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Mea culpa.
Today 09:54 AM
Today 11:43 AM
2 Replies, 82 Views
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» I fancied my own son |
Barbara Gonyo gave her son up for adoption when she was 16. Twenty-six years later they were reunited but to Barbara's horror she discovered she felt more like his lover than his mother. By Gabriel Roberts.
Blushing like a teenager Barbara Gonyo positioned herself carefully on the sofa next to her son, Mitch*, and flirtatiously threw her legs over his. She longed to feel his embrace, but Mitch's uncomfortable expression made her realize she'd gone too far this time. As her son made his excuses and left, Barbara began plotting how she could get him to come and see her again.
Barbara had given up her son for adoption when she was just 16 years old and finally found him 26 years later, when she was 42. Perhaps, not surprisingly, she'd envisaged that the hardest stage of her quest would be the search for her son. But once she'd made up her mind to find him, it was surprisingly easy to track him down. The real problems only began as she tried to establish her role in his life.
"In the beginning we spoke every day on the phone and saw each other regularly," recalls Barbara, now 65. "I felt like a teenager again, unable to get through a day without phone contact."
Barbara was smitten from the word go. "It was a honeymoon period - I wanted to smell him and run my fingers through his hair. I saw so much of myself in him, and he also reminded me of his father, my first love," she says.
Barbara is convinced that her craving for physical intimacy with her son was the delayed by-product of "missed bonding", which would have normally taken place between a mother and her newborn infant. She also believes her growing romantic feelings for her son came about because she was asked to relinquish any motherly impulses. "Mitch called me Mum only in the first month." says Barbara, who lives in Mount Prospect, Illinois. "His adopted mother found out and cried, and he never called me Mum again. Instead, he requested I view him as a friend. I was Barb, not Mum. I had to try to remember he had another mother, and that I wouldn't be able to take her place."
"My behavior was atrocious," she says. "I was flirtatious, coquettish and playful. When I was getting ready to see him, I primped and preened, becoming like a 16-year-old in mind and body. I was trying to win him over, like someone I wanted to date or marry. I knew I couldn't be his mother, because he had one, so the next best thing would be the next best kind of a relationship - a lover. After all, what could be more intimate?”
Barbara, who married her second husband, Bob, in 1966, admits that what saved her own marriage and enabled her eventually to build a healthy relationship with her son was that she didn’t have sex with him because he showed no interest. Instead, she directed her heightened sex drive towards her marriage. Even so, it didn’t prevent her feeling attracted to her son.
“I’d make up excuses for my son to come around, and even though he told me he wasn’t a touch-feely person, I couldn’t control myself. When my hugs lasted too long I’d feel him tense up. I knew he wasn’t comfortable but I couldn’t help myself. I was aching for him.”
Barbara also acknowledges that her character – she’s straight talking and no-nonsense – probably helped her to negotiate her way round a potentially explosive situation. Instead of hiding her feelings, she decided to share them with her adoption support group and eventually she wrote a book about her experiences called The Forbidden Love.
“My parents told me I couldn’t keep my son because of what the neighbors would think, so I had to give him up. Ever since, I’ve refused to keep quiet,” explains Barbara. “I don’t care what other people think because I’m not prepared to ruin my life again just to save other people from embarrassment.”
Barbara admits that, when she shared her feelings, some of the members of her adoption support group were less than sympathetic.
“One girl told me that she fantasized about having a pillow fight in her underwear with her new-found brother. A few days after the meeting, another member of the group told me she suspected that her husband was having the same feelings for his birth mother, but was too afraid to say anything.”
Barbara tried to talk to Mitch about her feelings, but he has always refused to be drawn on the subject.
However, since talking about her situation, Barbara has become the world’s leading expert in Genetic Sexual Attraction or GSA.
Over the years, I have received hundreds of e-mails, calls and letters from people who have the same feelings of overwhelming sexual attraction for relatives they have met for the first time years later,” says Barbara. “Sometimes that act on them and sometimes they don’t, but their stories are often heartbreaking. I try not to judge, but I do warn them against consummating the relationship as it might end up destroying everything.”
Barbara has successfully come to terms with her feelings for her son, although she, admits that it took her nearly 13 years to do so.
“When Mitch got married 12 years ago, I realized I could happily relinquish him,” says Barbara. “I really liked his wife, and I knew she didn’t want to split us up, unlike some of his previous girlfriends.”
Nowadays she sees her son and his family about twice a year, and accepts her position on the fringes of Mitch’s life.
“His children still don’t know that I’m his birth mother,” she says. “I’m happy to have what I’ve got. Mitch has read the book and has never told me not to talk about GSA, so I take that as a kind of acceptance.”
The low-down on Genetic Sexual Attraction
The phenomenon of relations who are separated at birth or at a very young age and become attracted to each other when they are reunited in later life is known as Genetic Sexual Attraction or GSA.
Growing awareness of the potentially devastating effect of GSA has led to many organizations to warn any clients about it if they are attempting to trace relatives. And many professionals believe the problem could escalate with future reunions between children born through IVF involving sperm and egg donors.
“GSA associated with IVF births is a time bomb waiting to go off,” says Sue Cowling, Deputy Director of the Post-Adoption Center. In February this year, Tony Smedley, 46, a Scarborough police officer, hit the headlines after admitting a nine-month affair with his 41-year-old half-sister, Janet Paveling.
York Crown Court heard that Smedley was taken into care at an early age and had no contact with his mother or two half-sisters. He was reunited with Janet, in 2000. Although both were married with children, they began a relationship that was discovered when colleagues, searching Smedley’s locker for a missing file, found love letters from Mrs. Paveling. Smedley escaped imprisonment but left his job and now both are trying to rebuild their lives.
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