[Zinnamongirl]

I have recently caught up to my father who abandoned my mother and me over 50 years ago. I will for go the sob story about my childhood. Let's just say, my mother and I suffered every indignity, stigma and hardship usually attributed to such abandonment.

My father skipped the country and my broken hearted and embittered mother rejected me. She pushed me off on relatives, foster care and eventually I languished in an orphanage.

I was never adopted.

I made contact with my mother for the first time in 1977 but she didn't want anything to do with me. She had remarried and had 6 other children. She did not want anyone to know about me. She rejected me very harshly then. I was in my early 20's then and had to seek out therapy to cope with her rejection.

What softened the blow a little was that my half siblings were very excited to have a cool older sister living in California. Over the next 15 years they all came to live with me as they got older and wanted to get a start in life.

My mother however never came around. I tried and tried but eventually I decided to sever that painful relationship forever. I simply stopped writing, nobody ever tried to contact me and eventually we all lost touch.

Then 4 years ago I tried again. Glory be ... my mother embraced the contact whole heartedly. She has apologized and done everything possible to make me feel included, wanted and loved. It has taken 4 years but we are well on our way to a good friendship.

Seeing my mother’s change of heart encouraged me to also find my father.

I have been searching for my father for most of my life. It was amazingly easy to locate him once I had my mothers help.

I was very happy to find him and wrote him right away. My letter was answered within a few weeks with an urgent flurry of phone calls from my brother.

As it turns out my father has had a wonderful and charmed life without me. He went on to marry and had 2
more children.

I was happy to hear from my brother and assumed it was a friendly call. It was not. He was calling to tell me to stay away, that my father wants nothing to do with me, neither does my sister and that his mother will go insane and kill herself if she ever finds out about me.

That was 4 months ago and I have been upset, sleepless and sad over it ever since. I know I will have to trek back to therapy to deal with this rejection.

It would be nice to have a relationship with my brother, sister and my father and his family, but that does not seem possible.

My father is in his 70's and time is of the essence.

How do I at least get a DNA test to determine once and for all my paternity? I want to at least set my ancestral and birth records straight.

Sigh!

Any thoughts on how I can do this and how to proceed? Is it all as hopeless as I think?

[Dickons]

I cannot imagine the life you have lived and truly feel for your pain. Rejection is the cruelest act of all and it hurts so bad. I really do not have any words other than I am sorry.

DNA testing would be difficult unless you somehow managed to get your father to agree with it. I would be concerned with legalities if you tried to obtain his dna without his permission.

You are in the position where without someone having a change of heart you are stuck in never never land and I think that is the worst position to be in...so close yet so far and the door is closed...I don't know how people can do this to others. Life can be cruel and unfair and I don't know how to fix it yet I still keep hoping.

My thoughts are with you,
Dickons

[JustPeachy]

I don't know how you could possibly get a DNA test without the person's consent. I realize your father is elderly, but do you think it is possible that if you try to connect with him again, he may soften his heart and at least try to provide you with the basic info you need?

It would have been nice if your father could have answered you directly instead of having your brother do this. I'm wondering if your father actually got the correspondence you sent or if the brother intercepted it and answered for your father. Or if your father is sick and cannot answer at this time. It is really hard to tell.

I am sorry you have had to deal with so much rejection in your life, but glad to hear you have reconciled with your mother. She did have a change of heart and seems to have mended a lot of fences with you. Maybe your father will come around, or even the siblings will come around, given time.

[Zinnamongirl]

Thank you for commenting, the support is greatly appreciated. Peachy ... it did occur to me that my correspondence may have been intercepted and that my father is possibly clueless as to my contacting him. The person who contacted me claiming to be my brother may not be my brother or if he is my brother - he may be operating with ulterior motives.

I know this, who ever it is, he is attempting to stall me from further contact with my father and is strongly discouraging me away from making contact with my father and any of the rest of my family.

My brother has told me just about every evil and health hazard on earth will befall his father and mother should I continue to do so.

My brother has all my contact information and I have none of his. I never gave him any of my information nor given my consent to my father to pass it on.

My brother told me only minimal stuff about his family and has told me that he can't introduce me to his wife (my sister in law) because she would tell his mother about me. My brother also cloaks his calls, blocks his phone number and uses calling cards when he calls me.

Anyway, the whole thing has left me skeptical. It just seemed so fishy to me that I decided to go around this person.

I don't know what this person wants from me. If he is my brother I can only assume there must be money, property, inheritance or some other personal and tangible gain involved. In my experience -- it's always about the money.

I'm only afraid that this person’s greed or other motives will deny me my rights to know my father. At any rate, I have decided it would be best to side step this person who claims to be my brother. Whoever this person is there is obviously a conflict of interest at play.

I have contacted an attorney locally for myself, another attorney where my father lives, my father’s local church, alerted local government agencies and written to my sister. I have also contacted several other family members who are close to my father.

Well, when my supposed brother found out that I had tried to circumvent him and attempted to contact my father by other means -- he was livid!

All I know is ... if this man is not my brother ... hell will have to be paid! Especially now that I have had to lay on legal counsel.

If he is my brother then I wish he would stay out of it and stop interfering. This is between my father and me. I wish he would realize how much he is hurting me by doing this.

And no, my father is only 72 and in pretty good health. When he was a young man he strung my mother along with all the same excuses. Except then it was HIS mother (my grandmother) who would go insane and HIS parents (my grandparents) who would have die if they ever found out. All that kind of stalling led to him falling off the radar completly - eventually.

If my mother is correct, and she has been right on the mark so far ... my father will never do the right thing if it is left up to him.

All I want is to straighten out my birth records. I too have children (now grown) and grandchildren. I don't want there to be a question mark in my family tree -- where my father is supposed to be.

For goodness sake! I'm not the Immaculate Conception. I do have a father and I do strongly feel that I have a right to know who he is. The only way I can know for sure is with a DNA test.

[curiositykitten]

How did you send the correspondence to your father? Did you send anything where you would have gotten a record of who signed it?

Maybe what you need to tell him is, that if your father wants no contact with you, then he needs to tell you and not send your brother as a messanger. That's a pretty cowardly thing to do IMO.

Something seems sort of fishy about this whole thing. Obviously if you found your father, you can find your brother, what's the need to 'hide' his phone number?

I wish you luck in this, but I really think, you're getting the run around and that makes me feel sad. You do have a right to know where you came from.