advice on relationship with an adoptee adult

clueless-1

Hi all,

My situation is a bit different that most people, I am jsut coming out of "a madly in love" (for both of us) relationship with a young adult who was adopted at birth, i have read few of the posts in this forum maybe find something similar but nothing...

See he has been adopted by a loving and caring family, small town, has a large close circle of good friends, has a younger adopted sister...anyway as he said the perfect family he could of end up with considering.

But 2 years before he finished Uni, his birth parents came into his life, via the adopting agency of course.
The news had been really hard on him as, and this is where its uncommon, his birth parents stayed together!! they were 19 when he was born and for whatever reasons stayed together ...

Needless to say it must have been hard on him, he said it "f** with his brain" back then...its been i think 3 years now...the last draw was that they had 2 small children, now 5 and 2.

So as you can see 3 full blood brother ans sister and now he sees them bout one time a month. he has got close to the kids of course, he never asked them questions bout why they gave him up or why they got in touch with him....i personaly think thats probably regarding his new brothers and sisters and their future but i dont know.

The thing is he and i got really close, madly in love as i say, although we had our problem, only one really and reason why we broke up, its that i am 11 years older than him..hes 24.
As far as i know he has dated but never really had a "girlfriend" i was the first person he really commited and let in.

he was the most mature person i went out with and we sure tried not to fal for each other but it happened! and he ask, surprisingly to me for his age, if i wanted ot get married one day and have kis cos no point in getting into something if we didnt want the same thing....i sure do, with him that is but not now so i thought timing could be fine but obviously things changed.

In his mind he wanted to be in a relationship and be "IT" not to break up ever, well nice thought but nothing can be sure for ever but then a bomb dropped last october and i think thats added to his doubts in the future and kids...his birth parents annonced him they were expecting again!!!

So he had another little brother recently...his birth mother is now 42 i think and i think maybe there a connection between him pulling away from me, and age difference cos of the irsk of pregancy late etc...

I have heard so much about adoptee adult having problem being in loving relationships but im not sure why, or what trigger the pulling away...

heard once from an adoptee girl that everytime she would get into a serious relationship she would mess things up.

I know he loves me, and misses me, last time we chatted (yahoo messenger) he said he hated the situation, his lack of clarity, his confusion...his head says one thing and his heart says another...guess he followed his head obviously as he broke up.
He always complain about how he hates his mind and thinking way too much bout things. I always said lets just be happy and enjoy day by day and see what happens, but in his mind what would be the point in in 4 years from now when i "have" to have kids and hes not ready...we would have to break up and we would have wasted both our time and in his mind it would be the end for me to have a chance to have a kid.
nice thought but i mentioned that theres always a way, adopting is one and because of his situation in my mind i thought he would be all good with this...well he never really said if he was.

Anyway, broke up now 3 months few contacts since ( miss you so much etc..love you so much )....I decided to let him go, give him no contact and hope it helps but i would like to get opinions or thoughts from adoptes adult who maybe went through a similar situation if not your view or experience in relationships.

I hate the fact that i have to let him go cos i dont want to, i dont want to abandon him cos i truly love him.

Thank you for reading that far!

kathy finn

hi clueless,
maybe he just needs a bit of space, i really don,t think this is an adoption issue although adoptees find it hard to trust and have a terrible fear of rejection.
he,s only 24 and you are 35 so i think what u want from life at the moment is different, most men will run a mile when u mention babies and settling down and ur at the age when ur bio clock is ticking.
he,s only 24 should be out clubbing with his mates and enjoying himself.

clueless-1

thank you for your opinion...

you're possibly right, hard to tell...space is most likely too as he said before he needed to figure out everything has between his birth parents, his parents and his friends and obviously time with me he was feeling like everyone wanted a piece of him!

Im leaving him space, i accept the break up, i have to, its not a situation where i can change things, but you come back what you said i never said i wanted the marriage and kids now, in the futur yes and this is why i felt content in our relationship, i believe in living life as of today and cross the bridge of things of issues if and when it happens...many woman now have children late, healthy too, i have seen many young one with difficulties so i for me in my mind if its meant that i have children then i will...

His talk bout adoption was always 5 mins and then the min i would ask more he would say he doest nwant to talk bout it so i though the fact that being adolpter and with his unusual sitation it has to make an impact!! how could that not! no where im finding example of birth paretsn that stayed together AND make contact too.

anyway, thank you again for your words.

martinf

Hi Clueless,

I agree with both you and Kathy in different parts. It's always difficult to explain people's actions when you don't know them well or are professionally trained. While his feelings may not be adoption related concerning your relationship that's not to say it doesn't have an impact. It's quite possible that given your age gap you do want different things in life at the moment. I don't think this is unusual even without the adoption factor. Like you however I would not start worrying about how I'm going to feel about the person your in 4 or 5 years time. If we all did that would we ever do anything for fear that circumstances would change. Overall I think that you're taking the right approach in that you can't push someone into a relationship and expect it to be a loving one. Kathy is right in highlighting that many adoptees fear rejection and some also tend to try to please others. This could be at the base of him not wanting to find out in four years time that your relationship is at an end and that you've wasted that time and possible opportunity to have children.

Hopefully over time he will sort things out for himself and if it's the right thing for him maybe you'll get back together. At the same time you shouldn't put your life on hold waiting for him. You are entitled to search for happiness as much as he and hope it works out well for both of you.

Best wishes

Martin