Living, Getting the Paperwork Started (20 months)

[adinva]

My sister left her family about 10 or 12 years ago, when the youngest was in kindergarten and the oldest starting high school, and that's the first and almost only example I have in my life of divorced-with-kids. I watched how my parents did what was sometimes very difficult and they persevered to communicate with her XH and have a relationship with their grandkids.

They flew out and stayed in his house with them, they called, IM'd, sent cards and letters and gifts, and bent over backwards to make sure those kids knew their extended family was still their extended family.

I thought that was nice, and I hoped my kids might benefit from that if I could avoid being a barrier, maybe be a facilitator.

I'm trying to learn how to take a more appropriate role. I'm trying to unlearn years of trying to get along and really be an outstanding daughter in law with a MIL who was on the surface sweet as pie and under the surface quite difficult. I don't know why it was important for me to be outstanding, I don't know why it still is, I don't know why it's hard to let go of behaviors that were hard to learn in the first place.

But the example my parents set is what I was wishing for for my kids, and I guess I can't make that happen or even really facilitate it.