October 10, 2025 • 47 mins
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00:16 r/BORUpdates - [3] Met my birth after 23 years.
16:01 r/relationships - Getting ready to cut my(40f) adopted sister(39f) of 30 years out of my life- justified?
31:00 r/relationships - Me [32F] with my husband[29M] Wants to adopt family members baby.
Note: stories are sometimes abbreviated
#reddit #funnyredditposts
okay storytime, okstorytime, okopshow, okop show
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, this is Sam, this is John, and we are
the founding hosts of Okay Storytime Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And we have some foundational stories coming up for you.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
But the thing is this foundation needs a little support
from these sponsors. So stick around two minutes and we'll
get into the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I met my bio mom after twenty three years, could
she hang? Let's find out I mailed twenty three. Was
raised by a single father who passed away three years
ago when I was around fifteen. He sat me down
and explained that my mom is alive, that I'm the
result of a one night's stand during his college days
in the US. You didn't know she was alive for
(00:37):
fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
He was like, I know. I told you your mom
passed away and that horrific.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Explosion in that horrific bicycle, that horrific bicycle factory incident.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
But she's alive. What mama didn't pass away in that
horrific bicycle explosion. I told my friends that happened.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
So they stopped making of bicycles out of explosives after that.
You never see those bicycles anymore anyway. He said, my
mom wanted to put me up for adoption, but he
chose to take full custody and raise me on his own.
And by the way, this comes from user throwaway Como
And if you want to submit your own stories, go
to the r slash Okay storytime. Subret it I'm Dakota,
(01:19):
I'm Sophia, and I'm Keon and Op says, it's important
to mention that my father was Italian and my mom
is American. Very important, extremely important.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Well kind of Italian.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
We let dad make the sauce like that kind?
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Where's he from?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Like Italy? N what part of Italy? Chicago? Chicago? You
got me there? A good job. They met when he
was studying in the States. I moved to the US
pursuing my master's degree in the same city where my
mother lives, though we've never met, and as far as
I know, she has no idea i'm here. Last week,
(01:57):
I broke my hand and ended up in the er
That's where I met her. It was strange and emotional,
but I kept my cool and pretended not to know
who she was. When she saw me, she looked shocked
but kept things professional, though I noticed her staring at
me more than once. Wait a minute, you just broke
your arm, She works at the hospital that you were
taken to.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And you both knew it was the other person, but
didn't say anything. She was like, she was like, hello, Opie,
why are you here today?
Speaker 4 (02:26):
You mean to tell me Fate like you broke your
arm that day. She was working that ship that hour,
and you guys intertwined by fate.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Fate guys intervened. You guys are pulling a nonchalant off
about it. Though you guys, She's just like, says something been.
I'm like, are you my mom my? Mom? Is your mommy?
Speaker 4 (02:50):
It's one of those days.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So I had to undergo surgery, and she checked on
me before and after the operation. Everything was strictly doctor
patient interact. Yesterday, my aunt, my dad's sister, called me
and she told me that my mom had reached out
to her through Facebook. Explaining the entire encounter, she said,
my mom wanted to hug me and kiss me and
stay by my side the whole time I was in
(03:12):
the hospital, but when I didn't react to her, she
assumed either I didn't recognize her or that I hated her.
She begged my aunt to talk to me, to convince
me to give her one chance to explain she wants
to be a part of my life. She wants to
meet her kids, and she wants her boy back. My
aunt told her she wouldn't take sides. She said she'd
(03:34):
talk to me and leave the decision entirely up to me.
Being the good Christian woman she is, she encouraged me
to give her the chance to explain honestly, the little
boy inside me wants to meet her, to hug her
and finally have a mother in my life. But the
man I've become feels anger and resentment.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Let the little boy out.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
You gotta listen to the little boy in that context,
my guy, I gotta listen to the little boy inside.
The grown man is angry, said, The grown man version
of you is angry because of what the little boy
that you were lacked, and now that thing is that
that person is here. Yeah, and you can maybe maybe
(04:13):
put your toe in, dip your toe in the people.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
You don't have to have a relationship with her. You
can just say, hey, what gives mama?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
And then uh say exactly that, Hey.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
What gives mama, and then see where it goes from.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
There and say it with an Elvis voice, Hey Hey mama,
what Hey mama gives. I know this is my decision
to make, but I haven't been able to sleep, and
I would like to hear stranger's opinions. My mind keeps spinning.
I imagine having a beautiful relationship with her and getting
to know her kids, but I also feel jealous they
(04:48):
got to grow up with her and I didn't any
advice please, And there are some top comments, but before
we get into them, Sophia.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Hi, I think you should go meet her. I feel
like the little boy wants to and you gotta let
that little boy have he wants.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, let the little boy out. Let him out, the
boy out. He's in there, let him out, let him out,
let him free.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I think you feel a lot of anger and resentment
for very fair reasons, because you know your mom hasn't
been in your life for twenty three years. But I
think you lost your dad and you want like some
sort of parental figure in your life, and this is
maybe an opportunity for that.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
But he's kind of like going guarded fate.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
If yeah, I'm sorry, If by chance fate was this
like intertwined, I'm sorry. I'd like it might as well
just take you know, wing, it might as well, just like, see,
give it a chance to.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Keep being your doctor. She could be your mom too.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
She can kiss it now, kiss the booboo.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
So the doctor comes in and says, I can't operate
on this patient. He's my son. How is that possible?
You guys never heard that.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I wasn't locked in. I was just that was such
a funny joke. I'm sorry. I'm trying to figure out
again if he knew that his mom even worked in
the medical field.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I don't even think.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I don't we don't have any of that information, the
fact that I.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Need the context of, like, how did you know his
mom was alive for fifteen years?
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I doubt he knew that she worked in the medical field.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, anyway, did you just pull out Rodney dangerfield joke? No?
The mom doctor one about so say it again for
the people in the back.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
The doctor walks in and says, I can't operate on
this man. He's my son. How is that possible? Oh wait,
but he's not a man. Oh no, the doctor was
a woman. I forgot how to tell the joke.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Anyways, I'm confused, whatever, because she's a woman, and that's
the whole joke fact.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Oh but the doctor's not the father.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
How is that possible because it's a mother.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, yeah, you've never heard that joke.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Keep going. Top comments in a Haese, one says, my
husband is adopted. After she explained her situation at the time,
we were thankful she made the choice that she did.
It brought a lot of closure of the resentment he
had been carrying whole life. She is now an active
part of our family. The Caz says, I would recommend
against trying to picture what it would be like. I
(07:07):
think doing so is likely to set you up for disappointment.
That's true because disappointment is the result of unmet expectations.
The meeting can go one of nearly an infinite number
of different ways, and your imagination can't possibly think of
all of them. If you do decide to meet her,
I suggest that you have a goal in mind for yourself.
What do you want to get out of the meeting
for yourself? Also, try to make the goal be something
(07:29):
you have control over. For example, making the goal she
loves me isn't a good goal since you have no
control over that. A goal of something like I want
to hear what she has to say and then share
how I've been feeling my whole life is something you
can control. What she does as a reaction to this
is outside of your control, but whether or not you
tell her is within it.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
That's a good comment, very therapy speak comment right there.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Me agree. I agree with comment. Lieutenant Mister President says
my best would be listened to yourself first and foremost.
Having strong feelings towards someone you've never really met is
perfectly normal when it's a family member, and talking about
all of your feelings, positive and negative, seems the best stance.
Gino Flower says adoptee here. I think it's really easy
(08:16):
to assume things about our birth parents, and it's quite
likely that even your biodad didn't have the full story
about her. I'm not saying she was perfect and that
her story absolves her from all blame. I'm just saying
that you don't know that yet. I met my bio
mom and it helped in a lot of ways and
made some other things more complicated, but I don't regret
a single part of it. You get to make all
(08:37):
the rules about any relationship going forward and establish whatever
boundaries you need if you decide to do it, and
only you know if it's the best decision for you,
and if it is, when go in with an open mind,
at the very least you can get more info about
who you are and where you came from. And there
is an update from seventy days.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Seventy days later add the specific was probably all better
and I'm going to do it one more time ready.
A father and son were in an accident. The doctor
looks at the boy and says, I can't operate on him.
This man's my son.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
How is that possible? You know?
Speaker 4 (09:14):
They eight third time was a charm.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
But thank you, honeybee.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
That's uh all right, But this boy is my son,
I said, this man.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
But do you get the point? You get? See it's
really funny.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Okay, uh, I think that you should go meet your mom.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
The joke is that I didn't expect her to be
a woman.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Well I was a child at the time. Joke in
the early two thousands, no one expected women to be doctors.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
That was that.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I don't know why. That's why I was Okay, any who,
I'm a doctor. I'm trying. Dakota won't let it go.
I'm literally trying to.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Talk about it.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Idea unbelievable. So anyway, I think that you should go
meet your mom, and that's my whole thought.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Let's get to you. I think those comments were pretty
so first I want to thank all of you. Your
comments were really helpful, and a special thank you to
everyone who advised me to forgive and meet her. I
asked my aunt to arrange a meeting in a quiet
public place. The moment I met her, I felt like
I would collapse. My emotions were everywhere deep down. I
(10:18):
just wanted to huger and cry, but I kept my cool.
She looked nervous and holding back tears. After some small talk,
I finally asked, why didn't you want me, Why didn't
you ever reach out, and why are you doing it now?
I told her that even though my dad gave me
a beautiful life, I always felt something was missing. I
grew up believing my mom had passed away, and finding
(10:39):
out she was alive filled me with anger and confusion.
Anger and confusion. You should have levied at your father,
for I don't know lying to you about that your
whole life.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Again, it was from a certain point of view.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I also don't think that OPI is saying that I
was angry and confused at you. He just said. It
filled me with anger and confusion.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, but I would be again teen anyone else there
with Uh, don't lie to your child about their parents
being not alive.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
He pulled the the Obi wan, telling Luke Skywalker, that
is that darth Vader ended his father's life.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Oh yeah, but this is guy's mom's, not darth Vader.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Maybe maybe when she tried to give.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Up her adoption, darth Vader was a woman.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Since then, I pushed myself to be the best at everything,
maybe to prove it wasn't my fault she abandoned me.
She broke down and told me her story. She had
been the golden child, with her whole future planned, and
getting pregnant destroyed her world. She couldn't face her parents,
and since she barely knew my dad, she chose adoption.
But when she told him, he said he couldn't let
(11:47):
a stranger raise me, so he took me. She buried
herself in school, convincing herself that when she becomes successful,
she'd come back. But she had always postponed it until
she believed it was too late. She followed my life
through family posts, and when she had another child. The
guilt consumed her. She finally told her family and reached
out to my dad, but he told her I believed
(12:08):
she was passed away, and after I know she's alive,
I didn't want contact. That broke her, but she respected
it still. She never stopped checking on me. Seeing me
at the hospital was unbearable. She knew I recognized her,
even as I pretended not to, and that was the
moment she realized she couldn't stay silent anymore. When she
finished talking, I just sat there. I didn't even know
(12:29):
what to say. I felt lighter now I knew the truth.
She didn't expect forgiveness, but she wanted me to know
she was here if I ever wanted her in my life.
She just wanted a chance. I wanted to leave, but
I told her I wanted that chance. I wanted to
get to know her, but at my own pace. I
also said I'd like to keep these meetings just between
us for now. She agreed right away, no pressure, just
(12:52):
whenever I'm ready. After that day, we started texting, just
simple check ins. Then we met once or twice a week. Slowly,
I told her about my childhood and my life now,
and she shared her side too, her family, her siblings,
her daughters. It felt strange at the beginning, but slowly
it became easier. The sure is how do we feel everybody?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I'm good, I mean, op he must have so many
mixed feelings about his dad, who has passed away and
clearly was obviously very important in his life because he
was his dad and the old parent that he had.
But to find out that your mom wanted to be
in your life but then kind of step back because
his dad said no.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Like you know, op, he doesn't know that you exist,
it would be pretty pretty devastating. Yeah, I think, uh,
probably not the best move on the dad's part.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
No, I don't think so at all. But obviously, you know,
mixed feelings because this guy's passed away, so I can't
imagine how Opie, you know, is dealing with that. I
love that he and his mom are having this chance
to reconnect. But yeah, very very tough. But hey, don't
lie to your kids about their parents being alive or not.
It's not helpful for them.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
That's right. So let's finish this story. Two weeks ago,
I went to her house for the first time. I
met her family and her husband was very welcoming, and
her daughters were lovely and excited to meet me. It
felt a bit strange at first, but also warm in
a way I didn't expect. And today she told me
that her parents want to meet me. They're inviting me
this Sunday to their house so I can meet them
and the rest of the family. Even though I don't
(14:27):
fully feel like a family member yet, I still feel
some anger and jealousy, especially when I see her with
her kids. But I'm glad for everything that has happened
so far. I just hope it keeps getting better from here.
And there's some more comments. Spokeswoman says her kids are
your half siblings. They might feel anger and jealousy too.
You're not the only one with feelings. I hope you'll
(14:47):
try to embrace your new family eventually, slowly is fine.
Try to let this expand your heart. And who couldn't
use another set of grandparents. Ope, he replies, I know
they are my siblings, and I like them. They are
lovely and and they seem excited and happy to know me.
The anger and jealousy are my own feelings that I'm
dealing with myself and trying to like go of of course,
I'm not showing my siblings these feelings or making them
(15:09):
feel bad. And that's the end of that story. I've
gotta love capping it off with just a comment being
unnecessarily aggressive.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, like, why are you feeling bad?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Comment?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Why do you feel angry and bad?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
You shouldn't do that. No, it was just like her kids.
You mean, you're half siblings. It's like they are nice,
but it's also like they're her kids and my half siblings.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Oh piece, just going through a lot of emotions. Yeah,
very rightfully so, and is handling it a lot better
than most people would so.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Better than that commenter would have. Yeah, I think I
think you're doingp That's the end of that story, and
I like it. I like that. I like where we're at.
Me too, Take it slow, That's all I got to
say about that. I agree. I'm not the expert. I'm
just I'm just a primate. But that's the end of
(16:00):
that story.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I'm done being my sister's savior, all right, Jesus. My
sister thirty nine female came into my life when I
forty Female was a kid. She was a distantly related
cousin that I was vaguely aware of by name, but
it never met I didn't know it at the time,
but her parents were difficult and controlling. By the way,
this comes from Sister Coolbye bye, and if you want
(16:23):
to spend your own stories, go to the r slash
Okay storytime Separated.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I'm Sophia, I'm Dakota, and I'm Keon and Ohpi.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Says we were pretty inseparable. I was an only child, pudgy,
quiet and introverted, and she was the center of attention
with athletics and jokes. Even now, she's still hilarious to
be around. Everyone around us commented that we were separated
at birth. I won't get into what led to her
adoption because it's highly identifying. Let's just say her parents
(16:51):
were problematic and it left some baggage. At one point,
her biological father even took her without permission from a
public place, though it was short lived because he realized
the legal consequences. We had a lot of good times
and a lot of rough times. She eventually ran away
when she was near adulthood and we lost touch. I
had moved across the country for college, and one day
(17:14):
I got a phone call and it was her she
was crying and in a difficult relationship situation. I dropped
what I was doing and flew across the country to
get her. I wasn't well off, but I had some
savings that I used to set her up in a
new place and helped her get a job. She immediately
got a new boyfriend and remarried.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Ah, very thank you. Next WHOA.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
The pattern repeated, except with babies involved. Now, her relationships
kept failing due to infidelity.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I helped her again.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
This time I was living alone with my first nice house.
It was small, but I moved her and her three
kids in. She started going out frequently. I was helping
with her kids and working. Finally, I told her she
needed to get therapy. I'd pay for it. She agreed
and met a nice guy there. They got married. Baby
number four and five happened. They were poor but happy,
(18:06):
and I was glad for her. They made it through
college and things had just started looking up. Then there
was a tragedy that took her husband, mine.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And one of her children.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
It was a really dark time. Her husband, yours, and
one of their children.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Oh just makes you think, like, well, it can always
be worse. Oh, that's awful.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
She started going out again, met a new man. The
pattern repeated with more relationship problems and instability. Our family
was frustrated with her from moving on so quickly and
exposing her kids to this instability.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Oh did anybody be like, you need to go to therapy?
I mean, you should maybe try therapy.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Clearly like she's traumatized and going through this very very
difficult time after losing a child and her husband. You know,
I do think that there is a little bit of
great to be given. This isn't just like how it
was before, where she was going to, you know, terrible
partner to terrible partner. This is she just went through
a traumatic experience and is now responding to that. So
(19:12):
it is a little bit of a different situation. I
offered to pay for therapy again. She went, but quit
midway through because she was moving on to.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
A new man again. We did this repeatedly. Read it.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I can't tell you how many times I've helped her
and my nieces and nephews, they're all struggling. I pay
for therapy for them. Our parents are deceased now, and
most of our family won't deal with her anymore. The
breaking point she was struggling financially. I offered to help
her one more time because they were going to be homeless.
I had just bought a new home and hadn't sold
(19:43):
my old one. I let her live in it rent
free so she could regroup, got her a new job,
paid for more therapy for her. I've never stopped for
the kids. I only asked that she make repairs and
not move in any men, and if that was too much,
I'd let her live there long enough for her to
regroup and move out. She of course moved some guy in.
I started getting calls from my old neighbors complaining about
(20:05):
loud arguments. I don't live in her area anymore, so
I was trying to deal with all this at a distance.
She called me upset one day because she and her
boyfriend had gotten into serious trouble and they were both
facing legal consequences. I took off work, came and got
all her kids. I had them for a year while
she sorted things out. When she was granted her children back,
(20:26):
I found out she was still with the same problematic boyfriend,
but claimed it was okay because they were in counseling.
They had damaged my house significantly with arguments, pets, and
poor maintenance. I finally said that I couldn't do this anymore.
I know she's struggling and I love her despite everything,
but she's never going to be able to repay the repairs.
(20:48):
I told her I felt use and disrespected, and she
told me I was making her unfortunate life about me
and that I wasn't giving her a fair chance. You
have given her more than enough. You've given her way
more than those people, including your family, have given her.
You're yeah, you don't have to give her anything.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
That was that line about She said, you're making my
unfair life about you. That's what she said. Yeah, everyone's
life is unfair to certain degrees. Unfortunate life at unfortunate.
Everyone's got unfortunate events. This person had a lot, but
then weaponizing it, hey, weaponizing it against the person who's
helping you more than anyone else on earth.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
And also kind of oh he lost her partner in
that same incident.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, So to say like.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
You're you know, you're not caring about my life when
ope's been through a lot of hardship and still helped.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, you know, it just sounds like ultimate victim mentality. Yeah,
it's like that. Actually, I'm the only one allowed to
be a victim.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah, I had to legally evict the boyfriend because he
became threatening towards me while I was there trying to
assess damage and also behaved inappropriately. She opted to leave
with him and is telling everyone who will listen that
I threw her and her kids out. I'm just tired.
In the past two years alone, I've spent ten k
on her problems, not including the countless hours of work
(22:04):
and just plain worry. I'm worried for the kids, but
I have my own family now, and the weight of
both is overwhelming me. My sister is a wonderful person,
despite how I've painted her. I could call her right now,
even though we've exchanged some harsh words, and she'd be
at my door. She volunteers. My spouse says she's only
great on the outside because she needs that goodwill to
(22:24):
keep people helping her, And now I'm wondering if he's right.
She's told me she's jealous of my stability and that's
why she acts out towards me sometimes. But I didn't
just luck into a decent life. I've worked hard for it,
and I've always been willing to share with her. She
doesn't know it, but as soon as I have my
keys to my house back, I'm cutting her off. I
just feel bad because I'm the last family she has.
(22:47):
Am I being unreasonable? I feel like I'm abandoning someone
who still has a chance to turn things around. And
there are some comments and I think an update, but
do you have any thoughts?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I mean, there comes a point where in the process
of wanting to help somebody, you've kind of done all
that you can.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Do, well, they start dragging you under.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Right, and then and then not only the like any
any further. It just becomes like kind of an enabling
of this continued bad behavior. And then also, yeah, like
exactly what you said, it's you're risking now your own
well being. Yeah, and it's you know, Gillian C. In
the comments puts it very well. You can't some You
(23:33):
can't help someone who won't help themselves.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, she's stuck in this cycle, and you know it
makes sense because she's been through a lot. But there's
not much else you can.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Do to help her. Maybe try I don't know if
you've done group therapy with her, because like there's certainly
one thing that will never help in therapy, and it's lying.
And for a lot of people when therapy, I mean
there's people who just talk therapy as therapy just doesn't
help as much sometimes whatever. But it's like, if you're
just actively lying about stuff to your therapist, you it'll
(24:04):
never it'll never actually help you. And so maybe if
you guys go together, you can have more of an
ability to be like, well, here's how I saw that situation. Yeah,
if you were, you know, but I don't even know
how connected you guys are because you want you're not
really living with her. She's living in a yeah, the
house that you own, but you're not really there. So
I do worry about the kids though, hope they're okay.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
But there are some comments common one, it's not your
responsibility to fix her, especially if she's not willing to
fix herself. OPI says, you see, I know this, but
it's hard watching a loved one tank, which is why
I don't plan to watch it this time. Deleting Facebook
blocking numbers. Reply says you are a big part of
the problem. You are enabling her bad behavior and she's
(24:47):
never going to learn unless you tell her no. Also,
your spouse is absolutely right. She does exactly enough and
acts just the right way to get people to do
what she wants. She's manipulating you. It's more or less
a survival skill and coping strategy left over from when
she was being mistreated as a child. Unfortunately, she never
learned any new survival skills because her whole family continually
(25:10):
rescues her. What's the point in growing as a person
if you get constant reinforcement from everyone around you that
it's okay. In fact, her whole string of harmful boyfriends
are just leftovers from her childhood. Even if she knows
on a high level that having a harmful boyfriend is bad,
it still feels right because that's what she grew up around.
It's the only way she knows how to relate to
(25:31):
and interact with men. It was burned into her brain
at such a young age. It doesn't matter if her
adopted parents were the perfect couple or not. She's been conditioned.
You are never going to be capable of fixing her,
rescuing her, or getting her to understand what she's doing wrong.
You throwing money, time, sweat, and tears into it is
just dragging you down with the sinking ship. It's time
(25:52):
for you to spend that counseling money on yourself. Specifically,
you need to have your counselor coach you out of
your codependence. You also need to be coached on to
set boundaries. And Comment two says, wait did your husband pass?
You've been dealing with your own personal grieving while also
trying to take care of her crap. You've done more
than enough for her, and now she's disrespecting you by
bad bouthing you. I'd say, cut your losses and cut contact.
(26:15):
That's so unbelievably unfair. It sounds like you're in therapy though,
so I hope you're taking care of yourself. Best of
luck in the future. And OP says, yes, didn't mean
to gloss over it, but this was getting long. This
mess spans over most of our lives. I've since remarried.
And comment three says what will happen with the kids
if you cut her off?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Though?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
And oh P says no idea, that's the bad part
and there is an update but ooof Yeah, you've gone
through a lot. If you can get the kids out
of there, but I mean, it would be pretty hard
legally to do that, But I think you know, put
yourself first, get yourself what you need, because she's taken
too much.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah, it's just an untenable situation. It's honestly way above
my ability to advise anybody on. Yeah, I'm trying to
think a lot of you know, you gotta look after
yourself first, and it's not like you haven't tried. Yeah,
but guilt makes us feel funny, especially.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
With the kids involved. Yeah, it's hard, it's hard to
fully let go. But there is an update. This ended
up being a mess. The day after I made this
post was her final day to be gone from my house.
On that very day, she and her boyfriend had a
massive fight. The children ended up in my care temporarily.
She wouldn't say what happened, even though it was obvious
(27:30):
to everyone involved. The authorities allowed us to move all
of her stuff back to my house. I didn't really
know what else to do at that point. I won't
bore you all with the details because none of the
matter now. Because there wasn't enough evidence about what happened
to my sister. Her boyfriend didn't face serious consequences. She
was allowed to take her children back after a few months.
(27:51):
One of her children now resides with his father. The
father went to court and got custody of him. My
nephew is little supervision, and rumor has it that his
girlfriend is pregnant.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Ooh.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
My oldest niece started acting out because who's going to
stopp her? She recently had to deal with an unplanned
pregnancy and is angry at the world. One of the
younger ones has become withdrawn because my sister moved her
boyfriend back into my house. Don't let them, it's your house.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Oh yeah, but then what happens? Then they're just homeless.
It's like it's an unwinnable situation.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Soon after his return, one of the children was injured.
I evicted them and I've officially cut them off because
nothing I can do will help her and I can't
save my nieces and nephews. My sister became very upset,
said I was selfish and abandoning her children, all because
she made an adult decision to work on a relationship.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Oh shut up, girl, shut up. That's exhausting, straight up exhausting.
To stop it.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
She's called me terrible names, mostly attacking my race and
telling me that I was only successful because of government assistance.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Yeah, I incredibly hypocritical. So there's just not really any
point in less to what she says, because it's coming
from a place of, you know, intense self loathing and
she sees you doing better than her and knows that
she's at fault for a lot of the things that
have happened in her life. And so she's putting that
(29:16):
on you.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, telling the mom, telling you that you're abandoning her kids.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, when you've offered a place to say as long
as she doesn't invite this terrible man over.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, when you quite literally have the only one not
abandoning them. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
But there is a little bit left to this story.
It's ironic because she's on every program she's eligible for. Well,
I've never even qualified for them. I did get scholarships
for maintaining a four point zero, but I worked full
time through college to make sure everything worked out. And
while she can pass for white, she's not actually white.
She's just trying to hurt me now and I can't
(29:51):
allow it. She damaged my house significantly before she left.
The destruction was extensive. She also left the utilities running
to make the bills that were in my name enormous,
so I'll give her one thing. She might struggle with
everything else, but she's effective at burning bridges. And that's
the end of that story.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Well, I mean, I think it's just cut her off
because you've done everything that you can for these kids
and for her, and they, you know, can't help them.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Silver lining is maybe the kids will be really funny
because it's get up dynamic and that usually makes the
funniest people. Maybe they'll be funny. Maybe, But good luck
to the children and to everyone involved. Yeah, in that story.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
That's the end of it, though, And there's one more story,
and we're gonna get to that in a moment. Yeah,
I mean, people of you know, people are taking advantage
of all of your kindness. You gotta at a certain point,
you gotta set boundaries for yourself of what you're willing
to you know, where you're drawing the line, because otherwise
they just keep taken and taken.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
John Here, we're gonna get back to this juicy story,
but a quick three minute break.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Of ads from our sponsors. My husband is going crazy
over adopting my niece. He's obsessed. My husband Darren twenty
nine male and I thirty two female, have been married
for nearly four years. We have two children together, Kara
six and Levi three. Recently, my husband has been bugging
(31:19):
me about having more children, but I had a particularly
hard and traumatizing pregnancy and birth with our son, so
he's thrown the idea out there that we would adopt
in the future. By the way, this comes from user
he knows other login and if you want to submit
your own stories, go to the r slash Okay storytime
subred it. I'm Dakota, I'm Sophia, I'm Riley, and op
says now, I'm not opposed to adopting a child. I
(31:40):
think it's a wonderful thing for people to undertake, and
we're not unfamiliar with adoption as it is, since Darren
actually adopted Kara when she was four years old. Her
biological father is not in the picture. However. Recently, one
of my cousins, Caroline nineteen, gave birth to a little
baby girl who's three weeks old. Caroline is one of
these people who really he does not have any business
(32:01):
having a child. She was diagnosed as mentally disabled, but
the family has always had a strong feeling that fetal
Auchmachul syndrome was involved as well.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Yep, so real quick, I don't say uh EMR is
an outdated and offensive term for a person with a
mild form of intellect disability, also known as intellectual development disorder.
So yeah, we can say.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
That diagnosed with intellectual development disorder. But the family has
always had a strong feeling that fetal alcohol syndrome was
involved as well. Her boyfriend is in a similar boat.
Both have disabilities that make caring for a child full
time very difficult. The point being, Caroline is a super
sweet girl, and I have no qualms about letting her
play with my children when other adults are around, but
(32:48):
she really is not suited for parenthood. My husband has
recently gotten in his head that we would adopt Caroline's baby.
I've only seen the baby once, not from lack of trying,
just that Caroline can't drive and we only have one
running car at the moment, which my husband has been
taking to work. Not only that, but I feel that
Caroline's parents, my uncle and aunt, both in their fifties,
(33:10):
would put up a real stink about us wanting the baby.
I'm not saying we couldn't care for the baby. We
really could Darren makes plenty of money that I'm able
to stay home with our two children as it is,
our house is pretty accommodating, and we're in a generally
good place. He is of the opinion that Caroline and
her boyfriend will be deemed unfit parents and that the
(33:30):
baby will be lost to the system. While I'm not
arguing that Caroline isn't the best parent to care for
the child, I don't think her parents would let the
baby go. I'm about ninety five percent sure that they
would take that baby and Razor, but he is adamant
that we should adopt the baby so that she stays
in the family. The problem is, I know that if
we were to take that baby in, it would upset
(33:51):
the family, particularly Caroline and her parents. I do not
want to cause an uproar in the family over that.
Am I wrong here? Or am I looking at this
from the wrong angle? And comments? But yeah, it seems
like every single thing that you've thought so far is
an assumption.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
We's just just okay. But I'm just confused why he's
assuming that they would have they would even be able
to adopt the kid, because presumably it would first even Okay,
so first he's assuming that the parents would be deemed unfit.
We don't know that. And then he's assuming that Caroline's
parents wouldn't adopt the baby, and then that you guys
(34:28):
would somehow be able to Like, that's not really how that.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Wouldn't Caroline's parents be part of the family.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Exactly, That's what I'm saying. I'm saying, like, why wouldn't
they go immediately to the parents, or why wouldn't the
baby go immediately to the parents. I don't understand your
husband's logic here. So I feel, like Nita Nilsen says,
I think this is a non issue unless slash until
it happens at all. Yes, exactly. I feel like the
question here is one, do you want to adopt a child?
(34:57):
And then let's live in this hypothetical world where we
maybe you know, have the ability to adopt this child,
because right now you don't. That's not an option right
now at all. Yeah, So, like I guess it's just like,
let's talk about do we want to adopt a kid,
just as a hypothetically that's the only question here.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Do we want a third kid?
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Adopt?
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Nothing else is like even on the table yet.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah. Comments Number one, How is your husband envisioning this
will go exactly? For you? To get this child, your
cousin and her husband would both have to lose custody first,
which takes considerable time and multiple incidents. The child would
go to foster care, likely with family members like the grandparents,
who may step in immediately. The system prioritizes keeping children
(35:43):
with parents through reunification efforts and support services for adults
with developmental disabilities. Having capable relatives in the home often
allows families to stay together unless parents voluntarily give up
their rights. Involuntary termination takes significant time. If the grandparents
want custody, you'd have to fight them in court, plus
potentially the father's family and other relatives. Courts typically favor
(36:06):
closer family relatives. Even if you eventually won custody after
spending considerable time and money, you'd have a child who
experienced trauma, been through the system, and may understand you
played a role in separating her from her family. Why
fight for a child who already has capable relatives who
love her and are closer to her when there are
countless children without family support who need homes. You could
(36:27):
help your cousin parents successfully right now, or support the
grandparents in raising the child. If you want to adopt
a child with special needs, many are available immediately without
creating family conflict. What makes you certain you're the best
option if Caroline loses custody. Mention to the grandparents that
you'd help if they can't. But right now you're hoping
(36:48):
well intentioned people will fail at parenting to fulfill your
adoption fantasy. People with developmental disabilities can successfully parent with
proper support systems. Real quick.
Speaker 5 (36:59):
I do wonder if you can have kids or of
you know, the husband, if you guys can already have
two kids, already have two kids, and they want a third.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
But oh he can't have a biological kid because of
previous birth experience, okay with their son.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
So I just want to get the deeper perspective from
the husband, That's what I want.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Well, that's the question. It's like, why does he specifically
want this kid when they could talk about having, you know,
adopting and another.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
Kid, yeah, yeah, or being like a baller uncle.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
It just doesn't make sense why you would be so
insistent about a child that isn't like, you know, even
an option right now?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Well, I feel like the answer is that there's uh,
you know, prejudice being levied at the parents. Yeah, absolutely,
for you know, being disabled.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
He's just making so many assumptions.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
But yeah, regardless of literally every other element of the story,
the fact that it's not just like a conversation of like,
do we want to do this? Instead it's being like, oh,
we need to do this, we have to do that.
It doesn't make any sense. You can't just unilaterally decide
to add a child into your family. It needs to be.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Decide to steal that child from their family.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Regardless, like like ignoring the fact that you also do
not have rights to just do this in the first place. Like,
this isn't a one sided no, I'm saying this, so
this is how what we should do kind of decision. Agreed,
Your husband is living in a fantasy. If you want
to adopt, start the process with available children or become
(38:32):
foster parents now so you're certified if needed. The only
way this works without massive heartache is if both parents
voluntarily terminate their rights. Ask them directly. If they refuse,
drop it, and pursue legitimate adoption channels instead of counting
on family failure. Opie replies, Caroline the mother already lives
with her parents, and she's already been told she has
(38:53):
to attend parenting classes. Not sure who told her that
family Grapevine and all that. They've been helping her as
far as I know, but they can't be there all
the time because they both work, and I don't want
Caroline to fail. It's just that, with past experience with her,
I don't think she will get very far simply because
of her lack of mental capacity. And you're right, we
(39:13):
don't know that fas was ever in play. It's just
always been assumed because Caroline's birth mother was and still
is a heavy drinker, even when my uncle was married
to her, main reason for their divorce if I recall correctly.
And I haven't made any mention of her boyfriend's family
because well, I've never met them. I don't know the
first thing about any of them. I've only met her
(39:33):
boyfriend once, so I don't know what kind of support
system he really has exactly. That's the thing, you guys
don't know anything personally. I'm not entirely sure. I want
to adopt the child as it is, which I've told
my husband I would have to do a lot of
soul searching before I make that decision. But your post
brings home so many points that I've tried bringing up
to my husband and I've just not been able to
(39:54):
get the right words out. We have an update, I
think then that should stop the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Then the whole conversation. I mean, like, you can have
the conversation, but you absolutely should not adopt a child
if you are not one hundred percent you know, ready
and on board to adopt a child, let alone a
child that you know has a lot of different you know,
like emotional baggage and also just different. Yeah, like there's
(40:23):
so much you already don't want to adopt child, and
to adopt this child comes, it's just like a whole other,
you know thing.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yeah, and you just show the post to your boyfriend,
then to your husband. Yeah, and uh, just get to
the why why why do you feel the need? Why?
Why why? And he's gonna be like, well, because they
can't handle it, and it's like, Okay, their parents can
handle it. Why does it have to be us? What
is this? Yeah? Update? We had a crazy Thanksgiving break,
(40:53):
but on our two hour drive back from his folk's
house on Saturday, our children were asleep in the back seat,
so it seemed like an appropriate time to talk.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
I feel like that's actually a bad time to do that.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
The worst time ever is when rocked in a steel
box for two hours.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
And also I feel like, as having been a child before,
I pretended to be asleep so many times. Constantly I
was pretending.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
To be asleep. That's the other thing is your kid's
definitely not sleeping.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
They're probably awake listening to your whole conversation.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
More than anything, this happened to me like like getting
cornered to have a conversation while driving terrible.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
It's so much already whoever's driving can't fully pay attention.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
To that conversation. And it's just like, that's not debatable.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
You can't fully pay attention to a serious conversation where
you have to like look at each other and Riley's
rage bating me.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
I feel like it's not debatable.
Speaker 5 (41:54):
I've had some pretty serious takes on my way to
Atlanta and back.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Sure, you can have a serious conversation, but I feel
like this is not the type of conversation that you
should be having in a car with kids in the backseat.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
And oh yeah, I mean, okay, all right, it seemed appropriate.
I started out discussing plans for my family's Thanksgiving, which
was to be at our house the next day. Most
of my family would be attending, including Caroline and her parents.
Darren mentioned he was excited to see her baby. When
I asked why, he surprised me and said, Eves being
(42:27):
a little baby crazy. Lately, one of his buddies just
had a baby and he got to see it not
too long ago. He said, he just loves holding babies
and everything that goes with having a baby. His conversation
eventually led into him asking if we were going to
have another baby or adopt one in the near future.
I was honest with him that I didn't know if
I would be up for adopting a child. I know
(42:47):
he had done it before with a step parent adoption
of my daughter, but I didn't know if it was
something I would be able to do just yet. I
also wasn't pulling another pregnancy off the table either, but
I was adamant that I would need to get a
medical opinion on whether it would be safe for me
to be pregnant again, and only if pregnancy was impossible
for me, then I would be more likely to consider adoption.
(43:10):
This led us into his desire to adopt Caroline's baby.
I asked him what prompted him to even consider it,
and he brought it back to being a baby crazy.
Our youngest is three now and really out of the
baby stage, and he missed that. He really thought that
offering to adopt Caroline's baby would help Caroline, her boyfriend,
and their parents so they didn't have the stress about
(43:32):
caring for the baby. He admitted that after thinking it
over more, he realized it was probably a silly idea,
but he just wants another child so badly. Well, he's
baby crazy. Let's finish this story. He's baby crazy. He's
baby crazy.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Had a little bit of a momentary glitch in the system.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Babies, babies want a baby, He want baby?
Speaker 5 (43:53):
Could this guy, I don't know, volunteer. I know at
my church you can volunteer to help out with kids.
Speaker 6 (43:59):
Yeah, the time, I think it's a great idea with that,
because I feel like, you know, what this vibe is
giving me? What is uh, whenever people like puppies and
they just want a puppy, and then whenever the puppy
gets bigger, they're like, oh, I just want a puppy again.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Just do puppy yoga. Yeah, take puppy yoga.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Also, you can foster puppies and kittens. Really, yeah, my
friend fostered kittens. It was great for me because I
gotta go over and play with little baby kitties around here.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
He wants a baby.
Speaker 5 (44:27):
I really want to convince Alex to get a dog,
but it is it is not gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
You could foster a dog. Well, with the fostering puppies,
it obviously is a little bit harder because they're untrained them. Well, yeah,
you just have to be training the puppies and stuff.
But it's cute.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
It's cute.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah, well, I mean, like I he absolutely could go
and volunteer, and especially like if you specifically wanted to
help kids who had like different you know, like like
disabilities and stuff, then you could find programs that help
with that.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
It's true. I just hope he doesn't fall victim to
like the whole you know, It's it is kind of
a gendered problem when like people like raise their eyebrows
way more when a guy is like I just I'm
obsessed with babies. Yeah, I'm just I love babies. I
love they're like, why.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Well I think this one, this was a little bit.
I don't think. I'm I have a question of why
he wants a baby?
Speaker 2 (45:21):
No, miss the baby face real quick.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
I remember when my dad got really mad. Rider could
have you know, those like things you put on, like
the what's it called posh? Yeah, my dad's like six
eight and you'd have like he looked like that those
little like giants and video games with like a little
guy on the back, and he was so mad whenever
Rider couldn't fit in anymore, He's like, my dream's gone.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Now that's cude, the dream is gone as you so, hey,
it's John here. We're gonna get back to the stories.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
But a quick three minute ad break from our sponsors
that keep the show going.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
I told my husband that ultimately, if we were to
adopt a child, I would want to start that process
outside of the family. I also said that if Caroline
and her boyfriend were to be deemed unfit parents, then
either her parents or his parents would step up. The
only way I would reconsider adopting her baby was if
one of them approached us about it, and I highly
(46:15):
doubt that will happen. But I did tell him that
after the New year, I would go see a doctor
about possibly having another baby. I said, I wasn't sure
I was ready for it, but at least talking to
a doctor wouldn't hurt, so we could get an idea
of how to proceed. If a doctor clears me for
a future pregnancy, we'll revisit the topic. Until that point,
baby talks have been halted on both sides, there are
(46:37):
some comments. Number one, if he's baby crazy enough that
he's considered offering to adopt somebody else's baby, that's kind
of creepy, see what I'm talking about. Why not look
into ways he can volunteer with babies slash young children
in need. He can find an outlet for these needs
of his, and maybe he'll get enough of it out
of his system to take the pressure off you and
(46:58):
give you two times to determine if having a child
is in the best interest for your family right now.
Comment to is it's kind of odd that y'all are
talking about adopting or not adopting her baby when that's
not even on the table. What if some other couple
were trying to decide whether or not to adopt your kid?
While that's not something you'd ever consider as an option,
and that's the end of that story.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yeah, but I mean to be fair, I feel like, oh,
Pete wasn't the one who was considering that. She was
trying to figure out why her husband was thinking about it,
and she talked him down.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
She figured it out. So I'm glad you.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Guys figured it out and had a conversation and are
on the same page.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Now, Yeah, baby, babies, babies, But that's the end of
that story. That is the end of that story and
the end of that episode. Indeed it is.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
So if you love us, make sure to subscribe.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
We love you and see you tomorrow.
Hey, this is Sam, this is John, and we are
the founding hosts of Okay Storytime Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
And we have some foundational stories coming up for you.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
But the thing is this foundation needs a little support
from these sponsors. So stick around two minutes and we'll
get into the episode.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I met my bio mom after twenty three years, could
she hang? Let's find out I mailed twenty three. Was
raised by a single father who passed away three years
ago when I was around fifteen. He sat me down
and explained that my mom is alive, that I'm the
result of a one night's stand during his college days
in the US. You didn't know she was alive for
(00:37):
fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
He was like, I know. I told you your mom
passed away and that horrific.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Explosion in that horrific bicycle, that horrific bicycle factory incident.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
But she's alive. What mama didn't pass away in that
horrific bicycle explosion. I told my friends that happened.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
So they stopped making of bicycles out of explosives after that.
You never see those bicycles anymore anyway. He said, my
mom wanted to put me up for adoption, but he
chose to take full custody and raise me on his own.
And by the way, this comes from user throwaway Como
And if you want to submit your own stories, go
to the r slash Okay storytime. Subret it I'm Dakota,
(01:19):
I'm Sophia, and I'm Keon and Op says, it's important
to mention that my father was Italian and my mom
is American. Very important, extremely important.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Well kind of Italian.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
We let dad make the sauce like that kind?
Speaker 4 (01:34):
Where's he from?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Like Italy? N what part of Italy? Chicago? Chicago? You
got me there? A good job. They met when he
was studying in the States. I moved to the US
pursuing my master's degree in the same city where my
mother lives, though we've never met, and as far as
I know, she has no idea i'm here. Last week,
(01:57):
I broke my hand and ended up in the er
That's where I met her. It was strange and emotional,
but I kept my cool and pretended not to know
who she was. When she saw me, she looked shocked
but kept things professional, though I noticed her staring at
me more than once. Wait a minute, you just broke
your arm, She works at the hospital that you were
taken to.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
And you both knew it was the other person, but
didn't say anything. She was like, she was like, hello, Opie,
why are you here today?
Speaker 4 (02:26):
You mean to tell me Fate like you broke your
arm that day. She was working that ship that hour,
and you guys intertwined by fate.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Fate guys intervened. You guys are pulling a nonchalant off
about it. Though you guys, She's just like, says something been.
I'm like, are you my mom my? Mom? Is your mommy?
Speaker 4 (02:50):
It's one of those days.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So I had to undergo surgery, and she checked on
me before and after the operation. Everything was strictly doctor
patient interact. Yesterday, my aunt, my dad's sister, called me
and she told me that my mom had reached out
to her through Facebook. Explaining the entire encounter, she said,
my mom wanted to hug me and kiss me and
stay by my side the whole time I was in
(03:12):
the hospital, but when I didn't react to her, she
assumed either I didn't recognize her or that I hated her.
She begged my aunt to talk to me, to convince
me to give her one chance to explain she wants
to be a part of my life. She wants to
meet her kids, and she wants her boy back. My
aunt told her she wouldn't take sides. She said she'd
(03:34):
talk to me and leave the decision entirely up to me.
Being the good Christian woman she is, she encouraged me
to give her the chance to explain honestly, the little
boy inside me wants to meet her, to hug her
and finally have a mother in my life. But the
man I've become feels anger and resentment.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
Let the little boy out.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
You gotta listen to the little boy in that context,
my guy, I gotta listen to the little boy inside.
The grown man is angry, said, The grown man version
of you is angry because of what the little boy
that you were lacked, and now that thing is that
that person is here. Yeah, and you can maybe maybe
(04:13):
put your toe in, dip your toe in the people.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
You don't have to have a relationship with her. You
can just say, hey, what gives mama?
Speaker 2 (04:20):
And then uh say exactly that, Hey.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
What gives mama, and then see where it goes from.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
There and say it with an Elvis voice, Hey Hey mama,
what Hey mama gives. I know this is my decision
to make, but I haven't been able to sleep, and
I would like to hear stranger's opinions. My mind keeps spinning.
I imagine having a beautiful relationship with her and getting
to know her kids, but I also feel jealous they
(04:48):
got to grow up with her and I didn't any
advice please, And there are some top comments, but before
we get into them, Sophia.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Hi, I think you should go meet her. I feel
like the little boy wants to and you gotta let
that little boy have he wants.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, let the little boy out. Let him out, the
boy out. He's in there, let him out, let him out,
let him free.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
I think you feel a lot of anger and resentment
for very fair reasons, because you know your mom hasn't
been in your life for twenty three years. But I
think you lost your dad and you want like some
sort of parental figure in your life, and this is
maybe an opportunity for that.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
But he's kind of like going guarded fate.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
If yeah, I'm sorry, If by chance fate was this
like intertwined, I'm sorry. I'd like it might as well
just take you know, wing, it might as well, just like, see,
give it a chance to.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Keep being your doctor. She could be your mom too.
Speaker 4 (05:40):
She can kiss it now, kiss the booboo.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
So the doctor comes in and says, I can't operate
on this patient. He's my son. How is that possible?
You guys never heard that.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
I wasn't locked in. I was just that was such
a funny joke. I'm sorry. I'm trying to figure out
again if he knew that his mom even worked in
the medical field.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I don't even think.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I don't we don't have any of that information, the
fact that I.
Speaker 4 (06:04):
Need the context of, like, how did you know his
mom was alive for fifteen years?
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I doubt he knew that she worked in the medical field.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, anyway, did you just pull out Rodney dangerfield joke? No?
The mom doctor one about so say it again for
the people in the back.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
The doctor walks in and says, I can't operate on
this man. He's my son. How is that possible? Oh wait,
but he's not a man. Oh no, the doctor was
a woman. I forgot how to tell the joke.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Anyways, I'm confused, whatever, because she's a woman, and that's
the whole joke fact.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Oh but the doctor's not the father.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
How is that possible because it's a mother.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Yeah, yeah, you've never heard that joke.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Keep going. Top comments in a Haese, one says, my
husband is adopted. After she explained her situation at the time,
we were thankful she made the choice that she did.
It brought a lot of closure of the resentment he
had been carrying whole life. She is now an active
part of our family. The Caz says, I would recommend
against trying to picture what it would be like. I
(07:07):
think doing so is likely to set you up for disappointment.
That's true because disappointment is the result of unmet expectations.
The meeting can go one of nearly an infinite number
of different ways, and your imagination can't possibly think of
all of them. If you do decide to meet her,
I suggest that you have a goal in mind for yourself.
What do you want to get out of the meeting
for yourself? Also, try to make the goal be something
(07:29):
you have control over. For example, making the goal she
loves me isn't a good goal since you have no
control over that. A goal of something like I want
to hear what she has to say and then share
how I've been feeling my whole life is something you
can control. What she does as a reaction to this
is outside of your control, but whether or not you
tell her is within it.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
That's a good comment, very therapy speak comment right there.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Me agree. I agree with comment. Lieutenant Mister President says
my best would be listened to yourself first and foremost.
Having strong feelings towards someone you've never really met is
perfectly normal when it's a family member, and talking about
all of your feelings, positive and negative, seems the best stance.
Gino Flower says adoptee here. I think it's really easy
(08:16):
to assume things about our birth parents, and it's quite
likely that even your biodad didn't have the full story
about her. I'm not saying she was perfect and that
her story absolves her from all blame. I'm just saying
that you don't know that yet. I met my bio
mom and it helped in a lot of ways and
made some other things more complicated, but I don't regret
a single part of it. You get to make all
(08:37):
the rules about any relationship going forward and establish whatever
boundaries you need if you decide to do it, and
only you know if it's the best decision for you,
and if it is, when go in with an open mind,
at the very least you can get more info about
who you are and where you came from. And there
is an update from seventy days.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Seventy days later add the specific was probably all better
and I'm going to do it one more time ready.
A father and son were in an accident. The doctor
looks at the boy and says, I can't operate on him.
This man's my son.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
How is that possible? You know?
Speaker 4 (09:14):
They eight third time was a charm.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
But thank you, honeybee.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
That's uh all right, But this boy is my son,
I said, this man.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
But do you get the point? You get? See it's
really funny.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Okay, uh, I think that you should go meet your mom.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
The joke is that I didn't expect her to be
a woman.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Well I was a child at the time. Joke in
the early two thousands, no one expected women to be doctors.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
That was that.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I don't know why. That's why I was Okay, any who,
I'm a doctor. I'm trying. Dakota won't let it go.
I'm literally trying to.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Talk about it.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Idea unbelievable. So anyway, I think that you should go
meet your mom, and that's my whole thought.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Let's get to you. I think those comments were pretty
so first I want to thank all of you. Your
comments were really helpful, and a special thank you to
everyone who advised me to forgive and meet her. I
asked my aunt to arrange a meeting in a quiet
public place. The moment I met her, I felt like
I would collapse. My emotions were everywhere deep down. I
(10:18):
just wanted to huger and cry, but I kept my cool.
She looked nervous and holding back tears. After some small talk,
I finally asked, why didn't you want me, Why didn't
you ever reach out, and why are you doing it now?
I told her that even though my dad gave me
a beautiful life, I always felt something was missing. I
grew up believing my mom had passed away, and finding
(10:39):
out she was alive filled me with anger and confusion.
Anger and confusion. You should have levied at your father,
for I don't know lying to you about that your
whole life.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Again, it was from a certain point of view.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
I also don't think that OPI is saying that I
was angry and confused at you. He just said. It
filled me with anger and confusion.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Yeah, but I would be again teen anyone else there
with Uh, don't lie to your child about their parents
being not alive.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
He pulled the the Obi wan, telling Luke Skywalker, that
is that darth Vader ended his father's life.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Oh yeah, but this is guy's mom's, not darth Vader.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Maybe maybe when she tried to give.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Up her adoption, darth Vader was a woman.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Since then, I pushed myself to be the best at everything,
maybe to prove it wasn't my fault she abandoned me.
She broke down and told me her story. She had
been the golden child, with her whole future planned, and
getting pregnant destroyed her world. She couldn't face her parents,
and since she barely knew my dad, she chose adoption.
But when she told him, he said he couldn't let
(11:47):
a stranger raise me, so he took me. She buried
herself in school, convincing herself that when she becomes successful,
she'd come back. But she had always postponed it until
she believed it was too late. She followed my life
through family posts, and when she had another child. The
guilt consumed her. She finally told her family and reached
out to my dad, but he told her I believed
(12:08):
she was passed away, and after I know she's alive,
I didn't want contact. That broke her, but she respected
it still. She never stopped checking on me. Seeing me
at the hospital was unbearable. She knew I recognized her,
even as I pretended not to, and that was the
moment she realized she couldn't stay silent anymore. When she
finished talking, I just sat there. I didn't even know
(12:29):
what to say. I felt lighter now I knew the truth.
She didn't expect forgiveness, but she wanted me to know
she was here if I ever wanted her in my life.
She just wanted a chance. I wanted to leave, but
I told her I wanted that chance. I wanted to
get to know her, but at my own pace. I
also said I'd like to keep these meetings just between
us for now. She agreed right away, no pressure, just
(12:52):
whenever I'm ready. After that day, we started texting, just
simple check ins. Then we met once or twice a week. Slowly,
I told her about my childhood and my life now,
and she shared her side too, her family, her siblings,
her daughters. It felt strange at the beginning, but slowly
it became easier. The sure is how do we feel everybody?
Speaker 3 (13:14):
I'm good, I mean, op he must have so many
mixed feelings about his dad, who has passed away and
clearly was obviously very important in his life because he
was his dad and the old parent that he had.
But to find out that your mom wanted to be
in your life but then kind of step back because
his dad said no.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Like you know, op, he doesn't know that you exist,
it would be pretty pretty devastating. Yeah, I think, uh,
probably not the best move on the dad's part.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
No, I don't think so at all. But obviously, you know,
mixed feelings because this guy's passed away, so I can't
imagine how Opie, you know, is dealing with that. I
love that he and his mom are having this chance
to reconnect. But yeah, very very tough. But hey, don't
lie to your kids about their parents being alive or not.
It's not helpful for them.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
That's right. So let's finish this story. Two weeks ago,
I went to her house for the first time. I
met her family and her husband was very welcoming, and
her daughters were lovely and excited to meet me. It
felt a bit strange at first, but also warm in
a way I didn't expect. And today she told me
that her parents want to meet me. They're inviting me
this Sunday to their house so I can meet them
and the rest of the family. Even though I don't
(14:27):
fully feel like a family member yet, I still feel
some anger and jealousy, especially when I see her with
her kids. But I'm glad for everything that has happened
so far. I just hope it keeps getting better from here.
And there's some more comments. Spokeswoman says her kids are
your half siblings. They might feel anger and jealousy too.
You're not the only one with feelings. I hope you'll
(14:47):
try to embrace your new family eventually, slowly is fine.
Try to let this expand your heart. And who couldn't
use another set of grandparents. Ope, he replies, I know
they are my siblings, and I like them. They are
lovely and and they seem excited and happy to know me.
The anger and jealousy are my own feelings that I'm
dealing with myself and trying to like go of of course,
I'm not showing my siblings these feelings or making them
(15:09):
feel bad. And that's the end of that story. I've
gotta love capping it off with just a comment being
unnecessarily aggressive.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah, like, why are you feeling bad?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Comment?
Speaker 3 (15:18):
Why do you feel angry and bad?
Speaker 2 (15:21):
You shouldn't do that. No, it was just like her kids.
You mean, you're half siblings. It's like they are nice,
but it's also like they're her kids and my half siblings.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Oh piece, just going through a lot of emotions. Yeah,
very rightfully so, and is handling it a lot better
than most people would so.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Better than that commenter would have. Yeah, I think I
think you're doingp That's the end of that story, and
I like it. I like that. I like where we're at.
Me too, Take it slow, That's all I got to
say about that. I agree. I'm not the expert. I'm
just I'm just a primate. But that's the end of
(16:00):
that story.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I'm done being my sister's savior, all right, Jesus. My
sister thirty nine female came into my life when I
forty Female was a kid. She was a distantly related
cousin that I was vaguely aware of by name, but
it never met I didn't know it at the time,
but her parents were difficult and controlling. By the way,
this comes from Sister Coolbye bye, and if you want
(16:23):
to spend your own stories, go to the r slash
Okay storytime Separated.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I'm Sophia, I'm Dakota, and I'm Keon and Ohpi.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
Says we were pretty inseparable. I was an only child, pudgy,
quiet and introverted, and she was the center of attention
with athletics and jokes. Even now, she's still hilarious to
be around. Everyone around us commented that we were separated
at birth. I won't get into what led to her
adoption because it's highly identifying. Let's just say her parents
(16:51):
were problematic and it left some baggage. At one point,
her biological father even took her without permission from a
public place, though it was short lived because he realized
the legal consequences. We had a lot of good times
and a lot of rough times. She eventually ran away
when she was near adulthood and we lost touch. I
had moved across the country for college, and one day
(17:14):
I got a phone call and it was her she
was crying and in a difficult relationship situation. I dropped
what I was doing and flew across the country to
get her. I wasn't well off, but I had some
savings that I used to set her up in a
new place and helped her get a job. She immediately
got a new boyfriend and remarried.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Ah, very thank you. Next WHOA.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
The pattern repeated, except with babies involved. Now, her relationships
kept failing due to infidelity.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
I helped her again.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
This time I was living alone with my first nice house.
It was small, but I moved her and her three
kids in. She started going out frequently. I was helping
with her kids and working. Finally, I told her she
needed to get therapy. I'd pay for it. She agreed
and met a nice guy there. They got married. Baby
number four and five happened. They were poor but happy,
(18:06):
and I was glad for her. They made it through
college and things had just started looking up. Then there
was a tragedy that took her husband, mine.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
And one of her children.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
It was a really dark time. Her husband, yours, and
one of their children.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Oh just makes you think, like, well, it can always
be worse. Oh, that's awful.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
She started going out again, met a new man. The
pattern repeated with more relationship problems and instability. Our family
was frustrated with her from moving on so quickly and
exposing her kids to this instability.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Oh did anybody be like, you need to go to therapy?
I mean, you should maybe try therapy.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Clearly like she's traumatized and going through this very very
difficult time after losing a child and her husband. You know,
I do think that there is a little bit of
great to be given. This isn't just like how it
was before, where she was going to, you know, terrible
partner to terrible partner. This is she just went through
a traumatic experience and is now responding to that. So
(19:12):
it is a little bit of a different situation. I
offered to pay for therapy again. She went, but quit
midway through because she was moving on to.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
A new man again. We did this repeatedly. Read it.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I can't tell you how many times I've helped her
and my nieces and nephews, they're all struggling. I pay
for therapy for them. Our parents are deceased now, and
most of our family won't deal with her anymore. The
breaking point she was struggling financially. I offered to help
her one more time because they were going to be homeless.
I had just bought a new home and hadn't sold
(19:43):
my old one. I let her live in it rent
free so she could regroup, got her a new job,
paid for more therapy for her. I've never stopped for
the kids. I only asked that she make repairs and
not move in any men, and if that was too much,
I'd let her live there long enough for her to
regroup and move out. She of course moved some guy in.
I started getting calls from my old neighbors complaining about
(20:05):
loud arguments. I don't live in her area anymore, so
I was trying to deal with all this at a distance.
She called me upset one day because she and her
boyfriend had gotten into serious trouble and they were both
facing legal consequences. I took off work, came and got
all her kids. I had them for a year while
she sorted things out. When she was granted her children back,
(20:26):
I found out she was still with the same problematic boyfriend,
but claimed it was okay because they were in counseling.
They had damaged my house significantly with arguments, pets, and
poor maintenance. I finally said that I couldn't do this anymore.
I know she's struggling and I love her despite everything,
but she's never going to be able to repay the repairs.
(20:48):
I told her I felt use and disrespected, and she
told me I was making her unfortunate life about me
and that I wasn't giving her a fair chance. You
have given her more than enough. You've given her way
more than those people, including your family, have given her.
You're yeah, you don't have to give her anything.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
That was that line about She said, you're making my
unfair life about you. That's what she said. Yeah, everyone's
life is unfair to certain degrees. Unfortunate life at unfortunate.
Everyone's got unfortunate events. This person had a lot, but
then weaponizing it, hey, weaponizing it against the person who's
helping you more than anyone else on earth.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
And also kind of oh he lost her partner in
that same incident.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, So to say like.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
You're you know, you're not caring about my life when
ope's been through a lot of hardship and still helped.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Yeah, you know, it just sounds like ultimate victim mentality. Yeah,
it's like that. Actually, I'm the only one allowed to
be a victim.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Yeah, I had to legally evict the boyfriend because he
became threatening towards me while I was there trying to
assess damage and also behaved inappropriately. She opted to leave
with him and is telling everyone who will listen that
I threw her and her kids out. I'm just tired.
In the past two years alone, I've spent ten k
on her problems, not including the countless hours of work
(22:04):
and just plain worry. I'm worried for the kids, but
I have my own family now, and the weight of
both is overwhelming me. My sister is a wonderful person,
despite how I've painted her. I could call her right now,
even though we've exchanged some harsh words, and she'd be
at my door. She volunteers. My spouse says she's only
great on the outside because she needs that goodwill to
(22:24):
keep people helping her, And now I'm wondering if he's right.
She's told me she's jealous of my stability and that's
why she acts out towards me sometimes. But I didn't
just luck into a decent life. I've worked hard for it,
and I've always been willing to share with her. She
doesn't know it, but as soon as I have my
keys to my house back, I'm cutting her off. I
just feel bad because I'm the last family she has.
(22:47):
Am I being unreasonable? I feel like I'm abandoning someone
who still has a chance to turn things around. And
there are some comments and I think an update, but
do you have any thoughts?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
I mean, there comes a point where in the process
of wanting to help somebody, you've kind of done all
that you can.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Do, well, they start dragging you under.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Right, and then and then not only the like any
any further. It just becomes like kind of an enabling
of this continued bad behavior. And then also, yeah, like
exactly what you said, it's you're risking now your own
well being. Yeah, and it's you know, Gillian C. In
the comments puts it very well. You can't some You
(23:33):
can't help someone who won't help themselves.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, she's stuck in this cycle, and you know it
makes sense because she's been through a lot. But there's
not much else you can.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Do to help her. Maybe try I don't know if
you've done group therapy with her, because like there's certainly
one thing that will never help in therapy, and it's lying.
And for a lot of people when therapy, I mean
there's people who just talk therapy as therapy just doesn't
help as much sometimes whatever. But it's like, if you're
just actively lying about stuff to your therapist, you it'll
(24:04):
never it'll never actually help you. And so maybe if
you guys go together, you can have more of an
ability to be like, well, here's how I saw that situation. Yeah,
if you were, you know, but I don't even know
how connected you guys are because you want you're not
really living with her. She's living in a yeah, the
house that you own, but you're not really there. So
I do worry about the kids though, hope they're okay.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
But there are some comments common one, it's not your
responsibility to fix her, especially if she's not willing to
fix herself. OPI says, you see, I know this, but
it's hard watching a loved one tank, which is why
I don't plan to watch it this time. Deleting Facebook
blocking numbers. Reply says you are a big part of
the problem. You are enabling her bad behavior and she's
(24:47):
never going to learn unless you tell her no. Also,
your spouse is absolutely right. She does exactly enough and
acts just the right way to get people to do
what she wants. She's manipulating you. It's more or less
a survival skill and coping strategy left over from when
she was being mistreated as a child. Unfortunately, she never
learned any new survival skills because her whole family continually
(25:10):
rescues her. What's the point in growing as a person
if you get constant reinforcement from everyone around you that
it's okay. In fact, her whole string of harmful boyfriends
are just leftovers from her childhood. Even if she knows
on a high level that having a harmful boyfriend is bad,
it still feels right because that's what she grew up around.
It's the only way she knows how to relate to
(25:31):
and interact with men. It was burned into her brain
at such a young age. It doesn't matter if her
adopted parents were the perfect couple or not. She's been conditioned.
You are never going to be capable of fixing her,
rescuing her, or getting her to understand what she's doing wrong.
You throwing money, time, sweat, and tears into it is
just dragging you down with the sinking ship. It's time
(25:52):
for you to spend that counseling money on yourself. Specifically,
you need to have your counselor coach you out of
your codependence. You also need to be coached on to
set boundaries. And Comment two says, wait did your husband pass?
You've been dealing with your own personal grieving while also
trying to take care of her crap. You've done more
than enough for her, and now she's disrespecting you by
bad bouthing you. I'd say, cut your losses and cut contact.
(26:15):
That's so unbelievably unfair. It sounds like you're in therapy though,
so I hope you're taking care of yourself. Best of
luck in the future. And OP says, yes, didn't mean
to gloss over it, but this was getting long. This
mess spans over most of our lives. I've since remarried.
And comment three says what will happen with the kids
if you cut her off?
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Though?
Speaker 3 (26:34):
And oh P says no idea, that's the bad part
and there is an update but ooof Yeah, you've gone
through a lot. If you can get the kids out
of there, but I mean, it would be pretty hard
legally to do that, But I think you know, put
yourself first, get yourself what you need, because she's taken
too much.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Yeah, it's just an untenable situation. It's honestly way above
my ability to advise anybody on. Yeah, I'm trying to
think a lot of you know, you gotta look after
yourself first, and it's not like you haven't tried. Yeah,
but guilt makes us feel funny, especially.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
With the kids involved. Yeah, it's hard, it's hard to
fully let go. But there is an update. This ended
up being a mess. The day after I made this
post was her final day to be gone from my house.
On that very day, she and her boyfriend had a
massive fight. The children ended up in my care temporarily.
She wouldn't say what happened, even though it was obvious
(27:30):
to everyone involved. The authorities allowed us to move all
of her stuff back to my house. I didn't really
know what else to do at that point. I won't
bore you all with the details because none of the
matter now. Because there wasn't enough evidence about what happened
to my sister. Her boyfriend didn't face serious consequences. She
was allowed to take her children back after a few months.
(27:51):
One of her children now resides with his father. The
father went to court and got custody of him. My
nephew is little supervision, and rumor has it that his
girlfriend is pregnant.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Ooh.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
My oldest niece started acting out because who's going to
stopp her? She recently had to deal with an unplanned
pregnancy and is angry at the world. One of the
younger ones has become withdrawn because my sister moved her
boyfriend back into my house. Don't let them, it's your house.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Oh yeah, but then what happens? Then they're just homeless.
It's like it's an unwinnable situation.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Soon after his return, one of the children was injured.
I evicted them and I've officially cut them off because
nothing I can do will help her and I can't
save my nieces and nephews. My sister became very upset,
said I was selfish and abandoning her children, all because
she made an adult decision to work on a relationship.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Oh shut up, girl, shut up. That's exhausting, straight up exhausting.
To stop it.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
She's called me terrible names, mostly attacking my race and
telling me that I was only successful because of government assistance.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (28:55):
Yeah, I incredibly hypocritical. So there's just not really any
point in less to what she says, because it's coming
from a place of, you know, intense self loathing and
she sees you doing better than her and knows that
she's at fault for a lot of the things that
have happened in her life. And so she's putting that
(29:16):
on you.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, telling the mom, telling you that you're abandoning her kids.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Yeah, when you've offered a place to say as long
as she doesn't invite this terrible man over.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, when you quite literally have the only one not
abandoning them. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
But there is a little bit left to this story.
It's ironic because she's on every program she's eligible for. Well,
I've never even qualified for them. I did get scholarships
for maintaining a four point zero, but I worked full
time through college to make sure everything worked out. And
while she can pass for white, she's not actually white.
She's just trying to hurt me now and I can't
(29:51):
allow it. She damaged my house significantly before she left.
The destruction was extensive. She also left the utilities running
to make the bills that were in my name enormous,
so I'll give her one thing. She might struggle with
everything else, but she's effective at burning bridges. And that's
the end of that story.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Well, I mean, I think it's just cut her off
because you've done everything that you can for these kids
and for her, and they, you know, can't help them.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Silver lining is maybe the kids will be really funny
because it's get up dynamic and that usually makes the
funniest people. Maybe they'll be funny. Maybe, But good luck
to the children and to everyone involved. Yeah, in that story.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
That's the end of it, though, And there's one more story,
and we're gonna get to that in a moment. Yeah,
I mean, people of you know, people are taking advantage
of all of your kindness. You gotta at a certain point,
you gotta set boundaries for yourself of what you're willing
to you know, where you're drawing the line, because otherwise
they just keep taken and taken.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
John Here, we're gonna get back to this juicy story,
but a quick three minute break.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Of ads from our sponsors. My husband is going crazy
over adopting my niece. He's obsessed. My husband Darren twenty
nine male and I thirty two female, have been married
for nearly four years. We have two children together, Kara
six and Levi three. Recently, my husband has been bugging
(31:19):
me about having more children, but I had a particularly
hard and traumatizing pregnancy and birth with our son, so
he's thrown the idea out there that we would adopt
in the future. By the way, this comes from user
he knows other login and if you want to submit
your own stories, go to the r slash Okay storytime
subred it. I'm Dakota, I'm Sophia, I'm Riley, and op
says now, I'm not opposed to adopting a child. I
(31:40):
think it's a wonderful thing for people to undertake, and
we're not unfamiliar with adoption as it is, since Darren
actually adopted Kara when she was four years old. Her
biological father is not in the picture. However. Recently, one
of my cousins, Caroline nineteen, gave birth to a little
baby girl who's three weeks old. Caroline is one of
these people who really he does not have any business
(32:01):
having a child. She was diagnosed as mentally disabled, but
the family has always had a strong feeling that fetal
Auchmachul syndrome was involved as well.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Yep, so real quick, I don't say uh EMR is
an outdated and offensive term for a person with a
mild form of intellect disability, also known as intellectual development disorder.
So yeah, we can say.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
That diagnosed with intellectual development disorder. But the family has
always had a strong feeling that fetal alcohol syndrome was
involved as well. Her boyfriend is in a similar boat.
Both have disabilities that make caring for a child full
time very difficult. The point being, Caroline is a super
sweet girl, and I have no qualms about letting her
play with my children when other adults are around, but
(32:48):
she really is not suited for parenthood. My husband has
recently gotten in his head that we would adopt Caroline's baby.
I've only seen the baby once, not from lack of trying,
just that Caroline can't drive and we only have one
running car at the moment, which my husband has been
taking to work. Not only that, but I feel that
Caroline's parents, my uncle and aunt, both in their fifties,
(33:10):
would put up a real stink about us wanting the baby.
I'm not saying we couldn't care for the baby. We
really could Darren makes plenty of money that I'm able
to stay home with our two children as it is,
our house is pretty accommodating, and we're in a generally
good place. He is of the opinion that Caroline and
her boyfriend will be deemed unfit parents and that the
(33:30):
baby will be lost to the system. While I'm not
arguing that Caroline isn't the best parent to care for
the child, I don't think her parents would let the
baby go. I'm about ninety five percent sure that they
would take that baby and Razor, but he is adamant
that we should adopt the baby so that she stays
in the family. The problem is, I know that if
we were to take that baby in, it would upset
(33:51):
the family, particularly Caroline and her parents. I do not
want to cause an uproar in the family over that.
Am I wrong here? Or am I looking at this
from the wrong angle? And comments? But yeah, it seems
like every single thing that you've thought so far is
an assumption.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
We's just just okay. But I'm just confused why he's
assuming that they would have they would even be able
to adopt the kid, because presumably it would first even Okay,
so first he's assuming that the parents would be deemed unfit.
We don't know that. And then he's assuming that Caroline's
parents wouldn't adopt the baby, and then that you guys
(34:28):
would somehow be able to Like, that's not really how that.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Wouldn't Caroline's parents be part of the family.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
Exactly, That's what I'm saying. I'm saying, like, why wouldn't
they go immediately to the parents, or why wouldn't the
baby go immediately to the parents. I don't understand your
husband's logic here. So I feel, like Nita Nilsen says,
I think this is a non issue unless slash until
it happens at all. Yes, exactly. I feel like the
question here is one, do you want to adopt a child?
(34:57):
And then let's live in this hypothetical world where we
maybe you know, have the ability to adopt this child,
because right now you don't. That's not an option right
now at all. Yeah, So, like I guess it's just like,
let's talk about do we want to adopt a kid,
just as a hypothetically that's the only question here.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Do we want a third kid?
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Adopt?
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Nothing else is like even on the table yet.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah. Comments Number one, How is your husband envisioning this
will go exactly? For you? To get this child, your
cousin and her husband would both have to lose custody first,
which takes considerable time and multiple incidents. The child would
go to foster care, likely with family members like the grandparents,
who may step in immediately. The system prioritizes keeping children
(35:43):
with parents through reunification efforts and support services for adults
with developmental disabilities. Having capable relatives in the home often
allows families to stay together unless parents voluntarily give up
their rights. Involuntary termination takes significant time. If the grandparents
want custody, you'd have to fight them in court, plus
potentially the father's family and other relatives. Courts typically favor
(36:06):
closer family relatives. Even if you eventually won custody after
spending considerable time and money, you'd have a child who
experienced trauma, been through the system, and may understand you
played a role in separating her from her family. Why
fight for a child who already has capable relatives who
love her and are closer to her when there are
countless children without family support who need homes. You could
(36:27):
help your cousin parents successfully right now, or support the
grandparents in raising the child. If you want to adopt
a child with special needs, many are available immediately without
creating family conflict. What makes you certain you're the best
option if Caroline loses custody. Mention to the grandparents that
you'd help if they can't. But right now you're hoping
(36:48):
well intentioned people will fail at parenting to fulfill your
adoption fantasy. People with developmental disabilities can successfully parent with
proper support systems. Real quick.
Speaker 5 (36:59):
I do wonder if you can have kids or of
you know, the husband, if you guys can already have
two kids, already have two kids, and they want a third.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
But oh he can't have a biological kid because of
previous birth experience, okay with their son.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
So I just want to get the deeper perspective from
the husband, That's what I want.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Well, that's the question. It's like, why does he specifically
want this kid when they could talk about having, you know,
adopting and another.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
Kid, yeah, yeah, or being like a baller uncle.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
It just doesn't make sense why you would be so
insistent about a child that isn't like, you know, even
an option right now?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Well, I feel like the answer is that there's uh,
you know, prejudice being levied at the parents. Yeah, absolutely,
for you know, being disabled.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
He's just making so many assumptions.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
But yeah, regardless of literally every other element of the story,
the fact that it's not just like a conversation of like,
do we want to do this? Instead it's being like, oh,
we need to do this, we have to do that.
It doesn't make any sense. You can't just unilaterally decide
to add a child into your family. It needs to be.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
Decide to steal that child from their family.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Regardless, like like ignoring the fact that you also do
not have rights to just do this in the first place. Like,
this isn't a one sided no, I'm saying this, so
this is how what we should do kind of decision. Agreed,
Your husband is living in a fantasy. If you want
to adopt, start the process with available children or become
(38:32):
foster parents now so you're certified if needed. The only
way this works without massive heartache is if both parents
voluntarily terminate their rights. Ask them directly. If they refuse,
drop it, and pursue legitimate adoption channels instead of counting
on family failure. Opie replies, Caroline the mother already lives
with her parents, and she's already been told she has
(38:53):
to attend parenting classes. Not sure who told her that
family Grapevine and all that. They've been helping her as
far as I know, but they can't be there all
the time because they both work, and I don't want
Caroline to fail. It's just that, with past experience with her,
I don't think she will get very far simply because
of her lack of mental capacity. And you're right, we
(39:13):
don't know that fas was ever in play. It's just
always been assumed because Caroline's birth mother was and still
is a heavy drinker, even when my uncle was married
to her, main reason for their divorce if I recall correctly.
And I haven't made any mention of her boyfriend's family
because well, I've never met them. I don't know the
first thing about any of them. I've only met her
(39:33):
boyfriend once, so I don't know what kind of support
system he really has exactly. That's the thing, you guys
don't know anything personally. I'm not entirely sure. I want
to adopt the child as it is, which I've told
my husband I would have to do a lot of
soul searching before I make that decision. But your post
brings home so many points that I've tried bringing up
to my husband and I've just not been able to
(39:54):
get the right words out. We have an update, I
think then that should stop the whole thing.
Speaker 3 (40:00):
Then the whole conversation. I mean, like, you can have
the conversation, but you absolutely should not adopt a child
if you are not one hundred percent you know, ready
and on board to adopt a child, let alone a
child that you know has a lot of different you know,
like emotional baggage and also just different. Yeah, like there's
(40:23):
so much you already don't want to adopt child, and
to adopt this child comes, it's just like a whole other,
you know thing.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yeah, and you just show the post to your boyfriend,
then to your husband. Yeah, and uh, just get to
the why why why do you feel the need? Why?
Why why? And he's gonna be like, well, because they
can't handle it, and it's like, Okay, their parents can
handle it. Why does it have to be us? What
is this? Yeah? Update? We had a crazy Thanksgiving break,
(40:53):
but on our two hour drive back from his folk's
house on Saturday, our children were asleep in the back seat,
so it seemed like an appropriate time to talk.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
I feel like that's actually a bad time to do that.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
The worst time ever is when rocked in a steel
box for two hours.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
And also I feel like, as having been a child before,
I pretended to be asleep so many times. Constantly I
was pretending.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
To be asleep. That's the other thing is your kid's
definitely not sleeping.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
They're probably awake listening to your whole conversation.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
More than anything, this happened to me like like getting
cornered to have a conversation while driving terrible.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
It's so much already whoever's driving can't fully pay attention.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
To that conversation. And it's just like, that's not debatable.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
You can't fully pay attention to a serious conversation where
you have to like look at each other and Riley's
rage bating me.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
I feel like it's not debatable.
Speaker 5 (41:54):
I've had some pretty serious takes on my way to
Atlanta and back.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Sure, you can have a serious conversation, but I feel
like this is not the type of conversation that you
should be having in a car with kids in the backseat.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
And oh yeah, I mean, okay, all right, it seemed appropriate.
I started out discussing plans for my family's Thanksgiving, which
was to be at our house the next day. Most
of my family would be attending, including Caroline and her parents.
Darren mentioned he was excited to see her baby. When
I asked why, he surprised me and said, Eves being
(42:27):
a little baby crazy. Lately, one of his buddies just
had a baby and he got to see it not
too long ago. He said, he just loves holding babies
and everything that goes with having a baby. His conversation
eventually led into him asking if we were going to
have another baby or adopt one in the near future.
I was honest with him that I didn't know if
I would be up for adopting a child. I know
(42:47):
he had done it before with a step parent adoption
of my daughter, but I didn't know if it was
something I would be able to do just yet. I
also wasn't pulling another pregnancy off the table either, but
I was adamant that I would need to get a
medical opinion on whether it would be safe for me
to be pregnant again, and only if pregnancy was impossible
for me, then I would be more likely to consider adoption.
(43:10):
This led us into his desire to adopt Caroline's baby.
I asked him what prompted him to even consider it,
and he brought it back to being a baby crazy.
Our youngest is three now and really out of the
baby stage, and he missed that. He really thought that
offering to adopt Caroline's baby would help Caroline, her boyfriend,
and their parents so they didn't have the stress about
(43:32):
caring for the baby. He admitted that after thinking it
over more, he realized it was probably a silly idea,
but he just wants another child so badly. Well, he's
baby crazy. Let's finish this story. He's baby crazy. He's
baby crazy.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Had a little bit of a momentary glitch in the system.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Babies, babies want a baby, He want baby?
Speaker 5 (43:53):
Could this guy, I don't know, volunteer. I know at
my church you can volunteer to help out with kids.
Speaker 6 (43:59):
Yeah, the time, I think it's a great idea with that,
because I feel like, you know, what this vibe is
giving me? What is uh, whenever people like puppies and
they just want a puppy, and then whenever the puppy
gets bigger, they're like, oh, I just want a puppy again.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Just do puppy yoga. Yeah, take puppy yoga.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
Also, you can foster puppies and kittens. Really, yeah, my
friend fostered kittens. It was great for me because I
gotta go over and play with little baby kitties around here.
Speaker 2 (44:26):
He wants a baby.
Speaker 5 (44:27):
I really want to convince Alex to get a dog,
but it is it is not gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
You could foster a dog. Well, with the fostering puppies,
it obviously is a little bit harder because they're untrained them. Well, yeah,
you just have to be training the puppies and stuff.
But it's cute.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
It's cute.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
Yeah, well, I mean, like I he absolutely could go
and volunteer, and especially like if you specifically wanted to
help kids who had like different you know, like like
disabilities and stuff, then you could find programs that help
with that.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
It's true. I just hope he doesn't fall victim to
like the whole you know, It's it is kind of
a gendered problem when like people like raise their eyebrows
way more when a guy is like I just I'm
obsessed with babies. Yeah, I'm just I love babies. I
love they're like, why.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Well I think this one, this was a little bit.
I don't think. I'm I have a question of why
he wants a baby?
Speaker 2 (45:21):
No, miss the baby face real quick.
Speaker 5 (45:26):
I remember when my dad got really mad. Rider could
have you know, those like things you put on, like
the what's it called posh? Yeah, my dad's like six
eight and you'd have like he looked like that those
little like giants and video games with like a little
guy on the back, and he was so mad whenever
Rider couldn't fit in anymore, He's like, my dream's gone.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Now that's cude, the dream is gone as you so, hey,
it's John here. We're gonna get back to the stories.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
But a quick three minute ad break from our sponsors
that keep the show going.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
I told my husband that ultimately, if we were to
adopt a child, I would want to start that process
outside of the family. I also said that if Caroline
and her boyfriend were to be deemed unfit parents, then
either her parents or his parents would step up. The
only way I would reconsider adopting her baby was if
one of them approached us about it, and I highly
(46:15):
doubt that will happen. But I did tell him that
after the New year, I would go see a doctor
about possibly having another baby. I said, I wasn't sure
I was ready for it, but at least talking to
a doctor wouldn't hurt, so we could get an idea
of how to proceed. If a doctor clears me for
a future pregnancy, we'll revisit the topic. Until that point,
baby talks have been halted on both sides, there are
(46:37):
some comments. Number one, if he's baby crazy enough that
he's considered offering to adopt somebody else's baby, that's kind
of creepy, see what I'm talking about. Why not look
into ways he can volunteer with babies slash young children
in need. He can find an outlet for these needs
of his, and maybe he'll get enough of it out
of his system to take the pressure off you and
(46:58):
give you two times to determine if having a child
is in the best interest for your family right now.
Comment to is it's kind of odd that y'all are
talking about adopting or not adopting her baby when that's
not even on the table. What if some other couple
were trying to decide whether or not to adopt your kid?
While that's not something you'd ever consider as an option,
and that's the end of that story.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
Yeah, but I mean to be fair, I feel like, oh,
Pete wasn't the one who was considering that. She was
trying to figure out why her husband was thinking about it,
and she talked him down.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
She figured it out. So I'm glad you.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
Guys figured it out and had a conversation and are
on the same page.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Now, Yeah, baby, babies, babies, But that's the end of
that story. That is the end of that story and
the end of that episode. Indeed it is.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
So if you love us, make sure to subscribe.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
We love you and see you tomorrow.
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