Contact adopted step brother?

I can’t thank you all enough for your thoughts, feelings and experiences! There is so much here that will help in the decision making. My brother and I will get together and decide. Thank you all xx

Good luck, I hope your search brings you as much joy as mine has.

I'm sorry to hear of your unhappy childhood felice , that must have been hard.
I don't think that changes how I feel though. Birth parents do not do any real parenting however valid their reasons are for giving up the child.

Think very carefully before you disrupt someone's life TLlulah it's not all about you and your family. There are ways in which adopted people can trace their families if they want to and your step brother has not done this.

sodapop (and no offence intended) just biological parents?

Unless you have been through this process no one can possibly understand the pull that the biological parents have. It is an undeniable part of the very being of all of us.

For the OP I would say proceed with great caution, Give little away about your position in life (financial in particular) until you are very very sure. And good luck.

I think I'd feel a darn sight worse if I was rebuffed than if I'd worried about looking for him. Knowing is one thing but deciding on meeting him in person is another.
It's hard to know what to do but I'd let sleeping dogs lie unless there was proof that he was also looking for you------always supposing he knew/knows of your existence.

I would be very careful, we were in contact with more distant relations, all wonderful at first but when we told them facts found during family history research all contact was broken as they could not face what had happened.

Izabella I have been through the process and stand by what I said. I don't understand this so called biological pull. If one was adopted as a baby then met one's biological parents as an adult they would be complete strangers.

TLlulah. I would try and make contact. You also have your brother for support. It may work out really well or it may come to nothing but at least you will have tried. You may both be a real blessing to your long lost brother. If he has feelings of rejection, it may make a great difference to him that his siblings sought him out. Good luck. Let us know how it works out.

sodapop, do you have any professional or personal experience of adoption?

It is very important to those who wish to know , that they find out everything possible about their origins . Not only for themselves but for the extended family, especially if there are medical conditions to be considered.
Everyone who wants to IMO have the right to know their biological & historical background.

sodapop it is not necessarily a love at first sight hope when meeting strangers who are biological parents. A psychological pull is linked to the identity of self and often a feeling of incompleteness. I do not speak just for myself, but also many adoptees I came across professionally. I acknowledge you do not 'get it', and that is absolutely OK. I was merely trying to illustrate that the phenomena exists.

Yes I do Iam64.

Sorry Izabella the only incompleteness for me was a lack of medical history.

Thanks sodapop, that helps clarify your views.

OP - As long as you are prepared for your half brother to perhaps be indifferent I think you should make initial tentative contact.
I know people who have made positive relationships with half siblings in later life. One flew to Australia after initial contact and was thrilled to meet friendly relatives with whom she is in regular contact. Others have no interest in contacting them, sometimes in case they cause distress.
An adopted relative, sadly, died knowing nothing of her natural parents. Her widower would still like to find out who they were.

It seems not a lot of consideration is being given to the adopted brother who clearly does not want to be found.
I agree with EllanVannin and would let sleeping dogs lie.

Wow! Thank you all so much. Such a lot for us to think about.
Sodapop - yes - I have to consider your last point carefully too but I have a feeling that if he had contacted my mother (he would not have known he had siblings) she very likely refused him.

Sodapop, I don’t understand your post.
Of course his parents were the people that loved, cherished and nurtured him, as I stated in my post he had a fabulous childhood.
His woman that gave birth to him was technically his mother but in name only.

the adopted brother who clearly does not want to be found

How do you know that, soda?

I think a lot of people are not aware of how it is almost impossible to find an adopted relation.
If this adoption went through official channels the adoptees new name is only available to trained intermediaries, adoptions were usually a long way from the area the birth parents were from.
My husband had never seen his original birth certificate only his adoption certificate so he had no idea of his parents surnames or where they were from.
So just because someone has not made contact, it is not always because they didn’t want to know.
Another consideration is the circumstances of conception, imagine finding out you were the result of rape or incest, it does happen sadly.
Finding adopted relatives is always best left to the professionals and must be clearly thought out first.

The only thing my mother said (angrily spat out) when I asked her about the baby mentioned in the letters (prior to my telling her I had seen the birth certificate) was that it was a ‘friends’ baby - the father had left her when she told him she was pregnant and she helped the friend and became very fond of the baby until it was given for adoption. My mother then said she decided to return home after the several months away ‘training as a telephonist’ which she decided she didn’t like so went back to shop work.

Missfoodlove you misunderstand me. I was referring to the term 'real parents ' I think this should apply to the adoptive parents who love and care for the child and not the birth parents. The term is widely used in this context and really grates on me. Sorry if I upset you.

I really think people should examine their motivation before embarking on these searches as there could be untold problems caused if the search is successful.
I don't want to be all doom and gloom as some people have been happily reunited with family members. Sadly the ones which fail are usually not mentioned.

The motivation is that they wish to know the truth, easy to say they shouldn’t , if one is lucky enough to know their background & circumstances . Everyone should have the right to know as much as possible about themselves, not knowing can be the cause of lifelong anxieties.

What truth is that Bridgeit ? We each are our own person and knowledge of background makes very little difference to that, I speak from personal experience.