Family secrets

Heh. Or from people who haven't...

I have no such experience, but I don't know that you have any particular right to know your aunt, if she indeed exists and is still alive. I obviously don't know your dad, but I'd have thought there would be ways of broaching the subject in gentle and subtle ways. These may get you more information, or at least give you a good idea of how much you'd hurt your dad by further pressing or investigating behind his back (I'm not sure how you would find the aunt without his cooperation). Then it's up to you whether, bearing in mind the likelihood of the consequences and their severity, you want to pursue it further. I have very few relatives myself, and even that is too many, so I don't really understand wanting to chase up any more. (In fact, I was adopted and have never even tried to trace my birth mother, which is of course a very different matter.)

If your aunt got in contact then presumably she wants to know your dad, and by extension you, so I don't think your dad has the right to get in the way, and if he's being uncooperative then it is alright to go behind his back.

Hmm, I am with MArtin here. Broach the subject in a delicate way with your Dad - it might be useful to find out the basics if they have been trying to contact (ie if he wants no contact then someone will have to contact them to let them know this). It depends on how important you think it is to you to go behind his back. I think if you believe there is a void - that void will probably not be filled by the people, rather than a better conversation on the subject with yer Dad.

Dunno though.

I don't think I really would (or could, in practical terms, as Martin points out) go behind his back. But I am scared to bring it up with him. Our whole relationship is based on non-communication and the thought of a confrontation freaks me out. And yet I keep thinking about it.

Maybe it's true that this is more to do with my utter FRUSTRATION with my dad and his repression of all this, and general psychological scarring from an adolescence spent without him (parents divorced) blah blah, than an actual need to find my relatives...

I guess it's either talk to him or forget it.

Thanks for the advice guys.

I've not found most of my aunts have added anything to my life - one of them only, in fact. It does sound as if you're searching for something that is more than the fact of an extra relative or two. I can't sensibly advise on how to address this, obviously, but a better relationship with your dad might be of help. Obviously knowing neither of you, I have no clue how you might get to that.

Maybe I'm skewed because of my experience (am adopted) but I've never wanted to know people who have never been part of my life. I don't consider I have a family currently unknown to me; my family are the people I have known all my life and have been part of it. The people related to the person who gave birth to me just aren't important to my life in any sense.

I've never got the bit about contacting people who were part of one's family a long time back, as it seems to be far too wrapped up in some mythic idea of genetic ties = understanding which I just find risible. But that's me; I wouldn't wish to extrapolate from that any advice as to what someone else might do.

To transpose to your situation - I'd have thought the key term would be your Dad's feelinsg about his own mother, as she was a part of his life, but she's never been part of yours. Surely the key here is a reconciliation between you Grandmother and your Dad, and through them (or maybe not) his sister.

Without wishing to armchair analyse, the idea of a huge void around your Dad's side of the family suggests that there's a huge void around your Dad - there's been nothing to explain what he's about, where he comes from, which is probably more to do with your relationship with your Dad. Whilst it might be interesting to meet a Grandmother you've never met or had any contact with, doing behind your Dad's back risks really badly upsetting any relationship you have with him, which is the key relationship here.

Yes, it's certainly not that I think gaining an aunt or a grandmother PER SE is an important thing. It's probably far more to do with the fact that I just wish my dad was happier and more emotionally available. And they may be things he just can't be, after everything that's happened.

I am very close to my mother and my gran on her side, and they are very chatty, emotionally aware, open about their backgrounds etc. So I have always found the contrast difficult, I guess. If anything this news about my aunt is just a trigger, making me wonder whether I will ever really know my dad...

Anongirl, it sounds as if you are considering making contact with your aunt as a means of eliciting something from your father. This is not likely to work if he is set against it. He may change his view of things at some time in the future and come to a point in his life when he wants to see his sister and then again he may not. I suppose I'm also saying that your father may never make himself emotionally available to you. I suspect that what you grappling with maybe the fact that what's walling him of from you may well be the same set of feelings that are making him unwilling to have contact with his mother and sister.

However, if you feel that you want to contact your aunt and that you are doing it for your own sake then I don't think that your father's unwillingness to have contact with her should be an immovable barrier. The thing that you will have to judge for yourself is how to handle it with him, whether it will cause a further deterioration in your relationship with him and whether you are prepared to accept that.

I am the third person who has been adopted to answer this thread but I have a different perspective in that I have maintained contact with my birth family for the last fifteen years.