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[quote=Anonymous]My brother 'Mike' married "Sally' when they were both early twenties. They partied a lot and generally were very non responsible young adults. Then Sally got pregnant and they had two girls within 18 months. My brother took to being a dad and got his act together and did a lot of the child care. Sally resented having kids and still partied a lot and wasn't overly involved with the kids. When the girls were 2 and 3 Sally had an affair and left my brother and the kids and moved in with "Fred". For most of the next year, she sporadically saw the kids but they lived with my brother. Then at some point her lawyer told her about needing to have the kids to get custody / child support. So one weekend while my brother and kids were away, she went into the house and removed everything that belonged to the kids or was joint property and  moved it into her house. The only things left in the house were what my brother owned before the marriage. The kids rooms were 100% empty, she even took the cutlery. That is what they came home to. Then she told my brother she was coming to get the kids to live with her and that if he didn't give them to her she had taken pictures of the empty house to show he didn't have the basic necessities. My brother let her take the kids as there weren't any beds for them or even plates / cups and he didn't have much money to replace it all. She made it really difficult for him to see the kids for the next few months until court. In court she was given full custody with him getting every other weekend and the occasional weekday. He was gutted. (This was more than 20 years ago).

Once she had the order and the child support, she started dropping the kids off to him more and more as she wanted to go out etc. So pretty much he had them whenever he wasn't working. He could barely make ends meet and we helped him a lot as financially he was providing for most things for the kids and also paying her full custody child support. He went back to court twice over the next few years, showing how much he had the kids and trying to get more custody / less support but lost both times. Sally made his life as difficult as possible over the years- also impacting the kids. The kids as they got older wanted to live with him and by the time they were pre teens, they both were resisting all contact with Sally. He went back to court for a third time and won full custody when the girls were 11 and 13.  The 13 year old was particularly angry with her mother and wanted nothing to do with her. My brother insisted they maintain contact with their mother and through therapy and my brother being a saint and continually nurturing their relationship with Sally, they were having weekend visits with her within a couple years, although the relationship was still very strained. by the time the girls were getting towards adulthood, Sally had gotten into a very stable relationship and had become a more stable person and decided she wanted a healthier relationship with her kids. When the girls were in their early twenties, they really started to bond with her again.

My oldest niece is now 30 and has two young kids of her own. She is now very close to her mom and in many ways 'chooses' her over my brother in terms of time, invites, involvement etc. My brother still has a great relationship with both girls but the oldest one particularly has shifted to mom. I know it hurts my brother when he doesn't get invited to things or when he sees that Sally is always babysitting or at their home. Sally posts on social media as though she is the family matriarch. My brother is still a saint about it and basically says he is happy that the girls get an adulthood with good relationships with both parents as they didn't get that as kids / teens.

I don't know why it bothers me so much. I watched the suffering my brother went through for almost twenty years. Few people have any idea of the toll that took on my brother. He was broken so many times. He struggled financially every single day and had to continually fight a system that was against him. She made his life a living hell for so many years. I feel like she is still manipulating by trying to push my brother aside and fill all the grandparent space. My niece just seems happy to take anything her mom will give without really much thought for how this impacts her dad. I just immediately get angry when I see Sally. I want her to at least acknowledge what she did but she isn't going to do that. I am invited to a birthday at their house for my niece's daughter and I know Sally will be there and I don't even want to go. I hate this is also impacting my relationship with my niece and her kids but I can't seem to just let go of what she did to my brother, and the kids all those years. It impacted my parents as well and I see the damage in the wake of all that and it is as though she had no consequences. [/quote]

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