My son’s bio grandfather wants to see him, but he has been very much against the adoption since placement happened over a year ago. He hasn’t really said or done anything extreme, but the 2 times he has seen his grandson he has not spoken a word to my husband or I and left us out of conversations with his daughter. We are not overbearing people and we respect the need for privacy b/w the bparents and DS. But we don’t really trust him since we have no relationship with him and he is VERY standoffish. I dread going to these visits with him there (we do have a good relationship w/ the bparents) because it is extremely awkward. Should we talk to him or bmom about his behavior? Or create some boundaries with him?
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He could be dealing with his own grief and confused feelings about adoption in general. He could even be testing you to see how you’ll react to his behavior.
I’ve found that adoption–particularly open adoption–tends to be very hard on birth grandparents. After all, they’re grandparents, despite whom their grandchild lives with.
Hopefully, he’ll loosen up over time. But if not and his behavior begins to affect your son in a negative way, I’d have a frank discussion… maybe first with the birthmom, since she may be able to shed light on why he’s acting this way.
I think you should talk to him, directly, with fmom present (make sure you have discussed it with her and she is on board first!) and explain that in order to have a relationship with his grandson, he needs to have at the very minimum civil relations with you, at least until DS is old enough to maintain his own relationships. You don’t have to be good friends, or “family” but he has to be mannerly and treat you with some amount of respect.
I had to go through something like this with fdad; he wasn’t overtly hostile, but he made it clear that he had no interest in a personal relationship with us. We basically respected that, but in response made it clear that relations would be civil and there were boundaries…really with a baby and now preschooler, he has to communicate with us on some level just for logistics!
Good news is he has come around somewhat, and is opening up and being more friendly with us now.
I agree with the others who posted. I just wanted to say, it could be that he thinks the very same about you as you do about him! It could be that he is just old-fashioned and scared and needs to have the basics of open adoption explained to him.
I agree with Laura. it isn’t easy watching your grandchild being raised by someone other than your own. He will just be coping with his own giref and is probably from a generation who are more guarded. Give him some time. I know the hurt my Dad felt when I handed my son over to his second family. Just like any grief – it takes time to heal.