Reply to Anyone have a good relationship with their ex-ILs?

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm not sure I have advice either. I have a friendly but guarded relationship with the ex-ILs. But in my case, XH was abusive and dropped out of DC's life pretty quickly. My DC is very young still, he has no memory of living with his father and we moved away from the ex-ILs when DC was 2, so there wasn't really an established relationship that was disrupted by the divorce.

The ex-ILs reached out to me about 2yrs after the divorce (which was very nasty) because they had no contact with DC through XH and XH eventually burned his bridges with them. We are not friends, but we are friendly. XH is not a topic we discuss and I tend to shut down any personal questions (about career, finances, dating, my family, any upcoming court actions, etc) pretty quickly. The few times I've loosened those boundaries ended in drama, so I just keep it totally focused on DC now.

I know they love DC and they come visit 2-3x/yr for 4-5 days. They stay in a hotel, I have them over for dinner one night, meet them for dinner at a restaurant one night and the rest of the time they spend with DC one-on-one doing kid-grandparent stuff like visiting museums, etc.

They send packages every other month or so, I send them pictures and drawings that DC does, and I think after their next visit, we're going to discuss Skyping.

I think the key is to keep it child-focused. Try and keep up the same relationship your kids have now with their grandparents, but let go of any expectations with your relationship with them. I made a deliberate effort to speak of and think of them not as MY ex-ILs or XH's family, but as DC's grandparents. That shift in thinking helps.

You don't know how they're going to react to the divorce, I had a great, very friendly relationship with them and less than 24 hours after filing, they refused any contact with me (that lasted 6mo) and immediately bought all the crap that XH fed them. They even tried to convince the lawyers that I was an unfit mother. Take it slow, keep the focus on your kids and accept that it will never be the same.[/quote]

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