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.
Question about Ex-ILs and kids (Longish)
Okay, Ex and I were never married, but the best way I can describe his parents is by calling them Ex-ILs. Ex has a very on-again, off-again relationship with his mom. Mostly, he doesn't speak to her so for the last year I've maintained contact with her so that she could see DD.
She's been very dramatic and crazy lately and has been acting strange. She threw a huge fit about getting together with DD and her half brothers for Christmas and expected us to drop everything to suit her schedule and desires (she's retired). After a ton of back and forth, we came up with a date to get together. Yesterday, I find out that she's now talking to Ex again and planning to go to his house Christmas Eve to see DD and her half brothers. I'm just ticked that she expects me to travel three hours to see her for the holiday, when she's seeing everyone two weeks later. I told her that since she was seeing DD for Christmas that we wouldn't be coming up. She starts sending me texts saying..."thanks for ruining my Christmas"..."Why are you punishing me?", etc.
I have taken DD to see her so many times. Most of the time it's a weekend trip because of the distance between us. She hardly ever makes the effort to come down here, and doesn't seem to appreciate the effort I make to keep her involved. At this point, since she's now talking to her son and can see DD through him, I'd like to just wash my hands of her. I also feel like I can't trust her not to divulge personal information about me to Ex.
WWYD? Keep the relationship open, or let Ex make sure his mom sees DD? I'm leaning towards putting this responsibility on Ex.
Re: Question about Ex-ILs and kids (Longish)
I agree with this, if your X has visitation or partial custody she can see her on his time.
In my case MIL has made a couple mistakes, but has never been aggressive, threatening or acted like a child. I set up times for her to COME TO US and see DD. It is not on my shoulders to pay for gas to travel 3 hours, in the middle of winter, on a holiday to see her and her family. I am not comfortable being around all of them anyway!
DD and I will spend Christmas where we are happiest. Our holiday, our decision.
If x-mil sent me messages like that I would not speak to her at all.
Yeah, this is your ex's job. Not yours.
Like becca said, if you want to arrange times for her to come to you - go for it. But I don't know that I'd be driving 3 HOURS to go see her. Especially if she doesn't seem to really appreciate it.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
I was actually thinking about doing this. She was BSC yesterday and I don't need her drama. My family is normal....I don't need to deal with his dysfunctional family and craziness!
Thanks for all of the input. She put a major guilt trip on me yesterday which pissed me off. I'm done with her. She can guilt trip her son if she wants to see DD from now on.
I'll play devil's advocate here:
Maintaining a relationship with your daughter's grandmother is for your daughter's benefit and not for ex-MIL's benefit. Not making that effort punishes your daughter at least as much as it does MIL, if not more.
She (your daughter) may not realize what she's missing now, but chances are she'll feel cheated one day that you guys couldn't get a lot enough for her to know her family. It will only further the feeling that she has to choose between you and your ex or that you don't want her to love them. A kid should never be put in that position.
That being said, no reasonable person signs up for abuse and martyrdom like always making the 3 hr trip at their own expense to deal with someone who is abusive. Set some boundaries (give her dates, times, and locations that work for you and stick to those, if she cant make those work, then apologize that it's not going to work out for this visit and move on). Make some compromises, but don't make a victim out of yourself.
This is pretty much my point of view. BUT I still think your X should be the one to nurture a relationship between his mother and your DD.
I'm sure there are a lot of things I think my ex should do for our son that he doesn't, but I'm not going to let my son suffer for that.
Well, for now at least, Ex is stepping up and keeping the relationship up with his mom. Like I said, she was so out of line yesterday acting like she never gets to see DD. And now she needs to see her twice for Christmas? Not necessary in my book.