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For the ladies considering whether to let the father into your child's life, I wanted to share this story. My SO has never known his father. My SO was born in Southeast Asia during the communist conflicts that wracked that region in the 70s, to a teen mother and a older businessman from Japan. The finer details of the relationship are not clear, but we know that his parents lived together at one point and that his father was present when my SO was an infant. While his father was out of the country, communists closed the country's borders to all outsiders. His mother escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand. According to her sister, when his father came looking for them, his mother hid my infant SO because she didn't want to relocate to Japan. She moved with my SO to the US, changing their names along the way. A few years later, she sent him cross-country to live with his aunt, relinquishing full custody. His father managed to locate the aunt in the US when my SO was 16, writing a letter with photos and asking to see and have his son back, and promising to visit that Christmas. He asked my SO to write him in the meantime. Shortly after, his mother came to the east coast to live, and his father mysteriously never appeared. More than 15 years later, my SO has finally been given the letter and photographs of his father, along with his father's name and an old address. My SO's aunt seems to think his father has passed away from old age. But, we are going to try to locate him. The long story short - please consider the impact on your child(ren) carefully if you decide to cut ties with the father of your child(ren), talk to them openly about their father, and keep records if they decide they want to look for their other parent one day. I can't describe the ident_ty issues my SO has to deal with and learn to overcome, not to mention the deep-rooted anger he's had towards his mum. I don't know her, and I'm very angry with her. Prior to seeing the letter, my SO expressed apathy at attempting to locate the father who'd never been part of his life, but there's been a change in him these last few days, since reading his father's words and seeing his photo for the first time, and realizing that the man did irrefutably love him. The letter reflected a man begging to see his only son. Of course every case is different, but please consider our story, and also wish us luck in finding my future father-in-law, hopefully alive and well.
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