Starting Over
joelen&louis
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
How is your relationship with your ex-MIL/stbxMIL?
What was your relationship with your MIL like before separation/divorce? How about after or during?
Do you or plan to continue keeping in touch (especially if you have children)?
Re: How is your relationship with your ex-MIL/stbxMIL?
I can relate to you wedding18. When I told stbxMIL, I got no response from her. Nothing even afterwards. No phone call, email, text, nothing. She left for a 2 week vacation shortly after (which was planned before our news of divorcing) and even when she got back, she made no attempt to reach out - even to hear her grandson's voice. As a mom, she really hasn't been there for her own kids as young children even now as adults. I guess I can't expect anything from her, even a response to our divorce is just too much to ask anyway.
She is a nice lady but she is really immature and has 0 self-esteem. She loved me like her daughter but I decided to not have any contacts with her anymore. There's no reason to and I wanted to move on.
ETA: XH's stepdad was actually 8 years older than XH and I and he is a Loser, with a capital L. We never had any connection, not even XH.
I used to work for my stbxIL's
Before the separation/divorce things were kinda strained not only between me and stbxMIL but also her and stbx due to issues they have.
After the initial separation things got a little worse when stbx and I agreed on our separation agreement (i got sole physical custody of the kids due to his schedule, he works nights and has a rotating time off schedule)
and then through other issues (not related to me in the slightest) they fired me, argued with me over unemployment and filling out papers so I could get food stamps to feed my kids (their grandkids!) and as such stbx and I agreed to cut off all contact between me and his family as well as between out kids and his family.
stbx has very limited contact with his mother and no contact with his step-father or 2 brothers.
I'm THRILLED that I never have to deal with his family again!
Honestly, it's horrible. I think that my relationship with her was completely contingent upon me being with her son. She also has almost no relationship with DS but she'll see him at family functions if I drop him off with XH (XH has supervised visitation right now, we're working towards small amounts of unsupervised). Anyways, XMIL is of the belief that blood is thicker than water. Even though XH was cheating on me and doing drugs WHILE I was PG, hence the reason I filed for divorce, she was angry at me for not standing by his side.
We got into a heated argument as recently as last July and I haven't spoken to her since. She wasn't even making sense and I realized that things would never be mended between us. She's a horrible woman and I don't want my child around her so it's for the best.
It's non-existent, and really, I don't have a desire for one at all.
During my marriage, she was sweet, but opinionated as all hell about everything, including what a proper Catholic wife should be like (needless to say, I wasn't it). During my divorce/separation, she was mainly silent except to offer support for our marriage (she and XFIL actually invited me to their home so that I could attend a special Mass at their church. I didn't go). Since I filed, she's been silent.
I wish her well, and don't harbor any ill-will toward her, but I don't see the point in a relationship with her, nor do I want one.
I liked my XMIL enough, (XFIL died about a year before we separated). She was always very nice to me, and I cared for her and XFIL, but there is a significant language barrier that kept us from seeking each other out alone very often. She called me a few months after I left (XH never told any of his family I moved out) and left a me a message. I called her a little after that and left her a message. I dropped off flowers for her around Mother's Day (she wasn't home) and that was that. I haven't had any contact with any of his family since them.
If I had kids, I would hope they would spend time with the kids.
My parents hated each other after they got divorced, but my mom remained close with my paternal grandparents and was invited to Christmas and other family events, and I really appreciated that. My dad was absent for a few years after the divorce, but my grandparents, aunt and uncles all remained an active part of our lives.
Similar to wedding18, I was very close to my XMIL and pretty close to my XFIL. XFIL drove me nuts at time, but honestly I thought I was really really lucky to have such great in laws and at times, I was closer wtih XMIL than my own mom and felt she saw the difficulty is XH and my relationship when no one else did. I cried and vented to her a few times and she seemed so understanding.
Until I went on a camping trip with them and only 3 days later, they helped move XH out of our condo while I was on vacation and XH called to tell me he moved out and we were through.My mom tried to call XMIL a few days after we were "done" to just talk and XMIL was total B* to my Mom, which was so unlike her.
I had a really hard time with how it all ended, especially because I felt so betrayed by XMIL. I never spoke to her after that camping trip, though I had wanted to reach out to her. I just felt in the end, it wasn't worth it. I had quite a few coounseling sessions to just deal with that alone. She was going to stand by her son, no matter what. No matter that he's cut her out of his life several times. It was just so unlike her, and I was really angry and really hurt. I had almost just as hard of a time dealing with the loss of his family as I did XH. With XH...how he left, sudden and abupt, was very much "him" and what he does/how he acts. With the XIL's, I guess I just expected more from them.
Even if things ended better, I think it would have been difficult to keep a relationship with them (not that XH would have ever allowed it), but I can see why it's worth trying a bit more if you have children (we didn't). Good luck. I know its' not easy and I'm sorry they aren't showing you any support. I guess true colors really show when the going gets tough...
I had a great relationship with all my in-laws during our marriage. EMIL went as far as to say that if it weren't for me, ex would never have the "great" job he had or have tried to go to college (which is true, even though the job was not all that great at least it was very stable).
During the divorce, EMIL called me asking me a lot of questions and crying over the demise of our marriage. I could no longer handle her calls -- I had just gone through a miscarriage and found out my ex was cheating on me. He wanted to just tell everyone that the divorce was a mutual decision. So finally I said to her, "I'm sorry you are having a hard time with this. So am I. But if you have any questions about the divorce, you need to call your son."
Since then, I will have ds call an ex-in-law if it is their birthday or mother's day or Christmas or something like that and he is with me. And EMIL always wants to chat for a bit and see how I am, which is nice of her. She no longer talks about the divorce. She just tells me she is proud to hear all the great things I am doing.
Other than that, I really only talk on a regular basis to ex's step-sister. She and I were always closer than the rest. We are very similar. And she is also a single mom, so we have that in common as well. We don't ask questions about either divorce. We simply share stories about our kids and jobs and such. Most of the time when ex goes to visit his family, he and ds stay with her because she has the most space. So I think keeping that relationship good has several benefits.
Since we don't have any kids, and I moved across the country to hide from XH, we haven't had an opportunity to talk.
I get the strong feeling that they think I should have been more gracious - and by gracious, they mean not-call-the-cop-on-him grace, move out of our house and do my best to make things easy on him, and ruin my life because he's ruined his.
I find this bitterly ironic bc MIL's first husband, my STBXH's father, beat the sshit out of her. When her son did the same thing you'd think she wouldn't like it but who cares.
I didn't really see eye to eye with my in laws. I actually haven't seen them since the night of our wedding.
When we split, ex's mom emailed my mom just to say-- sorry to hear the news, it was nice to meet you, I wish you luck, etc. I never heard from her. I didn't really expect to, though.
On the other hand, my ex husband is still very close with my family and still sees them, exchanges xmas gifts, etc.
I'm actually not sure where I stand with ex-MIL. Well technically she's not a MIL because Ex and I weren't married, but we have a DD so....
At first we had a wonderful relationship. Ex had a falling out with his mom long before I met him and I actually didn't meet her until after he and I had broken up. She was incredibly supportive and wonderful and I had no problem letting her be involved in DD's life. I went out of the way - driving 3 hours to see her and spending weekends at her house with DD for her to be involved.
Between Thanksgiving and Christmas things got a little strange. Then I found out that she had rekindled her relationship with Ex - suddenly it made sense why she was asking me if I was dating anyone, etc. and that didn't sit well with me. There was also drama about her seeing DD for Christmas. Basically she wanted me to take a weekend and go see her when she was coming down to Ex's and would see DD on Christmas Eve anyways. I said no....she acted immature and sent texts saying thanks for ruining my Christmas, etc. and I haven't spoken to her since.
We're still FB friends and I'd like to delete her just because I feel like she's spying on me and reporting to Ex. I have absolutely nothing to hide, but I don't like the feeling. However I don't want to seem petty and delete her.
For now, I'm not going to be in touch. I'd just rather not go there. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before Ex gets pissed about something and stops talking to his mom again. Then she'll come running to me and want to see DD again.
As for Ex's dad, that's a little strange too. I invited his step mom to my baby shower and never heard back, so I assumed they wanted no contact. But then a year later for DD's bday they sent a gift and a big sum of money to me and said they'd like to have a relationship with DD outside of her Dad. That threw me for a loop. I sent a thank you note and a Christmas card but haven't reached out other than that.