Are we in a position to adopt children?

Last updated on: August 20, 2010 at 10:33 pm by Natasha Helfer

Are we in a position to adopt children? 2010-08-20T22:33:00-05:00 Natasha Helfer

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Your blog is amazing! You’re helping so many people. Thank you so much for your time and all you do.

Let me give you some background. My wife and I have a strained relationship. While she at times has a legitimate fraternal love for me (let’s call it “philadelphia”), she has never had an erotic love. Beyond that, I don’t see a lot of the patience or empathy that might be the product of “agape,” the kind of self-sacrificing, volitional, thoughtful love I think usually exists between husband and wife. I certainly don’t want to make her out to be a monster. She’s a wonderful person, and for reasons I won’t enumerate, I don’t think she’s entirely at fault. She would like to love me, if it were possible. Please note that it is not that she has fallen out of love; it is that she never fell in love in the first place. Some years after our marriage, she explained that she married me because she admired me, not because she loved me.

On the other hand, I have always loved her fraternally, erotically, and in the deeper sense of “agape.”

Despite these challenges, our marriage is stable. I have no intention of leaving her, and she has no intention of leaving me. While very troubling, none of these issues are deal breakers for either of us.

We spent a year “trying” to get pregnant, but she could not bring herself to have intercourse with me frequently enough for us to conceive. We decided to turn to adoption. Our social worker has determined that we need to work on communication and our sex life before we can proceed. Consequently, we are currently seeing a couple’s therapist to work on these two issues. Neither the adoption social worker nor the therapist knows that the underlying cause of both the communication and the sex problems is this very fundamental love issue. I believe that we can improve our communication, and I intend to blame the sex issues on the physical pain my wife sometimes feels with intercourse, though there are obviously other more significant issues that also interfere with our intimacy. As you can probably tell, I do not feel obligated to share every aspect of my personal life with the social worker or the therapist, as long as I am always honest in the answers I do give.

With that background, let me ask my question. Would it be unethical for us to adopt a child? Our relationship is stable, and my wife’s problems with patience and empathy seem to be limited to me. She has worked extensively with children in many different settings and always gets along well with them. We of course would try to hide our love issues from our child, but I suspect the child would figure it out eventually, probably in the teenage years. Is mutual marital love a necessary prerequisite for adoption? Thanks for your counsel.

Thanks for your positive comments.
Before I answer this question, I want to clarify a few things. Are you telling me that your wife is homosexual? I’m wanting to know if her “lack of love” has to do with you specifically or if it has to do with the fact that you are male. You also mention “pain”. Has she been diagnosed with vaginismus or something similar? Are you aware of any sexual abuse in her history? On your end – I’m assuming you currently find yourself in a “sexless marriage” (about 10 times a year or less)? If so, how are you dealing with your own sexual drives and can you see yourself continuing with this type of sexual frequency for the long haul? How long have you been married?
Thank you.

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