Question: Dear Luise: 18 years ago I had a child with a woman in a different state. We had tried to understand our lives at that time but the chemistry wasn’t there and we went our separate ways and she took custody of my daughter. It was a no legal matter as I bowed down and did not try to fight her knowing we could not live together. She at that time financially had all the upper hands on me and I didn’t want to fight her so I just let go and lived on with my life for the last 20 years. I’ve thought about my daughter all these years and wished I could see her and know about her but I have been intimidated by her mother and have let the years slip by. I have tried to find where she lives and found the town in her state. She has an unlisted number as I have searched the phone directory. I lived all of my life with out my mother and didn’t want my daughter to go through the pain I felt and that’s my excuse. I have changed and am 50 years old and just lost my father who was my last immediate family member. I now feel alone and would love to talk or maybe get the chance to meet her for I have family pictures for her and want to leave some of my belongings to her when I go. A picture of her would be fantastic and to know if she is a musician like her father. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Can I just call or drive there and try to talk to her mother? She needs to know who I am and where I am, as I need to know her. I’m her father and we should be in touch now. If it’s any concern I teach handicapped people to ski and live with a woman with adoptive children. Please help with any advice. Thank you. M.
Answer: Dear M.: This is, as you know better than anyone, a touchy situation.
And good for you for using the word “excuse” instead of “reason.”
I think I would carefully draft a letter to the daughter with a copy to her mother. Send the mother’s a few days later to be sure the original isn’t intercepted by her.
Since they don’t live at the same address; that should work. A call after almost two decades would be a big shock. Well, a letter could be, too, but there’s room for recovery when something comes in the mail. Of course the letters could both be dropped into a wastepaper basket just the way a phone call could be immediately terminated.
You say, “She needs to know who I am and where I am, as I need to know her. I’m her father and we should be in touch, now.” That’s a perception. Your daughter may have always wanted to know about you or she may not be remotely interested. Children who grow up with one parent missing can make up a lot of stuff. If you didn’t pay child support while she was growing up, that might be an issue no matter how well fixed her mom was. You need to face the fact that there could be issues coming out of the woodwork.
I’m with you, I think any clarification and any chance of reconciling is worth whatever it costs, emotionally, to initiate it and follow through. You may be blindsided but if you don’t try you will never know if you might have been well received.
I just want to add that I have a deep respect for the kind work you do.
Try to keep an open mind and not count too much on a positive result. Better to be pleasantly surprised than acutely disappointed. Blessings, Luise
Hi, Well here is some hope for you. I lost my daughter 1 month after she was born. I feel like I was kind of in the same situation as you. Well she will be 18 Monday and she found me on Facebook a few months ago. We have been talking online and I had my first phone conversation with her a couple of weeks ago. I now realize how much I do love her still. Hopefully one day your daughter will come looking for you. Keep your head up and try to find her. You`ll be glad you did. J.
Dear J. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your experience. It’s worth it’s weight in gold. Blessings, Luise
I would like to add what I am currently going through right now. My daughter, 19, has been searching for her father for several years. We had an on again/off again relationship for a little over 2 years and when I became pregnant, he was going through some legal woes and wasn’t ready to accept his responsibility. So, my daughter found him and her grandfather. She and I saw them on May 2, 2009 and this was the first time she had ever met them. The reunion was more than hoped for, as not only was my daughter delighted with having found her biological father, he, and his father, were equally excited to welcome her into their lives and hearts. My ex came up again this past weekend and spent 4 nights and 5 days with us. He and I have had numerous conversations, specifically with him asking me how to be a ‘good dad’ to her after all these years. He is petrified of scaring her away. My daughter on the other hand is having a difficult time adjusting to having a ‘dad’ around and has sent him on his way. He is crushed and confused. She is confused. Both of them need time to meld as father/daughter and I have to give him credit, he did a better job of ‘bending over backwards’ for her than she did for him. I was apprehensive when she first announced she wanted to find him. Fear that she would get hurt. As it turns out, she is the one hurting him. I am extremely disappointed with the direction things are now going. I’m sad for her that she had him pictured as a knight in shining armour, when in fact, he is just a good hearted father, wanting to try to make up for lost time. I’m sad for him, as I know this man has a good heart and would never harm her, yet she did that exact thing to him… she broke his heart. Now where do we all go? J.
Dear J.: It sounds like you are being amazingly supportive and understanding to both of them. It up to them, you know. They will either work it out or they won’t. Your daughter is tripping over her own expectations and she’s the one in the driver’s seat. Blessings, Luise
Hi All, Just wanted to add another experience to the conversation. My daughter was born when I was 22, just after I had moved a few hours from home to finish my degree. Her mother and I were/are completely incompatible, to everyone’s dismay. For a very long time, things were so bad between us, we were not in contact at all, and I didn’t see her or my daughter. 6 years ago, after my daughter had just turned 6, her mother wrote me suggesting that it would be good if our daughter could know who her father was. I was working far from home then and was able to make a visit about a month after receiving her letter. After our first meeting, I was very excited and happy, and it seemed that my daughter was happy to meet me as well. Her mother and I tried to make an appropriate arrangement for me to visit, (two times a month or so, due to distance) and for occasional phone calls (6yr olds are not easy to have phone conversations with for long, haha.) After about 5 months of this, her mother decided that in fact it would be better for me not to be a part of my daughter’s life (due to her own expectations of my occasional presence having some meaning for her personal life- clearly not something I had in mind.) She explained that she would not like for me to see my daughter, and also that i should no longer call to speak with her on the phone. After trying through the summer months to contact them, and returning to live in our home state, I decided to pursue visitation and child support proceedings– even my paternity had never been legally established by this point. This process took about 4 months to become finalized during which I was granted supervised visitations bi-weekly, ending with a “standard” visitation schedule every other week/holiday with extended times in summer and at Christmas. This was about 4 and a half years ago. Two years ago, I moved out of the country due to work, and have explained in writing and arranged with my daughter’s mother that I would still like to maintain the child support agreement, and to have my daughter for two weeks at Christmas and the prescribed month in the summer until I am coming back to the states (with about 6 months to a year to go). I know that this has been difficult for my daughter,and for me as well, since we were seeing each other on a fairly consistent basis for some time. For the past couple of years though, it has not been as much, although our times we do have are at least guaranteed, even if spread far apart. My daughter is now turning 12 next week, and coming into her own emotionally. I am not able to be here with her regularly, and it is obviously having an affect on her and her comfort level with me, she is easily becoming more distant with me, where before she was quited happy to see me, now there is a distance which is growing between us. How can I help her to feel more comfortable with the fact that I am coming back soon, and we will be able to spend more regular amounts of time together, when it seems more often now that this is an idea which is very unsettling to her? I have no intention of abandoning her or dropping out of her life, on the contrary, I am anxiously awaiting my green light to come back home so we can get back on our previous track? It is so bad now, that she is not even comfortable hugging me or calling me “dad” as she used to. She is angry that I was not a part of the first half of her life, and this is not a situation that is so easy to explaining to a budding 12 year old. Truthfully it is becoming a little unsettling for the both of us, and I don’t want to lose her emotionally. Thanks for any thoughts and suggestions, R.
Dear R.: I doubt that you can “get back on track” with your daughter. She has been subjected to so much on-again-off-again parenting that you may have to stat all over when you get back.
It would probably be wise of offer her counseling, as well. Blessings, Luise
I just found out that I have a 10 year old daughter. I have never met her or spoke to her. She lives in another state and that state sent me for a dna test which came back positive. I have not seen her mother in almost 11 years. I heard threw the grapevine over the years she had a baby but she was living with a guy when I was seeing her. I have a 3 yr. old daughter whom I am a full-time father too. I think of all the sweet things she does and says and then i think of how i have missed all these moments with my 10 yr. old daughter. I keep asking myself why did i not go to her state to pursue it when people told me she had a baby. My family tells me that i was 16 when she was born and that i didnt know if she was mine, but this does not relieve the guilt that i have and deserve. I feel bad for her not knowing her father all these years. I have been able to find her mother’s information off the internet since I found out. I plan on making contact I just don’t know where to begin. I mean she is 10, she is old enough to have an opinion, she may not want to know me. But God-willing she does want to know me, where do i start? what do i say? Should I write her first? Call first? What do i say to her when i first see her? I am a strange man she has never met I want her to be comfortable. 10 years is a long time to make up for. i hate she missed out on that time of having the love my 3 yr. old daughter has from me, and the same for myself. And what do I tell my 3 yr. old daughter? She is not going to understand why all of a sudden she has a 10 year old sister. I just want to do what is right and best for both of my children. Please help. Sincerely, J.
What a wonderful, sensitive person you are. Your 10 year-old daughter is lucky to have you turn up in her life. On the other side of the coin, you may have been included in her life because her mother wants money, not a dad for her daughter. There are endless possibilities here. What I would do is talk to a child psychologist, not just about how to break the ice after a 10 year absence, but about how to proceed from there. And I would stay in touch with that professional as this drama unfolds in your life so you can handle it in the best way possible. You need an advocate, to my way of thinking.
I have the doosey here, when I was 15 my girlfriend had a baby, and our parents separated us immediately. My parents filled my head with rubbish about how she was not with only me, she had other boyfriends, which I now find out was not true. She married when she was 17 and our son has always believed that man was his father. He adopted my son when he was 4. I finally found him and his mom on facebook this year. I contacted his mom, who was surprisingly happy to hear from me. She recently told him that his biological father came looking for him, but he has seemed uninterested, he has my phone and email, but is not contacting me. He is 24 now, I feel such guilt and remorse for not being there, but I was unable to find his mom until now. I am having a hard time waiting for it to sink in and for him to email me or call. I have waited 24 years, it’s only been a couple of weeks for him. I am having trouble being patient…
Your son may feel he has waited 24 years and not be remotely interested. The ball is in his court and I hope his curiosity gets the best of him, soon. I don’t know anything you can do but wait and hope that something comes of this.
To all you dads out there that wonder if its worth “intruding” into you lost childrens lifes it so is. I am 29 and have never met my father. My mother told me he droped her off at the laundry matt while she was still pregnate and never came back. Later after years of feeling like he never wanted to know me she said he came back but she decided it would be best for me to never know him. The angry I had all those years directed at my father then turned to my mother. For her to deny me my father well there just arent words for it. She told me his name is George Walker and was a ranch hand but will not give me any other information. I know people will say there maybe other reason she doesnt want me to know him but I think I should have been able to make that choice not her. Im married, planning a family of my own and will never know what it would have been to have him give me away. Or to even know what a father is suppose to be to his child. Ive never seen a photo, dont know if the eyes I have are his. So to all you dads out there let your children know who you are.
Trying to respond to this, I wrote a two-page essay on my experience. Instead of all of that, let me boil down my experience. One year ago tommorrow, I met and hugged my 18-year old daughter for the first time. It has been a strange, weird, painful and exciting year.
Here is what I learned the hard way: 1) I see her as my daughter and all that goes with it; she sees someone else as her dad and often seems to treat me as little more than a curiosity. The difference being that she has always been my daughter, while I have been a faceless man in a child’s fantasy world. 2) I am 38 and have an unusually wide range of experiences; she’s 18 and just starting life. 18-year olds are by their very nature selfish, they care more about getting their daily wants met than about how they interact with the rest of the world. Ask any behavioral psychologist. 3) I did not adequately prepare myself for this mentally or emotionally because I naively thought our common ancestry would make up the difference; her mother did not adequately prepare herself or my daughter for because she hoped it would fail. How does her mother factor into all of this? That’s who my daughter went to for emotional support, and her mother admits to cutting me down after our first meeting. Its hard to develop trust when the person she trusts most is cutting you off at the knees behind your back.
Lessons: 1) get yourself the proper counseling first to make sure you motivations and thoughts are consistent with a good outcome. Going into this thinking that common biology will carry the day will lead to nothing more than greater difficulty. If possible, communicate through letters or emails first, then get both parties into counseling. In this way, the first meetings can be in a more neutral setting with a third-party that is working to help both of you. 2) Don’t rush into it the minute your offspring turns 18. The teen years may be the absolute worst years for something as emotionally taxing as this. They are going through one of the hardest transitions anyone has to make, becoming an adult. When they are married and having children of their own may be the best time. Nothing connects a person to the rest of the world better than the inherent selflessness of marriage and parenthood. 3) Remember, you (we) left the parenting to someone else. They didn’t raise this child the way we wanted them to. Do not judge their skills as better or worse than you think you would have done. Just recognize it was different, and this person is not who you think she/he is. In reality they are strangers with your nose. In time, you will see your characteristics in their behavior, but it still won’t mimic yours because behavior = experience filtered through genetics. You share 50% genetics, but their experiences are very different from yours and the other 50% of their genetics was equally influential in their development. 4) Have an open mind, be patient, and be willing to accept any outcome before you begin – even negative outcomes. While there may be a genetic imperative to know and nurture your offspring, you begin as much strangers as any person you meet on the street. 5) Its hard work and emotionally draining. But like any parent/child relationship, there are moments that make it worth the effort. H.
ON 4/1/93 I WAS IN A BAD CAR ACCIDENT, I BROKE MY NECK & WAS IN A COMA FOR AWHILE, ON 6/1/93 MY DAUGHTER WAS BORN, & I TRIED FOR YEARS TO GET THE TEST, BUT THE MOTHER SAID “SHE WASN’T MINE” IN 2008 I SAW A COUPLE PICS OF HER & TRIED TALKING TO THE MOTHER AGAIN, BUT SHE HAS TOLD THE GIRL NOTHING BUT LIES & THE DAUGHTER WON’T SPEAK TO ME {which is quite understandable} 1 OF THE LIES SHE IS BEING TOLD IS “I SIGNED MY RIGHTS AWAY” BUT THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A TEST, SO I DON’T EVEN KNOW IF I AM HER FATHER.
ON 6/1/11 SHE’LL BE 18, & SHE HAS KNOW ABOUT ME FOR YEARS {that I have been trying to get ahold of her} ANOTHER LIE SHE IS BEING TOLD THAT “I WILL GET BORED, & MOVE ON” BUT I AM SAYING THAT “IF IT IS WHAT SHE WANTS, JUST SAY SOMETHING {anything} & I WILL FIND A WAY TO DO SOMETHING, BUT SHE IS BEING TOLD “NO” & IS LISTENING TO HER MOTHER, {& I tell her she should, & won’t argue w/ her about that} D.
All you can do is hold out for a DNA test and follow though in any way you can if she proves to be your daughter. Her mother has the advantage and seems pretty ruthless about brainwashing her daughter. How sad. You deserve so much better.