'AITA for disowning my adopted son after he chose his adoptive parents over us?" UPDATED

"AITA for disowning my adopted son after he chose his adoptive parents over us?"

throw_away8578 writes:

I'm M44, my husband is M40 (we've been married for 20 years, together for 22), and our adoptive son is M24. This does not take place in the US.

Let me give a little bit of background to the situation. About 19 years ago, my husband and I were driving on a highway, returning from a small vacation, when along a particularly long stretch of road (absolutely no buildings around, only a ton of grass and hills as far as the eye could see), we spotted a little boy just sitting by the side of the road.

As I mentioned, there was nothing around for miles, and no cars close to where the boy was, so we decided to stop and see if everything was okay.

When we got closer to the boy—let's call him Jason (fake name)—it was very easy to see he was dirty and malnourished since the only thing he had on were some diapers. He was so small it didn't look like he could be older than 3 (we later found out he was actually 5).

We asked him why he was alone, and he told us that "Mommy and Daddy put him here and told him to wait." There was no cell signal in the area, so we did the sensible thing and brought him back to town to the nearest police station.

To make a long story short, CPS was called, and we discovered his parents were some druggies on the run from a felony. The only other relative Jason had was his grandmother, who was very mentally ill and couldn't take care of him. He went into foster care soon after, but we felt bad for the kid and kept in touch with his case worker.

I had (and still do) an extremely well-paying job at the time and could easily afford a decent lifestyle for a small family. So, after a few months of discussions between ourselves, the case worker, and some bureaucracy, we formally adopted Jason.

Now onto the situation. About 3 years ago, Jason's parents were released from prison on parole. They contacted him not long after in hopes of reconnecting. Prior to that, they'd sent him a few odd letters here and there, but nothing substantial.

At first, he was hesitant to talk to them, but he ended up meeting them for lunch one day. I'll admit that a part of me was a bit jealous and apprehensive about what could happen. But I could see that it was really something my son wanted to do, so for his sake, I swallowed those feelings and supported him through it.

It wasn't very long—about 3 months, I think—that he started to pull away from us. At first, I chalked it up to him being excited to actually talk to his bio-parents after so long. Talk about what had been going on in his life, spend some time with them, etc.

It started to bother me when he'd cancel plans with us at the last minute because "Mom had an emergency" or "Dad really needs me to help him with something today," or whatever other excuse he could come up with.

He used to come over to our house at least once a week, call every day or so, but now we were lucky if he even came by that month. Again, I thought that was just temporary, that he was just excited, and soon enough he'd start spending time with us again.

We were overjoyed when he invited us over to dinner one night. It was supposed to be a family gathering—us, his bio-parents, and his wife (girlfriend at the time).

I wasn't exactly keen on meeting the people who had left my son for dead on the side of the road, but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe they'd atoned and changed. Besides, he's our son, and we love him. We had to at least try.

To say the dinner was a disaster is an understatement. His bio-mom was extremely rude to my husband and me the entire night, making passive-aggressive remarks every chance she got. His father was much the same. It all came to a head when she straight-up threw a glass at my husband. A screaming match followed, and we left soon after.

Jason apologized profusely the next day and promised they'd never do something like that again. I told him neither my husband nor I wanted to have anything to do with them, and we would appreciate it if he understood that. He seemed to, but he continued to pull away in the next few months.

And that leads to what happened last week. Jason proposed to his girlfriend about 9 months ago and has been preparing for the wedding since. Of course, we were overjoyed for him. But a few months went by and no invitation came. Every time we asked, Jason would say they hadn't been sent out yet and change the subject.

Well, last week my husband saw a Twitter post from one of Jason's friends, his groomsman, with the invitation in hand, dated a few weeks back. We confronted Jason about it the next time he came over, only for him to drop the bomb on us that we hadn't been invited.

We asked why, and he said "his parents" didn't want us there and wouldn't come if we did. I was furious. I asked him how he could choose those pieces of trash over us? Why they were so important? What did we do to deserve this kind of treatment? His answer? "They understand me better. They're my people."

At this point, my husband was crying, asking how he could do this. I've only ever been truly angry a few times in my life, and this moment managed to top all of them. I threw him out right then and there and told him to never come back. That he wasn't our son anymore. I spent the rest of the day hugging my husband and trying to calm him down.

The next day, I canceled everything we'd paid for the wedding, which was basically everything important, even the ones we couldn't get a refund on. Of course, Jason had the gall to call and scream at me, asking how I could do that to him, where would he find replacements for a wedding that was supposed to happen only a few months from now?

I told him I didn't give a sh%t and said, "Maybe you should ask those two leeches you call parents for some help." 19 years. 19 F%$#ING YEARS of my goddamn life spent raising and loving a kid that I considered my own son, only to be treated like garbage. Giving blood, sweat, and tears so he would have a good life, all the love we could possibly give, and that's what we get as a reward.

As for why I'm asking if I'm the AH, some people have been calling and messaging us (mostly Jason's friends and a few of our family members) calling us heartless and monsters for doing what we did to him. And that's honestly got me questioning if I went a bit too far in anger.

After all, parents are supposed to love unconditionally, right? But if so, how do we ever get over something like this? How can we deal with this feeling of betrayal? Are we justified in feeling like this? So, AITA?

UPDATE after the comments:

Here are the top comments:

fatalcyborg says:

NTA (Not the A^@$ole). I’m adopted and I couldn’t imagine doing this to my mom and dad in a million years. We have had our ups and downs, but they are still my parents. I’ve met my biological parents and they’re barely better than OP’s sons’s parents. My heart breaks for OP and his husband.

ColSubway says:

Forget everything else: why would you pay for a wedding you aren't even invited to?

medium_buffalo_wings says:

NTA. Did he seriously, seriously, expect you to pay for a wedding you weren't even fu%@^ng invited to? The goddamn audacity of it has MY blood boiling.

OP provided an update with more context:

Did Jason go to therapy? Yes, he did. It was mandated by CPS (even though they don't really enforce it), and we knew that a kid in his situation would need professional help for a long time.

This is not in the US. I don't mean the USCPS. I'm just using the acronym to talk about the CPS we have over here because, at the end of the day, it's easier than constantly saying "our version of child protective services" or something similar.

What does his fiancée think of all of this? I don't know. We haven't really talked in a while, and I've been avoiding looking at my messages. I will probably take a look today if only to have an idea of what's been going on.

Two gay men married and adopting a child in 2004-2005??? It's a bit weird that some people still think that you need a piece of paper that recognizes you and your partner as married for you to use the title. Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, my husband and I did not legally marry in 2004.

The most we could do at the time was enter a legal partnership, which we did. We had a small private ceremony and have considered ourselves husbands ever since. We did legally marry as soon as it became legal. As for Jason's adoption, the foster system here is an absolute mess.

Now, at that time, two men adopting a child would have been really hard, yes, but not impossible, especially since his case worker was in favor of it after we'd had legal guardianship of him for a while.

I have an extremely well-paying job, and over here, even if you can barely feed yourself, there's a good chance you'd be able to adopt. There are a ton of kids in need, and the system is oversaturated, so it wasn't that hard to get it going.

You're mad just because you weren't invited to the wedding. After rereading my post, I can see why some of you think that, and I'd like to clarify my feelings. Not being invited to the wedding isn't the reason I'm mad. It stings, sure, but I'm mad at Jason for the things he said and the complete lack of consideration he had for me and his father.

We were the ones who raised him, who loved him. We were there when he first rode a bike, for every single one of his robotics competitions, his piano recitals, his first breakup, his disagreements with friends, the sleepless nights helping him study for exams, etc. I love him with all my heart.

He's my son. And he let his bio-parents treat us the way they did and didn't even have the decency to tell us we weren't invited to the wedding. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, and one that really hurt. The city we live in is very racially diverse, so it's not like we even had to go out of our way so he could socialize with people that look like him.

You were paying for the wedding but didn't know when it was going to happen? Of course I knew the date. When I mention an invite, it's because we were waiting for the formal invitation he would send out. Jason had complete control over the guest list since he was the one in contact with the planner. We only paid for it.

They got out of prison at the same time? I'm not sure about the specifics of their case, since it wasn't really any of our business nor were we involved besides giving a written testimony of finding Jason, but I do know they were charged with the same sentence. And like I said in my post, they are out on parole.

What do you think?