If you're introducing a significant other over zoom
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Anonymous
| you should still give your family a heads up in advance, just like if you're bringing a significant other in person to a holiday. My brother just introduced his girlfriend over Zoom. it was the first time any of us had met her. It wasn't super awkward, thank goodness, but a heads up would have been nice. He and his wife of 8 years divorced earlier this year. I really miss her, and frankly because my brother and I don't live close I haven't actually told my kids he and their aunt got divorced. Thank goodness none of them asked where Aunt ___ was! |
Anonymous
| In these circumstances I understand why you all felt blindsided, but in general, people don't need to give a heads up about a significant other in a virtual call. |
Anonymous
| LOOOOOOOOL Well surprise. |
Anonymous
| At least the pandemic hasn't taken Thanksgiving shenanigans from us! |
Anonymous
| What? You don’t need to give a heads up for this. Did you need to prepare yourself, OP? Lol. |
Anonymous
| Why wouldn't you tell your kids he got a divorce??? |
Anonymous
Seriously, that is the only weird part of the story. |
Anonymous
I really saw no reason to tell them. My brother and his wife decided to divorce well into the pandemic shut down this past Spring. My brother isn't taking any precautions and my family has a risky health condition so there is zero way we would be seeing him. It just wasn't relevant to their lives. I'm not close enough to my brother that we're zooming with him every day and the kids would notice their aunt wasn't there. I just thought it was a little weird of my brother not to say "hey, I have a girl friend, she'll be joining the family zoom on Thanksgiving." Not everyone in my family (siblings and parents) knew he had a girl friend, and some hurt feelings surfaced after the call for some who didn't know he had a girl friend. He rarely shows up to family zooms anyway, so it was a pleasant surprise he even joined. I just can't imagine anyone showing up with a significant other to an in person family holiday meal without letting people know. A zoom on Thanksgiving didn't seem much different to me in that respect. I guess plenty of other people disagree. |
Anonymous
This is not a problem. If Your family isn’t close enough that you didn’t feel you needed to explain the divorce to your kids, then your family isn’t close enough to be ticked off at not receiving heads up about a new girlfriend. It was a video chat. This is ridiculous |
Anonymous
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I get not telling the kids. We are close to our in-laws so right before holiday gathering we had to “break” their divorce news to our very sheltered kids.... 4 and 9 at the time. It’s crazy but we see them a lot, our kids are close and close in age, and we felt like their news was impactful to our kids as well. “Cousin Larla is going to be spending time with her other extended family during the holiday so you won’t see her for x y z traditional family activity ”. We tried to make it sound exciting. “Cousin Larla gets 2 xmases”. And had to temper that with, but DH And I are staying together.
Anyway....everyone showed up fir the holiday gathering and they ended up reconciling. And so my kids commenced to asking embarrassing questions like “so you don’t get 2 holidays now”. So I get why OP wouldn’t need to tell her kids if they don’t see the in-laws often. It’s just more confusion and unnecessary lessons in “uncle loves another woman now”. |
Anonymous
| I’ll add that my 4yo had a complete meltdown when non-tactful DH told her she would prob never see her aunt again. |
Anonymous
| Can't imagine not telling my kids that their uncle was getting divorced. Very odd. |
Anonymous
You have to say something when you bring someone in person because this person needs to be fed and will be a guest in someone’s house. It doesn’t sound like he’s very close to people anyway, so not sure why would be expecting a play-by-play of his life. This new girlfriend may not be particularly important to him right now. I think you are making too much of it. |
Anonymous
| I agree OP it's weird at the least and rude at the most not ty say anything, and if I had an SO who did such a thing it would yellow flag me that they had bad mannes, lacked consideration and probably weren't too serious about me. |
Anonymous
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Tell your kids about the divorce!
And yes, he definitely should have given a heads up that he’s bringing his new girlfriend (to the zoom, to family dinner, whatever). |