Ask Amy: Entire family knows my cousin’s dad isn’t her real father, except her

[cereta]

Dear Amy: My uncle has four daughters, each about two years apart in age, but his oldest daughter never really fit in.

Their mom obsessed over the three younger girls and mostly ignored her eldest.

As adults, the three younger sisters learned from a drunken aunt that their dad isn’t the oldest daughter’s biological father.

It turns out their mom was pregnant with her when she met her husband (in a bar). The daughters are all now in their 50s and for decades everyone in the family has known – except her.

I’ve always believed that someone should tell her. Her father and sisters have said it wasn’t their secret to tell – it was her mom’s, who died two years ago.

In the past few years, the oldest daughter has cut off all ties to her family.

When she didn’t go to her mom’s funeral, her father cut her out of his will without telling her.

There are complicated family dynamics, to put it mildly (her mom was a severe alcoholic and emotionally abusive).

I’m just a cousin, but I believe that someone should tell her.

It may be because I’m adopted, but I think that her DNA is something she/anyone should know, especially since dozens of other people know about it.

Should I be the one to tell her?

– Concerned Cousin

Dear Concerned: According to you, your cousin has been excluded since childhood and is now completely cut off from her immediate family.

In addition to other dynamics you describe, secrets also separate family members, interfering with relationships.

Your insight as someone who was adopted into the extended family is helpful. Your relative distance as a cousin might make this encounter easier for her.

She already knows she doesn’t “belong” with her kin, she likely already suspects that she has a different father from her siblings, or she may have already had her own DNA sampled.

Yes, I think this is a topic you should broach with your cousin. She has the right to know what so many others already know. One can hope that discovering another group of DNA relatives will bring her into a more deserving family fold.

Comments

[cereta]

I stumbled across this through someone chiding Amy for her answer, calling it a "MYOB" situation. I strongly disagree (whose business is it but the person whose DNA is involved?), but I have a strong bias. I'm curious as to what others think.

[cimorene]

I agree with Amy, and I think the commenter is egregiously wrong. Everyone has a right to know about their genetic background, for medical reasons if nothing else, but in this case, her family history, which sounds awful, is another strong argument for it. In the mother's lifetime an argument could be made that it was "her secret" perhaps, although for the above reason I think keeping it from her was wrong. But contrary to their claims, now that she's dead, her opinion carries no weight! Nothing can hurt her or her feelings now, and the real and practical concerns of her living daughter take precedence. And her daughter is in pain and has suffered her whole life in a way that this secret is extremely relevant to!

[green_grrl]

Agree. Having this explanation can give her an “aha” and closure that nothing else could. She can move on and find peace in her life.

[nineveh_uk]

+1 She already knows she isn't loved, and that she has been treated unfairly. Telling her why offers her the chance of freedom from uncertainty or self-doubt, even though it may also be hard to process.

It also gives her the option to consider finding her biological father or other relatives. No guarantee of a happy ending, of course, but she'd have the choice.

[cora]

I fully understand the level of guilt, shame, humiliation, etc. behind the "MYOB" answer, but here's the thing: Shame thrives in darkness, and the world is a (slightly) different place than it was 50 years ago. Either way, mom is now dead, so there isn't someone to upset on this side of the family. Maybe dad knew about the pregnancy and didn't want to stick around, maybe dad lied to mom to get laid and thus wasn't going to commit, maybe dad has really good and valid reasons for why he couldn't commit, maybe dad has no idea and would be thrilled to find out he has a kid, or maybe dead is now dead, so there isn't someone to upset on that side of the family, either.

Daughter deserves the option of closure and the option to know where she comes from.

[feast_of_regrets]

Amy has it right. The telling is way overdue, and LW's family apparently has no conscience about it. MYOB is a horribly cruel response.

[syderia]

I'm mostly in the "tell her" camp, with maybe a suggestion to ask the daughter if she wants to know. Because if she cut off contact, she might not want to to reopen wounds that might have healed m.

[melannen]

+1 Ask her if she wants to know all the dread family secrets now that she's safely out of it, and if she says no, leave it, but otherwise, tell her. (I give pretty good odds she'll respond by saying she has a pretty good guess what it is, though.)

[castiron]

I think it's much better for daughter to learn of her parentage from a cousin who cares about her, than for daughter (or her kids!) to find out when she takes a DNA test and discovers she has unexpected close matches to strangers and unexpected missing matches on her paternal side.

I also think her stepfather has proved that he isn't her real dad.

[conuly]

I can see how some situations *broadly similar* to this one might be MYOB - but this is not that situation.

1. Everybody else in the family knows, including this woman's sisters.

2. This lack of connection has affected her relationship with both her parents (here meaning "her mother and her social father" and not meaning "her bio father" who doesn't have a relationship with her at all).

3. She's estranged from her closest relatives, so this news won't negatively affect her relationships with them.

There's no good side to keeping a dead woman's secrets here.

[mrissa]

I know of a couple of "everyone else knows" situations in my own family, not identical to this one but similar structure of who is central to the thing and who knows about it, and--for heaven's sake tell her.

[cereta]

I have a colleague who has a situation like that in her family, where everyone knows but the adopted person. And I've seen more than one situation where parents waited too long to tell their kids, or worse, didn't tell them until the kid found out independently, which is way more likely to happen now. I just can't imagine keeping that kind of information from my kid.