[Thruthestorm1122]

I am 24 years old, female, and recently reunited with my real mother and my real father. My reunion with my mother and her entire family couldn't have gone better - she and I are best friends, share so many things in common, and only live a couple of hours apart. We see each other on a regular basis, and since her whole family (my grandparents, aunts, etc) all live within 1/4 mile of each other, I see all of them regularly. I call her "Mom" and the only reason I was given up is from lack of support and denial of paternity from my father at the time of the pregnancy.

My father lives in the same town as my mother, to this day. I was reunited with him as well, and he latched on to me immediately, and I to him. We became very attached very fast. We talked every day (though not excessively). He would call me in the mornings when we were both in our cars, away from our families, driving to work, and he would email me throughout the week as well. It did not take too much time away from his current wife and the two children (ages 9 and 11) they have together. His wife was actually the one who organized our first meeting and at first, was very kind, accepting, and loving.

After about a week or two of being reunited, my father's wife started being very mean to him about me. She was jealous and territorial. She would nag him about why he was talking to me every day. She obsessively read all his emails to see if one was from me, and she started going online to check the phone history. Finally, it got so bad that he ended up lying to her when she would ask him if he talked to me because he didn't want to put up with her attitude. He came to my hometown one day on business and we had lunch, and when his wife found out that he had done that and not told her, she flipped out (on Thanksgiving day, no less!) in front of their family. She got drunk, screamed and cursed, and threatened to take her car, so he had to take her keys and hide them. It got so bad that he told me we can no longer talk over the phone or email, and it's been 2 1/2 months. My heart is broken. I cared so much for my father, and his wife was so selfish and cruel. She deleted me from her facebook account, so I mailed her a (very nice) letter explaining my hurt and asking her to make amends. (Keep in mind that I was never mean to her and was only kind). She sent me a facebook message in response, telling me, in a nutshell, that I brought chaos to their family and not good, that she will not help me and my father to reunite again, and that my father made the decision to not be part of my life 25 years ago. It hurt like crazy, but I am starting to be able to deal with life again.

Any thoughts on this would be welcomed. I KNOW my father wanted to be part of my life, but his wife acted like a child over it and she doesn't want me around at all. I was nothing but kind to her and always included her in things. Keep in mind also, that all of this happened a month after meeting my father! This is very recent so the wounds are still new.

Has this happened to anyone, or is this typical? I want to badly to be in my father's life. I love him. I also hate being kept away from my two siblings. I had started to get attached to them (I saw them a few times).

[mymotherssacrifice]

I am sorry you are going through this and I don’t know how to make sense of it. I have a friend who when his wife and him were going through their divorce she got pregnant. They had two children together and he got custody of the kids. The child she was pregnant with she said was her “boyfriends” who was the man she was having an affair with. Fast forward 17 years and he finds out that child his ex-wife was pregnant with is really his child. He wants nothing more than to be in this child’s life and welcome them into his family, however, his current wife, a woman he started dating not long after his divorce who knew even then there was a slim chance this was his daughter has totally rejected this child. She has said the daughter is a bad influence on their children, and it has gotten to the point where he can’t even mention his daughter without an argument erupting. I’m not trying to defend the wives but I think that there is some weird sort of jealousy thing that comes in to play; jealousy towards the child and jealousy towards some irrational fear that her husband will love their children less by loving you. My adoptive mother didn’t want anything to do with me after I found out the truth about being adopted, she claimed I was causing problems in our family and that everyone was mad at me for digging. It’s not fair that adoption is often a double edged sword, we are put into this situation by no say of our own, we didn’t choose to be created or born and yet when we try to find out who we are, now we are these perpetrators offending others and people that got to be informed adults in the situation are suddenly the victims. Your biological father knew you existed and knew someday you may try to find him, and I am guessing there is a good chance his wife also knew you existed. It’s not fair; you deserve to have a relationship with your father and half siblings. If she was a rational, understanding person, I would suggest offering to take her to lunch to talk, however, I think until your bio father takes a stand for his relationship with you there isn’t much you can do. I haven’t had contact with my mother (adoptive), the woman that raised me from birth in almost 3 years because of being adopted and wanting to know the truth. You are a loving caring person that values family ties, sadly, others in our lives often aren’t. I wish you the best and hope that your bio father realizes he is making a huge mistake.

[c.a]

Just so you know where I'm coming from - I am an adoptive mom in an open adoption. I work hard to make sure that my son sees his bmom and has a relationship with her. I believe that adoptions should be open whenever possible.

I think it is great that you have reconnected to your first mom and dad and I hope those relationships continue to be positive for you.

As for the questions about your first dad's wife . . . maybe you need to be a little patient. and honestly - your description of the situation makes me seriously question whether your dad has used good judgment and appropriate boundaries in this situation.

Why is your dad describing in detail to you his wife's reaction? That really is between them. He's dumping their marital issues on you only 1-2 weeks into reunion? Very inappropriate/poor boundaries.

And if he is dumping all of this on you . . . is he being honest? Is he accurately describing his wife's behavior? Is he accurately describing his behavior and attitude toward his wife. Sound to me that he is describing her bad (according to him) behavior? Do you really think that he isn't contributing to the problem?

I am also a divorce lawyer - so I often have people in my office describing the horrible things their spouses do -and there is usually another side to the story.

I'm not saying that your dad is a horrible person. I'm just suggesting that you slow down, step back and give his wife a break. This might be hard for her. and your dad may not be handling this as well at home as he is with you.

Good luck on your journey.

[kakuehl]

Just a thought... your dad is not helping by lying to his wife. He's acting like a man who is having an affair. It does sound to me like she's feeling left out. Is there any way that you can approach her and express your desire to get to know your siblings and her -- to become part of her extended family.

I think when reunion takes place, there's often that honeymoon period that takes place. It's very intense for parent and (adult) child and I can understand that it can be very difficult for the families involved.

I hope you (and your bdad) are able to negotiate this obstacle course and can build a strong and healthy relationship.

[snoopy87]

Yes! I have been there! It happens to many of us (girls) when we reunite (with our birthfathers). I was in my early teens when I reunited with my birthparents due to some medical issues. My birthfather was very kind, but I wouldn't say overly warm or loving or anything. We are both kind of reserved people, so we were taking it very slow getting to know each other, having a meal together once a month, exchanging some letters. Well, that lasted all of maybe three or four months. Then, he said he could have no more contact, which totally broke my heart and confused me, and many years rolled by...

We are in our second or third reunion attempt now. I'm in my 30s. A lot of life has gone by since that initial reunion. Second time around, he was again very kind, and I demanded to know why he was nice to my face but then ditched me before. He, unlike your Dad, was very hesitant to tell me the truth. He didn't want to put me in the middle of his marital problems. He also held out hope that over time his wife would come to accept me, and if so, didn't want me to have negative feelings towards her.

Anyway, truth of the matter was when I was a teenager and I met him, she refused to meet me, refused to let me meet or even be known to their other children, and told him to end all contact with me or lose her and his other children (threatened divorce/custody, etc).

I understand the adoptee mindset - "I was here first, I existed before their relationship, his wife knew about me from the start of their relationship..." - that was all true in my case, too. But, he and I had never had a chance at a relationship before, and in the meantime, he had fallen in love with her and spent years building a home and a family with her. What they had was ALL he had. As an adult with a spouse and children of my own now, I completely understand how he loved me but had to let me go at the time. I, too, would do just about anything to keep my family intact and see that the children I am raising have both their parents 100% of the time.

I would love to say that the second time around things went perfectly. Nope. We have a wonderful relationship now, but it's really only after his divorce. His wife never would allow me in their lives. Her jealousy was completely irrational and sort of took on a life of its own. I feel sorry for her. I would not want to go through life that insecure.

I guess if I could tell you anything it's that I know for a fact that my Dad has always loved me. I can tell you almost certainly your Dad loves you, too. Don't let nasty messages from his wife stick in your head - those words are coming from her own jealousy. Know that love exists in your heart and no one can steal it away. Whether you and he see each other again soon or in many years, the love you feel will still be there. You will always have him in your heart. Know that he is in a difficult position. Try to be the much better person than his wife is being. Hope that his time away from you restores peace to his home and that his children still at home are unscathed by all of this and can finish growing up with both their parents' love in their home. Pray for his good health and believe in second and third chances. Take care of yourself and find the peace and love you need within yourself and in those that can be in your life right now.

Best wishes,
Snoopy

[Thruthestorm1122]

Hey everyone, thank you for your replies!

I actually did reach out to my father's wife (I wrote her a letter by hand and mailed it) and it did no good. Her response was cold and cruel. I was kind and loving towards her in the letter and all other times i corresponded with her, but she is firm in her decision to shut me out.

Interestingly enough though, I talked to my brother (my father's other son) for the first time this weekend. He is 21 years old - and has not spoken to our father in 9 years. He wants to meet me and is very excited to have a sibling. However, he told me his side of the story, and it was very sad.

My father's wife has two older children from a previous marriage. Her son, who was about my brother's age, beat him severely when he went to live with his dad for about 8 months. He beat him so badly that my brother has permanent scar tissue on his face. Parents at my brother's middle school threatened to call the police if my father refused to do anything, but still, he acted as if nothing was happening. This boy, my father's wife's son, got a bed, a bedroom, and everything he wanted, but my brother had to sleep on the floor. My father supposedly spent child support money on EBAY to buy things like watches for himself and others. My brother told me that my father's wife is "evil" and that she mistreated him, but that our father does need to step up to the plate as a man and say that he will be part of his children's lives. It seems to me as if she just wants her children and no one else's (her two kids from her first marriage and the two young children she has with my father). My brother said that he isn't going to contact our father for fear of his wife picking up the phone or screening the calls. He said that she is very controlling and manipulative. He said she basically runs that household, and she doesn't work, and gets to sit home all day and play on facebook (and does not clean the house).

Sorry for my rambling. I do agree that is is not appropriate for my father to lie to his wife or anyone else. However, she did something that pushed him to it. Again, it's not right, but she was mistreating him badly, from what my aunt (my father's sister) told me. I wrote my father a last letter too, and told him I will always love him and be there for him. I am not going to bother that family anymore though. It's up to him to make contact because I've done all I can. I'm forgiving to a fault, so I will never reject him, nor his wife.

I'm glad to know I'm not alone in this. It's still very painful though. ;(

[Piertz]

In Nancy Verrier's book: Coming home to self it takes about 2 pages to talk about the b families spouses and kept children. This is not unusual for you, your b dad or his families responses. Although it does seem extreme for his wife to be so brutal.

My b dad and I are also very close and keep in touch on a daily basis. His family is also very jealous though in a more passive agressive manner. his wife states he "has a right to a relationship with me" and "I am always welcome in their home". Then she & the kids complain he spends too much time with me, has more fun with me, etc. When I'm there she is distant and unfreindly. So we continue our relationship and he continues to remind them that relationships are a 2 way street and they don't exactly keep up their end either. it's selfishness on their part and making up for lost time on ours. We get along wonderfully and I'm appreciative for the attention I get from him. They are spoiled and unappreciative. Basically life changed 14 years ago when we reunited and they have yet to accept this. it's not just their little family anymore, it's a blended family and they are in denial. Eventually it will rip them apart like it's doing to my b dad's family. Sad but true.
Piertz

[Paintguy]

I'm in a simular situation,I reunited with my birthfather and 3 sisters a year and a half ago.Reunion is hard on its own,but my wife has made it 10 times harder.She is very jealous of my sisters and has gone into rages from me wanting to spend time with them once a week.
I have to sneak around to call them and delete texts from my phone before I get home because she checks my phone every night.I'm going through hell now,because I'm in a situation where I feel like I have to choose between my wife or my family.

[shadow riderer]

Been there done that too. My Bdad's wife was a problem from day one. My Bdad had even warned me that she would try to come between us. He promised that wouldn't happen, but happen it did. It was pure h e double hocky sticks for the first two years. By the third year too much damage had been done. His wife and I finally had the "talk". She told me my relationship with my Bdad would be on her terms, or there would be no relationship. I, as someone over 40, a somewhat mature adult, definitely did not need anyone's permission to have a relationship with my father, much less need supervision everytime I even talked to him on the phone. My Bdad, in his sixties, should have been old enough, and mature enough, to be strong enough, to have a relationship with is daughter with out his wife micro maneging everything said and done. He wasn't. My bdad cut me completely out of his life for over two years.

His wife passed away just before Thanksgiving 2010. After not speaking to me for over two years, he called me 7 days after her death, one day after her funeral, and wanted to "start over", "try again".

We've had a rocky start at this second go around, but things are leveling out, but there's no going back, only starting from here, and going forward.

If you are interested, check my profile. From there you can find a link to all my threads and another to all my post. Cick on the link that takes you to my "posts". You will have to go to the very beginning, when I first joined A.com. You can read about a lot of my feelings, problems, and a generalized, rated G version of my reunion with my Bdad, and the effects his wife had on it. There are quite a few post, so weed through. You are definitely not alone in this.

Snoopy is right, my Bdad never stopped loving me, or thinking about me. It just wasn't the way I wanted him to care. He couldn't be who I wanted him to be. He had to be who he was. I had to accept that. It took a long time to do that. Good luck. This stuff is very hard for everyone.

One thing I want to make very clear to you is, don't take it personally. As hard as it is not to do that, I realized, eventually, that nothing that happened really had anything to do with me as a person. It was their issues. There is a great article you can find here on A.com called, "Reunion socialization". It might help you understand the reunion process a little better. We are here when you need to talk.

[littletraveler]

I know of a situation where the birth father had been in the daughter's early years of life, but later exited not long before the mother remarried. So, he had memories and a short history with the daughter. In other words, he had once been "a family" with her and her mother. When she contacted him as an adult, the new wife seemed to be welcoming and knew a relationship was the right thing, but her actions showed she had trouble with the father/daughter contact when the contact involved excluding HER. In fact, the father told the daughter his current wife didn't like being left out at lunches, dinners, or visits.

I personally think that much of this issue centers around daughters being a woman and fathers being a man. Even though there isn't anything inappropriate going on, they are opposite gendered adults sharing tender feelings and enjoying each other regularly and this can be threatening for a wife. She is no longer the only adult female who is close to her husband. Had the daughter been there before the marriage, the wife would have entered the relationship expecting it and adapting her thought chain around it. Since the daughter came in after the fact, the wife gets threatened because the dynamics of her relationship with her husband is threatened or may become shared.

I feel men should come to the plate better when these things happen. They should attempt to handle the issues instead of running away from them. They become harder the more complicated the relationship with the wife, but that's no excuse for completely dumping the child.

[wanttodoright]

I know this thread is a little dated but there is so little info out there and this relates to my situation, I hoping there are still people following it. I am the other end. I am the wife of the bio father. My husband's daughter contacted him 2 years ago. She was 30 and married with two kids. It was a teenage one night stand and my husband had signed parental rights to the mother. The mother had married and her husband adopted the daughter.

I was blind sided by how difficult this has been. I never in a million years thought it would be hard if there was ever a reunion.

I'm reading through these posts and I understand to an extent a little more about why this has been so difficult. It's been hard to try to get a perspective from my husband's or his daughter's point-of-view. It's hard to walk in those shoes.

I understand the feelings of the wife. This is my husband. This is my family. I was so excited and happy to bring her into our family. Her attitude followed along a lot of the posts I have seen here. She was only interested in the biological part of HER family and ME and MY family were something she had to tolerate. I want to say that I express that as the extreme. She is a very nice girl and I want so badly to be open to having her as part of our family but that is very difficult to do when she doesn't see it as being part of our family. There is a sense of entitlement no matter how divisive it is for this family. My husband's daughter was not responsible for any of the actions of her parents but she is an adult and should have the maturity to recognize that this is a family. Where does that leave my husband? If his daughter loves him and wants a relationship with him, then it stands to reason that she would respect him as part of a family and not be divisive.

I don't know how to be married to a man that has a separate family. That's not what I signed on for. I am more than willing to open my home and my arms for her to be part of our family but I am not willing to be married to a man with a separate family.

There were other parts that I understood the emotions of, although I'm not particularly proud of them. My husband was on the phone every day with a woman that I didn't know. Everything intellectually understood that this was his child but everything emotionally saw it as another woman. All of my emotions ran like it was another woman. She had a special ring tone on his phone and my skin would crawl when I would hear it. I am not at all proud of that and that part of it is thankfully gone. I tried really hard to keep myself in check with that part, understanding that those emotions were not rational.

I lost patience for the lack of respect for my family. I expressed that inappropriately a few months ago and ended up owing an apology. That issue really didn't belong between her and I. It belonged between my husband and me and she got caught in the crossfire.

It's been two years now and I'm still trying to work through a lot of residual emotions. Some of them I am sure are just normal for these circumstances and some are how my husband handled everything.

I go to a counselor who did her thesis on adopted children reuniting with birth parents. She has been a big help on giving me some perspective.

I think I can summarize by saying I am my husband's wife. I have a responsibility and desire to be a positive part of this reunion. I can't do that if his daughter doesn't respect that and understand that her dad and his family come as a package deal. She doesn't get to slice and dice my family. My husband needs to understand, too, and keep his own emotions in check. There are a lot of run away emotions that if kept in check could make it very positive. Who knew you need to prepare for this, though?! I had NO IDEA it would be difficult.

[wanttodoright]

I think the best way to put this is I saw my marriage as a partnership. I believed that we, as partners, would work together to bring his daughter into our family. I never suspected it meant I was supposed to be a chearleader on the side lines rooting my husband on with another 'family'. How do I do this when I can't do that? I don't ever want to put my husband in a situation to have to choose between me and his daughter. I couldn't live with that, either. What is the answer?

[jdeneen4]

These reunions can be so emotional. I've had a similar experience with my bfather's wife getting jealous. However, you may not realize it just yet, but she may see some warning signs that you cannot.

It sounds like your reunion is moving quickly. This puts you at risk for GSA. Have you heard of it? The only reason I know of it is because it happened to me.

Without hijacking the thread, sounds like you may be in for some boundary issues that could affect his relationship with his wife.

This is terribly difficult and I feel for you so much Hang in there!
Julie

[lostmother2012]

It sounds like the reunion happened very quickly and has been very intense. Although your father's wife has reacted badly and I can kinda understand where she was coming from. You and your father have spent so much time communicating that she has been pushed out. You being female adds to the problem. I'm not saying what she has done is right because it isn't just try and see it from her point of view.

Your father should have been honest with her as well. Maybe part of the problem has been that she feels left out.

I am sorry this has happened and maybe sometime in the future you could contact her and get this mess sorted.

[Thruthestorm1122]

I want to thank everyone for their responses. It has been a very painful year. It's been over a year and I still haven't heard anything from my father. I'm not surprised, however. My brother and I (his other son who is 22 years old who he hasn't spoken to in 10 years) have since reunited and we even took a DNA test to prove we are related. We are - 99% positive results.

I do want to say that I absolutely loved my father's wife and two small children. I had already bought materials to make his wife and daughter (my sister) homemade crystal necklaces last Christmas. I had already thought about birthdays, holidays, etc. and the things I wanted to share with them. I loved having younger siblings! I fell in love with those two children instantly. They were so sweet, and so cute, and they were my brother and sister. And as for his wife, I looked at her as a potential mother-figure. She was kind and nice to me during our first visit, and she and I had friendly chats on facebook for a few weeks following. However, time has shown me that even with the best of intentions, lying to his wife was never the right idea for my father. They have spent 18 years together, and things probably became very complicated with this whole thing.

And Julie - I would like to hear more about the GSA. I haven't heard that much about it. I'm interested to know more about your story.

Thanks again, everyone. My relationship with my wonderful mother is still going strong, a year and a half later. We're the best of friends, and I've been easily incorporated into the family. They treat me as though I was never gone. After all, the only reason I was gone was because my father left us.