The ManicaPost
DEAR DEIDRE: MY son has always believed I’m his step dad but now I want to tell him the truth — that I’m his biological father.
He’s now 27 and I started a relationship with his mother 30 years ago. We were very much in love and decided to have a baby, even though she was married to somebody else at the time.
We were hoping to be together by the time our baby was born but she found it hard to hurt her husband and was still with him, so my son was given her husband’s surname and he believed my boy was his.
She finally found the courage to leave her husband when the baby was nine months old — and we got together shortly afterwards.
We were very happy together but she would never tell him that I was his real father, though I asked her time and time again as he was growing up.
Sadly, our relationship has now broken down and I live alone. I’m nearly 60 and my ex is 58.
My son’s wife has had a baby girl. I’m a retired policeman and I’m considering moving nearer to him to help out with childcare.
I need my son to know I’m his real father. I believe he has a right to know the truth and being his step dad just doesn’t have the same meaning for our relationship now I’m separated from his mother.
I think it’s even more important that the truth be known because I’m my son’s daughter’s natural grandfather.
If I tell him, though, his mum won’t support me and I’m scared he’ll reject me because of all of the years of lies.
The worry of it all is affecting my health. I’m having difficulty sleeping and it’s always on my mind. Do I tell the truth and risk losing him? Or not tell the truth and suffer in silence?
DEIDRE SAYS: How does your ex-partner justify not telling her son that you’re his father?
Is it that she doesn’t want her son to know she cheated? Or could it be she’s not sure who is his biological father?
I know she led you to believe you are the dad, but she also led her ex to believe he was — and they must have been having sex for him to accept that.
Did her ex help maintain her son? Did he keep in contact with him?
Talk to her before you talk to your son. If you can be 100 percent sure that you are his biological father, then I think he does deserve to know the truth.
But if there’s any doubt, you need to be sure the gain for him is worth the stress of needing DNA tests to know the truth. And, of course, you would need his permission for that.
You’re the man who loved and raised your son, so you’re already his father in the most important sense of the word.
DEAR DEIDRE: AN envelope came for me in the post, containing a photo of my husband kissing another woman.
I felt like I was in a TV thriller. The woman who wrote the letter that went with it was a work colleague and she told me my husband had been having an affair for four years. She’d been hurt herself and felt I should know. I confronted my husband. He didn’t deny it but was vague about the truth.
My father was dying at the time so I didn’t kick my husband out as I needed him. Now my father has passed away and I am still with my husband.
But I feel scared for my future. We’ve had good times together and he’s trying hard but I worry he may stray again. I’m 41 and he’s 45.
DEIDRE SAYS: It sounds as if he’s realised what he stands to lose.
But explain that you’re struggling and it is going to take a while for you to get over this. Talk about what went wrong at the time that made him vulnerable to straying. Work together on those areas of your relationship. He’s more likely to feel fresh commitment if you share responsibility.
DEAR DEIDRE: I WORK just to pay the bills and I no longer have any fun or intimacy in my life.
I no longer fancy my wife and we haven’t had sex for eight years, ever since our little girl was born.
I understood at the time, but she has never recovered her sex drive.
Every time I asked for sex she would turn me down, so now I don’t bother asking her any more.
I don’t want to be the instigator only to be rejected.
We argue over silly things but I think this is down to frustration.
She sits at home every evening messaging her mates on her phone.
It gets on my nerves. She is 32 and I’m 35.
DEIDRE SAYS: What a miserable picture you paint.
Tell your wife your marriage can’t last like this and the sour atmosphere must be grim for your little girl.
Insist you either work together to revive your relationship and your sex life, or work on parting as peacefully as possible.
Relate counselling can help both
