After reunion, birth father rejects returning daughter

Lorraine

Dear FMF: 

I am a 44-year-old adoptee who found my birth parents this year. My birth father had listed himself in a mutual consent registry in California 15 years ago, but I didn't find out until I spent a year getting my non-identifying information. He stayed with his teenage girlfriend while she was pregnant with me, and when he married (someone else), he told his wife he had a child who might show up one day. Through him I was able to meet my mother, and that is going well. 

My birth father and I had a warm and emotional first meeting in a local park, and met there again two weeks later with my two-year-old daughter. He did not invite me to meet his family, he said, because of upcoming surgery.
 So we wrote long letters back and forth, and he was warm and supportive, signing them, "Love, your father" etc. ... until he didn't. Then he ignored my birthday. Then he said his computer broke. Five months in he said that my emotional problems made it impossible for me to be part of his family. I wrote back like ...Whaaat? I have never even been to your house (it's 20 minutes away). After that he cut off all contact, saying his wife sees me as "the other woman" and he feels he must choose between us. 

He called me sheepishly a month later, and said his wife read all our letters and searched his phone every day for calls and analyzed me as being crazy (I wrote about feeling sad and angry and confused), he disagreed, so she passed them on to her granddaughter and daughter who also analyzed" them...these were very emotional and private letters as you might imagine.

Why did my birth father suddenly reject me, after we got off to such a great start?--Monica

WILL INHERITANCE BE DIMINISHED IF A NEW 'CHILD' APPEARS?

Oh, I wish I had the answers to every reunion that goes awry. Biological fathers seem to be all over the lot, some wanting a relationship, but with more falling into the rather neutral zone of, Yes, I am your father...but little interest in taking it beyond that. They might respond to an adoptee with a letter, or a single meeting, but aren't interested in more.

Though some biological fathers want to know their sons and daughters, and bring them into their families, many run into the kind of problem that yours did. Often the wife feels threatened by this new and strange relationship--even if she knew about--possibly because she feels it will take away from the relationship she has with her husband, and other children. Despite the fact adoptees are not thinking of dollars when they contact their fathers, it seems that many wives interpret their contact that way. When he dies, will the proverbial pot have to be divided up with one more?

I was personally disturbed when an old friend of mine discovered that he had a son in college (same college, same major, both smoked same obscure brand of cigarettes). He sounded thrilled when he called me with the news of this new son. But he said, his wife, whom I also knew as a liberal, smart woman, did not want to a) tell their two other children who were adolescents, because it would be "too confusing" and b) also not tell my friend's father, the adoptee's grandfather, because it would be "too much of a shock." Well, I knew his grandfather was relatively wealthy, and I suspect that she was worried that her children's share of the inheritance might be shared one more time. I didn't live close to these people anymore--but they had been at my wedding--yet after hearing that, I didn't want further contact, unless I knew that the status of the adoptee son changed. Yes, I felt his rejection of his son personally in relation to my daughter. I never talked to my friend again, and that was at least 20 years ago.

In my own case, as I've written, my daughter's father (someone I once would have eagerly lived with and married) kept putting off meeting her after we reunited. Though he was with me at the hospital and supported me during the pregnancy, now, upon our reunion, he was, it seemed, weak and distant. He also had a problem with alcohol, and that seemed to be part of his refusal; and he also avoided emotional issues whenever possible. Then he unexpectedly died. He did have a new wife, and another child at the time, but that wife was not against him meeting my daughter Jane. At the time of his death, he and his second wife were no longer living together, and she actually called me, and we met. She brought up how he avoided talking about anything emotional. He simply recoiled. Yet in many ways, he was a good man. Just not in relation to our daughter. 

WIFE HIDES LETTER ABOUT CHILD

Recently there was a story from Michigan about an 81-year-old man who found an old letter--from 1958--informing him that he had a five-year-old son. He found the letter going though his recently deceased wife's belongings. The son was now 61! He and his wife were childless; his wife had never told her husband about the letter. Oy, I thought, how selfish is that? Father and son have been reunited.

Plain old-fashioned jealously may cause a wife to discourage, or in this case to obstruct, a relationship with his new found child. This appears to be happening in our letter-writer's case. We've seen this happen particularly where the child is a daughter. The wife sees her husband as obsessed with the new child. She imagines--perhaps because it is convenient to do so--that something unsavory may be going on. She fears that her husband will prefer the daughter to her and to their children. She may fear that the daughter brings back memories of her mother--and that he never got over his early love.

The wife may worry about scandal--she doesn't want her friends and relatives to know that her husband fathered a child out of wedlock or walked out on his pregnant girl friend. So low class!

Why do these men let their wives dictate their relationships?  Some are wimps; some want to avoid anything unpleasant. Jane's daughter Rebecca wrote to her father when she was 19. He wrote back saying his wife was opposed to him having any contact, but he felt he owed her one letter. She contacted him again ten years later and he agreed to meet her because he was now divorced.

Some men, often exceedingly charming, can never have more than superficial relationships. These men live in the present only. They meet their child, develop what appears to be a warm relationship, get distracted, and put it in the past. 

REJECTING MOTHER, ACCEPTING FATHER

Yet I've heard other stories--adoptees being accepted by and into birth father families, while rejecting the first mother. We've even had a birth father write a post for us about his love for his child. The contractor who did some work on our house ran into me one day in the supermarket, and because he knew about my book, told me that a "new" sister contacted his father--a child his father did not know about, as I recall--and they all met and, he said, she was so like his siblings there was no doubt she was their sister. He was enjoying having an older sister. End of story. 

But in your own case, there is nothing you can do to alter the situation. We can't have relationships

with people who don't want them. And in any relationship, the amount of closeness will always be determined by the person who wants the least. Your father is accepting that the only way he can have peace in his house is for him to not be in contact. I have to say, the wife sounds like a monster--checking his cell phone, not only reading your letters, but passing them on to her daughter and granddaughter, who, I assume are not blood relatives of yours. 

We do know that some mothers reject reunion. I keep thinking about a famous woman who is the first mother of a woman I've met in New York. Her mother has rejected all entreaties to meeting. I hate it, it happens and there is not really a damn thing we can do about it. What is different is that mothers have the child, get the hormones telling her to love and protect that child, and losing the child for most of us is like losing a limb.

More publicity about reunions should make it easier for closeted mothers and father to come out, but when anyone is confronted with that kind of relationship, there is nothing one can do. As a first mother once wrote here: The people who want to be in your life will be. You don't have to go chasing after them. These words might not be much solace today, and perhaps all your tears are not yet shed, or your anger not yet diffused. We think reunion is going to be the end of a long, sad path, but it often is only the door to another.--lorraine

_____________________________
Rod McKuen died the other day and I was reminded that shortly after I "came out" of the closet as a "natural mother" in a piece in Town & Country, I was on the Today show...with Rod McKuen who had not long before published his memoir, “Finding My Father: One Man’s Search for Identity” (1976), about his quest for his biological heritage. He never knew who his father was. 

That morning I was on remote reaction, as I was more than a little stunned about being on national television at all, even though I had some TV experience on other matters. But now--coming out of the closet which I had hide in for a decade--Who was watching? Was my daughter's father? Her adoptive parents? The kids I went to high school with? My college friends? My girl friend from the fifth grade? Did I remember to say the birth date and where? I think I did. So McKuen and I did not connect except for a few pleasantries. He was likely to feel frosty about who I was--and that I was sharing the interview time--but there we were, two strangers on a lifeboat for that moment. It would have been in October of 1976, as the story in which I "come out" was in that issue of Town & Country.--lorraine

We chatted amiably but made no real connection.

Please share your story about birth/biological fathers. If you watch the video below, I'm sorry, you will have to wait through an ad.

  
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81-year-old man discovers son he never knew he had

FROM FMF
Steve Jobs Did Meet His Father--without knowing it
To Tell or Not to Tell (the unvarnished truth), that is the question
Biological Fathers everywhere hiding in plain sight
Father wins right to fight for his daughter in Michigan legislature

TO READ
Finding My Father: One Man's Search for Identity by Rod McKuen
"I ordered "Finding My Father" and just finished it last night. I couldn't wait to get back to it each time I put it down, and don't want to ruin the outcome for anyone, but really was hoping it would turn out differently, even though it was so long ago. I couldn't believe how well Rod McKuen turned out considering how hard his life was when he was very young. There must be a special place in heaven for him for being such a good person inspite of everything he went through. This book should inspire anyone who reads it - I'm sure it has already inspired a lot of people." --Amazon reader

At the time I met McKuen, I was a little stunned about being on television and had a lot on my mind as this was my big step into the world as a mother who had relinquished a child. Who was watching? Was my daughter's father? The kids I went to high school with? My college friends? My girl friend from the fifth grade? So we really did not connect. He was likely to feel frosty about who I was, but there we were, two strangers on a lifeboat for that moment. It would have been in October of 1976, as the story in which I "come out" was in that issue of Town & Country.--lorraine

The Adoption Reunion Handbook

"I found this to be the most useful book for me as I travel through reunion. It has answered so many questions for me as the adoptee, as to what to expect and understand about all the different people who might be touched when a reunion takes place. I have read many books about reunion and still find this to be the one that answers my questions the best."--Amazon reader

But another reader: "This books is written from the adopted person's perspective, which is great, but it sacrifices true sensitivity to others in the triad - the birth mother, birth father and adoptive parents. The first person accounts are often awkward and forced and are not smoothly integrated. Also, the book was written in Great Britain, so the frequent uses of 'keen' and 'brilliant' and other language specific to Great Britain are a little jarring. I have asked our library to remove it from the shelves, as a few comments in the book show a deep lack of sensitivity to the birth parents and I would hate to have a searching adopted person pick up on these thoughtless assumptions."

PS: Jane and I are beginning to work on a reunion guide ourselves. In the meantime, I have been working on getting a Kickstarter program going to defray the cost of self-publishing my memoir, Hole in my Heart. It should be up in a couple of days. Boldly I go forward, but depredation lingers in my heart....