Secret sister bombshell has wrecked memories of darling Dad

Astory like this is the stuff of literature — containing such a saga of love, sex, betrayal, secrets and revelation.

yet there is nothing fictional about the pain and grief experienced by you and your sister — and especially your poor mother.

I’ve heard of similar case histories, although ones where the unknown child was conceived before the marriage then kept secret. this is much worse — and your ongoing rage at your late father is quite understandable. In making two women (and three daughters) suffer, he behaved appallingly.

there are two issues: first, how to cope with your horribly changed memory of your father, and second, how to deal with any relationship with the sister you never knew.

I know it’s hard — yet I want to suggest your ‘wonderful, beloved and adored father’ will never entirely cease to be just that: one man, one reality, seen through the eyes of the daughters who loved him.

He is hardly the first person to have led a double life and that ‘other’ person — the unfaithful husband, the long-term lover, the father of a secret child, the liar, the cheat — represents another reality. And both were/ are true.

you say abusive things to his photographs, but you would not bother if you’d left behind all love for him. Instead, you still insist, ‘he was the best dad we could have’.

so don’t you have to come to terms with the co-existence of those two truths? I know it’s very confusing, but I think it’s your adoration of Good Dad that ‘never goes

away’, rather than the discovery of the full extent of his deception.

What can you do? Nothing — except realise that human beings are infinitely complex and the weak saint can be a strong sinner, too.

I believe Good Dad and Bad Dad loved all three daughters. Which is another way of asking you not to view his relationship with you as a ‘sham’. His love for you was not a lie — and it’s vital for your mental health that you realise that.

I hope one day you will be able to look at his photograph and whisper, ‘OK, Dad, you behaved like a s*** but I’m not going to let that take away all my good memories.’

You will never quite ‘forgive’ but you can accept.

You write generously of your halfsister — whose life has been tough. She must have been desperate to belong, and yet I’m sure she realises that tracing relatives does not magic them into family. You’ve all met, which must have been extremely strange, necessitating self-control and giving you all much to ponder. Now the only way forward is with caution.

You and your sister could each arrange to meet her again separately. There is so much to discover and one-to-one makes talking easier, I reckon.

After that...who knows? It will surely evolve as it is meant to be.

You can’t possibly ‘get it out of your mind,’ Lucy, so I wouldn’t try. Just pause to reflect that even the saddest ‘upsets’ add to who we are and how we understand the world.