Replies to 'Foster Parenting'

Thank you for this information.    I will never have a decent life ever again because of how much glee the Alabama DHR swallowed and decided that rather than understanding that our internationally adopted children had severe attachment disorder that hadn't been treated or even given proper continuing diagnoses since we left northern Virginia and moved here in Apr 2001. 

The children were in control of the home, made all sorts of false allegations and did other nutty things, most of the allegations were against me, which is understandable when you examine their psychoses that came about from their neglectful and abusive background in Russia, but they did blame both of us. 

When we met them in the orphanage in Dec 1997, I told hubby that this was way more than we could handle (we hadn't even asked for a sibling group, we were looking for one child, but then the government did a bait and switch on us and no one gave us any advance warning about how the pseudo-parent (older sibling) wouldn't ever relent, and how they would gang up on the rest of the family all of the time.  He needed to be a dad so badly right there and then that he completely overruled my upset, claiming "I wasn't giving myself enough credit."  He is less equipped than I am to deal with emotional disturbance because he grew up in a very emotionally insulated home and their communication style was oblique at best. I never dreamed that I was marrying an ostrich when we took our vows....   a very controlling ostrich, that is. 

Anyway, the kids managed to get themselves ripped from our home for a very long time, and he hired his own lawyer to fight to get them back, saying to DHR that he was willing to "try" to continue raising them and it was clear to everyone that I didn't want them in my home and were glad they were gone.  He attends therapy sessions they order, etc., but there isn't going to be any improvement. I was totally left out of the family reunification plan!  The stupid caseworker told our older daughter, 15 at the time, that she was going to get 50% of the overall decision about what would end up happening with her life.   Well, she may have been physicallly 15, but is emotionally TWO according to the experts I have been working with.  So sad.....    I threw a major fit about the caseworker giving a mentally ill child that kind of power, and her only answer was that "she needs to learn to accept responsibility for some of her decisions"        whatever. 

Anyway, I was left to have to ask the court for an attorney to defend me and he was so clear that I needed to get the other 3 nutty members of my family out of my life that he scarcely did anything. I wasn't ever, ever allowed to say a word in court and he never came to any of the treatment meetings.  My husband was convinced by his zealot of an attorney to divorce me because getting me out from under the roof was the quickest way of getting DHR to go away. 

It doesn't look like it is going to get any more tolerable..  I have no idea when the divorce will be over. I am offering to surrender my parental rights and he still thinks he's going to get child support from me!!!   I am a 50% disabled veteran and I am having a hideous time of getting any employment. I can't get any solid support agreement set up in the meantime and I am living hand to mouth. 

All of this because I gave in to try and save my marriage, and then I threw away a brilliant career to stay at home and deal with all of their special services for the first 4-1/2 years they were in our home. My career won't ever recover and I am so hopeless..... 

Thank you for letting me vent, and I would really appreciate some further discussion on this topic.