What If My Partner Doesn't Want to Adopt? - Weekend Wisdom

Question: How do you deal with the emotions of not being able to adopt or foster because your husband doesn't share the desire?

Resources:

• A Reluctant Spouse: When Only One Partner Wants to Adopt
• I Want to Adopt. My Partner Does Not.
• Creating a Family Online Support Group

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

creating a family .org to be considered for a future episode. Today's question is one
that we hear pretty frequently, and it's a really important one, especially for those
who are in long -term relationships, committed partnerships, or marriages. We want you
to know right off the bat that if you resonate with this question, you are not
alone. And we have a vibrant community over at Facebook that would be super
supportive and encouraging for you. You can find our group at Facebook .com slash
groups slash creating a family and we'd love to have you over there. So listener M
asks, how do you deal with the emotions of not being able to adopt because your
partner, husband, spouse, whatever, doesn't share that same desire.
And we just want to acknowledge right off the bat that we
with the emotions of wanting this so badly when your partner doesn't share that
desire. We want to give you a few tips to share, and we want to encourage you to
kind of take them in, listen, and see where you're at in the process of dealing
with these emotions and apply what works for you. So the first thing that we want
to emphasize for you is to listen to your partner. And that's not just listen.
You hear them talking. It's listen without pushing back or without nagging,
learn how to listen with curiosity. It's natural to want to try and convince them
or answer all their doubts or find the answer for all of their questions.
but in the early stages of dealing with this hurt, it's really important that you
resist that and try to find the energy to pull back a little bit.
Listen quietly, listen with curiosity, and try not to pressure them or kind of bring
the energy to every conversation that you have about adoption or not adopting.
Instead, when you do listen, if you have to ask a question, try and ask like an
open -ended gentle question, maybe not something they have to answer right now, but
just something for them to think about. For example, can you share with me what
worries you most about building our family by adoption? Or you can say,
what comes up for you from your previous life experiences when you think about
fostering or adopting. And again, your goal isn't to get them to answer your
question, nor is your goal to answer the question for them. It's simply to
understand where your partner's coming from, and sometimes their hesitancy is rooted
in fear, concerns about finances, past experiences, their energy levels,
if they can do this, if they have the ability to hang in there for it, especially
if you have other children already, asking these kinds of questions can give them
kind of space to develop what they think might be their vision for who your family
is and how your family grows. And it might just be that their vision for all of
that is different than yours. But when you create a safe space for them to answer
those questions honestly or think about those questions and ask themselves the
questions honestly, you may discover that there's more depth to what they're thinking
or feeling than you even realized. So after you've kind of taught yourself how to
listen and leave questions open -ended and kind of out there for them to consider.
The second thing is to maintain consistent communication between the two of you. Keep
kind of revisiting and having these conversations consistently, again,
open -hearted and respectful. But here's the key. You can't do this every day.
You can't do this in every conversation. You can't do this when your table says,
okay, we need to bring the conversation up again. Adoption can't be the only topic
in your relationship. Even as much as it may be heavy and weighted on you and your
heart, you can't have that agenda, so to speak, all the time.
It's going to wear the two of you down. It'll wear you down separately. It'll wear
your partner down. It'll wear down the integrity of your unity and your marriage.
So instead, you might try and agree on a time frame to revisit the conversation.
So kind of ask the open -ended question and then say, can we talk about this again
in, you know, three months, six months? That way, you're honoring your own longings
for building your family by adoption. You're honoring your questions that you might
have about their intent or their hesitancy, but you're also honoring their need for
some space and for some breathing room to think, breathing room to not think about
it, which might be a rest in their space that they need. And instead, use the time
in between those conversations to nurture your relationship between the two of you.
You can find other ways to build connection and meaningful interactions between you
that are not focused on you getting your dreams. If you find yourself at a point
where you've just had to make peace with the fact that adoption is not going to
happen, it's really important then that you honor that reality,
honor how it feels, and honor the grief that you probably need to deal with in
that situation.
married couple, to process the emotions, to work through the impact that this has on
your future as a couple and the differences that it might create in your
relationship, especially if you came into these conversations fully expecting that at
some point he might change his mind. And so you need to deal with those feelings.
Try to remember that your grief through all of this process is not a sign of
weakness. it's not a sign of failure on your part.
and build that relationship. I also suggest if you have this,
you know, burning passion to mother or this need to nurture, you can individually
find other ways to meet that need. You could mentor a teenager, maybe in your local
faith community or in your local school district, you know, maybe a kid that just
is really looking or some help. You can do it through a formal organization like a
Boy Scouts or a Girl Scouts or Boys and Girls Club. Those kinds of things offer
mentoring opportunities. You could also consider volunteering at a local shelter.
You could consider teaching Sunday school at your church or other faith community,
finding ways to be a dependable nurturing adult in a young person's life,
whether it's a really young child.
Another aspect of accepting the reality that this adoption won't happen is to make
sure that you and your husband are surrounding yourself with safe, stable, healthy
relationships that will sustain you, that will encourage you, and that will kind of
build you up. an extended network of friends, family, coworkers,
any kind of community that you can use to.
your parenting or not. Those are crucial things to surround yourself with. Another
thing is to consider that the adjustment time that you have in dealing with this
change of your agenda or your plan for your family can be an opportunity to,
as I said a little bit earlier, focus on some other things that might be
fulfilling. In addition to building and nurturing your relationship with your partner
and finding common interests with them, you might
together. So the goal is not to ignore the disappointment or ignore his feelings,
stuff down your feelings, none of that. The goal is to make sure that how you
process this disappointment and how you navigate your relationship doesn't become the
whole story of your marriage because your marriage is so much more than we wanted
to adopt and now we're not adopting or I wanted to adopt and he doesn't want to
adopt and so now.
to plan your next steps forward, that's where the healing can begin. So I hope this
helps. I know it's painful. I'm sorry that you're in this situation. I hope that
you find a path forward that is clear and honest communication between you and your
partner and that if you choose in the end not to adopt, you can find a path
forward that feels fulfilling and healing for both of you and for your marriage.
Listeners, if this resonated with you in any way and you're kind of feeling like
maybe adoption might not be in your future either, I want you to hear this. It is
possible to build a beautiful, joy -filled life, even if it doesn't match the plan
you once imagined for yourself. Living child free doesn't mean living empty.
It also doesn't mean that you can't find an outlet for the nurturing,
loving person that you are. You may have to find new ways to express it between
you and your partner and between you and other people in your life. But it also
means that you have an opportunity to craft a new path forward for you and your
marriage. Your story isn't over, and this doesn't have to be the defining moment of
your story. It's just going to unfold differently than you thought or planned,
and that too can be a good thing. If you appreciated what you heard today,
we would love to hear from you. You can leave a rating or a review anywhere that
you are listening to this podcast. And if you don't mind, Tell a friend. We'd
appreciate it. Thanks so much and have a great day.