Dear Prudence: My Husband Has Been Lying To Me For Years

[minoanmiss]

Content advisory: identity issues, adoption, and internalized racism.

My 13-year-old daughter, “Fiona,” has recently become very interested in her ancestry. I supported this and got her a membership to Ancestry.com and helped her gather family records on my side. My husband has been less enthusiastic. He was adopted as a very young child and has always told me he knows nothing about his biological heritage and doesn’t want to find out because his adopted family are his only real family. For the record, my husband and kids are best described as racially ambiguous. Most people would guess a mix of Mongolian, Filipino, or Mexican.
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Fiona has been directly asking her dad if she can look into the adoption. My husband has dodged the question for a few weeks saying he’ll think about it. A few nights ago, I asked my husband why he is so averse to learning about his biological parents. His adopted parents would definitely understand, they are very lovely and open-minded people. After some pressing, he suddenly confessed that he does know his biological mother’s name and heritage and has known for years. His heritage is American Indigenous.

I was shocked and hurt at this information, as it meant he had been lying to me for years. I asked him why and he confessed that he has always been embarrassed about being Indigenous, to come from people who were, and I quote, “Pretty much all alcoholics living on welfare.”

This is very out of character for him. We live in a southern state but are both liberals. He has always said that he believes poverty and alcoholism are due to systemic factors, not laziness or lack of self-control. He even has a friend who struggled with alcoholism and I NEVER saw him judge his friend for it.
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I told him he should go to therapy about this, and he said he didn’t want to. When I told him this was unhealthy and pushed him, he agreed, but I think he was just doing it to end the conversation and will not end up going. At the end though he made me promise not to tell Fiona and I reluctantly agreed.

Later, I spoke to Fiona privately and told her that her dad’s adoption is a sensitive topic for him and to stop asking about it. But I feel it’s wrong to lie to her and her two younger brothers about their heritage. And when they do find out, I don’t want them to think being Indigenous is something shameful to be hidden. Plus, I am mad at my husband for not telling me knew his biological family all this time. I know it’s a personal thing, but we’ve been married for over fifteen years!

I am looking for advice on how to talk to my husband and hopefully my children about this.

— Questions of Heritage

Dear Heritage,

You need to let go of your anger about your husband’s untruthfulness. I understand your feelings of shock and disappointment at uncovering a secret like this, but this isn’t a secret he kept from you—he kept it from everyone. Instead of being upset at the fact that he covered this up, try to understand his feelings and motives, and do your best to support him in what is clearly a very complicated aspect of his identity.

Second, understand that while people can intellectually know a set of facts, that doesn’t always translate to how we react when it comes to our own personal experiences. (I think about the letters we receive about parents struggling with their child’s gender identity, or systemic racism.) He may also know or assume something about his adoption that has impacted his opinions on this matter.

I think it was good that you suggested your husband go to therapy. But if he is not really willing to go—and not just go, but openly explore things once he’s there—you can’t make him. And that might be OK. In reflecting on your husband’s situation, without having been party to these conversations, I do wonder if this is one of those occasions where not everything that is “broken” needs fixing. If your husband has been able to lead a happy, successful life without confronting issues around his heritage, you might just let it be.

Regarding Fiona: Your husband needs to come to terms with the fact that this secret will probably be revealed at some point. DNA and ancestry sleuthing is more common with each passing day. To me, the question is not if the kids will find out, but when. You and your husband can decide whether you are comfortable letting fate decide that timing, or whether you want to be proactive. If the latter, figure out a trigger point when he will be willing to be honest with his kids—maybe it’s when they reach a certain age, or once one of them does a DNA swab.

This is a situation with no “correct” way forward. Do what you can to let your husband control the narrative of his own life without outright lying to your daughter. If you and he can work together to strike that balance, you can at least rest assured that you acted with respect and sensitivity.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Somettimes when I try to conceptualize how I or someone else is thinking about something I think about "top down", starting from the rational outer layers of one's mind, vs, "bottom up," starting from the deep emotional layers.

LW's husband has been deeply hurt somewhere in his deep emotional layers. LW's viewing this as top-down racism -- why would he pick this group to make bigoted statements about when he's not bigoted against other groups? -- but I think she's not seeing that this is self-loathing he's expressing. Or at least that's what I think is going on with him, in my vast wisdom, ahahaha.

Sometimes we need to reality check the people we love and sometimes we need to comfort them as they wrestle with their demons. I think that in this case LW should do more of the latter than the former with her husband.

But, I wonder at myself, would this be my judgement if it were being part Black he's so virulently ashamed of?

[ambyr]

Depending on how old the husband is, there’s a reasonable chance that his adoption as a Native American kid by a white family was illegal (see: the Indian Child Welfare Act). Which makes me wonder how much of this sense of shame was inculcated in him by his adoptive parents, who had strong reason to not want him to try to make contact with his tribe and get them in trouble in the process.

[minoanmiss]

I would not bet against you on that, and omg I am filled with rage.

[jadelennox]

crossed fingers that anyone will join Gorsuch and the liberals this term in Haaland v. Brackeen. 😞😞😞😞

[conuly]

Yeah, I thought of that too.

Even if it was legal - or if the adoptive parents were so high on their own self-righteousness, as dodgy adoptive parents always are, that they didn't think any of this reflected badly on them at all - the adoptive parents definitely are responsible for some of this self-loathing, imo. Because good and responsible parents would have taken positive steps to ensure that their child had a healthy self-image.

[hashiveinu]

</3 I'm not sure what to say. The work of reconnecting with Indigenous heritage, for anyone who has been violently separated from it in whatever way, is heartbreaking and difficult. And no one can force a person to do it. It isn't the place of someone who isn't Indigenous to try to make them do it - but it isn't only his own problem. Those poor kids. If I were in a place to give advice to LW, I think I would tell them to see if they can start doing some kind of volunteer work for a local Indigenous organization or something like that, to try to build those bridges from their side in a respectful way.

[haggis]

It's not absolutely clear but I believe that the LW is white. In which case, she needs to take a massive step back from language like "lying to me" on this issue. There are lots of complex stuff about racism, internalised racism, shame and stigma around adoption and very little of it is about the LW or their relationship. That framework of "lying" is wildly self-centered.

[lavendertook]

Despite the husband’s massive denial about his adopted family, internalized racism, and internal confusion about his birth family and indigenous heritage, the adoption is no longer just his once he has kids--it belongs to his kids' personal history as well and he and LW have no business discouraging, forbidding, or in anyway getting in the way of Fiona’s desire to know more about her heritage. They don't have to help her in her search and can request her to not speak to them about it to protect their peace and require her not to provide their contact information and to tell anyone they speak with not to contact them, but they have no right to interfere in her search about her own heritage. And yes, it is difficult to depend on a young teen's understanding and discretion, and more of a reason the husband needs therapy to deal with his issues and not spill them on their daughter, and the LW is going to have to decide where she wants to position herself in relation to Fiona’s search and questions and in relation to how her husband wants to handle his issues around his birth family and culture that his daughter’s legitimate search will keep up front and more in focus than he wants, but now has to deal with. It won’t be easy for LW not to be caught in between or overstep in either direction and she might need therapy to help her with this or couple’s or even family counseling for all of them. It’s not Fiona’s fault that parenthood makes a person deal with issues they had rather kept buried and the husband will need a lot of help to keep from resenting how Fiona’s needs make him lay his cards on the table and how not to take it out on her. Also, LW has a lot of reading to do on the forced removal of indigenous children from their birth families--Kamloops might be a good place to start. May Fiona’s search be the ball that rolls to her father's healing and LW find a way to be a positive resource in the process.

[minoanmiss]

oh well said!

[cimorene]

Hoo boy. Yikes.

Yeah, I feel some sympathy for this dad, because like, he didn't fuck himSELF up, but... the kid is clearly going to find out with our without you eventually, even apart from the medical history aspects of hiding someone's ancestry from them.

[sporky_rat]

I'm going to come at this from a completely different side: medical and genetic testing for health reasons.

Knowing that there's something there that might affect health in the future is a reason to share information with your children.