I found out my dad has a 12 year old son

I (16F), found out tonight at a family dinner that my dad has another child but he doesn’t know that I know. Tonight, we had a family dinner with all my paternal aunts, their families, and my grandmother who live in different cities. It’s the first time in a while that the family is complete so I was having a nice time as I’m fairly close with all of them. However, while eating dinner, my mother and one of my aunts who I was chatting and catching up with landed on the topic of who my cousin looked like. Like a lightbulb moment, my mother blurted out that he looked like my father’s son who lived in another city. She didn’t seem to realize I was right there until a minute or two had passed of them conversing more about him (and me pretending to be on my phone and scarfing down whatever I first saw). The rest of the night, I watched as my father ran around with my cousin and that conversation just played over and over in my head. For the next 5 hours, I just kept zoning out. However bad it may be, I couldn’t help but ask myself why my cousins’ dads didn’t put them through this. Until now, as I lie on my bed as my parents sleep soundly in the room opposite mine, images of him and my cousin’s face is all I see no matter how tight I close my eyes.

Admittedly, I did know prior, but only because I vividly remember my mother sobbing as she bathed 4 year old me muttering, “I hate your father.” But I guess up to this point, a part of me didn’t accept that as reality. Maybe I just thought it was a bad dream I had once when I was a child, I don’t know. Perhaps thinking it’s true is actually very different from hearing that it is. No one had ever told me that directly, only in passing conversation to each other before my mother quickly shut it down or changed the topic. Thus, I also never knew anything more about it—not whether it was a daughter, a son, how old they were, or where they lived. Also, it’s important to say that years ago when I first checked my “blocked” list on Facebook (one my mother made for me when I was a child) that a woman I didn’t know was already blocked and I had a suspicion even as a small child that that was it. But again, maybe it just didn’t really sink into me yet.

Also, I feel it’s important to note that my grandfather (dad’s father) also had multiple children with multiple other women, some he went on to marry and even switch religion to be able to. And I was well-aware of it. However, my father and his siblings are in-touch with their half-siblings and we’ve even had dinner with them a couple of times. Maybe I didn’t want to believe that my father would put his own child in the same situation he was in. I love my father. He’s given me everything I’d ever ask for, material wise. He works abroad and prior to quarantine, he’d always be home for at least a full month but after he switched companies during the pandemic, he only stays for two weeks. Now, I can’t help but wonder if he also spends some time with his other family. I would be glad he stood up for that child as well but at the same time, it makes my stomach churn that there is another child that looks like me, that looks like my father. I do not believe I would ever want to meet them, to meet the woman my father was willing to share his love for his 4 year old daughter with. I don’t believe I am or will ever be mentally stable enough for it.

So please, don’t tell me to feel remorse for the other family, because I don’t. I also don’t hate them, I don’t think they ruined what was any semblance of a functional family, I don’t blame them. I simply do not have an opinion regarding them as people. I also don’t know how to face my father like I did before. I’m not mad, I never was. In all honesty, it feels like cold water was just dumped on me and I’m just now seeing how both of my parents are flawed people. I’m hurt other people knew before me, I’m hurt that they didn’t think I couldn’t handle it, I’m hurt they never ask how I’m dealing with it. But I also don’t have the energy to confront them. I only have 1 week left with him, I don’t think I’m willing to rush the process of unpacking this and leaving it ‘til next year to continue. However, I want to be mad but I can’t bring myself to do so.

If there’s anyone here who went through something similar, how did you cope and move on? Did you ever see your father the same as before?