Should you tell your partner that you’re adopted. Does it matter?

[MeganM3]

As an adult, is it ok to not tell a long term partner that you were adopted as a baby and that your parents are not biological.

Is it reasonable to withhold this information, for fear of judgment or them seeing you or your family differently. Or would it be lying by omission somehow. It’s a very sensitive subject

So my adopted dad, her son, was long dead before her so he never knew. My adopted mum was upset but not surprised as she told me that over the years she had referred to me as not 'their real child'. My uncle, her other child died at the same young age as my dad. Both from congenital heart disease. Both were at fitness levels where they competed at sport as adults but the gentics got both in 40s. So being adopted was a blessing there. And my siblings wanted to split assets 5 ways but cousins didn't and one spouse of a sibling put pressure on to keep it 4 ways.
If you believe in Karma and all that then this is what happened after. One cousin died from cancer fairly soon after and their spouse remarried and gave their money to a church/cult and lives in a commune at 60.
The manipulative spouse and my siblings ended up divorced after huge and expensive battle. Another lost all money in Spanish property and lives in a small flat. One went to South Africa and worked for a publishing company rewriting and publishing school books to take out all the ingrained apartheid propaganda, so good on them.
And we live in a lovely part of Ireland with healthy well adjusted adult children and land for goats and ponies and into our 4th decade of our relationship. So adoption was good for me.

I completely understand OP. I’m also an adoptee and do not like to tell anyone unless I absolutely have to. I could always deal with the ignorant ‘why did they give you away’ comments, but what killed me was the pity and sympathy. As a child, once I noticed ‘that’ look on adults faces, it was like they were probing the deep shame centred at the core of myself. It’s like being exposed or unmasked. Just excruciating.

i am sorry you feel this way and its sensitive for you, you should be comfortable - so think this issue is more some self reflection on why you aren't

Gosh, yes, a thousand times this.

This is fascinating thread. My mum was adopted and I grew up thinking this was no big deal. When I hear of adopted children my instinct is always, "how lovely this family is complete this way" but perhaps thats because of how i grew up?

Between my mum being adopted and my dad having very limited info on his family, we have very little medical history and its sometimes a challenge. And ds is desperate to know where certain of his characteristics come from because they are 100% not from dh but we have no idea. We will eventually do a dna test!

This is so interesting. I'm adopted (and so is my brother, we're not related). We're both late 50s/early 60s now.

I've always been very open about being adopted, it's never been something I'm embarrassed or ashamed about. I think possibly because of the way my adoptive parents handled it all. I was so young when I was told that I don't even remember it, which was quite unusual in those days. It was always described as something amazing, and my birth mother was always held in high regard and it was explained to me that she was a young unmarried Irish teen who wouldn't have had any choice other than to give me up.

On the other hand, despite the same upbringing my brother hates anyone knowing, he's deeply ashamed of it, and has a lot of issues. I was a baby when I was adopted and had been in a convent with one sole carer, and he was nearly 4 and had been in several foster settings. So a very different start for him.

It's such an individual thing OP but if your relationship is serious I would tell them. If they react badly then that reflects awfully on them and I'd reassess.

I do think our age makes a difference as well, as a PP has said. Most children going into care now and for the past couple of decades, often have a background of neglect/addiction. Not that they should be ashamed about that, it's not their fault, but it's more understandable.

I have no experience of adoption, but I don’t think it’s altogether unusual for people to struggle with revealing things to each other as a relationship deepens. When you get to a point where you feel it would be safe to share it, you have to figure out the potential implications of why you didn’t say it sooner.

Try not to overthink that. The simplest version is that you weren’t ready. You don’t owe anyone intimacy - and revealing those parts of yourself happens on your emotional timetable. It’s unlikely to be the last revelation if this ends up being a long term marriage

Dh and I have both had those moments. In fact he recently shared something about his df that occurred during our marriage that he could have told me but didn’t. I can see that the reasons he didn’t were far more to do with his feelings than with me. I wouldn’t have judged him for what his df did, but he hadn’t been able to uncouple himself from the shame yet. He needed to get to point where he could say it.

Don’t feel guilty for needing to take your time.
Of course there is a possibility that your revelation won’t be well received, but in that case you will learn something you need to face sooner rather than later. But there is a huge likelihood that this is a much, much bigger issue for you than for someone who loves you.

Bloody hell that is appalling

I don't remember when I told DH that I was adopted.I cannot recall the conversation at all!
I was put into care at 4 and adopted when I was 7. I was adopted with one of my sisters who is 3 years younger than me. I have obviously always known I was adopted. I feel more embarrassed telling people I no longer speak to my adoptive mother and don't volunteer that info whereas although I don't shout about it most of my close friends know I am adopted.

It’s a huge part of your story. A partner should be someone you trust to confide in. Someone who you allow to really know you.
its your information to share with who you please but I’d expect to know this about a partner.

We’re all different, but if it was me, I would tell my partner at the point I felt I knew them well enough and could trust them.

I think it depends on the type of person you are. There’s no right or wrong. It’s your personal and private information and it’s entirely up to you if you do or you don’t want to disclose it.

I totally identify with this.

I've never felt shame that I was adopted, and it's always been clear in my mind that anyone who judged me negatively for it would be someone I didn't want in my life anyway - the kind of person who would assume that I had abandonment issues or that any time I did something wild or irrational that it was because of my childhood.

But I also know most people, even if they don't judge negatively, will turn the fact that I'm an adoptee into a Thing. Because it's unusual, they probably can't imagine that sort of upbringing and they will define me by it in some way. In reality I don't consider it an interesting part of my identity. The thing that sometimes disquiets me is the absence of any feelings I have about it, not the strength of those feelings. It just was what it was.

I don't especially want to discuss any of the above in depth, either. And I know talking to people about being adopted will open that door.

On top of that there's finding an appropriate conversation to drop it into! It's not something I feel I have to sit someone down and "confess" to, but it's also not really something you can casually mention as an aside.

That's why it's not information I tell all and sundry. However on the subject of the actual thread, I told DP fairly early on when we were dating, and I did in fact drop it into the conversation as an aside, because I was a bit drunk and we were having a bit of a heart-to-heart anyway. He's always respected the fact that I don't have much else to say about it and treats it as the non-issue I'd like him to.

You couldn’t have put it better. It’s not shame-but people’s reactions can be a bit tedious. Not their fault but once you’ve had the same questions over and over, regardless of whether you want to discuss it to that degree-it does put you on the spot. And it’s hard to drop into conversation like you say. I too feel it would be self conscious about bringing it up as a significant thing. Basically I don’t want people to make assumptions that it’s sad OR great for me because it’s not that and dried so I just don’t mention it.

Not that cut and dried that should say. Not sure what happened then!

Off topic slightly but I am so glad you wrote this thread OP. I have never had any friends who are adopted and it’s good to hear other very balanced perspectives that I can identify with.

He sounds absolutely amazing!

Exactly! It's really not cut and dried because I can see how it's shaped me in certain ways, and whether I see those ways as positive or negative honestly depends on the day. I'm also reluctant to directly link the fact that, for example, I'm quite emotionally self-sufficient (to put it politely) to my childhood, as I've known people with similar personalities who had very different upbringings to me.

The question people always ask is what it was like to be adopted late and to remember my birth family. I don't know! It's all I've known. What was it like living with the same family for your entire childhood, I want to reply (and once actually did).

Can I just ask, and even now as I ask it I realize that even as an adoptee I'm straying in to stereotypes and assumptions, but what age or generation are the people who have felt shame or othering?

It's not something I experienced even though being adopted shaped me in different ways.

And I know there's nothing more anecdotal than ones own experience so maybe I've just had blinkers.
I was of the last generation (mid to late 80's births) where adoption was still common and "benign" for want of a better term in respect of what the children may have gone through to warrant adoption.

So mostly adopted from birth or infancy, in my middle class bubble it wasn't uncommon to be adopted and so there was no great issue with it. So grew up privileged etc.

I've met people who definitely felt rejected or not part of the family due to being adopted so it's not that it didn't happen, it just never seemed out of the ordinary to me.

But Im really interested in what way it manifested as I was either blind to it or very lucky but dont want to pretend it didn't happen to others and want to be better informed

No one’s business but yours

I am in the same age bracket as you, a little younger. I wouldn’t expect anyone to be openly rude or openly judgmental… but just to consider me differently once they know. To think of my family differently somehow.

Casual loose language around adoption, or benign jokes don’t help. The number of times I’ve heard a joke about how someone ‘must be adopted’ or a loose term like ‘we’ve been friends 16 years he’s basically an adopted brother’. Always made be feel uncomfortable.

People do seem to react to knowing . I myself might even have thoughts when knowing another person is adopted that tbh I really wish didn’t cross my mind. It’s human nature to be curious I suppose.

What sort of thoughts, if you don't mind me asking?

Don't get me wrong, I'll have thoughts if I find out someone is adopted, but it's just an idle "I wonder what happened there?" It's nothing negative, I don't think less of the person who's been adopted, or their parents, birth or adoptive. It's just a "This is out of the norm, so my brain is going to needle at it slightly"

That I absolutely relate to with regards to the benign jokes "adopted red headed child" stuff is a thing that I probably brushed off rather than calling out.

Like you say we're slightly different generations but as someone who grew up in "lad culture" I definitely had a lot of adoption insults but they were definitely categorized alongside all the other "edgy jokes"

If course it doesn't matter. Does he live you for yourself?

As you say it’s not negative thoughts. Or not really. But just mild curiosity about it. Or even nice thoughts like how nice it is that the family share the same mannerisms somehow and even look slightly alike given the circumstances. Or how nice it is that the siblings are so close in adulthood. And then I just wish I thought nothing at all because these things are still sort of ‘despite being adopted’. And that’s sort of what I mean.. people do see it as a thing, even if not a negative thing, it is a thing. If people don’t know then it’s better/easier (btw I’m still questioning that, I am still just processing these thoughts)

I’ve always felt “different”. I didn’t know any other adopted children and unfortunately I had to navigate that myself. In addition, I was adopted due to child abuse that occurred before I was 3 so although I have few conscious memories of that, I know what happened as my mum told me or I overheard her telling people. But I wasn’t allowed to talk about it. By rights I should be royally fucked up but I’ve got some kind of inner resilience that’s seen me through a relatively normal adulthood (I’m not unscathed, I’m just a coper). So weirdly I think if I tell anyone they’ll think I’m a freak or they’ll feel sorry for me!