Sundays have changed now it seems permanently.
Jay works most afternoons and now he calls his bio mom as well.
It sort of is ruining my Sundays.
I just wish it wasn’t in our life. Alanon tonight was about acceptance. I guess I haven’t accepted it.
I feel like if I don’t ask Jay about his talk with her, it’s insensitive. Honestly though, I don’t want to talk about her and their life. Then that makes me feel incredibly selfish and rude when I get to be w/ Jay, she’s just asking for a call a week.
The reality though is, I haven’t really had Jay. We talked about that today, the reality of what it’s been like to live w/ someone w/ an attachment disorder. I told him it was way worse than everything I’ve gone through with my mom. He said he was sorry, again.
I don’t want him to say he’s sorry; I want him to understand somehow and realize that this is what is partly playing into how I feel about his bio mom. Can I trust him to handle this well when we’re both so new at taking care of ourselves? Here we have a person who wants to spend all this time w/ Jay and we have barely had time ourselves.
So yeah, I don’t even know if it’s okay to not want to get to know this person. We didn’t send any postcards while on the last few vacations. We didn’t this last time. It’s always been my thing to coordinate and I’m just sort of done. I don’t know what my role should be in all this right now.
So I feel bad if I don’t ask, like I’ll push Jay away, and I feel bad if I do ask because I don’t really want to know.
I think if I felt better about myself, my understanding of ego and kindness that wasn’t twisted in theology and guilt, I might know better what to do.
Fortunately Alanon tonight talked about acceptance. It was interesting the framing of the discussion.
I feel like I will push Jay away with all this talk about it. I wish I could just leave it be and let it be his thing. It creates some weird tension too because he’s talking about our kids, our family, me, etc. I saw him send a photo of my family and my mom at her wedding to Ben. It just feels very strange.
I realized another reason why I also feel weird. I was so excited to meet her. I was hopeful that maybe we could feel close to her like I feel close to Patricia. But I realized my feelings were distorted just like they were with Robert and Paul. Not only would I love to have a different dad, I’d love to have a different mom. Or at least someone that doesn’t hurt me.
That all kind of blew up this summer with all the things she said and how it unfolded. I realized I’d been too eager, and I realized this is way bigger and harder than I realized. It wasn’t going to be easy or quick and I felt stupid for trusting and hoping and sort of throwing myself at her.
So I’ve pulled back.
I am thinking about my own discomfort but haven’t thought a ton about Jay to be honest. I’ve been paralyzed with fear and if I can let my fear go down, I could think more about him and be more secure.
So the goal here is to accept the situation, realize it’s not dominating things in either of our lives and let it be what it is. I read an article in the Guardian and it said it talked about how it has been helpful for some people to find their birth parents and many adoptive parents have been supportive of the process for their kids. One quote from the adult child: “We like spending time together, and getting to know (my birth mother) has been a positive change in my life.”
Those are secure adoptive parents. I’d like to have more of that in my life, more of that security so I can let Jay have this experience and not feel insecure. The girls are not interested at all right now, and I’m not either. I honestly don’t trust myself either way: to be too harsh or to be too excited and over eager.
I don’t talk to my aunt more than once a month and that’s my favorite aunt. It just doesn’t work out much. I hope that’s what this becomes. I just don’t know.
What we discussed in Alanon on the topic of acceptance:
Be willing instead of trying. No trying, no struggle. Peace is the path of acceptance.
Trust in something greater than yourself.
Not accepting = controlling
Some other thoughts on that: what are my greatest fears in this situation? I’ll be abandoned. I’ll be hurt. Jay will not understand how to handle this and will get hurt and will hurt me. More pain, more separation in our marriage. Letting go of the situation and hoping it turns out for the best and it really doesn’t.
Can I trust my higher power to resolve this? Can I do my best to let it be and do what I can to support Jay?
The research seems to suggest this is good for Jay. So can I just let this unfold how it will? Can I give this to my higher power and not try and control it? Can I accept the situation and not feel I have to either respond and enable and fix, but can let it go and let it be out there?
Jay doesn’t have a lot of people he can talk to.
He has said these talks and time together are helpful for him.
So.
The problem here, what I feel in my heart at this point, is that I’ve trusted Jay before and he hasn’t handled these matters well. He hasn’t understood people and how things work. I’ve gotten hurt.
I guess that could happen again.
I guess I could also hurt him again.
That is the thing I am not discussing much, how I’ve hurt Jay.
I’m focusing on my own concern for how this impacts our family. I’m focusing on things he’s said, (“I hope someday maybe our holidays will change…”) and the things she also said, (“I’m sorry, the kids have another grandma…”) and I guess that’s what keeps going through my mind along w/ all the years of disconnection and rejection.
When we met Jay’s dad, I didn’t think alot about his wife. I thought about how exciting it was that his dad was a fairly well-known scientist. it turned out, this was hard for his wife. It was hard for his mom. As the months went by, I started to have more compassion for people, less judgemental. I’d even said to people that I wished Jay’s mom was more open and not so closed off.
I started to see how complex things were and eventually talked w/ dad’s wife about all this, that her family was intact and we weren’t there to interrupt their holidays and things.
Now the coin has turned. I’m the one who is feeling threatened and scared.
I told Jay if we’d had another year under our belts will our marriage repair, it would have helped a lot.
As it is, it’s all here now.
So less judgment, more acceptance. Turn it over to my higher power, what a concept. Ask for guidance.
I also need to ask myself if this is also a matter of Jay having someone else he confides in other than me that bothers me or is it that she feels threatening still? No it feels like I would be happy if this person was just a friend. I have a lot of friends and would welcome more of that for Jay.
Under it all, I was hoping finding his birth family would help him. I’m not sure it’s positive yet. He said it’s sort of 50/50 right now. I can make it more positive and just be neutral.