Man Who Refused His Dying Ex’s Request To Adopt Her Son Wonders If He Was Wrong
She put him in a tough position.
Shchus / Shutterstock A man faced with a tricky situation in his personal life turned to Reddit to find out if he was in the wrong after refusing to adopt his ex-girlfriend's son.
According to his post, the former couple had met on a dating app seven years ago when the woman’s son was six months old. Pretty soon into the relationship they moved in together, and as time went on, he started caring for her son. Eventually, the child even started calling him “papa.”
However, after five years together, the man wrote that she broke up with him for being "boring and not an active person.”
He explained, “It was a rough time after that and I had a hard time accepting it (although not as hard as having to explain a 5 year old that he'll no longer be seeing his ‘papa’)”
Two years after their breakup, his ex called him with a pretty serious request.
In a comment, the man mentioned that despite efforts to keep in touch with the child after the breakup, his efforts were ignored. "I messaged her on facebook a month after the breakup, asking about the kiddo, was left on seen and later removed from her friend list. I don't know what else could I do," he wrote." I took it as a hint to not bother her anymore.
Despite cutting him out of her and her child's life for a couple of years, while facing a health scare, the man's ex seemingly had a change of heart. He explained that his ex called him to let him know that doctors had found a tumor in her breast and would need to have it removed.
“She is scared that she might die if it doesn't work out and asked me if I would be willing to become her son's legal guardian and adopt him, since she has no one else to ask,” he wrote.
The man couldn't bring himself to agree to take custody of the child.
“I live a different lifestyle now, travel a lot and invest in myself, so I told her that I can't do that," he explained, which set his ex off. "She told me that her son misses me and would love to see me, but I said no again and she started crying and calling me names, before cutting the call,” he further explained.
Despite the awful situation, people supported the man's decision not to become his ex's son's guardian.
"Pushing a child onto someone that doesn't feel fit to raise one shouldn't raise one," one person wrote. "It's not fair to that person and the child."
Becoming a parent, especially a single parent, is no small task and requires full commitment. Being unwilling to step into that role but doing so anyway can have effects on the child that last well into adulthood.
“Parenting and early life experiences set the stage for a child’s sense of what it is to be loved and safe in an often-confusing world,” clinical psychologist Carla Marie Manly, PhD, told PsychCentral. Add that to the grief and feelings of abandonment this young boy might face after losing his mother, requiring extra care from whoever chooses to be his guardian, and you have a recipe for deep trauma.
In a heartbreaking update, the man revealed he ended up adopting the child.
In an update to his post, the man explained that after spending time thinking about the situation, he decided to meet with his ex to talk things over. Unfortunately, he learned that her cancer had spread.
"I started visiting her 2-3 times a week, but sadly, things were starting to get worse," he wrote. "Seeing her getting weaker and weaker, I decided to go through with the guardianship."
Despite connecting with the son's biological father, after his ex passed away, the man decided to move forward with the adoption process.
It's clear from both his original post and the update that this man truly cared about his ex's son and ultimately is stepping up for the boy, making people across the world tear up in the process.
"You, sir, have a good and loving heart. You did not have to do what you did, and many people would have understood if you had refused, but I can't imagine anyone could look at you now and feel anything but respect and admiration. You chose to do a truly good thing even though you absolutely did not have to," one person wrote. "I hope that you and your (not-quite-official-yet) son will build a good life together, bring each other great joy, and provide strength and support to each other when hard times come."
Sydney Taylor is a graduate of Emerson College with a major in journalism and a minor in peace and social justice.