kim75062
Active Member
where to begin! This will be a long post and I apologize in advance if I get it out of order.
So hubby of 17 years has an adult daughter. She's 22 now and living out of state with her adopted parents. She contacted him via Facebook a few days ago. I'm very supportive of him and his child building a relationship and our children also with their sibling. I've told him for years that she would be accepted with open arms at anytime she felt she wanted too. After all she is part of him and our children together so there's no way I could not have just as much love for her as my own.
First a little history. Yes he knew about her and so did I. Her mother choose to hide her pregnancy from him and they split up etc. after a few month bad relationship. he didn't know she was his until the child was around 2. Then they decided to try to make it work as a family. Move out of state and start over. That lasted all of maybe a month.
*mother at this time has older child (4 years old I think), his child 2 and infant son from failed abusive marriage she was fleeing from.*
They moved and again could not get along at all so mom split with some new guy.
A few months later I meet hubby and fell completely in young teenage puppy love with him. Still hasn't changed
About 6 months later hubby finds her and child because he got court papers in the mail from child protection. *Now mom has newborn twins also.*
Being very young and very neive (and broke) he listened to mother and mothers attorney. He did not try for custody because mom was getting the kids back in a few weeks and it wouldn't be good to split the siblings up.
Plus I just found out I was a pregnant teen at this time.***boy where we stupid young people***
Anyway almost a year later he's still had no contact with his child. He was never informed he had visitation rights and really didn't know better. At this time I have a newborn baby, and child protection has already taken away the mothers parental rights. Child protect told my husband and myself that if he choose to go for custody he would lose and they would include our daughter in the case and take his rights from him for both of them. He was scared to death to lose another child so he signed the papers.
Maybe 5 years and a lot of growing up later we realized how wrong the entire situation was and that he could still go for custody etc. per an attorney we hired to consult this mess with. After a lot of long hard conversations we decided that the child did not know him, and was being raised by a very loving family that adopted her as their only child. We also lived across the country at this point. If was in her best interest to stay where she was.
He has filed the form for years on how to contact him if she ever wanted to find him with all his info. She finally did a few days ago.
They have been talking (mostly texting through skype) all day pretty much since.
Now the problems I'm having. We have 3 children together, the oldest 2 are teens and do and have known of her existence for years now. They are eager to talk to and meet her etc. my youngest has no clue and truthfully wouldn't understand at this point. I'm waiting for him to meet her in person to help him figure it out. So far they haven't even talked yet but I told them to give her and her dad a few days to process this before adding more new family members. She found her mother, father and oldest sister all the same day. They completely understand.
Now my biggest problem, you guessed it, the Ex. Now I knew the ex before I even knew the hubby. I have my own personal reasons for disliking her that has nothing to do with this current situation.
Beyond that the mother thought it would be a great idea to start a family group chat on skype with hubby, herself, their child together, older sister of shared child and that ones bio dad. I'm not sure why she thought adding a bunch of grown ups that truly couldn't stand each to a chat with these fragile adult children was a good idea but she did. Bio mom is single bio dads both married. Bio mom was bringing up the past and flirting with both dads. Which ended in them fighting with each other.
Now my hubby has a very flirtatious personality and it truly does not bother me most of the time. I told him him needs to leave the past in the past and get along with bio mom for the sake of the adult child and any future grandchildren. He took that as be friends. He said some things to her that did piss me off and as usual had not a clue how what he said could of been perceived by others(bio mom). That ended in him saying he's not going to talk to the bio mom again. Not what I was going for but I'm fine with that for now.
So my biggest concern is what is an appropriate level of contact they (hubby and bio mom) should have? I mean it's not like there's a small child envolved and visitation etc. I really have no clue because it's not abnormal situation to be in I guess.
Next what is my role in all of this? I so far have stayed out of it because that child really doesn't have anything to do with me. And I don't know what I should or shouldn't be envolved with anyway. She does want to come here to meet him etc. and I am fine with that. I'm the one that suggested it to start with.
She's not on great terms with her adoptive parents at this point. They had a bio child 6 years ago and her side of the story is they haven't treated her the same since. Which could be true, but she was also in the peak of being a teenager at the time and used to being the only child so I'm sure there's more to it.
Also Hubby did send a message to adoptive parents thanking them for all they have done for her he couldn't at the time and assured them he is in no way trying to replace them as her parents. Just adding the missing branch from her family tree.
I know a lot of you here have adopted grown children and hopefully have some words of wisdom for me as to how you felt with the bio parents and maybe some pointers to not mess it up.
So hubby of 17 years has an adult daughter. She's 22 now and living out of state with her adopted parents. She contacted him via Facebook a few days ago. I'm very supportive of him and his child building a relationship and our children also with their sibling. I've told him for years that she would be accepted with open arms at anytime she felt she wanted too. After all she is part of him and our children together so there's no way I could not have just as much love for her as my own.
First a little history. Yes he knew about her and so did I. Her mother choose to hide her pregnancy from him and they split up etc. after a few month bad relationship. he didn't know she was his until the child was around 2. Then they decided to try to make it work as a family. Move out of state and start over. That lasted all of maybe a month.
*mother at this time has older child (4 years old I think), his child 2 and infant son from failed abusive marriage she was fleeing from.*
They moved and again could not get along at all so mom split with some new guy.
A few months later I meet hubby and fell completely in young teenage puppy love with him. Still hasn't changed
About 6 months later hubby finds her and child because he got court papers in the mail from child protection. *Now mom has newborn twins also.*
Being very young and very neive (and broke) he listened to mother and mothers attorney. He did not try for custody because mom was getting the kids back in a few weeks and it wouldn't be good to split the siblings up.
Plus I just found out I was a pregnant teen at this time.***boy where we stupid young people***
Anyway almost a year later he's still had no contact with his child. He was never informed he had visitation rights and really didn't know better. At this time I have a newborn baby, and child protection has already taken away the mothers parental rights. Child protect told my husband and myself that if he choose to go for custody he would lose and they would include our daughter in the case and take his rights from him for both of them. He was scared to death to lose another child so he signed the papers.
Maybe 5 years and a lot of growing up later we realized how wrong the entire situation was and that he could still go for custody etc. per an attorney we hired to consult this mess with. After a lot of long hard conversations we decided that the child did not know him, and was being raised by a very loving family that adopted her as their only child. We also lived across the country at this point. If was in her best interest to stay where she was.
He has filed the form for years on how to contact him if she ever wanted to find him with all his info. She finally did a few days ago.
They have been talking (mostly texting through skype) all day pretty much since.
Now the problems I'm having. We have 3 children together, the oldest 2 are teens and do and have known of her existence for years now. They are eager to talk to and meet her etc. my youngest has no clue and truthfully wouldn't understand at this point. I'm waiting for him to meet her in person to help him figure it out. So far they haven't even talked yet but I told them to give her and her dad a few days to process this before adding more new family members. She found her mother, father and oldest sister all the same day. They completely understand.
Now my biggest problem, you guessed it, the Ex. Now I knew the ex before I even knew the hubby. I have my own personal reasons for disliking her that has nothing to do with this current situation.
Beyond that the mother thought it would be a great idea to start a family group chat on skype with hubby, herself, their child together, older sister of shared child and that ones bio dad. I'm not sure why she thought adding a bunch of grown ups that truly couldn't stand each to a chat with these fragile adult children was a good idea but she did. Bio mom is single bio dads both married. Bio mom was bringing up the past and flirting with both dads. Which ended in them fighting with each other.
Now my hubby has a very flirtatious personality and it truly does not bother me most of the time. I told him him needs to leave the past in the past and get along with bio mom for the sake of the adult child and any future grandchildren. He took that as be friends. He said some things to her that did piss me off and as usual had not a clue how what he said could of been perceived by others(bio mom). That ended in him saying he's not going to talk to the bio mom again. Not what I was going for but I'm fine with that for now.
So my biggest concern is what is an appropriate level of contact they (hubby and bio mom) should have? I mean it's not like there's a small child envolved and visitation etc. I really have no clue because it's not abnormal situation to be in I guess.
Next what is my role in all of this? I so far have stayed out of it because that child really doesn't have anything to do with me. And I don't know what I should or shouldn't be envolved with anyway. She does want to come here to meet him etc. and I am fine with that. I'm the one that suggested it to start with.
She's not on great terms with her adoptive parents at this point. They had a bio child 6 years ago and her side of the story is they haven't treated her the same since. Which could be true, but she was also in the peak of being a teenager at the time and used to being the only child so I'm sure there's more to it.
Also Hubby did send a message to adoptive parents thanking them for all they have done for her he couldn't at the time and assured them he is in no way trying to replace them as her parents. Just adding the missing branch from her family tree.
I know a lot of you here have adopted grown children and hopefully have some words of wisdom for me as to how you felt with the bio parents and maybe some pointers to not mess it up.