Care and Feeding: DNA kit may reveal past infidelity

[cereta]

Source.

Dear Care and Feeding,

Twenty-four years ago, I cheated on my husband when we were going through a rough patch in our marriage. It was brief; I ultimately broke it off and reconciled with my husband. Not long after, I realized I was pregnant. My husband forgave me and said it didn’t matter who the baby’s father was. When I had my daughter, “Marigold,” we decided never to say anything to her or our other two kids, who were 3 and 5 at the time.

This Christmas, my older daughter gave Marigold and her brother each one of those AncestryDNA testing kits as gifts. My husband passed away two years ago, and he was the only father Marigold has ever known; my older children have never learned about the affair.

I am at a crossroads here: I honestly have no idea whether Marigold’s biological father was my husband or the man I had an affair with. If I keep quiet and the test shows that my husband wasn’t Marigold’s father, it will send shock waves through the family, but if I tell Marigold about my affair and it turns out my husband was her father after all, I’m afraid it will tear the family apart all the same. Do I say nothing and keep my fingers crossed that the test will show that my husband was Marigold’s father, or should I tell her the truth before the kids get their results back? Please help!

—Regretting My Past

Dear Regretting,

I understand your dilemma—what a tense moment around the tree that must have been for you!—but I assure you there is no possible justification for saying anything to your kids, unless the DNA test shows that your husband wasn’t Marigold’s biological father. No good can come from telling them about this complicated chapter in your marriage if you don’t have to. While his willingness to raise her was a testament to his commitment to you, there’s no need for Marigold to know that her father never knew for sure if she was his biological child. If you need to talk to someone while you wait in agony for the results, pick one of your friends. Hopefully, you’ll be able to let sleeping dogs lie.

If the test reveals that Marigold has another father, you’ll need to be fully transparent with her and her siblings about the past. Be sure that they know that your husband willingly made the decision to stay in your marriage and love Marigold as his own. Apologize to them for the pain you’ve caused. Be honest about the challenges in your relationship that led to your infidelity; do not attempt to sanitize your husband’s part in the estrangement in the telling of this story. Support Marigold if she chooses to seek out your affair partner, and brace yourself for how he might react if he didn’t know that he may have fathered your child. If things go this way, it will be tumultuous, to say the least, but I believe that with patience and love, your family will make it through.

—Jamilah

Comments

[cereta]

So, the advice here is to let this young woman send in a DNA matching kit, presumably at the same time as her two siblings (which is important, because if their match is only for half-sibling, the other two will see it, too), and, what? Besides praying the right spermatozoum hit the target, what is the vision for possible results, here? Is LW hoping (and Jamilah assuming) that her daughter and/or other offspring will immediately confront her with the results, thus giving her time to put the best possible spin on the situation? Has it genuinely occurred to neither of them that the offspring will agonize over this and over what to do? Or that having them find out that mom cheated on dad from anyone but mom is going to be much, much worse than learning it from the parents who love them?

GAH. This is why I hate, hate, hate keeping secrets like this from kids. I mean, yes, this is one situation where telling a small child the truth would have been unwise, but faced with the very real possibility of Marigold (and again, her siblings, too) finding out, it's time to sit everyone down and have a talk.

[topaz_eyes]

Imho this is why home DNA kits should never have been allowed on the market for ancestry/geneaology purposes: there's no appropriate counselling provided for handling situations like this, so clients are left on their own to deal with the fallout. (Also see this recent letter: A DNA test upended my identity) At least for medical gene testing, clients can follow up with their doctors if the client is a carrier of certain genes that increase risk of illness.

The solution of course is don't keep secrets like this from your kids, but society may never reach that point.

[melannen]

I've never understood people who get kits for their entire nuclear family. You, your siblings, your mom and dad all testing won't tell you anything about ancestry that just one of you testing won't tell you. Unless you are hoping for a surprise like this.

[cereta]

Well, I could see getting one for my daughter if she ever wanted to, because she has a whole half of her heritage that's different from mine (we're assuming in this scenario that her father didn't test), in her case one that's gloriously messed up and ambiguous (spouse's paternal grandmother, at the age of like 94, announced that spouse's grandfather, who had an Italian last name and always identified as Italian, specifically Corsican, was actually 3/4 Irish). But overall, yeah, I see the point.

[melannen]

Yeah, one parent and one child testing can make sense! Or you and your spouse. But several full siblings? All the siblings and both parents? When I hear about this I always suspect the person who bought them suspected something. (Or that the company has predatory sales practices. Which is also probably true.)

[redbird]

There are reasons for full siblings all having genetic testing, but they're medical. I don't know whether the home test kits even check for those genes, but for those questions, I'd want to be working with a doctor or genetic counselor. Not open an envelope and see bad news about my risk of breast cancer.

[topaz_eyes]

I recently looked into this re specialized pharmacogenomic DNA testing (genes involved in drug metabolism). Commercially, 23andMe tests for several genes related to disease susceptibility as well as ancestry. So yes, there are commercial home test kits that check for medical reasons.

Unfortunately, access to genetic counsellors can be limited depending on where one lives.

[redbird]

It also occurs to me that there could be a significant difference between doing the test at least partly because you're already wondering about one of those genes, and having the information come out of the blue.

[jenett]

I did one of the early rounds of it, partly because I was curious (in specific: family heritage that made the BRCA genes relevant, but also no particular family history of breast cancer). I did it with the idea that if it turned up anything relevant, then I would go to my doctor and check on it further.

(And a couple of other things that turned up are not make or break deals, but knowing about them turned out to be helpful in approaching a couple of chronic things more sensibly.)

[jadelennox]

the only reasons I know to get one for a sibling would be:

• you can get one for your XY sibling if you're XX, because you can get more results on an XY person
• you get a medical one, probably because one of you tested positive for something and you want to know about the others (but that wouldn't be Ancestry, and it wouldn't be Christmas gift)
• you can get one if you think one of your parents cheated because you look so dissimilar to your siblings 😏

[castiron]

Yeah, if Mom and Dad are available to test, there's no reason to test the kids as well; the kids won't have any matches that Mom or Dad don't.

It is helpful for genealogical research to have multiple full siblings test when both parents can't be tested; my aunt and uncle have matches that my mom doesn't, and with their tests I can confirm an ancestor a few generations back that I wouldn't be able to confirm with my mom's test alone. But if my grandparents had lived into the DNA testing era and been tested, I wouldn't need the siblings' tests.

[melannen]

LW, tell your kids. You don't have to tell them about the affair or that Marigold in particular might have a different dad. But tell them that neither you or your husband would be surprised if one of them had a different father but never knew for sure, that this was something private to your marriage that you were both okay with, that your husband was okay with it and loved them all, that you never told them because you didn't want any of them to feel like they didn't belong in the family, and if one of them does get a surprise in the kit, to come talk to you first.

If it turns out they all have the same dad, tell them they can come back and nag you about family secrets once they're all secure in knowing who they are (or go "eww parent sex I don't want to know" and never ask again.) If Marigold does have a different biodad, this gives her the chance to work through some stuff and decide what she does about it before either of you share with anyone else.

[lannamichaels]

Yes this! I was going to say the same thing. She should tell them it's a possibility BEFORE, and reiterate that they decided not to get a paternity test done because it didn't matter to them.

[castiron]

This is the way.

[conuly]

LW's husband was Marigold's father in every aspect but the very least important one, which is why LW needs to emphasize when speaking to Marigold about this before she tests.

Waiting until afterwards is... it's not gonna end well. Or, well, there's a roughly 50% chance it won't end well.

[ysobel]

Telling before testing: 100% chance the kids find out, but it can also emphasize "we didn't do paternity test because Dad wanted to be your Dad in all the ways that matter"

Telling after testing in case of other result: 50% chance kids find out, but the difference is unexpected and may cause a storm of worries and emotions.

I don't understand the columnist advocating *not telling*.