Adopted her nephew and surprise, it's too much work

Remember the spate of stories on reddit a few years back about "childfree" people agreeing to adopt orphaned niblings without the knowledge or consent of their actually childfree partners? This sounds like the inevitable outcome of something like that. Woman's marriage is failing (though even now she refuses to leave), nephew loses last related caretaker except for her, husband says adopting him is a bad idea and doesn't want to do it, she insists, and three years later she's talking about the nephew like he's a dog who doesn't get walked often enough: "he needs and deserves more attention than I can provide for him."

Getting him out of a dysfunctional household NOW rather than later is obviously better for the kid, but better still would have been to recognize it wasn't a good place to raise a child to start with. But I guess that kind of self-awareness is expecting too much from people who think "he's family, I have to step up!!!" Real icing on the cake is that she insists she loves him, but admits he "doesn't get along" with her husband...and won't leave the husband to raise the kid instead. So the husband said he didn't want the kid and she said fuck you, we're taking him; and now the kid has a terrible home life because of the husband* and she's saying fuck you, I'm keeping my bad marriage. Stellar.

"How do I rehome my nephew?"


*It's obviously not just the husband.

Sounds like the kid got dealt a shit hand, and I don't know what would be worse: being a system kid or being raised by people who only took you in out of familial obligation and one of your new "parents" hates you for existing. If I had to guess, the married couple in question were already content with their family size (whether it had kids in or not) and that's why the husband was upset about the introduction of another family member.

Why can't the adoptive mother handle him anymore? Does he have behavioral problems? Given his bio mother abandoned him and his grandparents died or became unable to care for him, I would be more surprised if he wasn't fucked in the head in some way or another.

This woman should have never taken this kid in. Sounds like she did it without consulting her husband beforehand, or she did and just disregarded his opinion and brought the sprog home anyway. Her marriage was already on the rocks, so why the fuck did she bring a kid home? Children have never saved troubled marriages. She says she won't leave her husband, but who is to say he won't leave her? They weren't getting along to begin with and then she brings a brat home whom he doesn't get along with either. He has nothing to lose and everything to gain by packing a bag and walking right out the door. Not necessarilygetting divorced, but just leaving. Let Moo deal with the kid herself, whether it's raising him or rehoming him.

I don't think there's any shame in admitting you can't give a child the attention they need, but she should have thought about this shit BEFORE bringing the kid home. If she winds up having to give him up, it'll be nothing but yet another parent who didn't want him and he'll probably develop reactive attachment disorder if he hasn't already.

Cambion, I agree with everything you said, especially the last paragraph...there shouldn't be any shame in figuring that out and moving the child to a better environment, but she ignored every red flag that would have told her that ahead of time. This woman sounds like a walking series of bad decisions.

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Cambion
Sounds like she did it without consulting her husband beforehand, or she did and just disregarded his opinion and brought the sprog home anyway.

It sounded to me like it was the latter, since she said she felt obligated but her husband didn't agree. Whatever the problem in their marriage is, hubby was right on that point.

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Cambion
Children have never saved troubled marriages.

I really wish more people would figure that out before they bring a whole-ass human into the world to suffer for it.