I’m not being heartless, but I don’t want to see my long-lost brother

DEAR BEL,

BEFORE they married, my parents had a baby son. Mum was only 15, so my grandparents insisted she put the baby up for adoption. That was in 1977.

It was probably a very sensible decision. My parents married in the mid-80s. I was born in 1991.

As my Dad died of cancer in 1996, it’s been me and Mum ever since. I didn’t even know I had a ‘brother’ until two years ago, when he got in touch and Mum and Gran told me about it.

What I’m going to write next will sound very heartless, but that’s not what I am at all.

Mum was upset to learn the adoption failed and the boy was put back in care when he was five. He was shunted around care homes and foster families, finally leaving care in 1995.

I understand and sympathise that he didn’t have it easy, that he left school without qualifications and felt he had no roots. On the other hand, he has a good job, met and married somebody he loves and they have three children.

What I don’t understand is what this stranger — and he is a stranger — hopes to gain by intruding into a family he’s never been a part of.

I won’t hear my Mum call his children ‘grandchildren’ (only my children are that) or a stranger called my ‘brother’. I’m an only child. My children have no ‘uncle’ or ‘cousins.’

Gran thinks I’m right, but understands why Mum wants to meet her ‘son’. I never will.

Mum keeps bringing up that she wants to meet this ‘son’ and keeps showing me his letters. I give them back unread.

Gran and my husband have pointed out that acknowledging this man could lead to inheritance complications — quite apart from the effect it’s been having on my mental health and my relationship with my mother.

I’ve told her she might gain a ‘son’, but will definitely lose a daughter. It seems there is no way out of this situation — at least from my point of view. It’s a situation I never expected to be in. I doubt anybody will understand, but I ask your advice anyway.

For a young woman adamantly denying she is ‘heartless’, I’m sorry to say you are making a pretty good job of sounding it. You refuse to believe there is any way out of this sad situation, so why write? Because I’m afraid my sympathy is with your mother and not her jealous daughter — and since you ‘doubt anybody will understand’, you must have anticipated that reaction.

I can understand that the revelation must have been a shock, but it’s sad that you, her only daughter, are refusing to give your poor mother any support at all. That 15-year-old girl became pregnant by her first love, was made to give up the child, but went on to marry her boyfriend and make a life — until cancer took away his.

Now the people she loves are ganging up on her, raising the dark spectre of ‘inheritance’ (the cheeky stranger must want money!) and threatening to make her choose between the lost son she hasn’t seen since he was a newborn and the daughter she’s loved since 1991. Do you not think that heartless?

Since you were a little girl you felt it was you and Mum against the world. She was yours.

Sadly that alleged closeness didn’t allow her to reveal what happened when she was a teenager.

All these years she must have been wondering about her son, so to learn the truth must have been heart-breaking and fill her full of regret. If it was shame (inculcated by her parents so long ago) which made her withhold her story for so long, your cold response must be making her feel so much worse.

Yet you believe you and you alone are the one suffering.

Your letter is sprinkled with so many quotation marks it’s almost pathological. I can only guess you’re an extremely vulnerable and possessive person to believe your identity so threatened by a ‘brother’, ‘son’, ‘cousin’ and ‘uncle’ — who is indeed all those things you deny.

Many in this situation would be able to open their hearts to the stranger — out of curiosity, if nothing else.

reunions with adopted children can end in disappointment on both sides, but how wonderful it would be for your mother if you support her in her desire to meet her son and then offer consolation if nothing more comes of it. You could take charge.

Yes, your children do have unknown cousins — who can’t possibly annex all their grandmother’s love. That is, unless you choose to keep them away from her out of pique and lack of unconditional love for the woman who gave you — and your lost brother — life.

That man who shares your genes had a terrible, sad start but overcame the damaging experiences to create a good life. He might well be a remarkable human being who could bring a new — and enlarging — dimension to your whole family.

I’m not suggesting you will feel welcoming, let alone loving. But I do believe you will feel much happier if you unbend and consider your mother’s needs. And choose kindness.

If you cling to meanness of spirit, you will be the one sullied by that destructive negativity. Why not break the pattern of all his rejections? Why not open your heart?