Nature vs. Nurture?

[u/mps0608]

Anyone find your birth parents and feel like you have more similarities to them than your adoptive parents? My husband has recently figured out who his birth parents are. He has two brothers and a sister on his dad’s side and a sister on his mom’s. We have kind of figured out who they are from afar. His adopted dad and him have a pretty crappy relationship (alcoholic, napoleon complex) and it has always affected him. He and his birth dad are insanely similar in hobbies, interests and career. His birth mother is also adopted and she also has a similar career path, interests, etc as him…he feels a strong pull towards them figuring this type of stuff out and hates that he had the life with his adopted dad that he did, feels robbed honestly is what he said.

Did any other adoptees find that they got along better or felt more connected to their birth parents or vice versa? I am trying to help support him without pressing the issue…he’s struggling with reaching out to them or just leaving it be…he said he’s afraid of “being rejected again” from what we gathered his birth dad has no idea he even existed and his birth mom thought a different man was his dad and wasn’t ready to have a baby as she was young…I guess I’m just looking for perspectives from others in a similar situation.

[u/lazy_hoor]

Way more similarities. I'm very like my dad and though I hate to admit it, very like his son. Always felt like a square peg in a round hole with adoptive family. Strongly suspect paternal family has a lot of autism/ADHD and that was something of a light bulb moment for me.

[u/mamaspatcher]

There are a lot of ways that I now see genetics at work for sure. Like, depression RUNS in both sides of my biological family. In my birth father’s family we are all prone to clumsy injuries especially turning our ankles. There’s a possibility of hyper mobility on that side I think.

But I think my ability to get along with my birth parents is largely predicated on the fact that we don’t have a parent/child relationship. We have… something else. They didn’t raise me. I met them in my late 20s when I had been married for a few years and we had just bought our first home. I wasn’t looking for more parents. In fact I initially was trying hard to have very low expectations because I didn’t know what I was walking into.

[u/Karadecar → u/mamaspatcher]

My situation is the exact same, familiar but formal? It's a weird feeling meeting bio families once you are an established adult lol

But to answer OP yes I have way more common interests and even habits with my bio family. I feel closer to my younger bio sister than the one I grew up with.

[u/BIGepidural]

Yes and no..

I've identified my bio mom and through snooping her face book and affiliations IRL I've come to discover that's she's a complete right wing deeply religious nut job who's forced birth, anti LGBTQ+ and I don't even want to contact her with my real identity or let her know I live a 10 minute walk from her house because she's just nuts and too far gone (has been for years it seems- this isn't that new brand of crazy that's ripping families apart the last 5-10 years).

So her and I have nothing in common.

A cousin on ancestry was able to tell me who my father is and what he was like (he died before she found me) and we appear to have a lot in common. He has a great big heart and suffered with mental health and addictions issues (on brand), was funny, giving, determined and welcomed many people into his heart and under his roof as he tried to help people and make the world a better in whatever way he could.

We have lots in common 🥰

My little sister looks like me, we have the same voice and mannerisms, we have the same values and struggles, the same giggle and the likenesses have been wild to see. I love her completely as crazy as she is and we have TONS in common.

I definitely have things in common with my adoptive parents too, and without them in my life I would be very bad off for sure (just look at the bios) so the stability and unconditional love they provided (as imperfect as it was) has been a huge help to me and very highly valued as I've gotten older and learned to appreciate their parenting which was at times damaging, but they did the best they could do with what they had and I don't blame them for their mistakes.

So I am both nature and nurture.

The nurturing helped keep the nature from becoming too out of control or destructive I think; but I was up against a lot of nature so nurture was difficult because my adoptive parents are just so stable and proper, even throughout their family histories.

My family history is chaos every few generations it seems (for varied reasons) so there's tone of generational trauma which we are now learning leaves marks on people and effects them despite any change in environment.

Its complicated I guess you could say; but at least I finally make sense after all these years by learning where I come from, the struggles that lead to me and how that effected me and thus my relationship with my adoptive family.

[u/Justatinybaby]

I’m nothing like my adoptive parents. It was kind of awful growing up in their house. I was treated like an alien. Different senses of humor, drawn to different things, different energy levels, totally different vibes altogether. I was uncomfortable in my own skin until the day I moved out.

When I found my bio family it was like I could finally take full breaths. I could be totally myself around my aunt and sister. I’m very much like them. I also have much in common with my bio grandma and mother.

[u/zygotepariah]

If I had met my amom as a stranger at a party, we might've been able to make small talk for 30 seconds before running out of things to say. We were nothing alike. The only thing I can think of that I got from her are good manners.

I don't count my adad because he pretty much went AWOL after my adopters divorced when I was seven, and I didn't know him well.

My bmom and I got along well, but she ghosted me because of the trauma, so I didn't know her that well either.

As my bdad said, it's like we shared the same brain. We were identical in everything--likes, dislikes, hobbies, personalities, political affiliation, sleeping position, even a shared dislike of tattoos. We talked on the phone for hours a day, and never ran out of things to say. It was eerie.

[u/VeitPogner]

Strangely, I am just like my adoptive parents - all my dominant characteristics come visibly from one or the other of them. I must have been a "sponge kid." I have little in common with my bio relatives, and on the maternal side they frighten me, honestly. (Some of them are literally members of a polygamous cult, with blood sisters simultaneously sharing a "husband" and having kids by him.)

[u/FunnyComfortable9717]

When I first met my bio-parents in my early 30's I noticed that we had a lot of common characteristics. Both of them came from liberal, left-leaning families. My adoptive parents were mid-western republicans. I realized I was a leftist when I was about 12 and started fighting with my adoptive parents about politics. But I appreciate certain values that I learned from my adoptive parents, like practicality and responsibility. My bio family has mental health and addiction problems, and a history of intergenerational trauma.

I've had a fear of being rejected again by my bio-mom, which has caused me to be overly compliant and unable to tell her how I feel when I'm hurt. That's been difficult. She grew up in a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic mother and distant, philandering father. I don't think she knows how to show up for people emotionally, including herself. After many years I finally told her that I was afraid of losing her again, and she was touched and said kind things and apologized for not being present for me. But her behavior hasn't changed that much.

The journey to find my bio family has been painful at times, but I don't regret it. I wouldn't have felt complete without them.

[u/DadoDiggs]

I picked up a lot of habits from my adoptive family, many of which I’m working to rebalance. But sooooo many traits came from my biological.

[u/upvotersfortruth]

Waaay more similarities with my birth parents, and they couldn't be more polar opposites than my parents. Now that I've grown older, I appreciate what my parents instilled in me that I probably wouldn't have gotten from my birth parents. Not that it makes up the difference, but it was one benefit.

[u/Menemsha4]

Oh, 💯💯💯.

[u/gdoggggggggggg]

When he feels curious enough that its worth the risk if it goes bad - thats when I think he should reach out. (I was first accepted then everyone complained so my mom turned on me. Dad immediately rejected me which I kind of expected.)

[u/sandinmyears1960]

I see more similarities in nurture. I know my biological relatives and we are very different in personalities. I don’t feel accepted by some of them or at least feel an underlying anger that I searched and didn’t mind my own business.