Note: I'm going to be telling this story from the perspective of my mom, because it makes most sense that way. I am also missing many details, but I'll answer any questions to the best of my ability. 

My father told me that he had been married before he met my mother when I was 14. I was sitting in a diner with my brother, and got very serious, and said that he needed to tell us something. To sum it up, he explained that he'd met this woman when he was fairly young, and they got married basically right after they started dating. She was a ballerina, which is an important detail because he loved ballet so, so much. He told us that they had a son, who he hadn't seen since him and the woman got divorced. My brother and I got the impression that it was an extremely messy, painful divorce, and that they ended hating each other so much that they never wanted to see each other again.

At this point I think that it's significant to note that my father was a war veteran with PTSD, depression, and he was an alcoholic. He ran from the nazis as an extremely young boy, and he had lots of problems that he never fully recovered from.

Back to the story, though. My father continued to tell us that she got remarried, and he hasn't seen his son since. He thought that the boy's stepfather had fully taken the roll as an actual father, and because the boy was a baby when they got divorced, the boy thought that his stepfather was his actual father. We assume that the boy was never told about us. As my brother and I grew up, we thought about this occasionally, and the fact that we had a half-brother whom we had never met, and who didn't even know we existed. 

Later in life, we found him. He lives in the state next door to us and is fairly successful. We didn't reach out to him. It could have ruined his life. He still lives there with his family. AITA? 