I know a lot of adoptees and natural mothers who would trade places with me in a heart beat. People who want their relationship with their reunited mother/father or child to be like mine. Of course, my relationship just didn't happen over night or over a few months. It took 18 years to get where we are. I don't wish on anyone that their relationship would take that long.
We have been doing great with our relationship for a year now. Like I have recently said, it seems when my mother finally decided that she has 3 children instead of 2, 2 daughters instead of 1, our relationship has grown tremendously. I know deep down that she already knew this, but it seems when she finally allowed herself to believe it, show it, and say it out loud, she finally opened up and treats me like her own child.
For me there are still problems in our relationship. I don't think that all my problems with being adopted will ever go away, but I believe one day it will be very, very minimal.
Since we met, I have had to always conform to her family life style. Why is that? When talking with other adoptees, it seems we are the ones that have to conform to our natural mother's/father's family life style.
Is it because I finally found her and now I am suppose to be a part of her family? Why can't she be a part of my family?
She gets upset at me if I do something that she doesn't like and thinks it is wrong for me to do. But she never thinks that I do it because this is the way I was raised. This is the way I have always done it.
One weekend I went to visit her. My boys did not go with me because they had planned a trip with their father. I wanted to go visit my nmother and have some adult conversation for the weekend. (When you are a single mother with 2 boys, there is no adult conversation around the dinner table or anywhere.) My mother decided that her favorite granddaughter needed to come to her house for the weekend because the granddaughter is a single child and my nmother didn't want her at her house alone even though her mother, my sister, was at the house all day. I ended up saying until lunch on Saturday and then came home.
When I was brought up, when someone came to visit, it was special. No matter if they came the month before. It was still special. My brother and I could not go out with our friends on the weekend. We had to stay home and visit. So I was brought up that company is to be welcomed and your home and you are to spend time with them.
My nmother doesn't see it like this. She apparently was brought up that people didn't come visit. Her other two were raised that company came to visit a little and they were not expected to stay. If company came to visit, company would have to conform to their weekend plans.
So why is it that I have to always conform to her life style. I had to change my behavior and my life style so that we could have a relationship. She didn't do any changing. It seems if I am to be accepted, I have to blend into her family.
Relationships are suppose to be a 2-way street. I have yet to see that in any reunited relationship.
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3 comments:
Sorting out behaviors and customs in reunion is super charged. But it's also similar to other relationships. When I visit someone else's home, I conform to their customs. When I invite others to my home I try to make them welcome while maintaining familiar routines.
Learning the customs of your nfamily is bound to be jarring where they conflict with the customs you were taught as a child. It almost seems like as an adoptee you have two lives in one.
Double your fun?
how frustrating!! I am nowhere near close to this type of visit and I guess you could call me one of the ones that wishes my reunion was going as well as yours. I need to read your blog to keep telling myself that this will take years and years. thank you!
I just found your blog and find it fascinating because my daughter (whom I found when she was fifteen)had a mostly good relationship for 26 years, and it is enlightening to read your perspective. My daughter once wrote that she felt like a magnet pulled between two forces. The closer she got to one, the more she had to pull away from the other. Her amom was initially welcoming, but as "our" daughter and I sustained a relationship over the years, my realtionship to her amom became strained. My daughter had a lot of emotional and physical problems and it almost seemed as if the adoptive parents...were ready to have me claim all the problems. As time went on, it often seemed as if her amother did not like her very much. No, more than seemed. It was evident in how she acted and what she said.
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