Reunion- Ying Yang... Ebony Ivory... You Me....

July 27, 2011

I think I write this in a better perspective since it is nearly 6 years since our reunion. My daughter searched and found me, yet I was the one who wanted to embrace this reunion and make it work and she was the one who politely withdrew but not completely.Let me explain. She lives in a different country, yet her adopted family still lives in the country I live in. I travelled there twice and she's been here as well. I tried very hard to make it work (maybe too hard) but in the begining of a reunion there are just so many emotions that are heightened and out of control. So I write this with hindsight. Bonding and loving and nurturing children grows from the moment they are born to the years you spend and grow together. A reunion has a gaping hole that you try and fill in the minimum time. Whether you want to or not, and for some because of hurt rejection it is so difficult to in one swift moment maybe forget or forgive.My life had turned out well and all I wanted to do was to let this daughter of mine feel unconditionally accepted and become part of my life. After my last visit I think about 2 years ago, she sent me a letter snail mail to inform me that she was very hurt that I called her my daughter in a note that I left thanking her for the time she had taken off work to spend with me. She said she felt I wanted something different out of the relationship and that she just wanted a friendship. She felt anything else was betraying her adopted father and the mother who had passed away nearly 6 years ago.

I was quite taken aback and also hurt by the letter. In my mind biologically she was my daughter and I wasn't trying to betray anyone. So I took a couple of days to process and wrote back saying that maybe I need to draw back a little and let her catch up to where I am. I said I will always be there for her and will email and send her cards and letters for bdays, christmas etc, but I don't want to force myself on her. So things became very quiet. On Facebook I thought by uploading photos of happenings in my life with my family she could maybe learn a little more about us from the outside looking in. One day I realised that she had given me limited profile to her Facebook. It also hurt very much and then I realised I must try be the adult here and let things be. If she needed privacy from me I should respect that. Difficult as it was not to let her know that I knew she had limited me I let it be. Then my sister let me know that she had seen on my daughters Facebook that she was coming over here to visit last year Nov, Dec. Not long after my sister sent my daughter a message to say if she is coming over here she should stop over in Oz where my sister lives and spend time with her for a day or two. Then I received an email to from my daughter to say she was coming over here for a holiday and would like to meet for coffee. Since I'd heard nothing from her since her letter about me calling her my daughter, I thought that in the back of my mind she was only telling me she was coming over as my sister knew she was. Anyway in the end she came over, didn't contact me, limited my sister to her Facebook profile as well. Obviously so my sisiter wouldn't know what was happening in her life and let me know. I was very hurt realising she had been so close and didn't want to try and see me. I felt her silence spoke volumes. Anyway once again I said nothing. I think probably thinking that with silence there would still be a chance for us. If I confront her it could land up being unpleasant and ruining any possibility of a relationship with her in the future. I've sent christmas cards (even had one I done personally for her with her name) bday cards and she has never texted me to say thanks. Once I emailed her to check her postal address and she confirmed it with me so I knew she was getting the cards. Sad story and I still have hope but as I write this it makes me realise she is probably never going to want a relationship with me and doesn't know how to let me know without hurting me. The huge 25 year gap of not knowing each other looks like is going to be impossible to overcome from her side. Her upbringing in a family with a different language must add to our differences. I thought when I met her that maybe she would find something in common with me that would help her with her missing link and if she felt any rejection would help her overcome it, where in the end I think I was much younger than her adopted parents and maybe so different because of language and cultural differences that even genes shared cannot overcome a 25 year separation. Yet I will still live in hope.

snoopy87

July 28, 2011

Goudvis,

I'm sorry your reunion has cooled off - I know how painful that can be. I am an adoptee who had a failed reunion more than a decade ago but then a successful reunion after a second chance just a few years ago.

Of everything you wrote in your post, the part that stands out to me the most is that your daughter lost her mom as a very young woman (sounds she was in her late teens/early 20s). Furthermore, it sounds like she loved her mom and is probably still working her through grief. There was nothing wrong with you calling her "your daughter" in your note - clearly, that is a fact on some levels. But, it seemed to have really triggered your daughter's feelings of loyalty to her adoptive parents. It may have made her guilty, disloyal, or just pushed, pushed further along in her relationship with you than she was ready for.

You cannot really help resolve her loyalties or her grief. The feelings she is experiencing are hers to work out and could take quite a while. It is hard to be patient I'm sure.

If you want to know my opinion as an adoptee, thinking with my most sensitive side, I think your follow up note to her may have upset her further, even though that was clearly not your intention. She told you that she does not see herself as your daugther, just as a friendship. Instead of acknowledging her feelings and that you could accept that, you told her you would wait for her to "catch up to you." That could be viewed as a little condescending - like you think she is certain to arrive at the same place as you when she said that's not what she wants.

Furthermore, I understand what you were getting at when you told her you would still send cards, etc., but it probably would go over better if instead, you told her you would always be there for her but asked her what level of communication would make her most comfortable?

All I'm trying to say is that there are so many emotional land mines in reunion, and for adoptees who are grieving and struggling in reunion, it's better to give them back a sense of control and power in the relationship. You might be better to say something like, "I care about you, and staying in touch now that we've found each other is important to me, but I want to be respectful of where you are at, so please let me know what level of contact you would be comfortable with going forward? I never meant to hurt you or displace your parents. I respect them and can see what a great job they did raising you."

With my birthdad, who I have been in reunion with for several years now, when he calls me his daughter it means everything to me, and I can tell it means the world to him when I call him my dad, but if it had happened too soon, when I was still trying to figure out how everyone fits in, it could have been very triggering for me and caused me to pull away.

Just be patient with her, as you have been doing, and try to provide unconditional love while giving her control over where she wants things to go at this time.

Best Wishes,

Snoopy