Crystal’s DNA surprise came as a total shock, years after she took her Ancestry DNA test. When her older sister showed up as a half-sibling, Crystal discovered that she is an NPE.
She shares the intense emotions that people who experience non-paternal events feel, from sadness to hope. She talks about how connecting with her newfound family is going so far. Finally, Crystal offers some great advice for anyone who has just discovered that they are an NPE.
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Episode Transcript
Transcripts are AI-generated and may not reflect the final published episode.
[00:00:00] Crystal: Even though I never knew this person, I just wanted to look into the eyes of the person that is my biological father. That’s what it comes down to. That’s what I wanted.
[00:01:32] Crystal: I am Crystal and I’m 39 and I’m from Minnesota. About three years ago I did an ancestry, DNA test, and I. I thought it would be exciting to figure out or to find out where my heritage is from. And so I bought one for myself, my husband, and my three kids, and I called my mom ’cause it was a little bit before Mother’s Day.
[00:02:04] Crystal: And I said, mom, would you want an ancestry kit for Mother’s Day? And she immediately was like, No, why would you even do that? Lash back at me? And she’s the calmest person ever. So I was like, okay, I won’t get it for you. Geez. And I didn’t think anything of it. I got the kit. We all did the kits, we all got our results back.
[00:02:30] Crystal: I looked at my heritage three years ago and we, it was fun to see all that stuff. And then I put all that away. It’s online, but I didn’t really look at it again, and I never looked at my matches. I never really thought to look at. The other stuff, I never questioned where I, who I came from, and fast forward to this past July and I saw my sister that I grew up with over summer break. We always go up to her. She lives in Iowa. We always go hang out with her for the summer and I was like, you should do this DNA kit. It’ll be fun to see how we’re different. She ordered it when it was on sale and.
[00:03:17] Crystal: Her results came back July 29th, and I was getting my kids out the door, we’re all getting out the door in the morning, and she texted me a picture of her results and they were actually pretty similar to my results. So there was no red flags there. And I was like, oh, how fun. Oh, you’re a little bit more of this, or a little bit more that than me.
[00:03:40] Crystal: And then I pulled up my ancestry app on my phone ’cause I hadn’t looked at it in a really long time. And I I immediately showed that I had a new match and then it had either that she was my aunt or that she was my half sister. So I immediately was immediately tried to like override. I was like, no, she’s my sister.
[00:04:05] Crystal: Why won’t it give me that option? She’s my full sister. I couldn’t figure it out and I was in a rush. So I texted my sister. I was like, it says you’re my half sister. I don’t know why it says that, but we’ll have to figure that out, how to override that. And she said, that’s funny. It says that on my end too.
[00:04:21] Crystal: So I was like let’s just figure out what to do. Later, ’cause I gotta run. She’s yep, I gotta go to work. And I ran out the door. But the whole time I had like the wheels turning in my head like, this is, there’s something off about this. And I never for a day, ever questioned that. I didn’t have the biological, like the biological parent either.
[00:04:48] Crystal: One of my biological parents were different. I never once questioned that. So then I’m thinking maybe my sister, she’s five years older than me, maybe her dad is different. Dad. Like all these silly things are going through my head. And I was like that would be a tough thing to tell her. I’m just like walking my kids to school and then I’m like, this is silly.
[00:05:10] Crystal: It’s just a, an error. There’s something wrong with the test. So I come back home and I’m reading all the FAQs and it basically says there is no error and I’m about to call Ancestry, and then I’m like, you know what? The person that would know would be our mom. And I’m very close with my mom. We talk all the time.
[00:05:35] Crystal: So she lives in Minnesota still. So I picked up the phone and I called her and I said, I remember exactly what I said. I said, mom, I’m not going to be mad, but I have to know is there any way that I have a different dad? And she goes, no, no way. That’s impossible. And I was like, okay, all I’m gonna call Ancestry because it shows that me and Amber, my sister are half sisters, so there’s something wrong with the test.
[00:06:11] Crystal: And she goes, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what it is, but there’s no way I. I was like, okay. So I talked to my sister again and she said she actually matches up with people with our maiden last name, so our dad’s last name. And then I searched my matches, which I’ve never done before. ’cause I never thought to even do that, and I didn’t match up with anyone in my dad’s last name.
[00:06:39] Crystal: So then I was really concerned, like I knew something was wrong. So within minutes my mom called me back and she said, your stepdad, so her husband now Joel reminded me that I did always question your DNA and your dad’s name is Jeff. He lives in Minnesota. We, I’ve known him since I was five years old.
[00:07:07] Crystal: We dated in high school and college and then we broke up and I married your dad and I had, we had Amber, and then I got back together with Jeff for a weekend. And that’s the last time I saw him. Wow. And then she kept talking and talking and I really heard nothing. I heard nothing after that.
[00:07:31] Crystal: I felt like my head was in a cloud and she just kept rambling on and on and about him. So basically, my mom had an affair when my sister was four years old with her high school sweetheart. And then I was conceived, and that’s the last time that she ever saw my biological father. Okay. So they haven’t, and I’m 39, so they haven’t seen each other for 40 years.
[00:08:03] Alexis: Did your dad that you grew up with suspect anything?
[00:08:06] Crystal: No. Not that I know of. Never. And the reason I don’t think he ever suspected it is because. He took my mom to the cleaners during their divorce and he paid a lot of child support. So I don’t think he ever would’ve paid child support if he had any inkling that I wasn’t his biological child.
[00:08:29] Crystal: And me and my sister both agree on that, that he had no clue.
[00:08:34] Alexis: What was your initial reaction then? You said you just had tunnel vision, you didn’t really hear anything she said after that kind of. Cleared. What, how were did you feel?
[00:08:42] Crystal: I, it didn’t clear for a long time. I was actually driving in the car when it happened, when she told me and I somehow made it home.
[00:08:54] Crystal: I didn’t know. I just was in complete shock. I think it’s equivalent to when somebody tells you, somebody close to you has died. You just, you don’t know what to do, what to think. I texted my husband at work and he had no clue that I was even I hadn’t talked to him that morning about this ancestry stuff at all.
[00:09:23] Crystal: So this came outta left field for him. I texted him and I said, I just found out my dad isn’t my dad. That’s all I texted. And that’s the only person I just was in like a cloud. I didn’t know. I was like, where? What do I even do from now? And I didn’t even remember what my mom said his last name was.
[00:09:44] Crystal: And then just all those thoughts and all those things. ’cause I don’t look like my mom at all. And then I’m like, is this who I look like? Is this why I’ve never looked like anyone in my family ever? And all these things started making sense in my head. And my husband texted back, he said, I will be right home, or I will be home in a minute.
[00:10:08] Crystal: So he came home pretty quick. And I hadn’t even eaten that morning ’cause I was rushing around. And I, he is let’s go get some food. And I was like, I can’t eat. I couldn’t eat. I didn’t actually eat for three days. I couldn’t, I tried to take a bite of something and I almost vomited and I My, my brain just wasn’t with it at all.
[00:10:33] Crystal: I would, I have three kids. I would try to cook something and then I’d forget about it. Like I just was not myself at all. And I immediately then wanted to start internet searching. Jeff, my biological father I actually texted my mom. I said, what is his name again? And she wrote me right back and told me his name.
[00:10:55] Crystal: So then I was searching him. I found his address and phone number, and I. I searched for him on Facebook. He wasn’t on Facebook. I then saw he had two daughters and a wife. I’m, I was searching them on Facebook. I found all three of them on Facebook. I was one, had a public account. So I’m like looking through all her pictures and I.
[00:11:21] Crystal: I was just turned into stocker mode and these people didn’t even know I existed. And so I was saving all these pictures I found online. I was looking for resemblances. I found a picture of Jeff in one of the posts, and I looked just like him. Wow. Just like him, like his spitting image, even more so than his other two daughters, I would say.
[00:11:44] Crystal: It was unreal.
[00:11:47] Alexis: Wow. Did you reach out to them? I’m assuming they were not on Ancestry, so No, they were not alerted to any matches. So how did you make contact with them?
[00:11:56] Crystal: I called my mom back that day and I was in tears. I couldn’t talk about it without crying for a couple days at least, and I was in tears and I said, I want you to tell me about him.
[00:12:13] Crystal: She told me he played baseball in college, which I was a softball player. I was the only athletic person in my whole family, and I had a softball scholarship in college and a volleyball scholarship in college. Like it all made sense. I came from like a family of. No athletic talent to, and I was like the All star.
[00:12:38] Crystal: In mini sports. So yeah, it just all made sense. So she was telling me about him and I could actually absorb the information then, and I told her, so this was like four hours after I found out, I told that same day. I told her he needs to know about me, you have to tell him. And she said, okay.
[00:12:58] Crystal: I’ll call him. So she actually called him the next day. I found out on a Thursday, and she called him on Friday morning, and she called me later Friday during the day and she said, I talked to Jeff, I got his number. They grew up in a teeny town of 200 people, and they all know everybody. And part of the reason I think I’ve never, I’ve been to that town one time when my great-grandmother died and we stopped by the funeral.
[00:13:31] Crystal: We didn’t even stay. It was like a weird quick, like we went and saw her being buried and then we left. And my mom has never taken me to that town. And part of the reason is I think like all of Jeff’s family lived there, and it makes me wonder if she did not wanna run into him. But she hasn’t really denied or acknowledged.
[00:13:54] Crystal: She just, she called him Friday. She called me back later and said after she had talked to Jeff and said, I, he, Jeff did not age well. He has dementia and. He is hard of hearing, and so then I was just feeling really upset. Like now I, I don’t know how far into dementia he is. He’s 65 years old, which I don’t think.
[00:14:26] Crystal: Is that old? So I was excited to, at the prospect of at least getting information from him. And then when she said that made me just a little upset that I hadn’t figured this out earlier. She said, I’m gonna try calling him back later in the week. That’s how she left it. I was like, okay. So what did he say when you said he had a daughter?
[00:14:49] Crystal: She said he was just silent, and I don’t know if he heard me. I don’t know if he processed it, but then I said, I’ll call you back later in the week. And he said, okay, you picked the time. And they picked Wednesday. And fast forward to Wednesday, he didn’t pick up her calls or texts. So he just went silent.
[00:15:12] Crystal: Also that Wednesday I received a phone call from an attorney that was representing their family and the attorney said that they wanted to do a paternity test ’cause they were very shocked. Yeah. With this information. Yeah. So I was like, okay, whatever I need to do. So we waited a month for that paternity test to come.
[00:15:37] Crystal: I checked in with the attorney twice and he said, yep, I forgot to do it. And they’re gonna, they’re gonna pay for everything. And then a week later I called. I was like, I still have not received anything. And he said they’re not gonna pay for it anymore. I think they thought maybe we were not real, like we were someone trying to take advantage of someone with dementia.
[00:16:03] Crystal: I. Okay. And that’s why they hired the lawyer to protect Jeff. And the family.
[00:16:08] Alexis: Yeah. Which is understandable.
[00:16:10] Crystal: But yeah, it was very frustrating. But at the same time, it made me realize that they’re real human beings, that this came out of nowhere for them. He hasn’t seen my mom in 40 years and he didn’t, according to him, he didn’t remember ever meeting up with her when she.
[00:16:28] Crystal: She was married.
[00:16:30] Alexis: Okay. And he wasn’t married at the time?
[00:16:33] Crystal: No. He was not married. He didn’t even know his wife at the time. I finally get the paternity test a month later and I take it right away and run it to the post office because I think the sooner they get these results, then the sooner I’ll be able to get information from him.
[00:16:53] Crystal: I didn’t know what I wanted from him at the time. I just wanted. Them or him to be there to answer my questions if I had any. Or to gimme some health history. Now that I knew he had dementia, I really was wanting more information about his health. And it was considered early onset dementia.
[00:17:12] Crystal: So about a week after that, the paternity results came back and it showed that he was my biological father. And I told them, or I told myself in my head, I said, I’m gonna give them a week to absorb this information. Because now they’re probably going through all the stuff that I went through when I first had the bomb drops on me and I said I to myself, I will call them in a week or e text or do something in a week if I haven’t heard from them a day before the week.
[00:17:43] Crystal: Mark, Jeff’s wife. Texted me and said, Jeff would like to talk with you on the phone. Can we schedule a time to do that? So I knew if I didn’t do it soon, I was going to have a heart attack. Yeah. Like the stress leading up to those moments. So I was like, tomorrow, and it’s nothing I felt like I had to prepare for.
[00:18:08] Crystal: I’m like, I don’t know what they’re gonna wanna know. Maybe they’re not gonna wanna know anything about me. Maybe they’re gonna say This is our first and last time ever talking. I didn’t know. I knew that would be really upsetting to me if it happened the next day. We talked on the phone. They called me together, like on speaker because I think his wife wanted to be there just to make sure, like I wasn’t a crazy person, sure, yeah. So he has a really hard time hearing though, and that I found out the dementia diagnosis is really new and he’s actually doing really Okay. With all of that. So that was like really nice for me to hear. We talked for over two hours and I knew just from the first like hour of talking that I knew I wanted to meet them.
[00:18:59] Crystal: So I decided during that phone call if. I don’t say it in this phone call. I don’t know if I’ll ever get another chance and what do I have to lose at this point? At the end of the phone call, I just said he actually said you should have my phone number. ’cause I just had his wife’s phone number and I was like, okay.
[00:19:22] Crystal: That’s him reaching out, saying here’s my phone number. So I took down his phone number, and then I knew like we were wrapping up, so I said, I would like to meet you. And it was dead silent. Dead silent. And I was like, oh, here we go. Here’s the rejection I’m waiting for and after about a good solid five seconds.
[00:19:47] Crystal: Of silence. He said that would be a start, wouldn’t it? Oh yeah. So I was like, okay, do you want just me to come sometime? And he was like, the more the merrier. Because I had just told them, we talked for over two hours. They knew I had three kids and my husband. And so I was like, okay, why don’t we plan for a time for all of us to come up there?
[00:20:13] Crystal: And they’re in Minnesota, I’m in Arizona. And his wife then, she’s a teacher. They were both teachers. She threw out a weekend where she has a is a Thursday and Friday off, which was in three weeks. Oh my goodness. So I was like let check my calendar and get back to you on that. I knew in my head I was gonna make it happen.
[00:20:40] Crystal: We got off the phone. I felt really good about it, except for the very last part of the phone call when they live in this tiny town that I mentioned before, and his wife. Said, I just don’t know how we’re gonna have all of you here and without other people knowing. And I said I’ve talked to a lot of my friends and family about this now, and everybody has been nothing but supportive and they want what’s best for my family.
[00:21:10] Crystal: And she said this is a really small town and I don’t know how we’re gonna. How we’re gonna hide the fact that Jeff’s illegitimate child is here visiting.
[00:21:24] Alexis: And how did you feel when she said that?
[00:21:26] Crystal: Unfortunately it’s not the first time I’ve been called that. And the other one is a story with the dad.
[00:21:32] Crystal: My dad I grew up with, when my parents got divorced, he converted to Catholicism and. Him and my stepmom were getting remarri or getting married in the Catholic church and they have to. I didn’t grow up Catholics. I don’t know the rules. I don’t know if every Catholic church does it different, but they basically sent me and my sister a letter saying that we were.
[00:22:00] Crystal: Bastard children and we are illegitimate in the eyes of the church. And as a kid, I got this letter wow. Addressed to me from the Catholic church. So when I was first called illegitimate, even though I guess. Technically I was, but I didn’t think, I,
[00:22:18] Alexis: You didn’t know at the time – you thought that was your biological father.
[00:22:20] Crystal: I didn’t. The time. Yeah, exactly. It made me cry. I was a kid, a teenager, getting this letter and I was like, oh my gosh, what does this mean? And so her saying it again, just brought back all those memories of the first time I was called an illegitimate child. And then I just had, I find I got over that and now I was like, again I don’t know.
[00:22:43] Crystal: There’s always gonna be those people that say these things. It’s a very small town, a small town mentality. They, I don’t think they’ve necessarily been out to see the world and. I don’t know. It’s, it was upsetting of course, and that was really the only thing that didn’t go well in that phone call. But at the same time, she’s a lot older than me.
[00:23:06] Crystal: It’s a different time. It’s a different time.
[00:23:09] Alexis: There’s a lot of shame, I think, with that generation. So they tend to wanna hide things.
[00:23:14] Crystal: Exactly. Which is why we were hidden to begin with. Yeah. That night I bought plane, five plane tickets. I didn’t tell them right away because I didn’t wanna sound overeager.
[00:23:25] Crystal: So we were planning on going October 21st. I was a nervous wreck, like so nervous, like all the butterflies in my stomach came back. I was. Not able to eat again. It just took an emotional toll. Then fast forward October 20th, I tested for positive for Covid. Oh no. And 10:30 PM that night.
[00:23:50] Crystal: ’cause then I went out and got another rapid test because I’m like, no, there’s no way. Got another rapid test. And it was positive as well. So I was like guess it’s not meant to happen yet. So I have still not met them. Because I and I felt bad. What if they think I’m making it up?
[00:24:06] Crystal: What if they, 10 30 at night, the night before we’re supposed to leave, right? I cancel. I boarded my dogs already. I packed my ba like everything was in our car. My kids were all asleep. We were gonna wake ’em up at 6:00 AM and hop in the car to go to the airport. Have you rescheduled? Yes.
[00:24:25] Crystal: Actually just two days ago we rescheduled, we’re going dec in December, the last week of December.
[00:24:31] Alexis: Oh congratulations. I hope it goes well. How was everyone else in your life affected by this? Your kids know?
[00:24:37] Crystal: Yeah, my kid. I didn’t tell them right away, but I told them as soon as I started figuring everything out.
[00:24:46] Crystal: I actually my oldest daughter is 14. She’s in high school. I told her first and she just said this makes your side of the family even more confusing. I was like, yeah, my side is confusing. I have siblings on, I have half on both sides. I have a step, I have a I thought I had a full, but I guess I don’t have a full I don’t have any fulls anymore. I just call ’em all my siblings. That’s all she said. And my 11 year old son, he’s the question man. He was like, oh. So grandma lied to you. Like he figured it out right away. And I was like she didn’t necessarily know, she says, and he said but wasn’t she married?
[00:25:36] Crystal: And like he put it all together. And I was like, yep, she was. And he said, so are we never gonna see her again? And I was like, no, we’re gonna see her again. We’re working through it because that’s what family does. It’s not gonna be easy, but we’re gonna talk about it. We’re gonna, and we have, we’ve talked a lot about it.
[00:25:55] Crystal: And my youngest is eight and she was like, okay. Yeah. But my son is definitely the one. We actually zoomed with the family when we were supposed to be there on Thursday, the 21st of October. That following Sunday, we scheduled to Zoom and so I met, I have two new half sisters on that side.
[00:26:17] Crystal: And I met then him, Jeff and his wife, and then one of the sisters has two kids. Okay. So I met those kids as well. And those, the new half sisters, they’re younger than me. I’m 39, and then the next one is 33 and then a 31 year old.
[00:26:39] Alexis: And what’s their reaction? Are they excited?
[00:26:40] Crystal: They were shocked. The older one, she was very hesitant to contact me.
[00:26:47] Crystal: They both reached out to me since the Zoom. Call the older one was the last one to reach out to me, and it seemed forced by her family to tell you the truth. Like she was not really into this. Even on the Zoom call, like she stood in the back. She didn’t really talk, and then she would leave.
[00:27:05] Crystal: I asked her a question, then she would leave, and I’m like, you know what? Everyone has to go at their own pace. I can’t just be like, hello, I’m your sister right now. You have to talk to me. But she did just last week, she reached out to me, she texted me and said It was nice to meet your family over Zoom.
[00:27:25] Crystal: She said, I’m sorry it took me so long to text you. I’ve been forgetting. And I don’t think she’s really been forgetting, but I. I’ll grant her grace. It’s a new reality she didn’t have to begin with, so then I just sent her a real text and said, I didn’t even expect you. All right. I didn’t expect any of this.
[00:27:48] Crystal: Your family’s been so gracious and so sweet to talk to me at all, and I’m just really grateful for that. I know this is a really difficult situation. Any feelings you feel are normal. So if you feel like you don’t want to talk to me, I totally understand that. I just want you to know like I’m really.
[00:28:10] Crystal: Happy that you did reach out to me. Yeah, and a lot of it was just small talk and there’s a bigger thing here that I wanna address, so that’s why I sent her that text back. I’m like, this is just weird. I know. This is weird. Absolutely. There’s no book on how to deal with this. So the younger one, she texted me two days after the Zoom call and she said, I got your number from my mom. I hope that’s okay. I wanted to say it was really nice meeting you and your family over Zoom, and I think we have a couple things in common. And so I texted her right back and we text all the time and she’s a athletic trainer.
[00:28:53] Crystal: And she’s really into all the sports my kids are in. And she wanted to know all about what I played. And what’s so funny is we are so similar. Like she played softball in college, her sister did too. And I had a softball scholarship in college like. It’s crazy how similar we are. We all are.
[00:29:14] Alexis: It’s that nurture versus nature thing.
[00:29:17] Alexis: It just comes up so much for us because it’s oh, that makes sense, but you don’t know why.
[00:29:22] Crystal: Youu don’t. And then I started feeling okay, maybe it’s like I’m just adopted on one side. So then I had other friends that are adopted and I talked to them about it.
[00:29:32] Crystal: But the difference is they know they’re adopted. Not that they don’t have similar feelings. I’m not discrediting that at all. I’m just saying I didn’t know. We didn’t know. I thought my dad was my dad. And then that burden is also placed on me where. Now I have to tell my dad that raised me and I haven’t done that yet.
[00:29:51] Alexis: Oh, you haven’t? Okay. ’cause that was going to be my next question is, does your dad know and how is that relationship going?
[00:29:57] Crystal: So we had a rocky relationship to start off with. We, he was an alcoholic when I was little, and then when he sobered up when I was like around nine, we became really close. Like we did everything together.
[00:30:12] Crystal: Him and my mom separated when I was 10 and I lived with my dad, and my sister lived with my mom. And it’s almost like we I don’t, I didn’t take sides, but I just wanted to live with my dad. Like we just did fun stuff. Once he got the divorce was final, he was with my stepmom. And then they got married and my stepmom was wanted nothing to do with me or my sister.
[00:30:42] Crystal: So she Told my dad, it’s either me or your kids. And he chose her. And they had, and she had a son. So my stepbrother, and then they had three more kids together, but I hardly know those siblings because they just, I stopped living with them that she was very mean to me. She just made up all these crazy rules and it was just a bad situation all around.
[00:31:06] Crystal: So now He just, he chose her and he took off with her. That was his new family. He went years and years without talking to me and my sister. He would show up every now and again for my wedding, for example. I got married, I texted him, I’m getting married. He walked me down the aisle. Went to the reception eight and the left wow, I, I was never close to him again.
[00:31:32] Crystal: Then just this last march, my birthday’s in March, so March of 2019, actually he called me two days before my birthday and he said, today’s, or he said, happy birthday. And I was like it’s actually not today. It’s in two days. And he. Said, oh, I just can’t remember all these dates. And I was like yeah, you were there for my birth.
[00:31:59] Crystal: I don’t know. I didn’t know all this. At that point. So anyway, since then, like we’ve started talking a lot more and. What’s weird is I talked to him, I have talked to him on the phone since I found this out, but I wasn’t ready to tell him because I, I just didn’t, I was still figuring everything out.
[00:32:21] Crystal: And when I knew I was ready to tell him when I thought I was going to be near him in October in Minnesota. I texted him and I said, can I meet with you? October 25th, my last day there. And he said, oh, I’m not gonna be there. I’m gonna be in Florida. He has, he lives in Florida part of the year too.
[00:32:40] Crystal: So I was like, okay, then I have something I wanna talk to you about. Can you call me? And he said, serious, huh? In a text message? And I said, yes. And that was a month ago, and he’s not texted or called me since then.
[00:32:53] Alexis: So you’re ready to tell him at this point? But he just hasn’t made the call.
[00:32:58] Crystal: Yeah. Which is pretty par for the course in our relationship.
[00:33:03] Crystal: Like he comes and he goes, and right now this is a going time for him. I just, I didn’t want him to hear from someone else. That’s what it comes down to. And really, I feel like it should be my mom, but my mom’s not gonna do it.
[00:33:16] Alexis: That’s what I was going to say is that it almost seems more like your mom’s place.
[00:33:20] Alexis: So how are things going with her?
[00:33:22] Crystal: They are a little rocky. We didn’t talk for the first month after it happened, and we usually talk all the time. I just had nothing nice to say to her. And she never called me one time to check on me to see how I was doing, to see how I was feeling, to see if I needed anything.
[00:33:42] Crystal: Never once. And so then I, it made me. Even matter and then I was like day by day as each day was going on, like she still hasn’t called me. She hasn’t even texted me to say, Hey, are you doing okay? Or Can I do anything for you or nothing? So I had nothing nice to say to her. What I needed to hear from her was, I am sorry.
[00:34:07] Crystal: Because I wasn’t mad that she had the affair and did whatever like that was in the past. I am mad because she never told me she chose to take, try to take this to her grave, and if I hadn’t figured it out, I would’ve never known. And Jeff would’ve never known he had another child. I can’t imagine.
[00:34:29] Crystal: Not knowing that I have a child out there. Right after a month I actually went to Florida to see a friend and I came back and she had asked me how Florida was, ’cause there were some pictures online that she had seen. So she called me and she said how is Florida? I was like, It was good. And I said, how are things going with your counselor?
[00:34:54] Crystal: Because I knew she had a, she was going to a counselor and she said, good, I recommend getting one. And I said I need to talk to you. Yeah. That’s who I need to talk to. And she said, oh, what do you need to talk about? And I said I need to talk about how you didn’t tell me that I had a different dad and you have never once apologized for it.
[00:35:26] Crystal: And did you know, did you ever think I looked like him? Because I look just like him. Wow. I, there’s so many things in my head and she just said, I didn’t have a picture of him next to you, like I never compared the two of you. She said, when I first questioned it, it was when you were getting older and you were really athletic.
[00:35:54] Crystal: And I was like yeah. No one in my family, my dad didn’t play sports, my sister didn’t play sports. And she said, so that made me question it. I was like, okay, so when my dad left, you never thought to say anything and she just said, I didn’t know. I didn’t know, and I’m really sorry for everything it has caused you.
[00:36:17] Crystal: I didn’t mean to put this on you like this, and those words are what I needed to hear. I needed to hear her knowledge that I was past this burden, this weight. And I felt immediately we can work through this. That’s great. Because I needed her to acknowledge that. And she wasn’t, I had called her one time about I had called her a couple times, mostly to see, ’cause she had to do the paternity test too.
[00:36:52] Crystal: They needed the mom, dad, and, Child to get the most accurate results. So to see if she had gotten it yet to see if she had mailed it, and she would be like, oh it’s 85 degrees here. And I’m like, I don’t care if there’s a hurricane outside right now. I’m not talking about the weather. I don’t understand how she could talk about anything else.
[00:37:14] Crystal: Like it never dawned on her that she should make sure I was doing okay. That’s what got me with my mom. But we are doing better. She actually snowbirds here in Arizona, so she’s coming next week. Okay. And I have not seen her and since that I’m nervous to see her, but I’m just, I don’t know. It’s definitely gonna be a little different.
[00:37:37] Crystal: Just feeling a little anxiety with, she just will be talking about things that aren’t important and my whole world has changed and hers stays, has stayed the same Exactly. Yeah, that’s hard. And she won’t talk about it. She won’t, like she told my aunt what happened and I was really close to my aunt.
[00:37:58] Crystal: My aunt never called me to see how I was doing. Now that I learned the information, and she’s a small town hairstylist. So my mom said, basically everybody knows. And I had a big problem with that too, because if you’re gonna go blab into everybody, this soap opera of my life, all of a sudden at least call me to say, Hey, how are you doing?
[00:38:22] Crystal: She knew Jeff too. ’cause it was a small town. They grew up, they all grew up there, all their families knew everybody. And it’s hard to talk about anything. With those people now, like my mom, I’m like, I don’t really have a lot to say to you anymore, and I’m hoping that changes. Yeah. Once, it’s only been, I’ve only known since July.
[00:38:43] Crystal: Like you. But. It’s still pretty raw and I feel like very betrayed. I feel very betrayed by her.
[00:38:50] Alexis: Yes. Yeah, because you think, like you, I had a really close relationship with my mom, and so you’d think even if there was just a doubt or anything that we had such an open relationship, why didn’t you tell me?
[00:39:03] Crystal: Yeah, exactly. Or when my dad left, you could have just said, now I’m getting to know this new family. And they seem so great, and I’m like, you know what? You really took this away from me like that. I could have been, I could have known them for many more years and it’s hard because now I’m in Arizona and I won’t ever get those memories.
[00:39:30] Crystal: And he coached all of his daughter’s sports and I was always so jealous of the. Kids that had parents that coached their sports and which I do for my kids’ sports now, because I always wanted my own. I always asked my dad, I was like, can you coach my softball team? Can you do that? And he was like no.
[00:39:51] Crystal: Yeah. And yet this dad, my biological dad, Coached all of their sports. He was a PE teacher. Oh my gosh. That’s the teacher he was Wow. His entire career. Yeah. And what’s funny is I’m a sub ’cause I go into my kids’ classrooms and I, like all the PE teachers in the high schools know me because it’s my favorite thing to sub.
[00:40:14] Alexis: Wow. So it’s, yeah, there, there is that anger. I’ve definitely, I’m right there with you in that journey. Like all of those things that you’re like, okay, maybe this is why I’m the way I am, but also how different would I have been if I’d grown up with that? Yeah.
[00:40:30] Crystal: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That’s really hard.
[00:40:32] Crystal: Just that thing that I’m never going to be able, I’ll never know. Yeah. I’ll never know. I’ll never get those opportunities to really get to know those people. I’m gonna try my best, but yeah. They’re older.
[00:40:45] Alexis: That’s my next question for you is what do you hope. To come from, like each of your relationships with your mom, with your newfound dad with the dad that you grew up with, what do you hope there?
[00:40:57] Crystal: I really wanna get to know this family and make memories with them and I think that will help I don’t wanna say erase the part where, I’m saying this weird because. I never, oh, so they’ll send me all these pictures of, like Jeff will send me, I can tell they’re really trying hard for me to know who his parents were and different relatives.
[00:41:23] Crystal: They’ve been going through things showing me pictures of the grandparents with both of their girls sitting on their laps sitting, and they sent me so much stuff that. Looking at all of it, it just made me feel so sad and I thought I’d feel so grateful that I’m at a place where I get all these pictures ’cause that’s what I wanted.
[00:41:47] Crystal: I wanted to see what the, what this side of my family looks like to know what they were like. But then it hit me like, oh my gosh, I just feel like. I feel so sad and upset that I won’t ever get that, and maybe I don’t want this, maybe this is too much for me right now. And then I said to myself I don’t want to tell them to stop sending stuff because they may just stop and never send me anything else.
[00:42:14] Crystal: And I, I need all this I need to save it all because I don’t know if I’ll ever get this stuff anywhere else. And then I was thinking about it more and I thought, I told my husband, I just need to make memories with these people so that it doesn’t hurt so much to know I missed out on those.
[00:42:32] Alexis: That’s a really good perspective.
[00:42:34] Crystal: Yeah. And it’s really hard to do when you’re in a different state and it’s hard because Jeff is hard of hearing, so talking to him on the phone isn’t the easiest over Zoom, he said he didn’t hear a thing. I also compare it to when you’re dating someone and you don’t know like how they’re feeling about it.
[00:42:53] Crystal: And like you guys could both be feeling about it different, feeling differently about the situation. And so I never know, like maybe I. I am still going to get the rejection, and that’s part of the reason I don’t want them to be like, stop sending me stuff because maybe in a month they’re like, and we’re done talking to you.
[00:43:11] Crystal: We don’t have time for this, or it’s too stressful on us. I just don’t know. And I’ve had rejection before with the dad that raised me, so I think I have this fear of it. And so I don’t wanna ever say anything that will upset this new family. ’cause then I feel oh, then they’re just gonna shut the door on me.
[00:43:29] Crystal: Yeah. Yeah. We are going in December and I really just wanna get to know them. I never know when the last time I’ll get to spend time with them will be, and it’s not like I’m looking for a father. I never had, I don’t feel it like that’s not how it feels to me. I just, like I said at the beginning, My first thing was I want to look him in the eyes and see who I share my DNA with.
[00:43:56] Crystal: I really that’s my number one. I wanna see him in person and look him in the eyes. And to some people that might sound so funny, like if they’re not going through this situation, but I think to people like us, that makes perfect sense.
[00:44:12] Alexis: It, it really does. And I’m so glad that even though you’ve had this experience, that you’re lucky that you get to meet him.
[00:44:21] Alexis: I know a lot of people in our situation, they don’t get to meet their fathers. I know. Yep. I’m really glad for you that you’re going to be able to, and I hope you tell me how it goes in December. Yes. Keep in touch. I will. What would you recommend to a parent that might. Holding a DNA surprise from their child, what would you say to them?
[00:44:42] Crystal: I would say they, it’s their right to know, and I understand it’s hard when they’re young and I think a lot of parents keep that secret. I. Because it’s their own shame and they have to look outside of themselves and tell the child, ’cause it affects them. It affects their children, their future children.
[00:45:04] Crystal: That’s why I needed my kids to know, because this is their DNA too. This is their health information too. This is their half of the family as well. So yeah, that’s what I would tell them.
[00:45:17] Alexis: And what advice would you give someone who like you, just a few months, you’re just a few months into this, so what advice would you give someone who just found out that they are an NPE.?
[00:45:30] Crystal: I would say it is an emotional roller coaster. As soon as I feel like I have everything handled something new, hits me and I. And even like when I got Covid the day before I was supposed to go meet this family, and not only was that, I wasn’t super sick, but not only was I feeling sick, I was just more upset that I didn’t get to go.
[00:45:54] Crystal: Yeah, I would say, take your time with it. I didn’t work. After I found out I couldn’t function in society. Really? Like you’re there, but you’re not really there. Yes, exactly. It really is a traumatic experience, so take time for yourself. Take time to process the information and everybody processes differently.
[00:46:22] Crystal: I talked to a lot of friends about it and I run, I ran, I listened to music that spoke to me. I. I did find a counselor. It took me a while, but I found one, and I think the biggest thing for me was just talking to people. Some people are so private though, and I get that too. I just needed to talk about it and I had so many friends that were so super supportive.
[00:46:52] Crystal: Some people said really dumb stuff, so watch who you talk to about it.
[00:46:57] Alexis: What did people say that was dumb?
[00:46:57] Crystal: One person said to me, this is like a couple days after I told her, and I was like crying. It was right when I found out. Yeah. So two days later she was like, I wouldn’t even care if I found out my dad wasn’t my real dad.
[00:47:12] Crystal: Oh, yeah. And I was like, that’s nice. Yeah. Yeah. It’s just stuff like that. Stuff like that.
[00:47:22] Alexis: I think that’s good advice to just be careful about where you find support, find support in good places.
[00:47:28] Crystal: Yeah. But then even the people that are so super supportive, and I love dearly, the thing is people that haven’t gone through it won’t necessarily understand either.
[00:47:39] Crystal: True. So you have to grant them a little grace as well. Because like even my very best friend, like the first, my first call with Jeff, She was like texting me nonstop right after, and I mentally, I just couldn’t talk about it for a while. I was mentally drained, so I didn’t call her back that day. And I was busy with my kids, like I wanted to spend time with my kids.
[00:48:07] Crystal: It’s not, like it is been mentally draining these past three months. Yeah. And then the next day she’s calling me, and I just felt Some people, they just think it’s like a soap opera. ’cause that’s how it plays out. Like a soap opera and they wanna know the juice.
[00:48:23] Crystal: Yeah. Even my best friend, some of my best friends and I’m like, guys, like this is my real life. Tone it down. I will let you know. I’ll call you when I can call you. I can’t talk right now, or I need a break. I need a mental break. So take mental breaks. Yes. You don’t have to answer to anyone. You don’t have to call people back right when they call you and fill them in on the story as it unravels.
[00:48:47] Crystal: That’s my biggest thing. I’ve needed to take breaks from people. My sister I grew up with, she, I needed to take a little break from her. She’s been, she was super supportive, but then, It turned like she, she had a really hard time with it too. And it turned to a place where she made it all about her and it does involve her, and I completely acknowledge that.
[00:49:14] Crystal: But I felt like I was supporting her. Over her supporting me, and I was the one needing the support. And so I needed to take a little break from her. You’ll just you’ll find the people that you need to take breaks from and it’s okay to do that. And then you have the people that will say, oh I heard that this person’s.
[00:49:39] Crystal: Sister was their mom or like all these weird stories. I’m like, Hey, that doesn’t pertain to me.
[00:49:44] Alexis: Right. Trying to relate.
[00:49:46] Crystal: Yeah, they’re trying to relate, but at the same time, actually my father-in-law, ’cause I was like, I need to tell them at some point, ’cause now we’re, they live here by us and we’re going to see them or travel to Minnesota, so we tell them when we leave and stuff.
[00:49:59] Crystal: So I was like, I need to tell them what’s going on. That’s the first thing my father-in-law said, Jack Nicholson’s mom was his sister. And I was like, okay, that’s cool. Doesn’t really pertain to me, but okay. Yeah, I didn’t need to hear that, but whatever. And that’s all he said.
[00:50:19] Alexis: I think that’s great advice to just go at your own pace, take breaks when you need to find support.
[00:50:26] Alexis: Those are all really good tips, so thank you for sharing those.
[00:50:29] Crystal: Yes, of course.
[00:50:31] Alexis: And thank you for sharing your story. I really think that this will help so many people. So thank you for being so generous to open up about something that’s relatively new for you. And I wish you the best of luck on your journey.
[00:50:43] Crystal: Oh, thank you as well.