What It’s Like to Love an Adoptee: Being Seen, Staying, and Learning Along the Way

May 07, 2026

In this deeply personal and relational episode, Julie sits down with her longtime friend Cathy Rosenquist - someone who has had a front-row seat to some of Julie’s most defining seasons.

From loss and reunion to therapy, identity, and divorce… Cathy didn’t just hear about it. She lived alongside it.

This conversation offers something rarely spoken about in adoption spaces:

What is it like to love an adoptee through it?

Through honest reflection, Cathy shares what she saw, what she didn’t understand at first, and what helped most - not from a place of expertise, but from curiosity, humility, and a willingness to stay.

Together, they explore how patterns rooted in early disruption can show up in relationships, the impact of feeling like you have to earn acceptance, and what begins to shift when someone chooses to truly see you.

This episode is for adoptees and for the people who love them.

Because healing doesn’t happen in isolation.
It happens in relationship.

Keywords

adoption, adoptee healing, relationships, friendship, trauma, identity, belonging, emotional safety, connection, self-trust, attachment, support systems

Key Topics

What it’s like to walk alongside an adoptee through grief, reunion, and identity work
Patterns of people-pleasing, fear, and the need for acceptance
The gap between outward confidence and internal self-trust
Why adoptees may struggle to use their voice - even when they seem expressive
Moving from “something is wrong with me” to building self-trust
Letting go of fixing and learning to simply be present
The power of curiosity over assumption in relationships
How consistent, intentional connection builds safety and trust

Takeaways

You don’t need to fully understand someone to stay with them
Curiosity creates connection - assumption creates distance
Many adoptee patterns are rooted in a deep need to feel safe and accepted
Being “seen” without being fixed can be profoundly healing
Relationships that last are built through intentional presence
You don’t have to have the right words - just a willingness to stay
Healing often happens when someone defies the expectation that they will leave

Chapters

00:00 – A friendship built over 14 years
03:00 – How Julie and Cathy first met
06:00 – What Cathy saw over the years
10:30 – Witnessing grief, discovery, and transformation
13:30 – Patterns Julie couldn’t see at the time
18:00 – The shoes story and learning self-trust
20:30 – What Cathy misunderstood about adoption
24:30 – Moving beyond the “rescue” narrative
28:00 – Witnessing reunion, grief, and complexity
31:00 – Trying to understand the adoptee experience
35:00 – Why the timeline mattered
38:00 – What actually helped in the friendship
41:00 – Learning to ask, “What do you need?”
43:30 – Sitting with what couldn’t be fixed
46:00 – Finding and trusting Julie’s voice
49:00 – How friendship changed Cathy
52:00 – What people who love adoptees need to know
53:30 – “You’ve got this” and closing reflections