Father-in-law left MIL. What should my attitude be? (sorry, long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is not a big drama, but I’d like to hear opinions nonetheless.

First a bit of background info on the family relations in this little who’s who drama. My fiancé, Arwin, has a dad, Andrew, 59 years old. Andrew divorced Arwin’s mom when Arwin was fourteen, and married his second wife, Annie, some five years later. My fiancé, Arwin, was raised by his mom, Andrews first wife, and only saw Annie on visits.

Fast forward twenty years. Andrew has been married to Annie for twenty years. Andrew and Annie didn’t have any marital problems worth mentioning. They had a cordial, mutually supporting marriage. Both had their primary focus on their demanding and high-paying jobs, and the remainder of their energy was focused on their seventeen year-old son Luke, my fiancé Arwin’s half brother. Just a year ago, Annie and Andrew bought a new expensive apartment together. If there ever seemed a happy couple, solid dependable people, it was them. Annie welcomed me into the family and was genuinely happy to play grandmother to Andrews first grandchild, and equally delighted when she heard of my pregnancy.

I was extra glad to have Annie and Andrew as grandparents to my future kid, because all other three grandparents have sort of taken themsleves out of the equasion. My dad thinks I shouldn’t contribute to the worlds overpopulation (he’s a bit funny that way) and anyway, he feels he’s far too busy to play granddad. He’s just not interested. My mom is quite possibly the worlds biggest flake, an egotist pure and simple, and she also lives in Spain half the year. Besides’ I can’t be in her presence for more then three hours before I get so irritated I lose it. To top that, Arwins mom, who’s the other okay grandparent, lives in Spain* year-round*. So that left only Andrew and Annie. I had met Annie several times over the last two years, did my best to establish a good bond with her (as did she) and everything looked to be going well.

Then Andrew fell in love with a co-worker, Linda. After an affair of six months, he decided he was truly in love and wanted to move in with Linda. Andrew broke that news to Annie last month. Annie understandably freaked out and kicked him out. She never saw this coming. No-one in Arwin’s family did. Arwins sister is furious with her dad, calling him a big egotist.

Of course everyone in the family has dealt with Andrews’s impending divorce in a different way. Most important, to me, is of course how my fiance reacted to the news his dad left his step-mom. My fiance loves his dad, and while he likes Annie and appreciates her, (it is hard not to appreciate Annie) they aren’t really each others “type” and they aren’t close. So my fiance’s attitude amounts to: “Dad, if Linda makes you happy, I’m cool and you’ve got my blessing”.

Well, I can’t do anything but follow my fiance’s lead, can I? But, inside, I feel differently. I feel cheated of the one good set of solid, reliable, nice, warm dependable grandparents/family I had. Of course there’s nothing I can do, or should do. I can hardly call Annie, and ask her: “Yes, I know your husband left you. You still want to babysit his grandchild once a month?” I can’t even call or write her. What would I say?

Andrew recently e-mailed me and asked for my special stew-recipe. So now I’m stuck. I can’t really give my FIL a piece of my mind, which is that he robbed me of something really wirthwhile. Even I feel I should “get over it” . Yet I can’t bring myself to smile and e-mail him the damn recipe.

Sigh. Losing nice in-laws can be a bitch.

2

Ahhh…Mid-Life Crises…

I see absolutely no reason you cannot continue to be friends with and speak with Annie. It would in my opinion, be the humble and honest thing to do for you. However, that being said, I would talk to your fiance and be open and honest with your feelings. Open communication makes and breaks some of the best relationships .

3

Why can’t you call or write her? Is your husband or FIL so shallow that they’d stand in the way of the good relationship you’ve developed with her? If so, they suck and you don’t need them. It doesn’t matter what they feel. If the woman didn’t do anything to harm them, it’s none of their business whether or not you maintain contact.

Don’t let the fiance call the shots on this one. It will set the tone for your entire marriage. You are allowed to have friends that your fiance doesn’t “get.”

Good luck. Family drama can really suck if people don’t try to see things from the others’ point of view.

4

Ditto

5

Problem is that I wasn’t really friends with Annie. It was a budding MIL-relationship, not a personal friendship. The whole family thing was the basis for it, and that is gone now.

6

I don’t see any reason why you can’t still be friends with Annie. I’d be really uncomfortable associating with the FIL, myself, but since he’s your fiance’s father and your fiance is okay with what happened, you’re going to have to. If it were me, I’d tell him, in the calmest way possible, that I’m having trouble with what happened, I need time to adjust, and I would just try to limit any buddy buddy contact for awhile (have your fiance send the recipe). I mean, certainly he doesn’t think that everyone is just going to act like nothing happened.

Are you okay with your fiance’s reaction? Does this differ significantly from how you thought he viewed marriage? Because this would seriously worry me.

7

I’d like to add that I know what I’m talking about. My husband’s ex-wife is also my best friend and my son’s aunt. He’s not exactly regretting divorcing her and would probably not have much, if anything to do with her if it wasn’t for me. But she is my friend and my son’s family. That piece isn’t going to change. Everyone plays nice in the sandbox because we understand that we’re all attracted to people for different reasons. It can work if you give it half a chance.

8

Didn’t see this before I hit reply. I think you should still stay in contact with her; maybe a friendship will blossom. Not only has her husband left her, but she’s losing a huge hunk of what she thought was her family. Even if you aren’t close, it would be kind of you to reach out to her.

9

Dittoing C3’s last post. You would be doing Annie a great kindness to reach out to her and let her know how you feel (about your budding relationship). I am sure she would be touched and maybe even delighted to know that you’d consider her family even post-divorce.

10

I think you should reach out to Annie and give Andrew a piece of your mind.

He started an affair and left his wife of twenty years. The guy is a bastard. No wonder Annie is thrown for a loop.

I find it interesting your fiance is rather blase’ about the whole thing. I would take a closer look at exactly what he thinks marriage is, if it’s okay to destroy someone else’s happiness because one is horny. Just because Annie isn’t his “type,” remember she made his father “happy” for the past 20 years.

11

Kalhoun, thanks, but your situation is different from this one. With you, there’s a blood relation, your friend is your sons’ aunt. Even if your husband doesn’t want to go and see his ex, you have a good prompt to go and see her sometimes.
But I have absolutely no blood ties to Annie. I’ve got no immediate cause to go see her, and I can’t really just drop by, because she lives two hours away. I’ve seen her maybe six times in all, always during family gatherings I attended with my fiancé. It is not a existing relationship that is lost, only a potential one.

I agree that good bonds between exes and inlaws shouldn’t be broken up. For instance, I really liked my ex’s mom, he liked my dad. He encourages me to see her. For instance, during the first months of mutually awkwardness he would call me when he was at his mom’s house and after some chitchat he would find some flimsy excuse to put me on the phone with his mom. That made everyting much easier. And I did the same for him and my dad. " Hey dad! Jack said he’d like to go see that movie with you. Why don’t you call him?" But this is different.

I do appreciate the advice to share some of my feelings with Annie, though. I guess I’m afraid she will think it tasteless that I contact her to say that I will miss her.

12

Exactly.

Besides, who gets to decide for you who “family” is? *You * do. And that’s a beautiful thing.

13

He believes in “true love”. He says that while his dad liked and loved Annie, he felt their marriage was, to some extent, a marriage of convenience on both sides. And Linda, according to Andrew, isn’t the typically hot young intern; she’s in fact two years older then Annie.
I don’t know if I should be flatterered that my fiance considers me his true love, of that I should be afraid he regards “true love” as an excuse to break up a perfectly okay marriage.

14

I think you could easily write or email Annie to say that you feel badly about what’s happened and would be sorry to lose the relationship. I wouldn’t start slagging on Andrew, just express your sorrow for the breakup and for what she’s going through.

Maybe you only knew her for a little while, but she’s been “family” to Andrew’s kids for twenty years. That’s quite a blow if all of the kids dump her too. Quite possibly she enjoyed being Grandma Annie and would be very sad to not have that opportunity with your child.

Even if she and Arwin aren’t best buddies, surely he wouldn’t object to seeing her occasionally, or to you keeping in touch? If you’re going two hours for a family gathering, why not schedule in a few extra hours to see Annie? You might enlist your sister-in-law-to-be, it sounds like she might also be interested in keeping contact.

I’ve known quite a few people that kept up relationships with ex-in-laws, frequently better relationships than the in-laws had with the ex. I don’t see where this is that much different.

I have my blood relatives, and then I have my family - people I’ve chosen to make a part of my life. The two don’t necessarily coincide.

15

I really think that you should contact Annie, if only to tell her how sorry you are about the whole mess and that you do miss her. If I were her I would really appreciate that. How must she feel, having been suddenly dumped by her husband and incidentally his whole family?

Does Arwin know that this ex-marriage was one of convenience? Was he privy to the inner workings of their relationship? Was it ‘convenient’ for both of them, or just Andrew? Who says so?

16

She’s still family, really, she’s the mother of your child’s uncle. So keep in touch. See her when you can, talk by phone occassionally, send pictures, send holiday cards. It’s not much of a realtionship, but it’s cordial and you like her. There’s no reason to discontinue the friendship…you just have to restate the terms. :slight_smile:

17

Half-uncle, actually, but you’re right, there IS a blood tie. Thanks, I hadn’t realised that. :smack:

18

Thoughts I had after reading this thread yesterday and while far away from my computer

  1. There is no magic one size fits all attitude for the situation you are in.

  2. Whatever feelings you have are human and normal.

  3. On the other hand, you don’t get to arrange other people’s lives around your wishes. So it’s ok to be mad at Andrew. But, it’s not really fair to hold a grudge towards him because all the other grandparents are disinterested or flaky.

  4. Blood ties aren’t everything. So it’s ok to contact Annie and invite her to still be a part of your child’s life. And if she’s not interested, or even if she is, if you want your child to have more grandparent-like people involved, start looking around for non-blood-related grandparent-like people. My mother has had several relationships with babies/toddlers that weren’t grandparently exactly, but gave her an excuse to sit around with a sleepy baby on her shoulder while the parent ran errands or did other stuff. All these relationships have ended with either my mother or the baby’s parents moving long distances, but I really don’t think it’s delibrate. (Although, on the other hand, the newest faux-grandchild is moving to be closer to her real grandparents (both sets).)

19

This is a great idea. Poor Annie. Not only is she losing her husband, she’s losing people she probably considers her family.

My father-in-law dated a wonderful woman for awhile, and all of his grown children were sad when he broke up with her. The children still consider her a family friend, and she and his daughter (my sister-in-law) became very good friends after the break-up. She babysits my nephew once a week and, honestly, is closer to him than his grandmothers or step-grandmothers.

20

Yeah, definitely write to Annie. Tell her you’re sorry things didn’t work out, but you would still like to remain friends because she’s been so kind to you and you want your child to have a brilliant grandma like her. Annie’s feeling really down right now, probably thinking this mess is her fault, and will anybody want her now? This type of praise from the ex’s family would definitely help her self-esteem.