Half sister - should I try and find her?

Sox77

I'm 37 and have a half sister 12 years older than me. I have always known about her though as there was always a photo of her, but I've never met her. My dad tried to stay in touch with her but the break up between him and her mum was awful apparently and the mum said she would make sure his daughter would never want to see him and I suppose she did.


I looked for her for a while in my late teens, and every now and then if I meet someone with the same name I wonder, but I decided a long time ago to leave it alone as I think she is probably perfectly fine without us. Dad has not moved much and kept in touch with her grandmother for a long time so if she wanted to find us she could.


Anyway I would be happy if my half sister got in touch, but it is an awkward situation because you have no way of knowing what she knows. Whatever you decide to do feeling curious is normal.

TrickyWicky

I've got some 1/2 siblings floating around too so have a bit of an idea what you're going through.

I've got three half bros, a half sister and two other rumoured half sisters. I've met one bro a few times, had contact with another, #3 didn't want to know any of us, the sister has no idea of us (though we know of her lol) and .. well I think there are probably others!

All I can say to you is that it's normal to want to know your family so I would say yes try and track them down but be prepared - they may not want to know. I was gutted when my bro decided he didn't want to know as I have no family apart from the halvsies however I wasn't the only one to have to accept this which made life a bit easier in some ways.

justme111

Resounding yes. Blood is thicker than water . If nothing comes out of it than so be it but you ought to try.

Tiglath

I was adopted and traced a half-sister, only to find there was another half-sister on my Mum's side, plus a half-sister (and an unconfirmed half-brother) on my Dad's side. I'm glad I've got to know some of them, although one half of the family refused all contact.

justme111

FBaby wrote: »

I'm in the similar situation expect I'm the eldest. My dad had a son when I was about 4, but things didn't work out and I understand that she ran away with the baby when he was 9 months old and was married soon afterwards with the man taking in on the role of the father. I have vague memories of him (very fond as he was my little brother) and we do have a few pictures of him.

Like you, I have debated about making contact. It would be easy to do so. I would love to meet him, put aside the past and make it about him and I, not what my father (or his mother) have done/not done. However, the fact that if he wanted to be in touch with me/my father, it would be very easy to do (googling the name and I come up) is holding me back. Clearly he hasn't done so, either because he doesn't even know I exist, or because he is not interested. I am worried that he is happy as he is and I could mess his life suddenly showing up into his life.

I concluded that my desire to get to know him is not worth the risk of potentially messing up a life, so I've decided to leave it to him to make the. move if he ever finds out/decide he wants to know me.

He may be thinking.the same. That's aside he is male , he may feel even more inhibited than you. As time goes by every living relative becomes more prescious.. my half sister is second closest relative I have after my dad and I am very happy I have her. I hope our descendants keep in touch and family stays together and my daughter does not lose touch with that branch of family the same as I hope she stays in touch with my ex's daughter from his previous marrage. As I written a above - blood is thicker than water .
May be I feel so strong about it because I have only one child and my mum passed away the night before ...

FBaby

He may be thinking the same indeed, that he doesn't want to rock the boat but that he's not bothered to meet me and therefore we never will and that's fine. Even if we did, the chance of building a meaningful relationship is low as we live many hours away.

That's why I haven't done anything. He is the one who doesn't know about his family and might have the usual questions of wanting to know where he comes from. Then again, he might not have a clue that the man he thinks conceived him didn't and have no reasons to want to meet me.

PasturesNew

I saw a post on Facebook the other day, it was a general town Facebook page. This is how it went:

03:55AM - I was adopted... I lived in ... Road .... my mother is ... my father is ... I have a sister with first name .... but I don't know the surname.

After that, the responses proceeded, within the hour they were flooding in:

04:16 - Here is your sister's brother's FB page [link]
04:20 - Your sister is my best friend
04:24 - I have texted your sister, she's my cousin
04:40 - I've just spoken to your sister, she'd like to get in touch, send me your number and she'll call you.
11:20 - Hello, I'm your aunt .... you also have a cousin ... who would love to meet you

Funky_Bold_Ribena

I found my half brother on facebook. He is in Canada so we've not met up yet but we are in contact. Which is fab!

The way I view it is - they [your parents' generation] had their chances to keep the family in contact and they screwed up. It is not your responsibility to apologise for their mistakes. I'd try to find them and make contact and if THEY didn't want to know, I'd just say the door would always be open.