Birthparents- I need some reassurance or a wake up call

Birdeez- You did not offend me, not even a teeny tiny bit. My fathers biological family consists of his mother, his brother and his brother wife, and his brothers two kids. Thats it. These are not large amounts of people here. In total we are talking about 5 people. My sister, my uncle, my aunt(uncles wife), my grandmother, and my two cousins. ThatҒs it. Grandmother has ALWAYS had big and sad problems with my adoption. She liked me for a long time- but as soon as my sister showed any bad feelings towards me, she took my sisterӒs side. She is very protective of my sister, because she ԓlost me to adoption. These are not my birthfathers words. This is something she has told my adoptive parents ( my parentԒs were always wary of her- shes always had some weird issued with my adoption- and doesnҒt believe in reunion. So when my sister and I had issues- she jumped on the bandwagon and said see? this is why contact is bad! Its hurting ӓE!Ԕ She will occasionally ask my biodad questions about me, about how Im doing, etc, but she wont do it on front of my sister. She is the matriarch, and though I know my aunt doesnҒt have an issue with me, or my cousin, my uncle (bio dads brother) is very loyal to the mother. I'm not totally faultless. I haven't always been super sweet to my sister. She would be a witch to TO MY FACE and do things to me on purpose , andI got tired of it after a while. I got snarky back with her back when I was an early teen. I am not blameless. But her issues have little to nothing to do with anything that I've done. She's told me that herself. She groups me with our mother, the "abandoner", and she will never love me. These issues, all combined with my sisters gradual resentment of me, are what make up this fun little family soup that I escaped from. They also all hate my birthmother- and they hate her for leaving my sister and making my sister sad. I, too, make my sister sad. My sister sees our birthmother in me (in a figurative sense) and would rather reject me before I can reject her. Very,very,very true. She has been in therapy, and it helped a little. But when she said she didnҒt want to go anymore ( they had to prod her to begin with) she stopped. End of story. It comes down to this- I cant change them, I can only change myself. I want to get some therapy, figure out if I am able to be in contact with my biodad. If we are in contact, I want NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYONE ELSE. If they want to spend time with me, and they go out of their way to do so, so be it. They can come visit me , or if I go to visit them ( I have other family out in their state who I like to see as well) my sister can go to my grandmotherҒs house, and I can spend time with my bio dad alone. End of story. If he is not willing to adhere to that- then f*** him. I dont see myself ever being okay with being put in the middle ever again. Either I will have to grow a backbone, and come to terms with the fact that I will never have the relationship that I want with my sister, or with his family, or I just wonҒt have contact ever again. Thats what IҒve decided. I need to stop being a pansy and trying to analyze everyone else. Either its kept between he, I or there won't be a relationship. If the otherҒs want in- they can have it. But I will not wait for them . I will not cry anymore over this. I need therapy. If I feel that I can be firm enough to set the boundaries that I need to I֒ll send him a letter within the next few months to a year. I dont want to wait too long. If I donҒt think I can handle it-Ill write a letter to him, and I wonҒt send it. Ill write a goodbye letter, and keep it to myself. A quiet goodbye, so to say, from a person who never had a voice in this family to begin with.

I have bolded my responses within thequote Amanda, i am 51 years old. I have not met my bfather, I have no idea how I would have been at your age. Again...we all have differnt experiances with our adoptions. I don't feel I have anymore insight on my situaion...it may seem that way because I have lived longer then you! I have been to school, had a career, married , had children,...its only because I am old that itseems I have better insight...LOL. Thats what I am trying to say to you...live YOUR life as you aresuppose to...finishing education, having more boy friends and enjoying where life takes you. You have alot to offer this world and need to figure out why this is impacting your life so negativily and why its so important to you. ..when the one person that created you can't give you what you need and its making you crumble....WHY? Trust me babes...you are WAY smarter then me and will in time figure this out! Just try to get it to be a learning, growing experiance..not an experiance that will define the rest of your life.

I've read through this post, and I am both an adoptee - reunited years ago, and a birth mom, reunited a little more than a year ago. I had just turned 17 when I placed my daughter for adoption. It was a closed adoption. I grieved the loss of my first child, and went on to marry, have two children, divorce and am today happily married and my husband has adopted my two children. To give this some context, my son is 19 and in the military and my daughter is 17, soon to be a senior in high school. Also note that my adoptive father molested and abused me during my childhood. Adoption has touched my life in many many ways, both good and bad. Last week, my birth daughter decided that she did not want to see me anymore, and here is the letter I am thinking about sending to her. I have not done so yet, but thought I would share it with you to help you have a glimpse as to what your birthfamily may or may not feel. Get ready for a good long read, as it is quite lengthy. I'd also appreciate any feedback on whether or not it is appropriate for me to send. Not sure what to do, but I feel like I need some sort of closure. Thanks. _________________________________ I have read your e-mail and taken some time to really consider whether or not to respond, and if so, how. Ultimately, I decided to give you the raw honest truth. I am simply very hurt, which I am assuming was your intention, by the tone and structure of your email and all of the things that were said on my front lawn. I need you to know that I sat in the bedroom with my husband in disbelief as I listened to what you were saying. He didn’t know what to do or say and was afraid that the neighbors were going to call the station. When you were knocking on the door, yelling for your cigarettes, I couldn’t have answered. I would have cried, so I honestly thought it was best for me to stay in the bedroom. I asked my husband to go and give you the cigarettes and he got up to get his clothes on and give them to you, but by the time he got to the door, you were gone. When you first contacted me, my life was turned entirely upside down. I never imagined the emotions and feelings that finally meeting you would bring to the surface, and at times it was both joyful and painful. I didn’t realize this would happen, but many old wounds were opened. I believed that I needed to allow myself to feel all of it, because I strongly felt that it was your right to know me, and if it hurt me, I needed to suck that up so that you could have the information and closure that I owed to you. I was also insanely, selfishly curious and felt that I could finally find closure too. I tried my best to not lay my pain on your doorstep, and most of it was suffered quietly and only shared with my husband. I know on perhaps 2 occasions, I cried in front of you, and for that, I am truly sorry. I really tried not to. I did all that I could to make you feel welcome into my life, introducing you to the people who mean the most to me. Since we met, I have privately struggled with what our relationship should be and how it can fit into my life and where I fit into yours. I’ve never known where the boundaries are and what was ok or not ok. I’ve also never felt comfortable enough to say that to you, because I was afraid that it would hurt you and you may misunderstand my struggle and feel somehow rejected, which was the last thing I wanted. You’ll recall the one time that I did let you know what was important to me setting a boundary involving my daughter. You were so angry and thought I was being a complete jerk. In reality, I was torn and couldn’t stand watching her feel hurt and left out, but in order to do anything about it, I had no choice but to offend you. Sucky position to be in. From that point on, I tried to just go with the flow and let you call the shots. I wish there was a societal definition of what this type of relationship should be like. For instance, we all know what a mom is, what a dad is, what a brother is, a sister and so forth. Where is the rule book for a birth mom or an adoptee? It all seems so very complicated to me and flawed with a vast amount of potential pitfalls, huge problems and misunderstandings. My life is very full of many things. Sometimes, I think it is too full and find myself feeling overwhelmed and generally exhausted. I know this is of my own doing, but I also know the things I need to do for me to bring sanity and balance into my world. Sometimes I still struggle with the balance part, but I have gotten better at it the older I get. What I have not been good at is letting you know when it is too much. Again, that awkward, crappy feeling that I am d*m*ed if I do and d*m*ed if I don’t. I actually shared this briefly with your mom, when we met. She told me that I shouldn’t be afraid to set boundaries. In the next breath, however, she told me that she and your Dad try to give you gentle guidance and advice, but feel it is seldom accepted. She told me that she privately hoped I would be able to give you advice and that you might accept it from me. Ironically, nothing could be harder or more awkward than that expectation, but I know she didn’t mean it to be. She just loves you and worries about you. This weekend, I tried to let you know how I was feeling. It isn’t that I don’t care about you or your daughter, but I really need my veg time, which I was willing to share with you. I was frustrated that the baby was so all over the place in my home with everything. I really did not want to tell you how to be a Mom, or what you should or shouldn’t do, however, I needed you to respect my things and my home and to teach your daughter to do the same. I was not trying to hurt you or demean you or treat you like a child, I was attempting to set a boundary and ask you to honor it. I tried a number of times throughout the day to let you know, but I wasn’t successful at communicating it to you in a way that was non-offensive and that you could connect with. When you reacted the way you did because I suggested that using time outs, instead of threatening them, and told your daughter that I was a b*t*h, I wasn’t upset that you chose to swear around your daughter, I was upset that you chose to say something like that about me to her. It hurt. I felt in reaction to my drawing that line and letting you know there was a boundary, you lashed out, using your daughter to hurt me and it stung. I have truly tried the best I knew how to make myself an open book to you and with that came many risks. Risks that if you knew about the situation with my father, you would think less of me or think I was a nut case. Risks that if you saw the “real me” with all the good and all the bad, you may not like me. Risks that involving you in my life would hurt my son and daughter, and make them somehow feel betrayed or less important. I decided to take on all those risks, and therefore I knew the possibility was always there to be hurt. In your email, you describe all of the things you dislike about me very eloquently. That really stung, but what hurt more is the realization that you knew it would. I have shared with you on many occasions how important it was to me that if you ever found me you would find someone you could be proud of. I think you deliberately went to great pains to ensure I fully understood your disappointment. I’m not sure why you would want to do that to someone, but I accept it for what it is. Very mean and very intentional. When I heard you yelling things about my children and things about my experience with my father making me the kind of Mom I am, I felt like throwing up. That hurt more than anything else, because of the risk I took in trusting you with that information. I never in a million years thought you would use that to say something so mean spirited, no matter what. None of my friends that I have trusted with that information have ever used it in that manner, no matter how angry they have been. Am I perfect? Hell no. Have I been the model parent? No no no. There are no perfect people in this world nor perfect parents and I think we all do the best we can with the cards we are dealt. You are right to say that I was dealt some pretty crappy cards. However, what you miss is that I have done the best I know how to be a better person, despite all of it. And you are right to point out that I will continue to grow. We all will, every day that we are above ground. I now know that I will never be able to live up to the expectations of who you think I should be, and I can’t apologize for that – I am who I am. I also realize that I am much different than your mom and dad, however, I love my children. Even if I yell or I slap them, I still love them, and I am trying to teach them how to be better people. I want only the best for them and they know this. It is far from abuse, and what I see as normal discipline. With respect to your feeling like I have treated you like a child, it is important to point out that I have never yelled at you for anything, and I never would, because you are not my child, you are my friend, and you will be 23 this month, and I will be 40. There are 17 additional years of experiences that cause me to see things differently than I did at 23. I hope you will never experience some of them, and others you’ll need to go through. That is not weakness for you and does not make me better than you or smarter than you, it just makes me older. Since I have known you, there have been many things I have witnessed that have concerned me, but I never felt it was my place to butt in. And even now, I feel very uncomfortable to point out any of this out to you, so I will not. That doesn’t mean that I don’t care and that I am not worried. The only times I have offered any substantial opinion or advice, is when you asked. Even then, I felt awkward, but I tried to be honest about what I thought. I have never said anything about your boyfriend or anyone else in your life in a mean spirited, hurtful way --- I tried to treat you the way I would want to be treated -- the way my friends interact with me, and the way I interact with them. I wouldn’t want a friend to just agree with me to make me feel good. What can be gained from that? Evenstill, I have always felt that I needed to tread very lightly and carefully with you, because I have come to know you to be very sensitive to anything that might be perceived as criticism or that might suggest that there are other possibilities beyond what you have thought of. Based upon the things that you said this weekend, I understand that I failed miserably in this regard. Now I want to try to explain why I have tried so much to find your birthfather for you and address this squarely. This gets more complicated, and I’m not really sure that I fully understand it myself, so it may or may not make sense to you. I have always told you that I loved your birth father when I was with him, and I really did. He is not a bad person and has good qualities. What he didn’t have was a fair shake at life. The situation with his own mother walking away from him, and his father’s inability to give him any real parenting, truly destroyed his ability to know how to build relationships. The only bond that he was ever able to sustain was with his father, and he died way too early. There is no one else for him. Because of this, and because of the simple, albeit misguided, love I had for him, I have sympathy and compassion, even though I know he is very messed up. This is also something for whatever reason I felt comfortable being involved in with you, as your birth mother. I remember how he was when you were born… and I don’t mean with me, I mean with you. Despite all of his shortcomings and problems, he clearly demonstrated that you meant something to him. You meant enough for him to want to see you and to hold you, knowing you would never be his. And as I told you before, if it wasn’t for him, I may well have changed my mind and taken you back. Whatever his motivation was, he is the primary reason you remained with your mom and dad. It was his ability to talk sense into a distraught young girl, convincing me to put your interests before my own heartache. With all that being said, I kind of feel like he has gotten the raw end of this deal, simply because babies grow in a woman’s belly, and men donate sperm. I have often wondered if meeting you could impact his life in a positive way, and I wonder if such a meeting would give you that satisfaction of knowing that you have done so well, far beyond anything he was able to accomplish. Most importantly, I believe it would give you an opportunity to independently judge him for yourself, without all the rumor and speculation from everyone else, including me. For the record, I really and truly do not believe he is a cross dresser! I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I think he deserves that much and secretly it would make me happy to know that there is a chance for him to be happy and as normal as normal can be, given his circumstance. When I really think about this, I know it is completely unreasonable for me to put this expectation on you. I also realize that he may simply be a lost cause. I’m sorry that I didn’t see this before now and made it so awkward for you. Again, if I had the “Birth Mom”, “Adoptee” rulebook, it might have read otherwise. Or if I had listened more carefully to what you were trying to tell me. So, why am I telling you all this? You are probably thinking that it is an effort to get you to change your decision. Well, it is not. Do I wish you had agreed to take the time to think about things? Yes. I had hoped that the time we shared meant enough to you that you would honor that request, and just take time and allow me time. Does it hurt that you have refused? Yes, but I will be ok and you have my word and promise that I will honor your wishes. I am telling you all this because the way things end matters to me. I’m telling you because it is important to me that you know that I have never said or done anything with the intent to hurt you. In fact, all of your life, from the moment you were conceived, it has been quite the opposite. If you have gained anything from this experience, I hope that you will appreciate and take with you that I am not angry, I am sorry for my mistakes and I forgive you unconditionally. You did not choose to be adopted and I know this situation has presented you with an equal amount of stress and you too have surely felt the awkwardness and risk of being hurt that I described. You do not have a rulebook either. My hope for you is that if a situation presents itself in the future that is upsetting, you might think back on this time and consider walking away, breathing, thinking and sleeping on things before reacting. If I have learned anything in life, I know that angry words hurt, even when we don’t intend them to. Although I believe you intended to hurt me, I’m fairly certain that you are not clear in your own mind as to why. As for me, I cannot take any more risks right now beyond the vunerability of sharing these feelings with you. I do think, however, that all that I described was worth having the opportunity to know you….. and “you do have the tenacity of a pitbull”, and I hope that this will carry you so that you will always be ok. Lastly, please remember you don’t have to be perfect, and there is nothing to lose by seeking help when you need it. It is not a sign of weakness, rather a sign of strength.

Megsmile, You wrote a beautiful, well thought out letter. My birthfather and I are now on good footing, but it's not easy. I have only now, after 9 years of reunion, begun to share with him my innermost feelings, my most primal hurts. I do not place blame, I do not point fingers. I explain, gently, how I feel, and how my emotions have affected my actions. I don't know your daughter, but it seems she is hurting too. This is not an excuse for her to treat you as she did. I hope one day she is mature enough and wise enough to not only accept your advice, which is solid and astute, but also to accept you in her life. I'm sure you would be an asset to her, and hopefully she to you. There is no map for the terrain we travel. Love, it would seem, is our only compass- and what an unreliable one it can be. I hope this break that you and your daughter will be embarking on does wonders for your relationship. Sometimes all we need is a little space to reevaluate, to think, and to feel the overwhelming feelings that reunion often brings. Your daughter is lucky to have you.

Thank you so much for your thoughts.... I am glad to know that you were able to work out the problems you were having. You've helped me in making a decision on this letter.... I need to send it to her, because it is important that she know how I feel. Maybe she won't understand right now, but at some point, I hope she will. Boundaries are such a hard thing to set and I can see where feelings can get hurt. Where we as adoptees and as birth parents fit in and belong is such a hard thing to figure out. I'm fairly convinced that it is the reason reunions can be so hard. There is always a "honey moon" period, don't you think? But once that is over, figuring it all out is very very difficult. How were you able to work things out with your birth family? (If you don't mind me asking)

Amanda, Only speaking from my perspective, but I reunited with my daughter 11 years ago and she has cut me off 3 times (the last one for 1 1/2 years-- and without ANY explanation, even to this day). It tore my heart out, but each time she came back, I accepted her without question. Speaking from my perspective [for good or bad], as much pain as these unwanted breaks were, I always took [and will always take] her back. I can't hold back when she reaches out to me, even as much as she hurt me. I can't guarantee the same will happen with your bdad, but all you can do is speak from your heart. As you've already picked up from reading other posts, a birthparent's love is still a parent's love... and in my case it's unconditional. I wish you all the best:grouphug: Keep us updated, Soprano

Meg, Beautiful letter, heartfelt and obviously has been weighing on you for some time. I know from my perspecive and from my experiences with my son, I have allowed him to act disrespectful and in ways I would never ever allow my other 2 children act. I think that sometimes birthmothers from the closed era never every had closure, never dealt with the myriad of emotions we should have dealt with and reunion just brings it all back to the surface and literally makes us crazy (I know it has for me). I find that while I love my son, want that close relationshi with him, when he is out of my life, my life is actually calmer. I am hoping that we can get to a good place in the future but rest assured your daughter will most likely contact you again in the future. My son has cut me off twice and come back each time-at least those two times we had an argument. He has now cut me off for the 3rd time with absolutely no explanation. His amom emailed me after I sent her an email asking if everything was ok, if he was ok, and she said yes he just wanted to sort things out and would call me in the future. I have emailed her 2 other times since then with no answer and he changed his phone number. I will do as soprano has done and take him back whenever he reaches out next time. I would definitely send that letter, it will help you establish boundaries in the future..

Thanks... I have felt a little out of sorts over this whole thing. It is diffenitely difficult and I appreciate knowing I am not the only one that has gone through a range of emotions on this. The bottom line is that I don't want a bad ending, but I want her to know that I went through a lot of heartache when I placed her for adoption. It has taken me years to recover and be in a good place in my life. I deserve that, just as much as she deserves to know who I am. Love is something that is built over time, not inherited through genetics.... it is also not something that is owed like a debt. Trust works the same way. I do think I need to send the letter. She may not understand all of it now, but someday she might. When she is older. As for me, I need my life to go back to normal and I need to get my head out of my but on this so I can be the wife and mother my family needs and deserves. Thanks for listening..... I appreciate your insight.