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I totally understand where your daughter is coming from! When I had my reunion with my bmom many years ago I wrote her a letter telling her I could not be her "daughter" as I was brought up being someone elses daughter. Its all I knew, its all I wanted at that time. It had NOTHING to do with guilt," lessoning learning" or anything else. It was MY reality. To have this person place expecations or how I should feel about my daughterhood would have made me run for the hills! Therre were a few daughter comments made and I just skimmed right over them because I didn't know how to react, it caused me great discomfort.
The good thing is your daughter is being honest, and thats what we all talk about on these forums in terms of the relationship part of reunion. She is not able to be "your daughter" at this time. Let it go. Respect her feelings.
The whole "teaching her a lesson" crap is just that CRAP! WE adoptees are adult human beings, and have every RIGHT to feel what we do about OUR adoptions and how we manage OUR reunions. The teaching a lesson smacks of manipualtion and I know myself my back goes straight up if I sense a whiff of someone trying to manipulate me into something that I don't want.
If you are unable to have the kind of relationship you are having now then maybe it would be in everyone's best interst to back off and just keep it to cards for bdays and xmas.
Nobody may be playing games, there just might not be an ability on her part to give you what you need, she just may be very content with the way things are now.
You can not expect a person to be brought up in one family, be loved and respected as a daughter in that family and then years later just be someone elses daughter and get mad when they don't respond as you see fit!
Adoption breaks the bonds, they may be able to tentitivly be put back togehr but NEVER in the same way as if adoption didn't exist. That baby has had a totally different life and "family ties" are with them. At least thats the way it was for me. It all I knew, its what was family for me.
I know another thing that woulkd have helped me is for my bfamily to acknowledge that my afamily was my family and respected that...didn't push for something I could not give(though no fault of my own). I did have a birth brother that said to me, This is all in your control, you can do it anyway you want. ( Or something like that) And it was like a weight lifted off my shouldars..I was not expected to be anything just based upon my adopted status, I could just be me....That meant a lot. It meant that I didn't have a "role" to play in this reunion thing. I didn't have to play the "role" of daughter as not to hurt anyone else, that I was being understood as opposed to me doing all the understanding....JUST because I happened to be born at the wrong time, that I could attempt to put the pieces of who I was together without having to payback with emotion thats I was incapable of feeling. He respected me and that really felt good!
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