"Struggling with Shame: My Dad's First Words After Learning About My Existence Left Me Heartbroken"

CATCHING yet another mum on the school run seeming to avoid eye contact, an icy shiver runs down my spine.

As the woman whispers to her friend, I strain to hear if it’s me she’s murmuring about – but nothing she says could be crueller than the voices in my head, fuelled by a painful secret I’ve carried since birth.

Jennifer Barton, 42, is the child of an affair and reveals how feelings of shame have cast a dark shadow over her lifeCredit: Jude Edginton A young Jennifer pictured with her mum Diana, who died by suicide aged 58Credit: Supplied

Sure, she could simply be talking about her kids, or the school’s latest lunch offerings.

But it sparks a deep-rooted concern in the pit of my stomach.

You see, I am the child of an , and even at the age of 43, there are women who steer their husbands away from me, terrified I might be contaminated with some sort of ‘’.

It’s happened many times before. A parents’ drinks evening starts out innocently enough, but after I answer a few questions about my (messy) family history, the mood changes.

Five minutes’ prior, I was a ‘fun, punky mum’ – piercings, mini skirt, platform heels – suddenly, I’m ‘bad news’. No one says anything outright, but I watch arms reach to grasp onto husbands I have less-than-zero interest in.

It’s horribly unfair, because I am the most devoted wife to Will, my husband of 15 years, 41, who works in finance.

What’s more, as an illegitimate child with an uncertain past, I’ve always craved stability, peace and . I am not the only product of an affair to struggle emotionally.

Identity trauma

According to research, around 70 per cent of individuals in the same shoes as me experience what’s known as ‘identity trauma’.

Psychologists use the term ‘genealogical bewilderment’ to describe the specific type of low self-worth or confusion that comes from feeling disconnected to your biological roots.

This is something I know only too well.

For years, I’ve tried desperately to be the helpful friend, the loving mother and the devoted wife. Sometimes I wonder if I’m trying to make up for some sort of guilt that I feel – unjustly – about my ’ affair.

22 years ago, aged 21, when I first found out about my father’s identity via a court-ordered test, I had no idea it would cast such a dark shadow, even decades later.

I was born in Manhattan, , to my physician mum, Diana, who emigrated from the then-U.S.S.R in her 20s and loved me ferociously.

Growing up, I’d pretend to friends that I had a father, but in reality I didn’t know who he was.

Mum had made it clear she’d never wanted to pursue a with him and didn’t go into much detail about his identity.

I was always initiating emails, suggesting meet-ups, sending cheery updates about my life… and the response was mostly crickets

Occasionally, she would drop throwaway hints, telling me he was European or that was in “the same field” as she was, work-wise.

But it was in the same casual tone she’d use to remind me what we were having for dinner.

Perhaps as a result, I don’t remember feeling any real desperation to find out who he was and I only learned he was married with two children, a boy and a girl, when I was in my late teens. My mother wasn’t positive, but told me she felt confident he hadn’t told his wife or children about my existence.

I’m not sure I’d have felt the need to connect with him had the unrelenting pressure my mother put herself under not led to and a crisis.

But as her financial and emotional stability worsened, she focused on proving exactly who my father was – “in case anything happens to me”, to use her words.

By this point in autumn 2003 I was at university in Oxford and she took me to central , where my father lived, to get a DNA test. She’d gone straight to the to do it, confiding to me that she’d tried to get him to take one nearly a decade prior when she’d had a scare, but he’d been resistant.

The DNA test established incontrovertible proof of our biological connection, monthly payments for the next couple of years and the occasional email, but he showed no interest in seeing me in person.

I felt deflated: it was like being rejected without even being given a chance to disappoint someone first. I was always initiating emails, suggesting meet-ups, sending cheery updates about my life… and the response was mostly crickets.

She found out about her father’s identity aged 21 via a court-ordered DNA testCredit: Jude Edginton Growing up, Jennifer would pretend to friends that she had a fatherCredit: Supplied

But after selling our apartment and her office space in New York to pay off her debts, in August 2005, my poor mother, then 58, died by after experiencing months of psychosis.

Our resemblance to one another is uncanny, and I even recognised elements of my personality in him, which thrilled and repulsed me in equal measure

It was an impossible time. At just 23, I’d lost my entire family and my home overnight.

Even though two years had passed since the DNA test, giving my father ample opportunity to get to know me, he’d refused.

But I couldn’t bear the idea that I had no family left, so I vowed to make this man love me, no matter the cost.

The first meet up, at a London hotel, happened through a combination of my desperate emailing and luck: he was passing through London and could spare an hour.

‘Stigma is long-lasting’

It felt like a victory considering he’d refused to come see me after my mother had died, and even though we stumbled through that meeting like awkward strangers, I convinced myself it was the beginning of something magical.

Our resemblance to one another is uncanny, and I even recognised elements of my personality in him, which thrilled and repulsed me in equal measure.

Our meetings after that were infrequent and strange. But I only allowed myself to remember the good stuff, like the designer handbags he’d buy me ahead of our once or twice-a-year meet-ups.

In reality, our get-togethers were as meaningless as our conversations, which were mostly about the weather and travel plans. Occasionally, he’d ask something about my mother, but our conversations rarely moved below surface level.

During the worst of our catch-ups, he’d make jokes about his dalliances with other women, which I laughed off, embarrassed but also desperate to keep peace and not rock the boat. I thought being miserable in his presence was better than losing the one family member I had.

Our get-togethers were as meaningless as our conversations, Jen reveals as she opens up on meeting up with her dadCredit: Jude Edginton

Despite feeling ill with stress and worthless, I’d keep a smile plastered to my face, trying to feel grateful for every morsel of his time. I would often get weepy, and then feel furious with myself for behaving in such a needy, embarrassing way.

I still feel like the ‘other’ child – the one that doesn’t get to be in family photos and isn’t invited to parties or reunions

But I had lost too much already and couldn’t risk losing him.

The hardest part was waiting for him to tell my half-siblings about me. He talked about them extensively from our first meeting, with a glimmer of pride in his eyes.

Of course, I could have taken the initiative and reached out, but I was terrified of causing anyone unnecessary pain. The last thing I wanted to do was highlight an affair they didn’t know about.

The only person I didn’t worry about hurting was myself.

Finally, after a decade of false promises, my father told his children – my brother and sister, now both in their fifties – that I existed when I was in my early 30s.

It was a relief and an opportunity for me to embrace that familial love I missed so desperately.

Happily, my sister’s acceptance of me and our friendship over the past decade is one of the greatest gifts I could ever have hoped for. I’ve had one email from my brother but we’ve never met up.

It took me nearly another decade to cut off my relationship with my father, though it was easy to do considering I was the driving force behind it.

Once I stopped initiating phone calls and emails, he rarely contacted me, and when he did call twice a year for less than five minutes’ total, the unpleasant aftertaste, that feeling of never being ‘good enough’, lasted for weeks.

But even though I’m now a happily mother of four, I still feel like the ‘other’ child – the one that doesn’t get to be in family photos and isn’t invited to parties or reunions.

That’s because the stigma of illegitimacy is long-lasting.

As proud as I am of my achievements, both personal and professional, there are cruel voices in my head telling me I’m awful, undeserving and unlovable. Therapy, giving up , intensive yoga, a loving husband who is a great father to my kids have all helped… but the voices will never completely disappear.

Dirty secret

They insist I should be lurking in the shadows, that no one would care if I disappeared and that I destroy things.

After all, isn’t that what I did from my first breath?

I used to be so angry with my father – and my late mother. I felt they both let me down when I needed them most.

But the older I get, and the more experience I have parenting my own children, the more compassion I feel towards myself, my mother and my father.

Anger is a waste of time and won’t make me a better mother to my own kids.

Anger is a waste of time and won’t make me a better mother to my own kids

But loving them unconditionally and helping them learn not to hide behind shame and stigma… well, that just might.

Watching my four kids giggling away with their father, and how Will drops to the ground in an instant to kiss a hurt finger better, always stirs up a mix of emotions for me.

As someone who grew up without a dad, the simple, everyday actions of a loving father are wonderful to witness.

There is the occasional pang of jealousy from my own inner child, who never got to experience what having a father was like, but they are far outweighed by the warm and fuzzy feelings I get from knowing my children have such a lovely dad.

I feel increasingly adamant that being the product of infidelity shouldn’t still make me feel like a dirty secret in 2026.

I want to shout to the world and every woman who’s gripped her husband’s arm tighter in my presence that the circumstances of my birth aren’t catching.

If anything, one of the few positives to come from my experience as a child of infidelity is my fierce loyalty and honesty in all of my relationships, especially the one with my husband.