Advertisements
I would sooo appreciate any advice because this is tearing me up inside. I was about 7 months pregnant when my life crashed and I knew I had to give my baby away. I had been estranged from my entire family for 4 years prior to that due to extreme domestic violence and divorce, so no one in my family ever knew that I was pregnant. That was 29 years ago. I had no clue about adoption agencies then, so four days after he was born, I finally told a nurse what I had to do. After a 10 minute meeting with the hospital shrink, my beautiful baby boy was gone. And I could handle that because I knew I was doing the right thing for both of us. I made a conscience decision to give him my last name because it is very uncommon in the province I live in, should he ever want to look. Fast forward to three months ago, when I recieved a message that Timothy was looking for me. I was thrilled!!! Then I bawled for a week straight, tears of joy and tears of sadness.
Herein lies my heartache.. I soon learned that Timothy is a soldier and soon to be deployed again to Afghanistan. I bawled for another week, because I didn't know if I was strong enough to meet him and he may never come back. After two weeks of tears, I decided I was. It was his wife (it never entered my mind that he would be married with children) that initiated the search because SHE felt it was time. She used Facebook which I totally understand, unfortunately (I found out later) she told everyone she contacted exactly why she was looking for me. That caused some huge problems and trust issues for me. She had gotten in contact with my youngest brother who seemed to be enough for her, because within two weeks of her initial contact with him she was calling him uncle and he was meeting them for coffee... after that her emails to me were much less in everyway. She and I had been in contact via email for about six weeks when I send her a polite but direct letter telling her how upset I was that she had done that. Directly after, was the first time I heard from Timothy, but I feel it was mainly because he was coming to her defense.
Since then, she's been dropping little bombs in my life, possibly unintentional, possibly not.. but as of yet we have yet to meet. Recently my brother asked her if we had met yet and her reply was and I quote, "Oh it's no big deal if she does or if she doesn't. I'm just glad we get to see you!!!" That just about destroyed me.
I tried to get past it, but I had to know if that is how they really felt, so I called her. I don't even remember what her answer was, but it brought on another email from Timothy. It was very stoic and very military ensuring me that he did want to meet.. but in the core of my heart, I don't get that feeling at all. The stress of all of this has triggered some health issues so I couldn't meet him now anyway.
I don't know what to do.. I NEED to see him, but I have no desire to meet her right now, do I tell him or do I have to bite the bullet and have her there taking some of the shine off of a moment that should have been so very special??
Like
Share
I think you haven't seen your son in 29 years and he is going off to war. Is there really any question whether or not to see him? How can you not? Why would you not? What I'm going to try to explain rests on a matter of opinion, and I understand that you and other birthmothers may disagree with it. If it is the opinion held by this young man and his wife, however, and I feel that it probably is, you might want to keep an open mind and respect it for the sake of having a connection with him. From their perspective, his birthfamily, history, and connections are all one and belong to him, not you. He has a right to them and they are not and should not be subject to any boundaries set by you. You created a life and brought a human being into the world. Your right to privacy, like any parents', ends where the other human being's life begins. They have no obligation to keep your secrets, especially no obligation to be one of them, and they may feel you have no right to ask that of them, let alone expect it. To many people, that kind of expectation would be unhealthy, inappropriate, and deeply hurtful. Personally, if I were adopted, it would really frost me. There are a lot of reasons they may have met your brother first. Maybe things just unfolded that way. Or maybe it was convenience. Or maybe they wanted to try a less important connection first to prepare better for RU with you. There seems to be a hint of jealousy in your post on this point, a feeling of hurt, and maybe they have picked up on that, too. Again, if so, that would be something that would be unfair to put on them. So from their perspective, they searched, they found, they started RU, and then instead of being happy that that was going forward, you put your needs and secrets at the heart of it and made it about you. Now it is about you vs. his wife. They are a young couple and are probably very loyal to each other, as they should be. You don't want to set up sides with her. If you do and he honors his vows, you will lose. I think you've been given a third chance. If it were me, and I'll never know this about myself, I would hope I would take a deep breath, lift my head, open my life, and go embrace my son and his family with everything I have. I think it would have to be very liberating after 29 years of living a secret. At the least, go, see, hear, smell, and touch your son and tell him how much you love him before he goes.
Advertisements
Wow, what a stressful way to enter a reunion! I have to wonder why your son's wife is so meddlesome in all this. I firmly believe early contact and communication should be between you and your son.
I would be upset at the way this unfolded, too I think your son's wife is being inappropriate. Even if she wasn't, I still feel in most cases, that first meeting between a mother and grown child should be between the two of them. After all those years apart, you can at least have ONE DAY or part of a day alone. I know some people want others there for support and I'm not saying that is wrong, but I know for me, personally, that would be my preference.
I will be meeting my son very soon for the first time since his birth. He has what seems to be a very lovely gf (I have yet to meet or talk to her). I do NOT want her to feel left out, and I certainly won't mind that she is included in our plans, but I hope it will be just me and my son on that first day together. Obviously, if he felt he needed his gf for support, I wouldn't turn him down, but she has not given me any problems or caused me to not like her, so it would be much easier for me to have her there if that's what my son needs/wants.
You are in a tough position. Can you speak to your son directly (have you talked on the phone yet) and feel him out about this? I think you need to be ready to reunite, but at the same time, if this is your only opportunity for a long time to see your son, you may want to just go for it, and ignore his wife as best as you can.
Truthfully, I wouldn't get caught up with her drama, though I understand why you are upset, reasonably so. This should be right now about your and your son. Your focus ideally would be on you and him and developing a foundation for a healthy relationship. With him having a wife, she will be part of that, and you don't want to make him feel like he is in the middle between you and her, but OTOH, you do need to establish your own relationship. I think for awhile you will have to tread carefully with this. The wife sounds like a handful, to say the least. Very controlling/interfering.
If you are not ready/able to meet right now, can you strike up an email/phone relationship? Maybe once he is deployed, the plus side will be he will be away from his wife (I know that's not a very nice thing to say, but he will be less "under her thumb"). You may have a better shot at getting to know him apart from her control then.
Good luck with all this, and keep us updated (and welcome to the boards!).
Really, peachy? You'd encourage more resentment toward the wife? You'd harden this negative situation by affirming the worst possible interpretation of what is really probably just a mismatch in perspective? Soldierboysmom clearly describes how she picked an argument with the wife, not the other way around--to the point where she admits that her birthson probably felt the need to "defend" his wife, something he wouldn't have had to do if his birthmother hadn't attacked her. I didn't really address that directly, but it is what it is. It doesn't sound as if the wife doesn't want RU, and clearly she did or she wouldn't have been a part of trying to make it happen. It sounds more as if the wife believes the op does not really want to meet with her birthson. In any case, neither she nor her husband seem to be the ones causing the drama here. As for "meddlesome," neither you nor the op has any idea, really, how it came to be that the wife seemed to be the point person for the RU. The young man may have wanted her to be, many marriages work that way. Or she may have taken it upon herself because she loves him and wanted him to have this before he left. That is the act of a loving wife, not a meddler. Clearly, there would be no possibility of RU but for her actions, so I'd think the op would be grateful for that. He seems to want to pursue RU, so I doubt he sees it as meddling. Soldierboysmom says she wants a connection with her birthson. If she really does, then she needs to open her mind and heart to that and to them as she finds them instead of finding reasons not to. Time to repair or move beyond the damage if there is any and pay attention to what's important--a first and maybe last chance to connect with a birthchild after 29 years. I'd think we'd all want to support her in that.
Dear Soldierboysmom,For what it's worth, I would advise you to make the most of the opportunity you've been given because you never know what tomorrow holds. All people are odd in some way or other - it could be that you are only suffering from the unfamiliarity of this daughter-in-law - it could be that you and she might only be suffering misunderstanding, personality conflict, stress, whatever. If I were in her shoes, I might would feel like I had to "tuff up" being that I was a military wife and I'd talk a brave talk so as not to get my husband nerved up about leaving......But truthfully, the thought that I might never see him again would dominate the majority of my private thoughts.In considering the brevity of life, whether or not she likes you, accepts you, etc. seems small in comparison to the big picture: you have an opportunity to see your beautiful baby boy. It shouldn't matter what kind of chaos might be going on around you in comparison to that moment. Have your moment. You should meet him anyway. People can only take away your joy if you give it to them......The only things you can't control in this situation are everyone else's actions/feelings. That's o.k. I believe they're all grown up and therefore responsible for minding their own feelings. What you can control is what you choose to say and do. You CAN take higher ground if you want to. Higher ground in this case would be just to let everybody feel what they're gonna feel. If someone's words seem inflammatory, you can always choose to not take it personal. IE "They're only thinking that way because they don't know me better yet" - it's all up to you. Have no expectations of them; only have expectations of you - it saves so much disappointment later on. Because the truth is, you are the only one who limits how many excuses you make for someone else's poor behavior. We can have endless amounts of mercy - if we want to......and that in itself is a very powerful thing.:wings: I make excuses for other people. It's easier to do when I remember how many, many times my own self needed excusing.I'm wishing you peace and happiness today, Soldierboysmom. Shake off the negative vibes and go forward with your best try -the moments aren't worth missing. Love, Songbird :flower:
Reunion is often difficult, especially in the beginning. There's just no way of getting around it. My advice to you as a natural mother who surrendered her son almost 39 years ago is to meet your son, no matter what it takes. None of us know how many days we have left on this planet, and to let this opportunity fade away is just too sad to me.
Your son's wife is the most important person in the world to him...she's his other half, and I think you need to respect that fact. Ideally, your first face-to-face meeting with your son would just be between you and him...but that may be out of your hands. If so, I would try to see things from his point of view. It must be so scary for him, even though he's a military man, to finally be in contact with his first mother. Give him a lot of room while both you and he learn to navigate this thing we call reunion. Try to put your feelings of hurt aside and find common ground with your son's wife. I have a feeling that your future relationship with him will depend on accepting his wife.
Good luck, and welcome to the journey back to yourself and your son... :loveyou:
Advertisements
Hadley, Thank you for your advice and I respect your right to your opinion. And yes, there was hurt in my post but never jealousy. I tried very hard to pick the right words but obviously I failed. Hand on heart, it was the farthest thing from my mind to 'pick an argument' with his wife, that would be suicide. Please understand that all of this is barely 3 months new for me, and I know I have handled some things badly.. but my question was not "Should I meet him?" it was more like "Would it be appropriate if I asked him to meet me alone?"
RavenSong.. Thank you so much for your clarity, understanding, and your choice of words. I will try to the best of my abilities to use everyone's advice.. there's no doubt I will screw up, but thank you all for letting me know that's ok too. You all have been so open and honest, you all have my utmost respect. Thank you!!
Advertisements