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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP they are freezing you out on purpose because they know that if they're nice to you, you'll escalate your demands. You have an image of a blended family in your mind and if they show you any minor courtesy it makes you think you can implement it. So they have to be super cold to you to stop you from pressuring them. It's like when someone wants to date you and you don't want to date them-- they can't give you any encouragement and mixed messages make it worse. My mom is like this too, so I've had a freeze on her boyfriend and his family for 20 years. It isn't gonna change.

You need to ask yourself how this looks 5, 10, 15 years from now. Because they aren't going to come around. Your kids can spend holidays with your ex, I hope, if you choose this situation over time with your kids. His kids have nowhere else to go. So are you hoping they never come home? I just don't see how these ingredients produce an acceptable family life for anyone.[/quote]

15 years from now his kids will be adults.  Are you seriously advocating adult kids having veto power over their divorced parent's choice of new partner? I get that you may not like that your father has a new partner, but if you're an adult, your choices are to accept it or to stay away. If you must get together for holidays, it looks sort of childish to affect complete coldness out of fear that you may be pressured to do more if you show the slightest bit of courtesy. [/quote]

I'm not advocating veto power, I'm suggesting to OP that she needs to consider her options. This may never change. Her boyfriend is not willing to do anything about it. Seems like a roll of the dice whether they will come around, at best. She has a boyfriend problem here.

Unfortunately my coldness to my mother's partner and his kids is necessary because it's the only way to get my mother to respect my boundaries. I wish we could all be cordially impersonal, but time has taught me that she will never settle for less than the close "blended" family of her imagination and will never acknowledge the very real obstacles to that happening. So, coldness it is. I genuinely wish it were different, but when people can't accept that others have boundaries, relationships don't go well.[/quote]

Your answers are informed by your own scenario that may well have nothing to do with what OP is dealing with. [/quote]

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