If you are married and want to adopt a child, you need to make sure your marriage is stable before proceeding with an adoption. You do not want to adopt a child and then have the family split apart within a couple of years. While none of us has any guarantees about how long our marriages will last, you need to go into an adoption with as stable of a marriage as possible.

Adoption.com's Self-Assessment Adoption Quiz asks the following question:

11. Do you feel you are stable in your relationship as a couple without having children?

I believe this is an important question to ask yourself, but it is only one of several questions to consider when assessing the stability of your marriage. The reason this question is important is that you cannot rely on a child to “fix” what is “broken” in your marriage. The adoption process is grueling, and it is taxing on the most stable of marriages. If your marriage is unstable going into the adoption process, it is unlikely to solidify from the home study process: It is much more likely to fall apart. Also, parenting a child is taxing on a marriage, so do not rely on adding a child to make your marriage stronger.

Also, a child should not be the glue that holds a relationship together. While it is normal and human to want to add a child to a relationship, the relationship should also be stable without a child. Your motive for adopting should not be to keep your spouse from leaving you. While there are many reasons that people want to adopt, one reason should always be that you want to parent a child.

Children who are adopted have already suffered the loss of their biological parents. In some cases, the loss is a good thing (such as children who are removed from abusive households), but it is still a loss that must be grieved. We owe it to our children to make sure we are not entering into an adoption with a marriage that is close to splitting apart. We do not want to add another loss to a child’s life if it can be avoided.

There are no guarantees about what the future will hold. I have a friend whose husband died recently, leaving behind his wife and 4-year-old son who joined the family through adoption as an infant. There was no way that this couple could have seen this loss coming. Other couples, for whatever reason, ultimately wind up divorcing after adopting their children. Considering that there is always uncertainty about what the future will hold, we owe it to our children to make sure our marriage is as stable as possible so we can (hopefully) decrease the likelihood that our child will suffer one more life loss.

Related Topics:

• Stress of the Adoption Process on Your Marriage



• Reluctant Spouses ... Speak Slowly



• Choosing to adopt- the reluctant spouse


• The Heartbreak Of Dealing With A Reluctant Spouse



• When Your Spouse Isn’t Ready

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