When deciding whether to adopt a child, are you and your spouse on the same page? If your answer is no, you are not alone. My favorite adoption author, Jill Smolowe, wrote a fabulous article on this topic called The Reluctant Spouse, in which she explains the many reasons why couples often fail to agree on whether to adopt a child. Her writings helped me to feel less alone when my husband and I were in very different places regarding adoption.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how badly do you want to adopt? How badly does your spouse want to adopt? If you are ranking a 10 and your spouse is ranking a 0, then you might have a problem.

This does not mean that you should not adopt at all. That is exactly where my husband and I were when we started, and we are now both very happy and loving parents to our adopted son. However, you do need to find a way to get on the same page (or at least into the same book!) before moving forward with an adoption. Until you can get your spouse to buy into the idea of adoption a little more, it is not fair to a child to proceed.

I have heard that if the wife is driving the adoption process and the husband is the reluctant one, then the adoption will probably happen. However, if the husband is the driver and the wife is reluctant, it probably will not happen. I can only speculate as to why this is. My best guess is that, in most families, the mom does the most childrearing work, so it is more important that she be on board. Another possibility is that we women might simply be less likely to change our minds.

How much conflict is the disagreement causing? I initially believed that my husband was completely against adopting “a stranger’s child,” which was going to be a huge issue between us because staying childfree was not an option for me. I came to realize that my husband was frightened by all of the things that he did not understand about adoption. He can also be a “grumbler” by nature, so some of his reluctance was more his personality than actual resistance.

Educating ourselves about the adoption process helped enormously. I pretty much dragged my husband through the adoption process, but he was never really opposed to adopting. By the time we were matched with an expecting mother, he was excited and nervous, and he cried tears of joy and awe as he held his son for the first time.

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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