My New Biological Siblings

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I’m asked, “What has actually changed since my DNA discovery?”

One of the biggest changes is this: I no longer have full siblings. It’s profound, and it’s sad for me. I can’t fully put the loss into words, and sometimes it still sneaks up on me. This is what being an NPE* feels like.

If I had grown up knowing I had half-siblings, maybe this wouldn’t affect me so deeply. Plenty of people have half-siblings. But I grew up thinking I was the youngest of five, all from the same parents. Fifty years later, I’m suddenly the youngest of eight, and I don’t share the same two parents as any of them. It’s like I have one foot in each family and I don’t fully belong to either. I’m different.

I will always call the siblings I grew up with my brothers and sisters. They love me, and I love them. Nothing has changed there, thankfully. I refer to Joe’s** kids as my half-siblings. That is not a dig at them; I just don’t have a relationship with them, so calling them something so familiar would feel strange. I need that distinction to cope.

I met all three of my half-siblings in 2017. They did not know I was their half-sister, but I had just figured out the truth. I decided early on not to upset their lives by telling them. I didn’t anticipate how heavy that decision would become for me. Carrying that secret became exhausting. When you are an NPE, you carry the emotional weight of a decision you had nothing to do with, and it affects every part of your life.

On July 4, 2022, I wrote a short, one-page letter to my half-sister telling her what I had discovered.

“Please know that I’m not looking for anything from any of you. If you are willing to share, I would be grateful to know any health history you think I should know so that I can pass that information to my girls. I welcome a chance to talk with all of you about this, but I’ll leave the decision to you if you decide you would like to contact me or have a relationship. I had the most wonderful Dad who loved me and who I loved very much. I have a very close family and a very good life. I just want to live my truth openly, and to do that, I needed to share this with you. I’m so sorry if this feels like a burden on you and causes you pain. As I said, I hope that you won’t hold me accountable for something I had no control over.”

It’s crazy that NPEs feel the need to explain early on that we don’t want the family fortune. We also feel the need to apologize for intruding. We have to share our truth and defend ourselves at the same time.

Almost a year and a half has passed since I wrote the letter, and none of them have responded or reached out to me.

In the meantime, I’m left with this other half of me that feels unsettled. I’m part of them but have no connection with them. Are they mad at me? Are they embarrassed I exist? Are they protecting the memory of their mother that Joe cheated on?

I feel sad that they don’t want to know me. So a big part of this process, besides the identity trauma, is the rejection. I’m being rejected because I exist. But I almost don’t blame them to an extent because this apparently came out of nowhere, and they are reeling from their own feelings, which I’m sure are layered and complex.

The fallout of my being an NPE trickles down to them, too.

*NPE is an acronym for “Not Parent Expected.” It has also morphed into a “Non-paternal event.”
**pseudonym

This is my NPE story of discovering in 2015 that my Dad was not my biological Dad. If you’d like to follow along, I encourage you to start at my first post of the series HERE.

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