This might sound pretentious or trippy. But it’s just a thing I haven’t found a proper answer for.
My paternal parts of the family are all dead, no aunts, uncles or cousins alive any longer. My maternal parts of the family suck, they seriously suck, no joke. I decided not to procreate (and had a “few discretions” regarding this) because I didn’t want to pass the shitty genes, behaviour or guilt onto another generation.
I have an ex, some relations ago. And I really loved his mother, as a mother. I was a train wreck at one time, and she saved me and took care of me. I don’t care that she isn’t my real mother. But this was several years ago.
What really hurts is that my siblings and cousins tell me that what I felt for her was fake, as she is not a blood relative. As I have helped her more than I would ever have helped anyone else. I love her, but is it true love to love someone as a mother if they aren’t your biological mother?
There’s plenty of ways to point out that what your siblings are saying is just terrible and wrong on all levels, and utterly dismissive of the experience of so many adopted kids, but I think the most important thing is this: what good are words like “true” or “real” if what your siblings said were true?
It would be like if someone said that the manufactured insulin a diabetic took wasn’t real insulin. If your definition of “real” doesn’t include the thing that fulfills a things fundamental role, then your definition of real and true is reserved for useless nonsense.
This woman made you feel like you had someone looking out for you in the world, concerned for you. That is what love is. If that’s not real, then I don’t want whatever “real” is. This world is full of people who could give each other the care we each need, and anyone who thinks we need to limit that based on something as primitive as bloodlines needs is, forgive my language, an effing idiot.