If It Quacks Like A Duck…
Dear Ann Landers: I’ve begun to suspect that my husband is seeing my friend, “Irene.” When I got up the courage to ask her what was going on with “Joe,” she said, “It’s nothing sexual.”
I found out that Joe loaned her money when she first moved here. He helped arrange for her teenage daughter to get counseling when the girl had a serious drug problem. He also helped the daughter buy a used car. I wasn’t told about these things when they happened, but word gets around in a small town.
Joe is a quiet man. I never would have suspected anything until he started to become quite chatty, using words and expressions that sounded a lot like Irene. When I asked him flat out if he had been getting together with her, he replied, “Irene is not a part of my life.”
That’s not the way it looks to me, Ann. He says my imagination is working overtime. What do you say? - Agonizing in Arizona
Dear Arizona: A man who loans a woman money behind his wife’s back, arranges for the woman’s daughter to buy a car, helps her get counseling, and out of the blue picks up the woman’s speech patterns looks guilty to me. Wake up and smell the coffee, dear.
Dear Ann Landers: I’m writing to support your position that all adoption records should remain sealed except for medical information. And with good reason.
My first husband and I were in the process of divorcing when I discovered I was pregnant. We already had a 3-year-old daughter, “Karen.” My husband demanded that I abort the baby. I refused.
My parents baby-sat Karen while I worked, but when the baby was born, I had no choice but to put her in foster care. I hoped it would be a temporary situation, but it was not. I was unable to provide for two children and signed adoption papers when the baby was 7 months old.
Ten years ago, I remarried. Last June, Karen and I decided to search for her sister, who had just turned 22. Karen had been told about “Mary” early on and wanted to meet her.
The entire experience turned out to be a disaster. Nothing we did pleased Mary. For the welcoming party in her honor, we rented a restaurant and invited her adoptive parents. She didn’t seem at all pleased. Several times, Karen invited Mary to go shopping, but she always refused. When I invited Mary to come to our home for dinner, her response was negative. She was hostile and angry. One day, she lashed out at me and screamed, “You could have found a way to keep me if you really wanted to!” She resented Karen because she was not “given up.”
It became evident that our attempts to have a loving relationship with Mary were getting nowhere. She was so abusive, both emotionally and verbally, that we decided it would be best to sever all ties.
One never knows how the person who is “found” is going to respond. I regret that we tried it. The position you’ve been taking all these years, Ann, is the correct one. - Learned the Hard Way
Dear Learned: Thanks for the validation. I have taken many lumps for my position on adoption records. It was Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis of the who said that the right most valued by civilized men is the right to be let alone.
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