Should I tell him this important thing?

[East]

He is your friend and he trusts you so I would honor the friendship and the trust and tell him the truth...and do it quickly so he doesn't lose the trust he has in you.

[Anonymous]

How old was he when he was adopted?

He was an infant when she took him, maybe some weeks old or so, of course he doesn't remember anything. He was just a baby.

I know it's kind of my fault as well, but first I was not allowed to tell him that and when we grew up I seriously thought that he knew everything already, just didn't want to bring it up. I can't understand my aunt, how could she keep quiet for all these years. What was she thinking, I don't know. Maybe I should talk to her first?

[Rob]

Before telling your cousin, why not talk to your mother? She's your aunt's sister and she'll probably give you good advice on this.

[meridannight]

I can't understand my aunt, how could she keep quiet for all these years. What was she thinking, I don't know. Maybe I should talk to her first?..

have you not been listening to what we've been telling you? your aunt has psychological issues, it's not going to be likely she can be reasoned with. the reason you don't understand her actions is because they are not mentally sound. i'm not calling her insane, but i can tell a difference between a balanced and an unbalanced behavior. and your aunt is in the latter category. forget about reasoning with her.

just tell your friend the truth. he deserves it. what he doesn't deserve is you, your mother, your aunt or any other of your relatives meddling between yourselves and hiding the facts pertaining to HIS PERSONAL LIFE AND IDENTITY from him.

[CellarDweller]

YOu need to tell him about this, you need to tell him that you were forbidden to tell him, which is why you were forced to keep it a secret.

[Anonymous]

We had this hard talk yesterday. He was shocked, but didn't blame me for not telling. His "mother", the aunt keeps denying everything, she tells him to not believe anyone and still tries to make him believe she is his real mother. What's the point of still lying when everybody knows everything..... That evening she called my mum and wished me to die for telling him the truth.

He asked me to tell him who his real parents are and where do they live, however I don't know that and neither does my mum. That's the only thing he wants right now - to find his real parents, at least his real mother. I don't even know how could it be done, because the orphanage from which aunt took him, is closed now, there is no orphanage in that place anymore. Maybe aunt has some documents where his real parents' names might be, but she won't show them.

[meridannight]

you did the right thing.

your aunt, with all the problems she has is still his mother. he shouldn't turn away from her either, although it would be understandable if he's a little pissed at her right now. she did raise him. from a little baby to his twenties. for all intents and purposes she is his true parent.

i don't know what part of the world you're living in but i would also talk to your mother about getting your aunt some counseling. this will cause her enormous stress and it's something the roots of which go back decades and from what i understand from your posts have never really been properly addressed.

the orphanage may be closed but the documents there must have been filed somewhere. you can ask your local administrative offices where to look, maybe. another option would be to find someone who used to work there. they may have an idea where to begin to find such information. older people who have been living in that neighborhood also may know something about the orphanage. although, keep in mind that there is also a possibility he was in that orphanage because his parents were dead. he shouldn't get his hopes up.

[Anocxu]

There are services available. ..
He could get it done for a few hundred bux.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

I can't understand my aunt, how could she keep quiet for all these years. What was she thinking, I don't know. Maybe I should talk to her first?

With the advent of Hollywood and movies and TV shows, this subject has been beaten like a deceased Equus ferus caballus.

Most of the stories approach the subject of a kid discovering that they are adopted and the parents having been fearful all along that once the kid discovers they are adopted they will reject their parents for their biological parent(s) that gave them up.

That is a very real fear for many adoptive parents.

In the case of you aunt, she clearly desperately wanted to be a mommy. And threat to that is going to be much keener to her, she already did the whole "I can't have a child" thing, the whole "I'm losing my child" thing is going to be much, much harder for her to contemplate.


I suspect that due to her desperate need to be a mother she turned out to do motherhood a fair stretch better than some mothers I can name. Maybe in some areas she turned motherhood into mothering (AKA smothering), which is to say she did it too well.

Part of being a parent means sheltering the kid... I have no idea who the parents of this kid were (the biological parents), perhaps there is good reason to keep him away from them?

This is why you need to stress her side of this story, why you need to lay it down how she reacted and acted and how desperate she was to have a child.

That husband of hers who dropped her over her inability to bear children most likely did a serious number on her mind. Society is still pretty much old fashioned in its views about what a good woman is about, fertility is still pretty high on the list of what a good woman does. If she fails to be be fertile that means she is less than. Having the husband drop her because she was physically unable to have a child was a cruel twist on an already cruel fate.

She keeps silence because her son is the only person in her world that she cares about more than life herself. To lose him is to lose a very important part of herself.

Why this is sort hard for you to understand is beyond me, considering how this subject has been rehashed by TV and movies and many other story telling devices.

[meridannight]

That husband of hers who dropped her over her inability to bear children most likely did a serious number on her mind.

see, you interpreted this part here:

For some reasons she is unable to have children of her own and my grandmother told that she was very frustrated about it when she was younger and she was obsessed with having a child. She visited hundreds of doctors and used hundreds of medication and nothing helped her. Her husband divorced her because of this.

as meaning that the husband divorced her because she couldn't have children.

i interpreted that part as the husband divorcing her because of her obsessive behavior.