I'm sorry -- I am just struggling to find words. I'm not trying to sound pessimistic at all. I have had to come to grips with the sins of others when they are committed against me or my loved ones. And it is through the admission of my own sins, my own sinful nature, that I am humbled into realizing that we are all guilty and for which I am trying desperately to learn compassion and patience. My history is littered with anger and unforgiveness, a hard-nosed sense of justice intolerant of wrongs done by others. I know that by degrees, only by degrees, my own trespasses pale in comparison to so many others, but I am convicted by the Holy Spirit to realize that is no excuse. Christ died for all of our sins, theirs as well as my own. So I get down off my own high horse and try to forgive them. It is one of the most difficult things I ever struggle with, constantly.
So, yeah, I hate what your H and your family have been doing to you -- I can hate their sins -- but at the same time try to look on them with pity, just as I look on so many other clueless people who unwittingly (or worse knowingly) cause harm to others. That's not easy, I know, but then I realize that they are almost certainly hurting themselves as much or more than the objects of their sins.
Think on it, Tal, your H, your brother, sister, mother, they are all -- through their silly, childish selfishness -- depriving themselves of spending quality time with you and your two sweet boys. It is their loss. Compare them with my brother and his children and my own mother -- they each live over 800 miles away and would like nothing more than for all of us to be within an easy drive of each other. Part of this is the "absence makes the heart grow fonder" effect, of course, but to have your kin so close is really a blessing. It's sad your siblings cannot see that -- but again, that is their loss.
I know you feel your children are being slighted, and they are indeed to a degree. But while these family members are so blind and self-centered perhaps it is, in one way, a blessing in and of itself that your sons are not regularly exposed to such poor behavior. Perhaps?
What I pray for is that all such blind, witless folks learn to wake up, before it is too late. Life is too short and children grow up even faster -- soon these children will be grown and have adapted to not having the care and love of those who would not give it. They will have bonded with you and others who did/do. But the scrooges will be left out in the cold.
Your H is the one most vulnerable here, and it sounds like his pride and self-centeredness will cost him the most valuable gift this life has to offer. Even if he manages to amend his relationship with you and your boys, until that day this will still be time he will never get back. Ever. Such a loss. To quote the eloquent Mr. T, "I pity the fool!" (for once that old catchphrase is spot on.)
