He And His Wife Had To Refuse To Legally Adopt Their Niece, Who They’ve Been Taking Care Of For The Past 16 Years, Since They Can’t Afford To Do This
I’ve always admired people who have taken in a relative’s child after an emergency or some other hardship.
One man and his wife recently had to refuse to legally adopt their niece, who they’ve been taking care of for the past 16 years.
He’s 46 and married to his 44-year-old wife. Tragically, his wife had a twin sister who passed away after giving birth to her daughter, Sarah.
His brother-in-law Mike immediately stepped up and took great care of Sarah for the first three years of her life. Other members of his wife’s family, like her parents, helped Mike with Sarah too.
“I helped out occasionally but not as much as my wife because I didn’t want to overstep,” he said.
“When Sarah was one, my wife got pregnant, and we started focusing on our baby. Everything went smoothly for Mike until Tracey came into the picture.”
Tracey is Mike’s new wife. At first, she was an okay stepmother to Sarah, but she eventually gave Mike an ultimatum early on.
It was either her or the baby. Then, Mike drove Sarah to her grandparent’s house, dropped her off, and never went back for her.
Not long after Mike abandoned Sarah, he and his wife decided to take her into their care and give their son an older sister.
Natalia – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
Over the years, they’ve loved Sarah like their daughter, and she calls them mom and dad. When Sarah turned 13, he and his wife legally added their last name to hers. Today, Sarah is 17-years-old and recently sat him and his wife down for a serious conversation.
Sarah asked if he and his wife could legally adopt her. Although they love her very much, they gently had to tell her no. Adoption can be an expensive process because of attorney fees and the court system, and he and his wife are in no way able to pay that kind of expense right now.
Additionally, his parents have offered to help pay the adoption fees, but his father is terminally ill, and he wants his parents to save their money while they go through a hard time.
Of course, he and his wife wanted Sarah to know how much they love her despite being unable to adopt her legally, so they tried to let her down gently.
“We were not hard with Sarah about her wanting us to adopt her,” he explained.
“We softly told her that we love her so much and to us, she is our child, and we love her just as much as we do our son. This is a delicate situation, and anyone with a brain cell would know to handle it softly.”
Unfortunately, Sarah was still hurt and left the dinner table that night to spend the night at her grandmother’s house.
Now, given Sarah’s upset reaction, he’s unsure of what to do. Are he and his wife being mean by not adopting Sarah, or are they smart to wait until they can afford it?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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