DEAR JANE: I received an unexpected phone call about a shattering family ‘secret’… Do I dare confront my father?

Dear Jane,

Something disturbing happened the other day and I can’t stop thinking about it.

It was around 11 pm and I was alone at home when I received a call from an unknown number. Without thinking about it, I responded.

The voice on the other end of the phone was that of a woman who refused to give her name.

She told me that she is my ‘sister’ – my father’s secret and abandoned daughter with another woman – and that she would come to ‘recover’ what is hers.

Confused, I asked him to give me more details. But she simply said, “you’ll find out soon” and then hung up.

When I tried to call back, she blocked my number.

It’s a joke? I doubt. The caller used a nickname for my father that only our close family uses, and I can’t think any of my relatives would make such a cruel joke.

I don’t want to ask my mother about this because she gets anxious easily. And I don’t want to ask my father because it’s a very uncomfortable topic to broach.

I am currently single and have no siblings (that I know of!). My father’s parents are dead and I don’t have any uncles or aunts on his side either.

There’s really no one I can talk to about this.

The call has left me with a gnawing fear in the pit of my stomach and I don’t know how to ease it.

Of,

creepy call

Dear creepy call,

What an unpleasant call to receive. Not so much because you have a long-lost sister, but because a stranger threatened to “take back” what’s hers. It sounds ominous in print and must have felt even more so in person.

Of course, you should be careful with scammers. Scammers can use very sophisticated methods, so you should never reveal any personal information to someone who contacts you out of the blue. But I have no doubt that you should tell your father about this incident, however uncomfortable it may be.

Life has taught me the importance of having difficult conversations. And your reluctance to talk to your father suggests to me that you may have a sneaking suspicion that it might be true: that you have a “secret sister.”

Too often we turn ourselves into pretzels to avoid hurting someone else or to avoid a conversation that could cause problems. But it’s not your job to protect your father from pain, although that might be why you’re avoiding the conversation.

If the caller is familiar with your father’s private nickname, your father may know something about him (for example, who his mother is).

Having this difficult conversation doesn’t have to be awkward. Most difficult topics can be addressed if they are presented gently. Tell your father about the phone call, how it made you feel, and how worried you are about hurting him and making your mother anxious. These things must be said.

I have no idea what the solution might be once you’ve had this conversation, but I do know that you can’t figure this out on your own and that your dad is the logical person to talk to.

Whatever this ‘secret sister’ is planning can be solved. In fact, I suspect she has some element of secrecy to help her get what she thinks she deserves.

If there is any truth to what this stranger says, his father (perhaps, ultimately, the entire family) needs to deal with it.

I wish you all the best.

Dear Jane,

I recently discovered that my wife was having an affair.

She had told me about a new friend, ‘Hazel’, at our five-year-old daughter’s school. But last month he confessed that ‘Hazel’ was actually a divorced dad he had recently met at the school gate.

As a result, my wife and I separated. And she is already “officially” dating this guy.

Obviously, I found all of this disturbing. But the main problem has to do with my daughter: I am not prepared for her to be around this man all the time.

However, my little girl goes to school with her daughter, so it’s almost inevitable that she sees him regularly.

In fact, our girls are friends and have already had playdates, which means the new guy has already been in my daughter’s life for months.

Meanwhile, as the sole breadwinner, I spend less time with my daughter than I would like. Now I’m afraid that this new boyfriend will replace me as a father figure.

Is it too much to demand that my wife keep our daughter away from him whenever possible?

I don’t know how else to move forward.

Of,

forgotten father

Dear forgotten father,

I’m so sorry for the pain this is causing you.

It is devastating when a marriage breaks up, even more so when there is infidelity involved.

It must be hard to live with the pain of feeling like the person who broke up your marriage will replace you in your child’s life.

However, remember that feelings are not facts, they are simply feelings. You will undoubtedly spend less time with your daughter than you would like, because that is the nature of divorce.

But that won’t stop him from having a close, loving and special relationship with his daughter.

Believe me when I tell you that no one can get in the way of a father-daughter relationship if the father is loving and present.

If you love your daughter as much as it appears in your letter, and if you are constant with your love and attention, I promise you that no one will ever replace you.

Now, here’s the bad news: you have no right to demand that your wife keep her daughter away from her boyfriend.

You also have no license to fill your daughter’s head with anything negative or unflattering about the new man in her mother’s life.

Your priority is your daughter and that she is happy, loved and well cared for by whoever ends up with her mother.

It is much better to foster a good relationship, no matter how brutal the truth may seem.

The best hope is that he will be a good father figure to her.

The pain will go away with time. One day you will actually wake up and discover that thoughts about this other man don’t tear your insides out the same way.

If you can find a therapist, do so.

True healing after a failed marriage comes not from blaming an ex-spouse, but from analyzing our part in it, what we might have contributed, what our childhood taught us about love, and how we could do things differently in our lives. the future.

You’ll be okay, even if it doesn’t feel that way right now.