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Success after IF
Anyone else estranged from family?
My husband's brother stopped talking to his family in Dec. '09. We still don't know for sure why. One day he just cut off all contact. When my husband tried to extend an olive branch and called his brother last March for his birthday, his brother pretended he didn't know who my husband was.
All this happened just as my SIL (brother's wife) and I were becoming very close. She did IVF for her kids and we had connected over IF. We were all excited that K and their youngest son were only a year apart in age.
I tried to reach out to her via FB but she responded by defriending me. However, all her pics are public and my two nephews are still FB friends with her so they keep me updated on what's going on. I just spent some time looking through photos of my niece and nephews and now I feel like hiding in the bathroom at work and crying. Her twins are getting SO big and the youngest is growing like a weed. We barely met him before the falling out. And seeing all these pics of them with her family doing fun things makes me sick to my stomach.
I guess what I'm looking for is coping advice. My husband and I don't really talk about this anymore, except when something comes up like my MIL getting a Christmas card from the brother this year. He's extremely hurt by this whole thing because his brother used to be his best friend. I feel bad bringing up how I feel since it just upsets him, but I'm really hurting.
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Re: Anyone else estranged from family?
We are estranged from my FIL and for a few years we were estranged from my BIL although we knew the reasons for the estrangements. My FIL is an awful man and we know our lives are much better without him in it but it is still hard for DH sometimes since he feels like he no longer has a father. When DH and I started dating 10 years ago I urged them to reunite since it bothered him so much and it turned into a disaster. Father's Day is pretty much the worst day in our house every year.
The BIL issue lasted over four years and really bothered everyone involved. DH's grandmother passed away and we were never told. My FIL told my BIL not to tell us since we had no right to know and that he was going to try and sue for the portion of money(we are not talking a lot of money here) that the grandmother left us. (FIL was taken out of the will because he is such as a$$) We found out a few months later when the lawyer sent us paperwork in the mail. All DH wanted was an apology from his brother saying he was wrong for not telling us she passed and BIL just wouldn't do it. When we had Jax they finally made up, BIL is much younger than us and he finally matured enough to admit he made a mistake and things are going well so far.
Unfortunately I don't have any advice, I just wanted to give some ((hugs)) It's a sucky situation to be in.
Daycare is SO exhausting!
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My former best friend stopped talking to me about a year ago and I don't know why... not knowing why is the hardest part. But family? Cutting off family, especially a brother who used to be a best friend, is HUGE. I can't even imagine. I probably wouldn't be able to keep myself from demanding, repeatedly, to know WHY they did it.
My DH was disowned by his entire family in November for a reason that is so ridiculous I can't stand it. Basically, his mother is like a two-year-old having a tantrum, and the rest of the family is apparently "being supportive" of her crazy overreaction. I want to reach out to them and make them understand, but I know it wouldn't do any good. What upsets me most is that MIL doesn't seem to care that she's also losing her grandson in this mess.
Anyway. I don't have any advice for you, really. I hope that someday your BIL will come around and realize that, whatever his reasons were, life's too short, and family is important.
Thanks ladies. And I'm sorry for your own estrangements.
I think this is so difficult for me because (1) I don't have siblings so I don't understand the dynamic and (2) it isn't my family so I don't know all the history. I do know that this is one stubborn family and they all have quick tempers. When the initial cut-off happened I think we all thought it would blow over, hence my husband calling his brother for his birthday a few months later.
I don't know...I just hate it. How could his brother just stop talking to his entire family? What kind of person does that for no good reason? I just can't wrap my head around it.
What kills me is that we're all missing invaluable time with their kids, time we won't get back. And who knows what the parents have told them about us all. My niece and I were really close before all this.
I'm sorry. It is awful and ridiculous.
I feel the same about my/DH's situation in that I can't truly understand the dynamics of DH's family, and I agree that being an only child makes the whole thing even harder to comprehend.
On one hand I want to make it all better for my DH -- seriously, his dad died in September, and then the rest of the family disowned him in November. He won't admit it, but he has to be hurting. On the other hand, I think we're better off without them and I'm actually getting a good hate on for MIL. And the only child involved (besides DS) is our 16yo nephew who is so completely focused on video games that he would barely speak to us when we saw him.
I'm so sorry about your husband. I can't imagine disowning your son. I'm sure he's upset. Blah.
I can see why you don't understand why someone would cut a family member out, but there is usually either a lot of background info/problems or unstable individuals. OP, I hope that things get better, or, at least that you learn why your BIL is behaving this way.
I've been estranged from my dad's family since his death in 2004. His mother is awful and when he passed away she basically blackmailed me in order for me to sign over control of his remains to her. She threatened my mom's family and said some really awful things about my mom to both me and my maternal grandparents so I told her off and have never talked to any of them again. A cousin has tried to contact me (he ended up marrying a girl I knew decently well in high school) but I just would rather not get involved in that mess of a family anymore.
My husband and I are estranged from his brother as well and we're slowly becoming estranged from his mother's side of the family. His brother said some really, really hurtful things to us after I miscarried (basically, that we deserved the miscarriage because we were mean to him) and given his criminal past, we cut him off and have been happier because of it. The rest of DH's family...they're a mess. They don't communicate and ended up ruining my first mother's day because they made plans with us and then changed them at the last minute, not telling us until the morning of mother's day that nothing was going on. Then I was told I should just be happy to have my kids and not upset that I didn't even get to see my own mom. Yeah, still pissed about that.
My husband feels guilty at times, but most of the time we're happy not to have the useless drama. Not knowing the reason would bother me, but at some point I think you just have to let it be what it is. Family doesn't have to like each other and sometimes just not having anything to do with them is better.
Because we're fancy like that.
I was just sharing my experiences from someone that did the cutting of ties. I think if these family members have cut ties with you and they will not get into the reasons (and continue to pull away when you try to find out their reasons) then maybe you just have to say alright, I tried. If they don't want to explain the reasons why they've become estranged from you, then they're not going to. All you can really do is wish them well and maybe if they come to a point of wanting contact with you again, they'll come to you.
What you said here makes perfect sense in my brain, but in my heart I'm hurting. I wish I could just let it go but it isn't that simple for me. I'm trying because, like you said, I can't force them to talk to me. I just hate the situation.
Oh,I know it sucks. Especially since we had kids I get into these phases where I worry about robbing my kids of my dad's parents (who are still alive) and wonder if maybe they've changed and aren't awful anymore. I worry about when/if my kids ask about them what I'm going to say. I know my husband's brother has expressed interest in seeing our kids and honestly, he's more interested in seeing them and having a relationship with them than other members of DH's mom's family that have never seen them (and that live within 30 minutes of us).
It's a deeply personal thing to sever a family tie, especially if you're the one that didn't sever it. It's akin to grieving a death because you want a relationship with them but they don't and on top of that (in your situation) they won't even tell you why. We grow up with these images of having meaningful family relationships, especially with our kids. I think it's always going to hurt and it's going to take time to adjust to life without them. I'm really sorry it's so painful for you and I hope that one day they'll come to you to renew the relationship.