First mother reappears after 12 years--after a 'happy' reunion

Jane

When a first mother wants to resume contact--after cutting off the relationship 12 years earlier following reunion, how can an adoptee protect herself from rejection again? One of our readers, Nicole, wrote us saying she found her mother in 2002. But after several visits, including meeting her extended family, Nicole's mother asked "that we not continue having contact." Nicole's email went on:

"She wrote to me this July hoping to start a 'conversation' and we've exchanged a couple of letters. We've both lifted burdens of guilt and shame for each other and on balance, finding each other benefited us greatly....My dilemma is making sense of her recent contact and protecting myself from feeling rejected a third time....I've done a lot of therapy and healing, and realize I can't be hurt unless I allow it. But therapy is one thing. and her writing is reality and bewildering."

WITHDRAWING TO PROTECT YOURSELF
I'm a lawyer, not a therapist but I don't buy the "can't be hurt unless you allow it" line. Maybe that works for relationships outside of the mother-and-child relationship, but the mother-and-child bond, broken or whole, is one that is beyond emotional control. It is too deep, too intrinsic, too fundamental to respond to other kinds of emotional guards that we might be able to construct. Nicole can walk away, but will that truly protect her from being hurt? And in doing so, she possibly cuts herself off from a nurturing relationship that will be balm for her own soul. By constructing barriers Nicole may find that they extend to other parts of her life she doesn't want to isolate. She may end up walling herself in when a part of her doesn't want that isolationist policy at all.

It's possible that Nicole's mother cut off communication because that she had doubts about Nicole's commitment to the relationship. She did not give her a reason for cutting off contact. Perhaps her mother's fears, coupled with the welling up of all the painful emotions that had been dormant, made her want to return to a life where she wasn't confronted with them. Nicole may have told her mother "you made the right decision in giving me up" or "I don't want another mother" -- both statements intended to reassure her mother -- that Nicole was not angry at being given up and didn't intend to intrude into her mothers life. Nicole's mother may have taken these statements to demean her; that Nicole was happy her mother hadn't raised her. We've found miscommunication, especially early in a reunion, is sadly common.

Reunions for first/birth mothers--even when anxiously desired--cause the memories of what may be the worst time of our lives to bubble up and they feel as new as yesterday. It's likely that this happened and Nicole's first mother felt she couldn't go through them again. Better to follow the advice of the all-knowing social workers, resume her before reunion life and pretend it never  happened. Perhaps she feared, however irrationally that Nicole was going to cut her off and wanted to do it first, to give herself control sort of like breaking up with your boyfriend before he breaks up with you..

Or perhaps the day-to-day family of Nicole's mother felt alienated by all the attention that she was showering on this returned, first daughter. It's not uncommon for siblings of the reunited son or daughter to feel cast aside and diminished when the new child in the mother's life emerges. How come she is getting so much special attention? How come she is being treated like visiting royalty? How come I'm not being given a "special" dinner like this one? (Conveniently forgetting all the "special" occasions in the past, such as birthdays and bat mitvahs.)

REUNIONS DON'T GO AS YOU HOPE
Initially after my first meeting with my 31 year old daughter Rebecca in 1997, I thought we could somehow pick up where we left off; without much thought, I mentally discarded her other--adoptive--family. Her long search surely meant I was important. Additionally, I believed our shared separation would bring us together, if not as mother and daughter then as friends, even soul mates. Rebecca was a fine person and we shared many values and interests.

However, after several meetings and many emails--and learning that indeed Rebecca's other family was family--I began to question Rebecca's commitment to me as well as our relationship. Her telling me she searched for me because she needed to know answers led me think that I was simply a source of information that she needed to feel complete. I could answer the burning question--why was I given up, as well as provide medical information. Then she could go on her merry way, leaving me in the dust and worse off then when I didn't know who she was.

Other mothers who had little or no contact with their lost children told me to be happy with what I had but I couldn't be as long as uncertainty was my constant companion. Cutting off contact seemed attractive; at least it would provide certainty. Yet I could not bring myself to do it.

WHEN AN ADOPTEE DOES THE DANCE

Lorraine

Lorraine here: My situation was different in that I found my daughter when she was 15, and with the acceptance other parents, immediately became a part of my daughter's life. However, as the years went on, her adoptive mother came to dislike me intensely. Her adoptive mother made her feelings about me abundantly clear, as I would eventually learn. If Jane (also my daughter's name) so much as mentioned me, her adoptive mother made a snarky comment--or walked out of the room. Obviously, this complicated Jane's relationship with me, and was often the reason that she pushed me out of her life, for months--up to a year one time. I was devastated each time. Over the course of the 26 years we knew each other (she died in 2007), Jane came and went willy-nilly and left me sad and speechless. Sometimes the reason seemed so silly that I came to see that it wasn't a real reason but an handy excuse.

I always welcomed her back--she was my daughter and I felt enough damage had been done with the initial relinquishment--but as the years went on, I could not help but be more guarded. I was very careful in anything I might say--lest she find some reason to walk out again--but I don't really know how "guarded" and protective I was of my heart. After a couple of weeks or months of an easy, breezy relationship via phone and email, who's careful with someone you love? I do think I had cried less after the third or fourth leaving. They had become expected, almost routine. In my case, it was Jane's adoptive mother who had much to do about whether we kept in close contact, as we sometimes had, or if she simply walked away. In the case of the birth mother who walks away, it is likely someone else is pulling the strings.

Jane returned to my life on a day to day basis (emails every day, phone calls at least once a week) after such a hiatus in the months before she died, but when I picked up the phone that time I said: No more leaving me, okay? She readily agreed, didn't want to talk about what she had been doing, and I let it go. But she knew exactly what I was talking about.*

ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE HURT
Perhaps Nicole's first/birth mother cut off contact largely for the reasons we considered doing the same. She was protecting herself from rejection. There may have also been issues in her marriage, her job, problems with her other children or family members. Now after all these years, for whatever reason, Nicole's mother has steeled up her courage to try again; clearly she has never forgotten her first child. The woman is now treading lightly, only asking to start a conversation, yet undoubtedly worried about being hurt herself--and rejected after a 12 year absence!


While we don't know the particulars of Nicole's first mother's story; it's possible she had therapy and worked through her fears. It's possible that her husband, not Nicole's father, was instrumental in the decision to cut off contact, and he is no longer an issue. Perhaps he died. Perhaps they are divorced. We hear from searchers that husbands--whether the biological father or not--are often the issue that contact is denied or cut off. Perhaps the other "eldest" child--who thought he or she was first--has come to terms with how his position has changed, or perhaps Nicole's mother is going to let that individual come to terms with reality--and simply wants you back in her life, as her message indicates. Or perhaps her other children are grown and out of the home, giving her mother a sense of freedom to do what she wants.

Clearly with a relationship where both parties feel the need to protect themselves from rejection contains the seeds of a self-fulling prophecy. We urge Nicole to respond to her first mother's plea, but begin with asking her mother why it was cut off 12 years ago, and be open about her concerns that she be let down again. Explain clearly and fully exactly how you feel, and how her cutting off contact affected you. Let your mother know that you want a relationship not only to "lift burdens of guilt and shame"--but because you want to be a part of her life in a way that is mutually agreeable. No one can promise with total certainty how life turns out in the future, but airing your concerns at the onset of talking to her is a first step to a healthy, affirming, rewarding relationship. We hope you'll let us know how it goes--jane and lorraine
__________________________
*As regular readers know, my daughter, seemingly happily married and settled, suffered from a variety of physical and mental problems. She committed suicide.

FROM FMF
Why birth/natural mother-adoptee reunions go awry
Is the Adoptee/(birth) mother reunion ever (re)solved?
How shame keeps birth mothers from embracing reunion
Whatever happened to Carlina White? 
When birth/natural mother-adoptee reunions go awry, Part 2

RECOMMENDED READING
Found: A Memoir by Jennifer Luack

"Expanding on her previous titles (Blackbird: A Childhood Lost and Found, Still Waters) in which she related the traumatizing experiences of being adopted twice before reaching her teen years, Lauck begins her story a decade later. After years of therapy, Buddhist practice, her brother's suicide, two failed marriages and motherhood, she rejects her old vision of comparing the past to "radioactive waste" that must be buried. Despite early indifference to finding her birth mother, Lauck comes to see the woman as key to releasing deep pain, sadness, and rage. Lauck's spare narrative concentrates on emotion, occasionally expanded with clinical explanations of mother-child bonding and Buddhist perspectives on inner growth. But she shines when she allows the abandoned child to peek out. Lauck searches out her birth mother and finds her deceased birth father's family, completes the circle, then moves on. People who have struggled for a sense of belonging or with anger and grief will find wisdom, comfort, and guidance in Lauck's discoveries."--Publisher's Weekly

We haven't read this ourselves yet, but am ordering a copy today! Thank you for ordering anything through the portals of FMF. A special thank you to those who do!