Forgiving others for their lack of real knowledge about adoption is a necessary step towards healing at the time of reunion. Anger is one of the steps that most people in reunion pass through. Some people remain stuck forever with the anger, and others have bouts of anger, but mostly have conquered their anger.

After you have passed through the anger stage in healing, forgiveness is the next logical step. Unless and until you are able to forgive your parents and other trusted advisors, your anger may plague you and affect every relationship in your life. I am not advising you to forget what happened, but, to attempt to make peace with it, and forgive those who had a hand in it. Those older, allegedly wiser advisors probably helped you the best way they knew how. They based their advice on the scant, most likely skewed information available to them. Perhaps their advice was on the mark.

Unfortunately, often their advice may not have been the best, but, even if it was not, there is little to be done about it now. Few advisors had anything but the best of intentions, even if their advice may have been faulty.

Another person who may need to be forgiven at the time of reunion is the birth dad. Many women who relinquish children to adoption feel as though their babies’ fathers let them down. Men in our society are historically the protectors; their strength is supposed to shield and help us. I know that the women’s liberation movement may not agree with that assessment, but, basically, men in decades past were thought to be strong and protective. They were supposed to support us and find ways to help us keep our babies. Perhaps some men tried to fulfill their protective roles, but, the truth is many folded under the pressure, just like some of us birth moms did.

To Be Continued................................