Adoptees: Trying to Make Up For What You Lost Will Crush You

Our family - back when all the kids were still in the nest. <3

When I was younger, I fantasized about having the perfect family. Then I grew up and knocked myself out trying to have one.  

I've been married for 31 years. I tried so hard at marriage to the point where it was unhealthy for me as a human being at times. I believe marriage is about two people out-serving each other. Out-forgiving each other. More than anything it’s about servanthood. I still believe that, but for some years in my marriage, I allowed things to happen that weren't just about servanthood or forgiveness - they were unhealthy, and needed to be addressed and corrected. They have now been rectified and I am so thankful for that. My point is that I allowed those things to happen thinking that I had to make it work or save the marriage at all costs - even at the destruction of myself.

I tried at parenthood to the point where I shamed myself over and over again if I made a mistake. (And I made plenty of them, like any parent.) And when my kids had any kind of problems, I took it suuuuuuper hard. And I blamed myself for anything that happened.

The reason I did all this was that I wanted to achieve the perfect family – at any cost – to make up for things I went through earlier in life. (Relinquishment, adoption, and the dysfunction of my adoptive family that ended in the divorce of my parents.) My thought was that I would do whatever it took – at any cost – to have the perfect family once I got a chance to do it myself. I would sacrifice whatever necessary even if it killed me to have the perfect family.

Can I just tell you that it got incredibly heavy? So much so that I had to give up the goal. I haven’t given up on having a good family or even a great family. But, I have surrendered my goal of having a perfect family.

When I became an adult my thought process was, “I’m getting this. I deserve it after all I’ve been through.” Now I realize that nobody – adopted or not – gets a perfect family. Because we are all flawed human beings. You can have a good family but if you are striving for perfection it will be so dang heavy, you will feel the weight of the world on your shoulders.

Sometimes I catch myself in the throes of disappointment over how something went with my husband or one of my kids and I realize, there I go again…having this false expectation of perfection – from them or from me. I have to remind myself all the time that it is just that – something false that was never appropriate for me to strive for.

I have come to terms with the fact that family or anything in life will never be perfect this side of heaven, BUT – we can create something that is really, really good. 

I know I am not the only adoptee that tries to “make up for” all that I lost in life. In my effort to do that, I put a heavy yoke upon me that I was never meant to bear. Maybe you are at this point today, adoptee, where you have tried and tried to create a world that makes up for all that you lost. If you are feeling the crushing weight of that today, can I just encourage you – let go of the expectation of perfection and breathe. As someone once said, life doesn’t have to be perfect to be amazing.

Trusting & Fully Loving Your Spouse or Significant Other (10 Important Choices Adoptees Can Make)

During our one-year engagement, Larry and I had a long-distance relationship. I worked as a counselor at New Morning Ministries (NMM)  in Newark, New Jersey.   NMM was a home for trouble teen girls – mostly runaways. I loved serving there, although the separation from my fiance felt almost unbearable at times. 

Us...way back when.

Larry would visit once every few months, and as soon as he arrived, I would start crying. Puzzled, he would ask why and I would respond that it was because he was leaving in a few days. He would always say, “I just got here! Enjoy me while I’m here.” For reasons I would not understand until many years later, I always focused on the impending goodbye, and not the joy of the present.

 Like many adoptees, I feared goodbyes - and more than anything, loss in general.

 

    "Adoptees suffer from a fear of loss. They see loss all over the place. Even those adopted in infancy feel the loss…if it happened once, it can happen again."  

~ Dr. Marshall Schechter, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine and nationally recognized expert on adoption

In the beginning years of our marriage, I feared that Larry would leave me.  It was very difficult for me to trust him even though he never did anything to break my trust. Even if we had a small  fight, I feared he would leave. I didn’t respond by clinging tighter or becoming needy. Instead, I just never let him know I needed him. I became as self-sufficient as possible, always preparing for what I believed was his inevitable exit. I braced myself for life without him, convinced it was coming.

I told Larry I loved him, often. But it wasn’t until at least a decade or more of our marriage that I ever said the words, “I need you.” Those words scared me out of my mind, to let Larry or anyone think I needed them. Because in my mind, the more you need someone – the greater potential of their leaving. So in my mind, even subconsciously, that’s what I was preparing for all along life’s path.

I loved with reserve. Not needing people in the first place seemed so much easier than needing them and losing them.    

I never told Larry I was afraid, but he figured it out. And one day sat me down, looked into my eyes and said, “Deanna, I’m not leaving. Get it through your head, I am not leaving. I’m never leaving. Ever.”

I finally believed it. 

I relaxed a bit.

But a part of me knew although he could promise me that in an, "I'm not-leaving-this-marriage" sense, he couldn’t promise me that he wouldn’t leave this world. And so, I still worried.   

The better our marriage got, the more I feared losing him.

With all the choices we make in this life there are still a few we can’t make. We can't control when we come into this world and we can't totally control when we leave. We can increase or decrease our odds by taking care of our health and such, but sometimes things still happen.

I remember a particular birthday Larry planned for me that was almost other-worldly. The plan, or so I thought was to go to  Carrabbas. On our way, Larry said he had to swing by the church to pick something up. When we arrived at the church, a limo was there. When the chauffer opened the door, imagine my surprise that six of our friends were waiting inside!  From there we went together to Donatello's, a four star Italian restaurant. Just when I thought the chauffer was going to take us back to the church parking lot, he headed in another direction and pulled up at the Grand Hyatt, and thereafter pulled out my suitcase. I wondered how it got packed and my friends just giggled and said that Larry had taken care of everything and my amazing weekend had just begun! They said goodbye as we headed off for a romantic escape.

The next morning I woke up wrapped up in the sheets and staring at the ceiling thinking, “When am I going to lose all of this?”

I know…it doesn’t seem logical.

When experiencing perfectly wonderful moments, nothing used to scare me more than realizing it could all come to a screeching halt and there was nothing I could do about it but survive. 

Larry and I could have the most amazing times ever, and afterward it was like a black cloud descended on me. Things would go from elation to despair. It took me a long time to figure out why. Even after he promised me he would never leave. I was afraid of an “act of God”, the devil, a freak accident or whatever outside of my control-- might take Larry or the kids from me.

I finally realized why I had these fears and came to terms with them.   

I know this will not be much help to readers who aren’t people of faith. That’s one reason why, quite frankly, I don’t know what people do who don’t have faith in God.  I do believe with Him, anything is possible including overcoming the fear of loss.

Here’s what I’ve settled on…

Sooner or later we will lose everyone who means anything to us, from this world.  

Either we will leave, or they will.

Nobody gets to stay on this earth, indefinitely. This is a fact of life.

All of us say goodbye to this world and enter another one.

As wonderful as it can be, this world is not our final home.

Realizing this helps me make 10 important choices in regarding to loving and trusting my husband and others. These choices make it possible for me to enjoy life.


10 Choices

1) I choose to love without reserve.

2) I choose to let people in. Walls built to try to keep pain out just keep love from getting in. 

3) I choose to accept that I need others and they need me.

4) I choose to trust those who have proven themselves and give me no reason not to trust.

5) I choose to revel in memory-making moment and not fear the “what-if’s”…

6) I choose to appreciate every moment with my husband, children and loved ones.

7) I choose to live in the the joy of the present and not agonize over possible future losses, thereby stripping me of the joy of now.   

8) I choose to stand in faith and not fear.

9) I choose to believe that whatever loss I may face in the future, I do not face alone. The same God who was with me in my early losses will be with me through whatever I may face in the future.

10) I choose to cling fiercely to the One who has been with me since the beginning and has never left me, and never will.

You have the ability to make the same choices. 

Adoptee Marriage and the Value of Learning to "Press Pause"

Do you feel the freedom to enjoy your relationship with your spouse   while still working through issues?

Last night Larry and I invited a bunch of married couples from the church over to our home. We had dinner together and then moved into the living room where Larry and I opened our hearts to them and shared encouragement about some things that have kept our marriage strong for 26 years and counting.

Larry & Me..."pressing pause"

Larry spoke of the importance of what he calls, “pressing pause.” There are times we feel our problems in life are so overwhelming, we can’t enjoy our partner or our marriage in general. Life feels overwhelming, and we shut down. He says it’s important to “press pause” on the issues once in a while and remember to enjoy our spouse.

Let me break this down for you as to how we can apply this as adoptees.  I have faced all of these and more and had to learn to speak truth to myself. 

Adoption Search ADD and the Importance of Overcoming It

Taking me into his arms for a few moments before our Christmas Eve communion at the church, my husband made a plea for us to connect more.

Last year (2012), Christmas Eve ~ in the sanctuary before  communion. <3

It's not normally our custom to be distant, or for me to be pre-occupied.

But a search becomes all consuming at times.

And in searching for the family I don't know yet, I sometimes neglect the family I have. 

I hate it when I do that.

And I've realized, it's time for a course correction. 

Adoptees and Trust Issues with Spouses and Significant Others

"I can't maintain a relationship, my trust issues are so severe..."

"I've been married three times, and am such a failure at it, with my trust issues...."

Photo Credit: Vagawi, Flickr

"I don't think I can trust anyone enough to marry them...I'm scared to death to make the commitment..."

"I can't get a relationship or keep one!"

I hear this from adoptees, all the time.

I recently met an adoptee who has been engaged for EIGHT YEARS so far. Eight years of engagement, because she is so afraid to fully trust, even though her fiance is, in her words, "amazing." 

And although I've been married for twenty six years, I completely understand.

Why Making Decisions for Your Adoptee Spouse Can Kill Your Marriage

By Larry Shrodes

When we first got married, I went out and bought a bed.

Pretty harmless right?

Wrong. I did it without my wife.

Guys, if there’s one thing you want in marriage, it’s for your wife to like your bed and want to be in it. :)

Whether one is married to an adoptee or not, it would be a smart idea to consult with your spouse about things like this, but for an adoptee marriage, you may be committing marital suicide not to do so.

I got this bed on a great deal, we needed a bed, and I thought, “Hey, I’ll just pick this up and Deanna will love it.”  Ha! Epic fail.

Unfortunately with the great deal I got, returning it was not an option. We were stuck with it for quite a while as when we first got married we were too poor to pay attention. Didn’t have two nickels to rub together.  What other metaphors can I use? You get the picture… 

Going through that situation early on and then many more after it through trial and error showed me something about the adoptee I’m married to. She’s very sensitive about decisions being made for her. She tells me many other adoptees feel the same way.

An Adoptee's Husband Speaks Guest Post: Larry Shrodes

Note from Deanna: Today I'm featuring the first guest post ever here at Adoptee Restoration.  Being that the topic this week is marriage and adoptees, I thought it would be a great idea to invite the person who has walked beside me for over half of my life's journey to speak to this topic. Thanks babe, for being willing to share today.   

As a pastor, I have provided pre-marital counseling and performed countless weddings. During the counseling I always ask the future bride and groom a lot of questions about their family of origin, particularly their experiences as children and the kind of home they grew up in. Whether positive or negative experiences, their marriage will be affected by their history.  I am not saying they are destined to repeat those family experiences, good or bad. And I’m not saying they are doomed by them. I am just pointing out that it can’t help but affect them. I find that a person will usually decide to be just like their family or not at all like their family, nonetheless, their family has shaped the way they process things.

I have learned that adoption is not just about what happened in my wife’s life as a baby, but what takes place in her life in continued relationship with her family members. Family affects our lives - even the ones we don’t live with and sometimes the ones we don’t even know. 

My wife is the strongest woman I know. She's an outstanding wife, mother, minister and human being. I believe she can do anything, and yet I have seen how adoption issues have the ability to cause grief and heartache, the depth of which are hard to describe. The hardest thing for me is the inability to fix it.

Marriage and Surprises and Adoptees, Oh My!

My husband changed his initial engagement plan, otherwise we may not have ended up getting married.

 

Photo Credit: auberirdische sind gesund, FlickR

Once engaged, Larry told me of another idea he almost went through with.  He planned to get a ladder, lean it against the outside of my college dorm room, climb up and knock on the window. When I opened the window he was going to ask me to marry him while holding out a helium balloon with what I would think was the engagement ring tied to the balloon string. Just as I reached for it, he was going act as if he lost control of the balloon and let it go off into the sky. The plan was to let me freak out --believing my engagement ring was irretrievably gone. After a few moments, he was going to pull the real ring from out of his pocket and say, “Gotcha! Surprise!" and propose for real.

Two things never, never, never to say to an adoptee: "Gotcha!" or "Surprise!"

Needless to say, it's likely I would have slammed the window shut and walked away, I would have been so upset.

Can You Be Adopted AND (Happily) Married?

Mail is landing in my inbox from adoptees asking me if I'll write on the subject of how being an adoptee can affect one's marriage. And specifically, how to make marriage work if you are an adoptee, or married to one. If you have no idea why this would be necessary to talk about, all I have to say is, do not put your high beams on.

 I've tried to figure out why people are asking me to write about this and I have come to the conclusion:

 A lot of adoptees that I know personally do seem to have a struggle with marriage or romantic relationships. Then again, marriage is not easy to begin with!

Some have said they are on second and third marriages (or beyond) and others have given up completely.

 People notice I've been married 25 years and think I must know something.

I didn't jump on this topic suggestion right away. Part of my hesitancy was that I have to live this out every day. And, some days I fail. My husband and I are a work in progress. But we do know how to persevere in arduous times . With that said, join me this week as we talk about adoptee marriage issues! **Happy Dance**

When Larry and I speak at marriage conferences, he always starts by saying, "My wife and I have been happily married for 23 wonderful years! That's not bad for 25 years altogether..."