Hopefully your sister's conduct will be forgiven. You should teach her not to cheat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Losing their uncle with be less of an emotional blow than losing respect for you. When the kids are older - and it becomes known re: who cheated on who, then you have sent a message to your kids re cheating being ok. A huge message. Forget about your shortcomings - whatever that story is. Do not mention to your kids. They don't need to know.

Wow, totally off. My sister cheated on her husband. My ex-husband cheated on me. Thus my conflicted feelings and difficulty separating my own bias. And maybe my identification with my BIL and how unfair it seems to cast him out when my sister left him. Yes, I'm disappointed in my sister's behavior. And I'm angry, but then I remember that blame doesn't help. Both situations are more complicated than they seem. Neglect, emotional abuse, etc. Would I be setting a better example by disowning my sister for her poor choices? Kids are in the middle now. I still love my BIL, and so do my kids. It's a mess.

And I am sure he still loves you all too, but this is the reality of this type of situation. If it was ugly and contentious there is no such thing as "neutral", even if we wish there were, feelings will be involved and you may hurt your sister whether its rational or fair of her or not.

I think distance is the only way to handle this right now. Of course if you run into him, about town or something, sure stop and chat and all that, but it just takes time to have this heal and come full circle. My own parents are divorced (I was in HS) and its only in the last few years since my younger siblings have been getting married that my parents have had real conversations, etc with their former nieces and nephews at these family events. Its just the way it is.

Also remember that your BIL is likely to find and meet someone new and move on in that way and it would be pretty unlikely that a real, lasting relationship with your kids would continue to thrive once that happens. He will have new obligations, etc. There are only so many hours in a weekend.

Your kids have every right to maintain a relationship with your BIL and their uncle whom they hold dear. Your sister has been divorced for two years and that is a respectful waiting period; it is clear that you have supported your sister, with no contact with your BIL.

But now there is nothing wrong with supporting your own kids' needs now that time has passed and your kids continue to want a family bond with their uncle.

It is obvious that your family divorced your BIL when your sister did and have taken her side. On the other hand, many other families have chosen to continue relationships with divorced in laws very successfully--the key is to cultivate the new relationship with the divorced in law by keeping it separate and low key from the rest of the family.

Anonymous wrote:Did Sis and BIL have kids? If so, I think your safest bet would be to get your kids and their kids together occasionally while he has custody. If there were no kids, then I think you need to keep your distance, as that seems best for helping everyone to heal.

They do have kids who are close with my kids. So uncle is still present in everyone's minds, but not in their lives. The only time we see my nephews is when they are with my sister. We used to see them nearly every weekend when they were together and now it's every couple of months.

Did Sis and BIL have kids? If so, I think your safest bet would be to get your kids and their kids together occasionally while he has custody. If there were no kids, then I think you need to keep your distance, as that seems best for helping everyone to heal.

Stand by your sister. Completely. I am divorced and one sister was not 100% supportive. I really needed her support, and our relationship is no longer the same. She probably really needs you.

On the contrary, I think children's feelings run deeper than we think, just because they know less people and have less experience than we do. So they take the loss of a fun family member hard.

A few years ago my BIL hosted us for 3 months when DH lost his job. He was incredibly generous to us and kind to the kids, who had been uprooted from their life. They were 2 and 7 at the time, but still remember him fondly and ask after him, even though we live thousands of miles away and haven't seen him in person since.

Try to find a way to keep all these relationships, OP. Good luck.

Anonymous wrote:Losing their uncle with be less of an emotional blow than losing respect for you. When the kids are older - and it becomes known re: who cheated on who, then you have sent a message to your kids re cheating being ok. A huge message. Forget about your shortcomings - whatever that story is. Do not mention to your kids. They don't need to know.

Wow, totally off. My sister cheated on her husband. My ex-husband cheated on me. Thus my conflicted feelings and difficulty separating my own bias. And maybe my identification with my BIL and how unfair it seems to cast him out when my sister left him. Yes, I'm disappointed in my sister's behavior. And I'm angry, but then I remember that blame doesn't help. Both situations are more complicated than they seem. Neglect, emotional abuse, etc. Would I be setting a better example by disowning my sister for her poor choices? Kids are in the middle now. I still love my BIL, and so do my kids. It's a mess.

In my family, which is full of divorces, we have one rule, which one of my ex-SILs swears I made up. You can choose whom you want to bring into the family but you cannot decide to remove them. So, many years and many divorces later, my family (siblings included) thank me for keeping all of us together. We are all FB friends. We all show up to every important event in our lives. In just a few weeks, we are having a party to celebrate an accomplishment of my niece that will include all five ex-SILs. And those same exSILs have been to every special occasion celebration for all of my kids. We figure that the adults can divorce but the kids don't have to.

OP, the single thing I can say to you as you go through this is this. Never bad mouth anyone, even if you think it's justified. Keep your eye on the prize, which is making the kids ok and maintaining relationships for them.

Losing their uncle with be less of an emotional blow than losing respect for you. When the kids are older - and it becomes known re: who cheated on who, then you have sent a message to your kids re cheating being ok. A huge message. Forget about your shortcomings - whatever that story is. Do not mention to your kids. They don't need to know.

Meh, your kids don't miss their uncle like you think they do. Sorry, it's just not the same emotional attachment for kids to secondary family members that an adult might have. They might tell you they miss him a lot because they sense that you miss him or the family structure you once had but out of sight, out of mind and that's pretty much true even for kids of school age. It doesn't mean they can't remember hanging out with him and recalling it being fun.

If they really want to have a relationship with him, they can choose to do so when they are older or when things calm down more.

Can't you wait it out a while? Seems like things are too tense now. If you just let the uncle know the kids miss him and would like to see him some day, and tell the kids he's busy now, but later maybe they can see him, at least you can satisfy all parties and let things cool off. I can see how it would bother your sister. I had a similar triangle with my sister where I was in contact with someone she knew and it caused problems. I had to back off even though I didn't feel like I was doing anything wrong. The bottom line is that you don't want to mess up your relationship with your sister.

Yes. But it's never as simple as that. One party left the marriage emotionally and the other left physically. They needed to separate. It should have happened in a better way, but it didn't. I'm trying my best not to choose sides, which is hard because I have my own baggage concerning infidelity. I recognize that only they know the full story and it's not my place to judge, only to support and love my family. That's the message I want to send my kids, but I feel so torn in all this ugliness.

Was there cheating during the marriage?

My sister and her husband have been married for 15 years. We are (or were) a very close family. My kids love their uncle and have been close to him since birth. The couple divorced two years ago. It was nasty and contentious. Lots of hurt on both sides. Neither party behaved well. My kids haven't seen or spoken with their uncle since. They are confused about how a family can be so close one day and then cast out a member completely. The issues are so complex, it's hard to break them down for young kids, so they know very little about the nasty circumstances of the divorce. They are hurt they can't see their uncle, and I feel torn. I want to support my sister (who completely loathes her ex), but it feels wrong to abandon my BIL too. And I think it sends a bad message to my own kids about family bonds. I talked to her about wanting to contact him for my kids' sake, and she said it was okay and seemed to understand. Then when I did, she freaked and now the whole family is mad at me. They feel I'm fanning the flames and choosing sides, which was exactly what I was hoping to avoid. Is it possible to remain neutral in such a situation?