Adoption worries!

[Newguy123]

Hello,

I'm sorry to say this is my first post after a long time reading posts on here, but hopeful someone will be able to offer some advice.

Myself and my husband are hopeful to be adopters, but have a few concerns that noone (even our preferred agency) aren't able to properly explain before we begin the process. We were hopeful that people here might be able to point us in the right direction!

1. Bmi / weight / lifestyle. I'm overweight (bmi currently 36) as a result of wanting to adopt we have totally changed our lifestyle, diet etc and my bmi has come down from over 40! None can tell us if changing our lifestyle and sustaining it as we have done for over a year is enough to satisfy social work or whether we have to wait until I'm actually a healthy BMI?

1. Ex partners. At the risk of baring a bit too much of my soul here I have a fairly serious issue with an ex partner and I'm worried about how this would affect our chances. My husband and I have been together for 7 years, about a year before this I was in a relationship with a man who had some significant mental health problems, however he was also very abusive. There were instances where I was threatened at knife point or where he woke me up in the middle of the night by beating me as he suddenly wanted me to leave. Events like this happened several times during the course of our roughly two year relationship and I always gave him the benefit of the doubt due to his mental health problems. Eventually I had to leave to keep myself safe and to do this I had to lie to get out the house after an evening where I fought him off and spent the night locked in the bathroom. I feel embarrassed writing about this. I attending counselling afterwards and as a result felt it was all in the past before meeting my husband. I'm now very worried that social work will want to contact my ex partner. Unfortunately I don't have any proof of what happened to me as I never reported it to the police (stupid I know, but at the time I can honestly say I wasn't thinking about it properly). Will social work want to speak to him? Will they reveal our current address? I've not had any contact with him at all in about 8 years and I really don't want to have to engage with him now.

I'd really appreciate your advice :) thanks in advance

Hello

1. Don’t worry about your weight. Some agencies have hard and fast rules, most don’t. (There was a thread here a few years ago where someone actually called a whole bunch of them to ask.) Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be fine. IIRC for those that had a limit, the limit was 35. (Maybe one was 30.)

2. Ordinarily they do speak to ex-partners to check you’re not abusive. However, I understand they have discretion to not do this where there’s a good reason not to. You will have to tell them what the situation was.

You’ll likely also have to ‘explore’ that whole situation with your SW - they’ll want to know how you’ve resolved it with yourself; for example, how you’d seek support now, how it couldn’t happen again, how you’d handle it if you and partner split up, etc etc.

There’s very little that would automatically rule you out.

Good luck!

Similar situation. First agency expected me to have a BMI of below 40 and the second agency just expected me to show that I have a healthy lifestyle and that I was actively losing weight.
Previous marriage was an abusive one and neither agency wanted to get in touch with them. I think if domestic violence was a part of it then agencies don’t tend to contact ex partners.

Again to reassure you social worker wouldn't contact an abusive ex and would never disclose your address. Am a social worker myself (not adoption) we work hard to support people to make safe changes, we wouldn't undermine that!

One of my ex-partners was a drug addict during our 3 year relationship 25 years ago. The last I heard he was still using. I don’t know where he is now so I couldn’t provide contact details for him. The SW said to me that they probably wouldn’t try to track him down, but that my references would need to have known me during the time period that I was with him. I think they were reluctant to bring him back into my life.
Hopefully your references can give the SW info about that time of your life so they won’t need to contact your ex.

Totally agree with womanity and all others.

My take on this (I am overweight) and adopted 7 years ago, is they want to see a healthyish lifestyle and a willingness to address issues related to weight. Thinking about why this may be might spur you on but to be honest if you have dropped 4 points or more in a year WELL DONE .

Secondly I am so sorry you had that horrific experience. Counselling is a good sign. You sought help. It might be worth just thinking if you adopt a child who comes from a domestic abuse situation are you prepared with strategies to self calm, to know you can help your child without awakening painful memories etc?

Good luck and do not worry, your privacy must be a priority to anyone enquiring about ex.

Just make it clear - it's a very long time ago and you got out, you got help, you made a new life. That is brilliant and shows you are resourceful and strong. Xxxxz

Thank you so much for all your replies, I really appreciate it.

My family references know me from that time period, I haven't really kept any close friends from that period - partly due to what happened with my ex. When I left that relationship I completely separated myself from that part of my life (to put in context after I left he sent messages saying he was outside my house, was driving past my parents house in case my car was there etc etc) in retrospect I wish I'd kept those messages as proof. The end result was I decided to make life as 'new' as I could, I moved house, got new phone numbers and a new email address and I let any friendships which could keep me in any way in touch with him die off as I really didn't want him anywhere near me or in any way able to get in touch.

My family really disliked him (obvious reasons) and I am ashamed to say I misled them to think I had ended the relationship sooner than I did as they were of the 'get rid of him or lose us as we can't cope with him doing this to you'. So, I'm aware comments about it from my family may not entirely tie in with timelines.

Its all such a mess!

I'm sorry but I think you need to find out for sure that they wouldn't contact an abusive ex. A friend who was in a similar position had to give details of her abusive ex. They tried to contact him but all the details she had for him were out of date so they gave up!

I think that different agencies have their own protocols with this, but even if they do decide to contact the ex, they definitely shouldn’t be giving out any of your personal details to your ex.

Oh it sounds horrendous. I am so sorry. Personally, I'd go with honesty and just explain that you didn't tell your family the full story because of... Shame, guilt , fear etc. The counselling will have helped you and now you can reflect back on that awful time etc so it has made you a stronger person, I hope. What a bastard he was.

Sorry, I’m a complete novice and have posted this in the wrong place!