the family connections. A little more digging and I finally found a photo. It hit me, it was him. I had never seen him before this single photo, but undoubtedly it was him . I showed my wife and she was floored by the resemblance.
This is so bitter sweet. Now I know, and know that i will never know.... I thought I was over this, but I am not. I am stuck... should reach out to his family to find out more about my genealogy and my birth father? i know that my half sister knows by her tree in ancestry, but the other family members have omitted me in in theirs . She built a family tree just after her mother died. She is 17 years younger than me and just going into university. I am fearful of reaching out to her at such a young age, and I am worried that my BF brother and sisters might not want to be found ( super closed facebook accounts)
I am worried about the truth coming out to my brothers if i do reach out because of the long standing "family secret". I think my Dad would understand ( he never knew his own birth father) but i don't think my Mom would.
I am just reeling. The thing I fear the most is doing nothing. I am going to sit on this a couple weeks until I can really sort out how I feel. If i do decide to reach out, what approach have you tried? I can only find facebook listings so my only first contact would be through messenger. I have nothing offer except my photo and my story as I know it. I have no expectations of a reunion, i am not looking for a heart felt togetherness. I am just curious, looking for some answers and want to put the unknown to rest.
I wasn't determined enough 12 years ago and missed the opportunity to meet my birth father. If I don't push now I will likely regret it, but if i do it could create chaos in my now family and in my birth family.
Lost.....
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You've got a lot on your plate right now, no wonder see you're feeling lost. I think you are wise to sit on this for a little while, I know I always handle things better once I've taken a little time to process.
I think you should contact your birth family. The worst that could happen with them is that they might not want contact. But you don't have contact with them now, so reaching out couldn't make it worse. If I had a half brother I would want to know about it. I think if you don't reach out to them, you'll always wonder what might have happened.
As far as worrying about causing chaos, I think it might not be all bad. Most of the time I see birth families excited about connecting with their relatives they didn't know they had.
There is no shame in your story. You did nothing wrong. Family secrets always come out in the end, and I don't think you'd be doing anything wrong by disclosing this information to your siblings. It very well might cause some tension for awhile. But after that, you won't have to have the stress of the family secret anymore. Everything will be open and above board, which in my experience makes everyone more comfortable in the long run.
Thats just my two cents, you're the only one who knows what's best for you. But I hope you do what you feel is best for YOU, without keeping things bottled up to make the people around you more comfortable.
Keep us updated on what's going on, and feel free to vent whenever you need.
Im going through the same thing right now. My mom didn’t marry my step dad until I was 12 so I obviously know of my bios absence prior to then. I never asked about him growing up because I felt, what’s the point, he chose to not be my father and ran off so why should I go running after him. But still I always wondered who he was. She had mentioned him briefly here and there. Found out that like me, both my biological grandmother and aunt on that side were Type 1 Diabetics just like me. So, obviously he did pass down something. This weekend she informed me that she had decided to search for him online. She found his obituary. He had been struck by a car crossing a road in the very town I was born and raised in. He never left, but certainly made himself scarce. After some research I have found that only his half brother and brother in law along with younger nieces and nephews are still alive to contact. Also, from how his obit reads, I believe he never married and never had any other children, at least not any he’d take claim to. The brothers and other fam have no clue I ever existed, so I’m not sure whether to contact them or not. I’m worried they might be the type of people I wish I hadn’t contacted.
Last update on October 9, 12:40 am by Amanda Barras.
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