Do adoptive parents have a higher responsibility to stay married?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two of the couples we went to China with to adopt our children have since divorced. I think much less of them because of it.

Just being honest.

Wow. How wonderful it must be to feel free to judge without knowing any details. Hope you find out your husband has been secretly engaging escorts for over a decade, exposing you to god-knows-what, spending a fortune on them, and criticizing you non-stop. Will you still stay with him? Will you want us all to judge you negatively for deciding to leave???

First of all, I'm a husband. Remember, it's "DC Urban Moms and Dads" now.

Secondly, I know in one of the cases, the husband was a serial philanderer, so it's him I think much less of, not the wife. With the other couple, from what I can ascertain, the husband just got tired of being married to the wife so they divorced.

Thirdly, the couples in question were ostensibly Christians (we used a Christian agency), so in that regard they should be held to a higher standard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two of the couples we went to China with to adopt our children have since divorced. I think much less of them because of it.

Just being honest.

Wow. How wonderful it must be to feel free to judge without knowing any details. Hope you find out your husband has been secretly engaging escorts for over a decade, exposing you to god-knows-what, spending a fortune on them, and criticizing you non-stop. Will you still stay with him? Will you want us all to judge you negatively for deciding to leave???

First of all, I'm a husband. Remember, it's "DC Urban Moms and Dads" now.

Secondly, I know in one of the cases, the husband was a serial philanderer, so it's him I think much less of, not the wife. With the other couple, from what I can ascertain, the husband just got tired of being married to the wife so they divorced.

Thirdly, the couples in question were ostensibly Christians (we used a Christian agency), so in that regard they should be held to a higher standard.

Ugh yes, you're the epitome of a Christian with all that judgement you're spewing......

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I would say the requirement is higher for biological parents to stay together.

You owe more to your own blood than someone else's.

Wow! What an awful thing to say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two of the couples we went to China with to adopt our children have since divorced. I think much less of them because of it.

Just being honest.

Wow. How wonderful it must be to feel free to judge without knowing any details. Hope you find out your husband has been secretly engaging escorts for over a decade, exposing you to god-knows-what, spending a fortune on them, and criticizing you non-stop. Will you still stay with him? Will you want us all to judge you negatively for deciding to leave???

NP here...also, adoptive parent and divorced. I felt very judgey (but kept it to myself) and uncomfortable during our adoption process when I discovered our social worker doing the home study was divorced after having adopted...fast forward to present day and my family is one of two who divorced out of a travel group of four families. I think in hindsight that I had no right being judgmental, as one never knows what happens in a couple, in a family, behind closed doors. From what I know of the other couple in our travel group, I can say that they had very different issues than I and my spouse did, and both were irreconcilable. I feel the divorce has given our child a chance to have happy parents who can be more loving and tolerant and focused on our child separately than we could have together. The stress of being a witness and sometimes unintended participant in the marital discord is now gone and our child is more confident, happy, and secure. It was truly in the interest of our child that I sought the divorce.

I feel worse about adoption in general, regardless of divorce, as I wish our child's birthparents never had to relinquish their baby in the first place. The system failed them.

Another point- As adoptive parents, we had access to more pre-parenting training in children's emotional needs and responses, more counseling resources and were conditioned to be more alert to our child's behavior than if we had just procreated. So, we may be better at being divorced parents than bio parents would be.

Finally, kudos to the OP for having deep conversations like that with their spouse. That is far more stimulating of a topic than what to pick up at Home Depot....maybe if my spouse had been the type to be able to engage in discourse like that without feeling threatened, we might still be together (well, no, but for many reasons).