Ask Amy: Grieving woman doesn’t want ‘suggestions’
— Not Meant To Be A Mother
Dear Not Meant: To address your first concern, I completely agree that you should be allowed to express your absolute and genuine grief to people without them attaching to the most obvious “solution.”
Grief has no solutions. It just is.
You could head this off by saying, “Please, I need you to just listen right now.”
However, speaking for adoptive parents and the children they love, I take great issue with your idea that an adopted child is just “any old baby.”
An adopted child becomes your child, as real and visceral as any child would ever be. You still feed them in the middle of the night. You hold and cuddle them. You bond to and love them fully, and … it is as real a parenting experience as anyone could ever have.
You are not ready to hear that, and that is fine. But if you ever do take that momentous step into parenthood, I hope you will take a middle-of-the-night moment to acknowledge that this child — your child — is not just any old baby.
Dear Amy: Long story short, I’m not technically “married” to my girlfriend, who I’ve been with for five years.
Now — two children later — I feel like all the qualities and values that she lacks I have found in someone else: Her sister.
I feel like she (my wife’s sister) may have a small interest on me, and that somewhat motivates me to keep on thinking that I’m a great fit for a different person — maybe it’s her!
...continued
