Every family is different. DNA discoveries change who we know and how we related and with whom we spend our time talking and being together.

What happens when two people who conceived a child as teens reconnect later in life and decide to marry?

A recent email I received revealed the challenges in blending families for one such person.

I hope this response might help others out there find their way to support.

My daughter from when I was a teenager found me online. We have a pretty good relationship but there are hurdles though, as I am dating and engaged to her mother now. My existing family has not shown any interest in meeting or acknowledging my fiance. I’m looking for a pathway to making this happen or not. The age span between my oldest and my youngest daughter is 23 years.

I’m torn between my dad, brother, my teen daughter from a prior relationship, and now the family I am starting with my daughter who has entered my life later on, and my fiance (her mother).

Everyone knows about each other, but they all have no interest in connecting with one another. Also, my newest found daughter has always known about me, AND I kind of knew that it was a possibility that she was my daughter, but not 100% until recently. All I can say is I was young, scared, and afraid of the implications back then.

It’s all so complicated and confusing.

- Reunited Bio Dad

Hello Reunited Bio Dad,

This sounds like a tricky situation. Your hope is that everyone can get along and move forward with forming bonds. You are sensing reluctance from the others to go along with the plan you have in your mind, and I imagine the reason for the reluctance is going to be a little different for each person in the family. Your experience of this attempt at family melding as complicated and confusing is an increasingly common experience as DNA tests are revealing “not parent expected” (NPE) discoveries.

The expectations of everyone being able to integrate easily and quickly—which the TV commercials seem to paint as the norm—is oftentimes far from the reality. You might want your daughters who are “sisters” by DNA to share a sisterly relationship. But two women who are strangers to each other, are 23 years separated by age, and have only a biological father in common might not be in similar places in life to have space for one another.

There might also be emotions they are dealing with that they are hiding from you.

Maybe they are trying to figure out what their role and position are in the new family arrangement you have chosen for the family. Maybe they are feeling pressure to form a bond that to them does not feel natural. They haven’t had a choice in your decision to marry your fiance. Although others in the family may show one set of emotions to your face, what is going on behind the scenes or in their own internal worlds might be different.

Can things work out well in the long run? It is possible, and to get there, everyone involved needs to feel comfortable. What this looks like in reality:

• Everyone feels safe to share how they are feeling

• Everyone feels respected

• Everyone feels like they can decline to pursue a relationship they don’t feel a desire to pursue

• Everyone feels communication lines are open and will stay open no matter what feelings or thoughts they express

• Everyone feels their perspective is being considered

• Everyone feels their emotions are valid

• Everyone feels like they are being treated as an equal

A family therapist with experience in supporting mixed and blended families would be a critical member of the “team” you need to build to get your family to where everyone feels comfortable.

How to find a family therapist?

You might first start with a search on psychologytoday.com or npecounseling.org. An LMFT (licensed marriage and family therapist) has special training in working with families who have complex dynamics going on, like in yours. They would be a good fit for what you and your family need right now.

Talk with people in your community. Test out a few counselors or therapists with a get-to-know-you call until you find someone you feel like you click with. It might also help to work with someone by yourself, 1:1, without anyone else involved. You have a lot to unpack given all the changes in recent years and the merging of your life with people who are now central to your days after decades of not being in each other’s lives.

In addition to therapy, you might also find support in online support groups.

Most importantly, keep the communication lines open with all of those who are important to you.

You might never reach the point of being One Big Happy Family, but I don’t know of many families that are this way or stay this way forever.

Life is messy sometimes, and that is okay.