The reunion was a cruel masquerade—her birth parents arrived not alone, but with new spouses and children, parading a picture-perfect family she was never part of. As she sat there, drowning in forced smiles and whispered jealousy, the weight of rejection pressed down harder than ever, reminding her that some wounds never truly heal.
I was given up for adoption right after I was born. Unfortunately my adoption didn’t work out and I grew up in foster care until I turned 18. I’m now 19 and in college. In February, I got a Facebook message from a man claiming to be my father.
We messaged back and forth and while I kept a lot of my childhood details private, we did make plans to meet him and my mother. They weren’t married to each other by the way. When I got to the restaurant, I was very shocked and honestly upset to find my father and mother had brought their spouses, as well as their children to surprise me.
My father’s mother, so my grandmother was also there. I was already feeling very emotional about the whole thing and seeing everyone there didn’t help. So I sat through an hour of listening to them sharing all about their lives while I fake smiled through everything.
Honestly, I felt very jealous that they had kids they really loved and how they all had really happy lives after ditching me. Then they started asking about me and my parents, and how my Facebook gave very little away about my life.
I basically lost it and started crying like a little bitch (lol) and told them how shitty my adoptive parents were and how shitty foster life was. I was pretty snarky and sarcastic when I said that I’m glad their lives worked out for them because mine sure as hell didn’t.
I couldn’t stop crying and my father had to drop me back home. He was very apologetic. I feel very shitty about it. I made my mother and father cry at the restaurant. They were really nice people.
I got a few messages from my mother and father separately where they’ve been apologizing and if they could make it up to me. My mother in particular seems really upset by everything and I hate that I may have messed up her happy life.
Her last message basically said that she’s been unable to sleep and wants to see me again. I’ve been ignoring their messages and just been focusing on school instead.
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) experienced an intense emotional reaction during their first meeting with their biological parents, stemming from deep-seated feelings of abandonment and resentment over their difficult childhood in foster care. The conflict centers on the OP’s sudden, raw honesty, which brought pain to the biological parents, who appeared to have structured the reunion in a way that did not account for the OP’s potential emotional state.
Is the OP justified in their feelings of anger and in expressing them so forcefully at the meeting, or should they have managed their expectations and controlled their emotional outburst to preserve the fragile possibility of a future relationship with their biological family?
Here’s how people reacted:
You would never have been able to move on and potentially pursue a relationship with these individuals without airing the shit first. It is hard. I can share some level of empathy because my partner didn’t have one of their parents in their life for a long while and my partner had a few of these conversations with the parent when we got back in touch recently.
From my experience there are a few things you need to figure out and accept.
1. Do you wan’t to try and have a relationship with these people?
2. Set clear and hard boundaries. For example be clear you want to meet them without the whole family.
3. Understand the grandparents may see things very differently and just want a relationship with you and have always wanted a relationship with you. Putting you up for adoption was unlikely to be their decision.
4. Understand you will never have the childhood your half siblings have. Also understand that you entering your half siblings lives may be a stressor for them. They haven’t have it as hard as you but what one person thinks is hard is relative to their previous experiences so try and cut them some slack if they ever lash out at you appearing in their lives.
5. Linked to the previous, accept that you will never have that childhood. Whether you chose to pursue a relationship or not that childhood is gone. Thats the hand you were dealt and it sucks and they are sorry but it cannot be changed. If you will resent them indefinitely for that then you will never be able to foster a relationship. The cards you have just been dealt are those that would allow you access to two new families and to be a child to your biological parents even if you are a bit late to the party.
6. Therapy. The first thing they can do to make up for everything and if they want a relationship is to pay for councelling. You have been through some shit and this is the best place to start. Solo therapy is probably for the best to begin with. Group therapy may be helpful int he future to make sure they understand.
7. The first meeting is always the hardest. The fact they are messaging you apologising shows that they aren’t angry they are just sorry. I appreciate that with where you have been it must be hard to trust people or let them in but give them a shot.
Yes it was kinda shitty of them to ambush you with extended family members during your first meeting. It really should have been private, just the 3 of you. BUT! It’s not their fault that your life was shitty and in fact it’s kinda shitty of you to make them feel bad for having ‘happy’ lives after they put you up for adoption.
You didn’t go into the reason why they gave you up in the first place (or why you wound up in foster care for that matter) – and I feel like the obvious answer was that they (birth parents) weren’t ready, either financially or emotionally, to be parents yet. Or maybe it wasn’t their choice at all – your birth mother may have been young and her parents pushed her to give you up because she needed to finish school. Whatever the case, they decided to place you for adoption hoping to give you a better chance at a good life with people who wanted a child. It was likely a hard decision for your birth mother and she made it hoping for the best for you. Sadly for you, it didn’t work out well.
I could point out that if your birth parents had kept you, your life may have been equally shitty. You’d have grown up with parents who weren’t ready or able to support you and you may have wound up in foster care anyway because of it. Also, they didn’t ditch you. If they never cared, they wouldn’t have bothered to look for you as an adult – they’d have gone on with their happy perfect lives and never looked back. The fact that they reached out to you indicates that they cared what happened to you and that they have been thinking about you for probably the last 19 years.
I mean, I get it – you likely have a lot of questions for them and it was super overwhelming to have the whole family show up for what should have been a private first meeting. I would suggest accepting their apologies and maybe meeting up with them again – but just you 3 this time. And maybe apologize yourself for the meltdown.
Good luck out there.
You were ambushed.
They created a cosy world for you on their head, assuming that trying to give you a better life by giving you up as a baby you had a Hallmark movies life. It never occurred to them that it would be otherwise. The meeting was to assuage their guilt and not really about you.
Don’t feel guilty. If they had the sensitivity of a brick they would have met you 1 on 1 or 2 on 1 and found out about your life before talking about their great family and flaunting it before you.
Put yourself first. Nurture yourself. Do school so you can support your self.
Have you seen how many times I puy ‘yourself’ in that paragraph? You have to be your number 1 because you cannot rely on anyone else yet.
Leave the door open to these people but let them know that you can’t deal with them today or next week. Send them an Xmas card each year till you are ready if you want. But have NO regrets about telling your truth. Don’t let the manipulate you into soft soaping your Experiences to make then feel better.
NAH, for the moment… I hope you can express this feelings in a message to them, that you don’t hate them(as you said they’re nice person) but you wish to maintain a distance from their family’s bc this brings bad emotions to you, and if they want to have a relationship with you it would be better without them at the beginner.
If you want to try again under better controlled circumstances (maybe one parent at a time), great! If you don’t, great! You are under no obligation to make them feel comfortable with the choices that they’ve made.
I second what others have said here – please make sure to take care of yourself and find support. No doubt there are plenty (too many) people who have experienced a difficult upbringing and found their place in the world.
You’ve had a shit time growing up, none of which is your fault. Maybe you shouldn’t have yelled at them in a restaurant, but the truth would have some about eventually, and they presented you with a massive family you didn’t know about and overwhelmed you! I recommend counselling and lots of it, for all of you if you intend to further your communication with your birth family.
Glad they were apologetic about it. Before you reach back out, consider what you want from your relationship with them, and how seeing them makes you feel. It might be best to talk one on one only for awhile, or maybe to even write to each other.
you get to choose how you make your own family and at what pace
With something as emotionally raw as a bio-parent meet up, the ambush family reunion was at best, myopic. They had no clue what kind of life you had, and it seems like they consoled themselves with the fact that it was awesome. Now that they’ve learned otherwise, they’re upset. And that’s for them to work through. I don’t say that nastily, but you can’t own their feelings.
But the group meet sounded just awful, and I’m sorry you had to endure that.
NTA. Bringing their families with them must have felt like a kick on the teeth because it was a glimpse of something you never had. It was too much to soon. I can completely understand why this was overwhelming.
There are NAH.
That’s not to say that you should stay away from them though, but that’s completely your choice. If they don’t like it, all I can say is that it’s their fault for overwhelming you at the meetup.
I don’t think this is a case for this sub, please reach out to a friend, maybe your uni campus has a psychologist you could speak to?
Wishing you all the best, an internet stranger.
The truth was harsh regardless of how you put it. Plus, it was bound to come up if you tried to continue a conversation with them.
They had their reasons for giving you up and that doesn’t make them an AH, nor does it invalidate your feelings