Communication is one of the most important parts of any healthy happy relationship. Laura Esquivel said, “Keeping secrets will always lead to unhappiness and communication is the key to love.” I’m a nerd so I looked up the word secret. I was surprised to see that of all words in the Miriam Webster dictionary it is in the top 20% of popularity. Why do you think that is? I think because we all have secrets. However, within relationships, and in regards to communicating with loved ones, the experts agree secrets do not make friends. So how do we bridge that gap and why is it important in adoption?
You see an adoption relationship is unlike any other you have in your life and it is almost impossible to truly explain to other people. You share one of the most sacred things on the earth: love for a child. But because of the sacredness of your bond it makes your relationship intense, emotional, and sensitive. Secrets in a relationship of this kind are destroyers of trust. The tenuous bridge you have both worked together to build cannot survive if one of you is simultaneously building a little condominium suite for your secret trolls. The only way this bridge survives is if you both work diligently to build and maintain the condition of the bridge. That is hard enough to do without time bombs around the foundation. So your only solution is to be truthful.
Truth be told, this is hard for me. I tend to hope that if I wait, the problem will resolve itself. But let’s be honest, we all know that rarely goes to plan. Even though it is hard to explain when something inadvertently hurts your feelings, you must; or if you have to call and tell your child’s birth parents that there is a medical issue–that one is terrifying. But guess what? It is important and my experience has always been that information is always appreciated; even when it is a tough topic, honesty has always been and will always be the best policy. Remember the wise adage, the secret to love is that there are no secrets when you love.
