Spouses of Adoptees who've made contact group?

Hi I know some of the adoption resource places in my state hold support groups for adoptees but I am not sure if they hold them for spouses. They may know of some though. Also, if one can't be found in your area, possibly attending an adoptee support group may be helpful. I am an adoptee in reunion for 4 years now. It is overwhelming for me, so I can only imagine what it is like for my husband. We adoptees feel so many emotions (some crop up from a hiding place deep inside that we didn't even know exists!) It does take time to sort it all out. My husband has been very patient and is enjoying my brothers and sisters almost as much as I am! One of my brothers came for a visit this past summer and the two of them went on a week long fishing trip together with my husband's brothers. I can imagine my spouse has felt left out at times because my feelings were so involved with the reunion for a while - to the exclusion of everything else. But please know that things do settle down after while and in many ways I can't remember a time when I didn't "know". If there are no support groups in your area, you may want to keep posting here with issues that crop up as there are many wonderful people here who understand what you are going through and are so willing to help. Please private message me, if you would like to "talk". Snuffie

STACEY, I am also the spouse of an adoptee that has been in reunion for almost 2 years now. The whole experience has been just awesome for me, but sometimes I think it can be just as hard or harder on the spouse than the adoptee. If you need to talk feel free to PM me. Sue

So how did the first few months after the reunion work for you and your family? Did your spouse's reunion go well to begin with?

The first few months after the reunion were pretty emotional. Hubby went from being an only child to one of seven pretty much overnight. We actually had the first face to face 1 month after 1st contact and it was pretty awesome. It was the one and only time the whole family has ever been together. It's settled down somewhat now. Still a lot of emotions and still learning a lot about all the family members. He's not as close to some of them as he'd like to be, but it's still a work in progress. But 1 of his brothers has actually just moved here to be closer to him. It's almost like they've known each other their whole lives.

My adoptee, who has found his birth mother, seems to be taking in so much change he is not able to adjust well, or so it seems. As I view what is going on with the spouse I wonder what can be said or done to help them. At this point the adoptee is willing to take his whole family and move them to the state where the birth mother lives-right now. The spouse and the adoptee have lived basically in the same place for their entire lives. He has only know the birth mother for about two months. I can understand the why he wants to move but it's a little drastic to ask his spouse and kids to make a major move like that-so soon. What do you think?

I am not a spouse but a birthmother. I don't know if this will help or not. Remember when you first got married? All the new relatives you had to meet and remember, fitting everyone in your life. Thinking that you would never remember them all. Finding that over time, only the primary players in that family were the ones you talked to or saw on a regular basis. Reunion is a lot like that. In the first year everyone wants to meet and say hi. For a couple of years you hear from everyone who knew or didn't know that the adoptee exsisted. Then you notice that fewer and fewer of them remember anything other then a card at christmas. Or that you haven't heard from this person or that one in a long time. Some people hate this term, but reunions take work. On the bfamily side we have to remember to include the adoptee. It isn't that we don't want to, it just isn't automatic. When something happens in any family you call the closest family members frist. In reunion you have to remember to call the adoptee or birthmother.. It takes a while, sometimes years for it to become automatic. Like a new girlfriend, or new step family, it takes time and work. My ex dau in law, bson's ex, (not to scare you, their marriage was on the rocks when I found him) she found her husband falling in love (in essence) with another woman. Now it didn't seem to matter that this woman was his birthmother. She (ex-wife, was only 10 years younger then me) found it difficult. She kept saying I didn't "act" like his mother. His amom is the same age as my father. So bson's amom was older then my mother. I had to explain that as his bmom, I was acting exactly the way his bmom was supposed to act. After all, I, as the birthmother was only 16 years older then bson. Good luck on all this, hang on, it will level off and life will take on some normalcy.

I think it is probably WAY too soon to consider moving his whole family to where his birth mother lives. But I can understand why he would think it's a good idea. It takes a while to get to know people. I know that has to be hard on his spouse. I know that most of the time, I want to be supportive of J. I feel like he deserves the right to get to know his family, and I certainly don't want to do anything to get in the way of that, but at the same time, when it affects OUR entire family, it needs to be something that is thought through and decided together.

I really agree with Scarlet about reunions taking a lot of work. There have been times (early in the reunion) when J would get upset because his siblings weren't calling him as much as he wanted and I had to remind him that he had known all his life that he had siblings (not how many, but he knew he had some). They didn't know and they were probably still trying to figure out where he fit in their lives.

Hi Stacy2691,The following web site has some info for partners of adoptees - I hope it helps. Good for you for reaching out to other spouses. From what I've heard in my local adoptee support group and read on this web site, spouses can and do have it rough too! [url=http://www.bensoc.org.au/parc_search/partnersads_fp.html]The Benevolent Society - Spouses and partners of adoptees[/url]

Is there anything recent in this forum ? the links attached dont seem to work