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Part of: zxczxcasdasd's Journal Biting my tongue |
Date Posted: 02-14-2007 at 12:41 AM Comments(1) |
| There are things I want to say to my kid, but I'm biting my tongue for now. It's just not the right time. And that's not just a delay tactic. I hate delay. I want to say everything NOW. But it's his senior year and he should be able to just soak up being 17 and carefree and only worrying about how he'll ask his girlfriend to prom and getting his homework done. He has enough other big things on his plate- graduating, turning 18, choosing a college and a major, deciding on housing and roommates, moving out of his childhood home. Reunion issues can be pretty all consuming even when it's mutual and comfortable. So I think he deserves to just be left alone on this for the rest of his senior year of high school. Our talk will be sometime in the last 2 weeks of June. There's a commitment. And it's nothing I want to delay- I'll be trying not to explode waiting until then. It's just so complicated for the poor kid. And for me. We're a bit in the same boat. We weren't there when it all went down in the first place and we didn't have a say in anything until years later. We've forged a strong relationship without biology, but we are still going to have face and deal with the consequences of something we had nothing to do with. And one or both of us may be hurt. Hopefully, neither. It wasn't a voluntary relinquishment, or an adoption plan. It was two kids who ended up married and parents before they were high school grads and ended up divorced by the time they were barely old enough to vote. Since they were both so young, neither one of them was really self-sufficient so it wasn't just between the two of the them. It was a battle of families, with strong personalities on both sides and a baby linking them together. When the divorce decree was signed, it said she got all the furniture and he got sole custody and she waived all visitation rights. She married another guy right away and had his baby and they lived in another city while her first baby grew up with dad and grandparents. She came to see him twice over the next few years. Then, when he was 5 she filed for custody- she was ready and stable now and wanted him to join her family. Dad said the boy didn't even know who she was so he could not agree to shared custody but would go with whatever a child psych and the courts recommended. The court stipulation was for monitored visitations until it was determined that the monitor requirement could be lifted, and basically to work from there. She and hubby then moved 3000 miles away and never completed any visitation. That was that. Dad and boy went on as they had before since he was born. I married them when boy was 9. Adoption finalized when he was 13. We all lived happily ever after. But she was angry- probably hurt when boy declined her request to speak after she was contacted by the investigator. She called and the attorney typed up what she said and sent it to her to sign. She signed and sent it back. Said she never wanted to hear from boy or dad or me again. Ever. Not even for medical info. Then this summer she found his email through an online profile and zipped off an email saying hi from mom and won't you please contact me and your sis and bro? Boy was stunned, confused, thoughtful. Then he decided he wasn't interested in her. He wasn't going to act happy to hear from her now when he still remembers feeling abandoned. He found happiness in his own family without her and wanted to keep it that way. Answer was no. It's clear from exchanges with her and comments by him, that there's still so much anger and hurt and it's hard to separate it from the long-standing animosity between the two families from the moment they started dating. What I want to tell him is, he doesn't have to hate her to be part of this family. Dad and I don't hate her. I can't fully explain what happened and I'm sorry he had to go through what he did, but there are circumstances that may help him to understand her and why things went the way they did. He doesn't have to prove he loves me by rejecting her. I know he loves me. I just want his life to be his. I'd do anything for my son. I'd hug her and love her if he wanted. If he doesn't, then I'll just hug him and love him. But he doesn't have to do it for me or Dad. I know if he thought something would wound me, he would never do it. But I want him to know that wanting to explore that part of his life story or wanting a relationship with her will not wound me or Dad. Opening up to her is not betrayal of us. We have nothing to hide and nothing to fear. It was never about keeping her out of his life- it was only ever just about a healthy situation in the first place and then about a healthy transition from strangers to family if she wanted to do that. But he's not a kid anymore and he has grown into a secure healthy human being who can guard his own heart and set his own boundaries and conduct his own relationships. He can read it all for himself and draw his own conclusions. There are no "sides" here - there's just his life and whoever he wants in it. I don't want him hurt. I don't want to be hurt. I don't want Dad hurt. But I want his life to be his and sometimes we have to risk hurt in the name of truth and love. And if he's up for it, we're up for it. I can't promise a happy ending, and I can't even tell him it's the "right" thing to do, but I can tell him it's not wrong. It's just a choice and it's all his and we're with him no matter what. But I'm going to wait until the end of June, because this will be a huge thing for him to process and he's been pushed enough on this already since the email this summer. So he's going to think about high school and college decisions and prom and turning 18. And then we'll talk. Then he'll go to Africa for a month and have plenty of time to think it over on his own. Until then, I'm biting my tongue. |
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