Couple discover they are siblings: Child courts blamed after strangers fall in love, have a son - and then find out they are half-brother and sister
‘A young couple have revealed how they fell in love after meeting at a nightclub, moved in together, had a child – and then discovered they were, in fact, half-brother and sister. The extraordinary discovery was confirmed by DNA testing just last month.** It has left the couple stunned and shaken – but they are nonetheless vowing to stay together and have more children.’****
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‘They both blame the legal system which prevented the young man from being told his true identity. **He only discovered who he really was long after he and his half-sister had got together and had the child. Aged in their 20s and living in Leinster, they have decided to speak out in a bid to help others who might find themselves in a similar situation.’
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‘they have to remain anonymous for fear of the impact it might have on their son – or on their lives. Some who know them fear there could be legal repercussions over their relationship, which is illegal in the eyes of the law. Now they are considering taking a landmark civil case against the judge and a child psychologist involved in the family law case that ultimately sealed their fate by refusing let a child be told the truth about his parentage because of the secrecy that shrouds Irish family law.’
Speaking to the Irish Mail on Sunday this weekend, the young man at the centre of this staggering tale said he understood how his story might initially make people feel.
‘I’m not blind and I’m not oblivious to what people might think,’ he said. ‘We’re not from a bad background and if someone had said to me that they were in a relationship like this, I would have said they were sickos.
‘When we found out that we were half-brother and half-sister, we were devastated. When I got the phone call with the DNA tests, it was like when you hear about someone you know has died or like when you are in a car crash.
‘The shock is not physical. It’s that sinking feeling in your stomach which comes all over you. If we didn’t have a child, we would have left it. 'Before we found out that my girlfriend is my half-sister, we were talking about getting married and we would like more children. But we will get married and we will have more children.’
'The couple do not want their identities revealed because they fear that to do so would have a devastating impact on their young son. They believe their little boy would be stigmatised by society and singled out for ridicule by his school mates. And, naturally, they also want to protect themselves until they’ve had a chance to come to terms with their extraordinary situation. So instead of using their real names, they have asked to be known as James and Maura. They have asked that their son be referred to as Mark; James’s mother as Carmel, and his stepfather as Vincent. The name ‘Tom’ is given to the man who, it turns out, fathered both James and Maura.’
'James and Maura met several years ago in a nightclub. Even though they live 100 miles apart, both were out socialising with friends in a town which neither is from. They were instantly smitten and so strong was their mutual attraction that just one week later they both felt they’d known each other for a lifetime.
Recalling the first time they met, James explained: ‘We grew up in separate towns about 100 miles apart. We met by chance in a town neither of us is from. We’d never met before and there is about two years between us.’
‘We got on very well. We are very similar in what we like and dislike. We really hit it off. We agreed on everything. I’d been in relationships before but I just knew this was different. We met that night and after a week it felt like we’d known each other forever.’
‘You know when you meet certain people you just click? It never happened in that way before. After the first week we met every evening. We would drive to see one another and I’d either go to her place or she’d go to mine.’
‘Two years after they met, Maura became pregnant and they moved in together. Later that year their son, Mark, was born. By then James’s fraught relationship with his mother, Carmel, was nearing breaking point.He had not seen Vincent – the man he had been brought up to call ‘father’ – for years. Vincent had left the family home when James was about 10 or 11. So strained was their relationship that the young boy was relieved when his ‘father’ walked out the door. He and his mother had drifted even further apart since then.’
‘I have always been evasive about my parents,’ said James, ‘and when Maura would ask me when she was going to meet my parents, I would put her off knowing it would never happen. ‘My mother has always done everything wrong and with girlfriends I would be evasive so my mother wouldn’t be able to upset them. ‘I was dreading the Christening because I thought the priest might ask about my mother and I thought people at the Christening would be asking me about my parents.’
‘My mother was by herself and I was just going to call in and see her before Christmas,’ said James. ‘That was it. I started to tell her about my girlfriend and our child. ‘She asked me who my girlfriend’s parents were, what their names were. She asked me what was my girlfriend’s father’s name was, where was he from and what did he do.’
‘My mother got hysterical. She just put her hands on her face and said: “You’re not serious.” I thought: “She has lost it.”
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**‘She went upstairs, closed the door and wouldn’t come out. I stayed in the kitchen. It was just weird; then I went up and asked her if she was okay. She said to me to stay away from Maura, but she wouldn’t come out of the room so after a while I went away. ‘I turned my phone off for a few days and, when I turned it on after Christmas, I thought there might be a text from her but there wasn’t. Three or four days after Christmas, my mother rang and told me that Maura’s father was my father.’
‘People reading this will think our situation is a one-off and that the chances of this happening are the same as the chances of winning the lottery – but every week someone wins the lottery.’
‘There are others like us and I think that if mothers were forced to name the child’s father on the birth certificate, then this would not happen. Meanwhile, James has contacted the General Registrar of Births to rectify his birth certificate and he is also considering taking a civil case. ‘I would like to meet the judge and the psychologist and ask them how they thought this was the right decision. They would not do this to their own families.’
What are the chances?? I do feel bad for them but at the same time I’m surprised they’re carrying on with the relationship..
Cleopatra was married to her own 8 years younger brother and later fought not a fight but WAR against him shaid os ke bad inhon na LAWS badley) khyr yeh bhi khud ko Cleopatra samjhain tu khair hy:D **