Letter to Mother in Law

Once again I tried to write this as a blog but it didn't work.

My stbx Mother in Law is very kind but suggests I move on and look to the future - this is what I wanted to say to her but didn't:-





I'm not sure that life is linear and you can just 'look forward'. Marriage and people are, in my opinion, more like trees who's growth and limbs grow healthily if fed well at the roots. When poisoned at the roots - eg by lies and infidelity the new growth is affected and damaged for a long time, if not irreparably
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I spent all night lying awake worrying about issues my son is having at school - some of them caused or exacerbated by the fact that his father and my husband walked out when he was most needed. Stbx walked out on us when son was still screaming in pain - so his talk of supporting son is meaningless. He doesn't talk about me at all, as if I can just be rubbed out of his life and my children's - and now daughter does the same. I can't tell you how painful that is.

So - it's not a case of looking forward and conveniently forgetting the past - it is trying to grow when our roots have been poisoned by a man who thought lies and infidelity were, in his own words 'best for everybody'.


So talk of 'moving on' and 'looking forward' are meaningless. We have all been harmed and continue to be harmed by the sort of person stbx has become.

We try to grow despite it, but we as individuals and our family as a whole are weaker because he had so little regard for the people who loved him .

I can emphathise with you claire. People talk about 'moving on' after divorce and say nothing about the untold havoc divorce can wreak.

I feel my eldest grandson got caught up in the crossfire and is still paying a heavy price. The youngest, who was four at the time, seems to have come through the whole process remarkably unscathed. However, they have loyalties to both parents and for the next few years at least, will need walk on eggshells to avoid upsetting one or other of their parents.

A typical comment made by parents on divorcing is that 'the kids will be fine'. Let us hope they are right.

I have heard that statement often too, but I dont think you can say the kids will be fine, its should be the kids survive a divorce, but obviously it changes them.

Totally understand where you are coming from with this. People often dont appreciate the small steps that we take to help us move forward. These steps can mean so much to us but seem insignifcant to those who haven't been through the separation/divorce process.

Personally it drives me mad when people assume that just because I'm not in a relationship it means I'm not able to move forward and am sad, lonely or still have feelings for my ex. The reality is I've spent my time looking after ill child, fighting to keep a roof over our heads and trying to protect the kids from the worst of my exs behaviour.

I think we all move forward at our own rate so lets hope our best efforts mean the kids are fine and all of us too.

scaryclairie,

I know how much your situation has a ball and chain around you right now. I know that you, like so many of us, are really struggling to come to terms with the big picture, what was there one minute and whoosh gone the next! All because of the choices of the man you trusted with your life. I have heard from you just how devastated that you are with where you find yourself right now and the long term effect it is having on your son and your own health.

What makes me really upset is the opinions of those, like your STBX mother-in-law, who I am sure has only had the best of intentions, but is not qualified to be judge and jury on how you should be progressing. Like the others have said it is all too easy for those who are not in the know to make sweeping statements without thinking that you are not in a good place to deal with them. Unless you have been where we are, then there is no comfort in the words of others, when they have no clue.

Scaryclairie, shrug it off, take it for what her tuppence is worth, nothing! Just try to focus on you and your son and take those baby steps that you encourage us all with, a day at a time. Like I have said to you more recently, surely things can not get much worse...you have to be turning a corner soon.

My thoughts and wishes are with you and just remember if you have to explain it to them, they'd never understand anyway.

P.S. Mother-in-law's who needs them! (Just remembering the brown sheet Christmas scenario, that I mentioned in a thread that jjones123 posted last year, maybe it is a good thing that my M-I-L has taken to the hills never to be seen again, ashamed of her son's and her own behaviour...at least she is no longer my problem!) LOL

Take care for now FoS x