As you may have noticed from the last two posts, we were pretty much pre-occupied for the last several days with the planning and execution of graduation festivities for our daughters. 

Thankfully, things seemed to go off without a hitch.  The weather cooperated for once and everyone seemed to have a good time at the party and enjoyed the food that we had prepared. 

Since it always seems that we go a little overboard with the food at these things, it appears now that we will be eating pasta salad, potato casserole, burgers, brats, beans, salad, fruit, cake, etc., etc. for lunch and dinner for the foreseeable future.  Good thing we still have over 2 cases of beer,  a half case of wine and dozens of liters of pop left over to wash it all down with!

Linda has a fairly large family as her father was one of 17 kids so there are always a bunch of them in attendance.  Some come from out of town but most still live locally.  My family is small and they all live out of town so they all made the trip for the graduation ceremony and party.

There was a group of four individuals who did not make it however.  That would be our ex-sister in-law and our nieces and nephew.  They do live quite a ways away from us but that was not the reason for not coming.  It was because they didn’t want to be anywhere close to Linda’s brother and his new wife (who was his affair partner).

See also  An Encounter with an ‘Embarrassed’ Ex-Neighbor

On one hand I hate like hell that my daughters missed out on having their cousins there to celebrate their graduation with them.  Linda’s parents also missed out on seeing their grandkids who they rarely see much anymore because of the distance and real life issues that get in the way.

But on the other hand, it was probably a good thing that they were not there because things probably would have been very tense.  No way would I have wanted our daughters’ graduation party to be the time and place where their cousins meet the other woman – their Dad’s wife – for the first time.  Talk about a buzz kill.

Ever since Linda’s brother’s first marriage ended and he got remarried, it seems as though the family dynamics have changed considerably.

No longer does he come to visit his parents on an almost weekly basis.  No longer does he call Linda or me to get together for a night out on the town.  The family cookouts and lounging in the pool are a thing of the past.  Holidays with the whole family together are now a distant memory.

Obviously, much of this is due to the estrangement between him and the rest of his immediate family.  His kids are still pissed and his ex-wife is trying to move on with her life.  They rarely communicate anymore. 

But Linda and I sense that there seems to be an us-against-them mentality that is effectively causing them to gradually distance themselves from us and his parents.  They seem to be living in their own little bubble.  Not sure if we’re imagining it or not but things that have been said and reactions that have been witnessed would seem to indicate this to be the case. 

See also  The Four Stages of Healing After an Affair

What’s puzzling is that there really is no need for this distancing.  Linda, her parents and myself have been more than outwardly friendly, kind and accepting regardless of the situation or the family fallout.

Family is a big thing for Linda and I and this whole situation has been quite upsetting to say the least.  She really wants a relationship with her brother and with her nieces and nephew.  She wants there to be the family closeness that there used to be. 

Thankfully, Linda, I and our three kids are about as close as a family can be – and we don’t plan on that changing!

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LINESPACE

    34 replies to "The Graduation and the Missing Family Members"

    • battleborn

      Doug/Linda,

      While I feel bad for your family about missing out on the family togetherness, it’s my opinion that your brother-in-law should have been more sensitive to the needs of the family instead of himself and his new wife.

      It was his decision to cause the uneasiness in the family, not the ex and her children. It is his selfishness that caused the hatred between him and his children. Having said that, since we do not know all the facts about the affair and the dynamics that went on afterwards it is hard to judge all the why’s.

      If it had been my child’s celebration, I would rather have their nieces and nephew there instead of an uncle. They are their age and they have the most in common. They are the ones who are missing out the most. Yes, it is sad that Linda goes without seeing her brother and his parents go without their son but once again, he put himself in the position, not the children.

      Another thing that comes to mind is the grandparents. They have precious little time (relatively speaking) left in their lives to spend with their grandchildren. Sounds pretty cold, huh? But it true.

      As we all know the affair can effect the children the most and your brother-in-law has made his bed and now he has to sleep in it with the one he chose. It’s just too sad to see his children with such disdain for him. But on the good side, his ex has reaped benefits from the affair in that she maintains the relationship with her children… and that is something that will speak volumes in the future.

      • Doug

        Agree with you 100%!

      • Tryinghard

        Yep. Agree with battleborn. The brother should have been told you wanted the his kids there and that he could come but not the wife. She had no business being there. She was wiping your face in it. She sounds like a real doozy. I give him 3 years with her!

    • Strengthrequired

      Have you thought that maybe linda’s brother new wife is the one feeling inadequate with the family, don’t forget she will be the one who is looked at as being the home wrecker, so maybe just the occasional family get togethers are all she can handle. Surely there has to be some sort of guilt on her part when she looks at how her and her new husband have come together. I doubt that it would be a very good feeling.
      So the distance is easier for them both to handle right now.
      Just a thought.
      Congratulations again to your daughters Doug and Linda.

    • Blue

      I’d like to know how the Linda’s cheating brother and his OW wife felt being there? I doubt empathetic towards the pain his kids and mother of his children felt? I wonder if he ever thought of just taking his kids to this event without either ex-wife or new wife? As a grand gesture that maybe it was about his own kids for once. Who’s kidding who?! It’s all about him and his new wife from the start and how everyone else should ‘Get Over It!’ -get over the emotional mess they left behind. I wonder if he went to family counselling to try to fix or help them understand what was happening. I bet not.

      It doesn’t surprise me, just makes me feel sad for the family left behind feeling emabarrassed, shamed and tossed aside.

      • debbie

        The ex and kids certainly feel shamed, tossed aside and EXCLUDED. By welcoming brother and affair partner, you passively validate and even celebrate the affair and his dumping of his family.

        • Recovering

          Debbie,

          I TOTALLY agree with you!! The betrayed is betrayed yet again, by the family who was supposed to support the family as a unit, and at the very least look out for the wellbeing of the children. Those cousins will probably never be close now, because it will be up to the family of the betrayer to reach out, and most of the time they choose their own… It is sad and leaves the betrayed feeling even more alone. This was one of my biggest fears when I found out about my husband’s cheating because I am closer to my mother-in-law and sister-in-law than I am to my own family… I still am not sure how my MIL would react, since she IS his mother, but I did tell my sister-in-law, who proceeded to tell her brother that she hated him for what he did to us! She is on my and the children’s side… quite a shocker for me, but a relief that I am not alone. No one else in the family knows, on either side, but I am glad it was HIS sister that I chose to tell… I think her reaction to him helped to bring him back to reality faster. Accepting the new wife is basically saying that what they did was okay. Married now doesn’t make their cheating any different, or make their relationship now okay. The betrayed needs to be included. The cheater made his choice… and it wasn’t the family!!

          • exercisegrace

            Well said. We talk so much about how betrayed we feel as spouses. But we don’t mention enough that our KIDS feel betrayed by their cheating parent’s choices. While it does put the extended family in a difficult position, choosing the children and what is right, is always a winner in the end. The kids don’t need to feel betrayed by anyone else in their lives.

            • Tryinghard

              Eg
              Exactly. The kids should be chosen over everyone else. He made his choice now he’s forcing it on all of you AND according to their terms. Now the kids feel betrayed to because you had him there.

    • Gizfield

      That is a great idea, Blue, making it about the kids. Cause trust me on this one, kids are the ones who come out worst in this scenario. But when you get two cheaters together they are both so insecure of the other they can’t let each other out of their sight. They also seem to have an obsessive need to prove to the world just how happy they are, lol.

    • Recovering

      I hope that the “new” wife does feel out of place! She should! At some point she knew that the man she was with was married to someone else, and she should have dumped his butt!! If she knew from the beginning, then she IS a homewrecker, because a decent person would have told a married man off!! Clearly she is selfish! Clearly “family” means nothing to Linda’s brother, so in my opinion, and in agreement with the other posts on here, he should not have been invited, but the cousins should have. We are again punishing the betrayed by including the brother-in-law and not the innocent family. He CHOSE to be the black sheep when he did what he did. It would be a lie for anyone to claim otherwise. Cheaters KNOW what they are doing is wrong the ENTIRE TIME. Why should he retain the family celebration, when he is the one who destroyed the family? The new wife should expect nothing less, and if she wanted to be a part of a real family, then she shouldn’t have stolen someone elses!!

      • Strengthrequired

        Exactly, that’s why I mentioned that it could possibly be the ow feeling somewhat embarrassed, ashamed because of what she did, she wrecked a family, stole the family.
        I know if it was me I would feel terribly guilt ridden and wouldn’t be able to show my face. Yet I wouldn’t do that to another family anyway but don’t you think it’s those sort of days where if you did, that your guilt would be a hard to deal with.
        In relation to the ex wife and children, I couldn’t go, especially knowing that it’s another kick in the face to them, seeing both the husband,father with his new wife who destroyed their family together.
        I hope linda’s brother realizes one day what he threw away. I can understand completely why he wouldn’t see the family as much, as I noticed when my h was with his iw, family, friends took a backseat as if they didn’t exist and that included his sister. He knew how his sister felt, he knew what his friends would think of what he did, so shame and embarrassment would have been a factor. My h wasn’t even interested in seeing her family friends, all they could see was each other.

    • exercisegrace

      The kids should always come first. This includes your daughters, because it was their special day. It also includes your nieces and nephew because it was a special day for the family. Linda, I truly don’t want to offend you but I think your brother should have left the wife at home. I truly believe that someday he will regret putting this woman ahead of his kids. Another option would have been for HIM to coordinate arrival and departure times in a way for both parties to visit the celebration separately.

      Your nieces and nephews may feel that the family at large is too accepting of a woman that destroyed their family. We had a similar situation in my husband’s family (although he didn’t end up marrying her) and I openly refused to acknowledge her in any way. So did my MIL and FIL. I believe it helped open his eyes to how messed up his priorities really were. My motives were not to be mean, but to maintain a good relationship with my nephews and let them know that even though their dad (my husband’s brother) had royally messed up, I wasn’t going to condone that.

    • forcryin'outloud

      My sister-in-law’s father had an affair, divorced her mother then married the AP. Fast forward 25+ years now and the mother and the father still refuse to be around each other. My SIL and her brother cannot invite the dad or the mom won’t show up and vice versa. My SIL told be a few years back that it makes holidays and special occasions hurtful and a huge hassle. She wishes after all this time they could put pain behind them. So, my SIL and her brother who are both in their 40’s have been paying for their father’s behavior. And now their children are paying too.

      “Sins of the father are past down to the son.”

    • tryingtoowife

      I agree that once they choose their affair partner, they let go off the right to be on family occasions, making the priority ALWAYS the children. After all, children should not be deprived and deprive family members of their once important family connection. Family is even more important then, to provide a safe atmosphere for their emotional healing.
      My best friend, which also is the only person, to know about my husband’s betrayal, has been separated from her husband of 25 years (at the time) for 13 years, because he decided to move on with his affair partner. But his family has since invited her and her daughter to all family functions, eg: birthday, weddings, funerals, including every Christmas celebration since the breakup. Her ex husband has spent every Christmas with his family (alone) so to be with his daughter, and off course my friend is there too. According to the family, the affair partner only visits sporadically, but never when my friend is there, of course! In this way, her daughter has been very close to her grandparents, and aunties, uncles and cousins even going on holidays all together once a year, and when the grandmother died, my friend’s daughter was devastated, but decided to be even closer to her granddad, traveling far from her University town to visit him. They also took him on holiday and the husband (the cheater) decided to come along too! The grandad now developed Alzheimer, and funny enough, when they visit, he can only remember my friend’s name and no one else. My friend’s daughter visits her dad at his house, but always come home with the statement, that “the woman ” is just someone in the same room, and she feels nothing for her, neither anger, neither joy for her being there, just sheer indifference, although there is politeness between them when together, is only that. My friend’s daughter is a awesome young woman! Very happy and confident, and I believe that partially because she saw the effort her parents, specially her dad made to make her life unchanged any more than it was because of his betrayal.
      If I had separated from my husband I truly believe that my in laws would act exactly the same! Their grandchildren are very important part of their lives!

    • suzie suffers

      Linda…..how could you have your brother show up with his new wife!! How disrespectful to the betrayed family…YOU of all people know the pain of betrayal…Put yourself in your SIL’s shows….what if that had been Doug with his NEW wife Tanya….and you were the one left at home with your kids because he was enjoying the life you didn’t get…living his life with his NEW wife Tanya…Does that sting!! ALOT… But yet you endorse his choices by allowing HIM to run the show…isn’t that what he did in the betrayal of his wife….HE got to run the show….make the decisions on what he wanted to do without ANY regard for ANYONE else but himself…..Linda …….PLEASE rethink what RELATIONSHIP you want with a lying cheating creep….he may have been the brother you remember ….but he isn’t that person now….he’s transformed into his own entitled selfish entity….You are remembering the fantasy of who he was…sound like an affair….he really isn’t that person….that’s the fantasy you have in your mind of who you think he is……SAD….so very sad that cheating behavior get’s rewarded and the loyal spouse is the one that continues to live in the pain of their selfishness…….Hopefully the brother and “WHORE WIFE” will MOVE along ways away and won’t be able to have anyone but themselves……let’s see how that works.

    • suzie suffers

      When we are codependent….and I know this well…we don’t want to make any waves….but you have to stand up for your values and integrity….

    • Gizfield

      I think Doug and Linda were put in a bad situation, but this is her brother. Like it or not, that can’t be changed. Since her brother and the affair partner are now married she does have a status as a family member. I think inviting them all was the correct thing to do. This isn’t short term ( well it may be, lol) but the brother, the ex, the new wife, and the kids will have to work it out between themselves. I think the best solution would have been for all the adults not to attend if it were a problem for the children. As usual, just my thoughts. ;~)

    • AnnaB

      It’s a tough situation for all family members because they want to be loyal to Linda’s S-I-L, but they shouldn’t have to disown her brother. Being a BS myself, I see him as selfish, especially towards his children, but by disowning him it also punishes his nieces and nephews. In my opinion, if he was invited then he should have made the effort to be there, WITHOUT the new wife. He must know how everyone feels, so he will have to accept that his actions have huge consequences. He would have to be very naive to assume that she would be welcomed into the family. I sometimes have to speak to the woman my dad married when he left my mum, and I always feel disloyal and guilty afterwards. But I only do it to make life easier for everyone else.

    • JennyN

      I appreciate this site very much though I don’t usually post.

      My exH had a physical/emotional affair and ended up leaving for his affair partner and they married 10 months after we divorced.

      His family was very kind and loving to me (he had just lost his dad three months before I found out about the affair), as were our mutual friends.

      I am just about two years out from the divorce and three from finding out about the affair.

      In this last year I have cut ties with all the family and friends that we had in common. Now I do not have kids, but the truth of the matter is that regardless of how much I love those relationships, reality has made a very big change in how I relate to them.

      I run into my exMIL from time to time. I say hello and move along. If I were to try and stay and make “small” talk it would be me being false to myself and trying to “make” myself okay, when frankly it still really hurts. The same night I saw a mutual friend and felt the same thing happen. These two woman are not responsible for what happened, but it does change my relationship with them.

      I feel like I was betrayed by my husband, but if I kept trying to “keep up” with my exMIL and mutual friends it would be me betraying myself and how I feel right now. It has NOTHING to do with my ex-in laws and how they treated me or who they are as people. .

      Maybe down the road my feelings will change, maybe not. I cannot betray myself right now or ever again though.

      This is what this story made me think of and why I choose to post. I know kids in the mix changes the feeling of it, but would the ex-SIL have been somehow betraying herself right now if she had tried to work the kids into this mix in any way shape or form? I am not saying that is a forever thing, but right now maybe it was too much. I have done a lot of work and healing and I think I am on a similar time frame in terms of time out from all of this. How come other options for the kids to come were not looked at in the big picture, and it comes down to ex-SIL/kids vs brother discussion? I suspect there might have been other combinations and permutations that might have worked.

      • tryinghard

        Because you don’t have children your case is different and I agree with you, it would not be wise to carry on a relationship with the parents of your ex. I’m sure Linda’s ex SIL would have expected to be invited or maybe she didn’t even want to be. It has nothing to do with her. I has to do with her children. Unless they were very young she would not have had to accompany them to the party. As a grandparent I would have rather had my grandchildren there than my very disappointing son. Especially since he obviously has an agenda of shoving the new wife down everyone’s throat whether they like it or not. It all comes down to choices. I’m just sayin….

      • Doug

        Perhaps a little more background may be in order. Ex SIL was invited to come. She does keep in touch with Linda’s parents from time to time – on birthdays, mother’s day, etc. We speak to her on occasion as well and still see her side of the family (who live locally) every now and then. The three children all live about 3 or 4 hours away from her and more than 8 hours from us. They are all adults and in their 20s with jobs, etc. As far as the choice to come or not…I believe each made up their own mind and were not swayed by any other person. They have made it clear in the past that they want nothing to do with the new wife and based on that, we feel they decided not to come.

        That said, Linda only has one sibling and there was no way that we could not invite him and his wife. I know that deep down his kids want to have a relationship with him. They hate what he did but they are still his kids and they still rely on him for many things. I feel that at some point (if not already) he will regret how he has handled things and his relationship with his kids will only worsen.

        • JennyN

          I am sorry that all this hard emotion comes up for such a joyous time in your lives.

          It sounds like you and LInda did the best you could in a hard situation to be respectful and considerate for all parties involved. It sounds like the parties involved all did a good job of taking care of him/herself for this point in their life. Sometimes it does not matter how considerate one is, you cannot control someone else’s reaction.

          I hope that your BIL is able to repair the relationship with his children. I hope he is capable of coming to understand how his actions impacted their lives….

          That would be the most tragic thing of all to realize someone we care about it not capable of empathy and understanding.

          • Doug

            I agree Jenny. Linda and I both feel that he made his bed and now he has to deal with it. We aren’t going to change what we do and how we act towards the rest of his family just because he has made the decisions he has made.

    • AnnaB

      Do you know what? I just re-read my last sentence and cringed: “I do it to make life easier for everyone else.” OMG, that is the story of my life and probably partly why he had little respect for me! I think I’m going to have to put myself first for a change!

    • gizfield

      Doug, I’m not trying to be contrary but your post above says that the”children” and ex didn’t come specifically because they didnt want to be around the new wife. Not distance, or those other factors. I reread it just to make sure.

      That said, I think if you aren’t careful situations like this can tear entire families apart. We have had situations like this in my family, and the damage can go on for years. Even divorce with no infidelity affects families. When I got pregnant and we got married, my friends wanted us to get married andhave a reception at my church. My husband didnt want to do this, so we ended up going off to florida and getting married at the beach wedding chapel. I always wondered what his problem was. a few years later, we visited his brother and his wife in Colorado. My sister in law showed me her wedding photos. My husband was best man, but I noticed neither of his parents were there. Wth??? She said they couldn’t both agree to be there, or one to agree to the other to go, so neither came. Pathetic. They made their own child’s wedding day about their own crappy problems. If I ever wonder why this guy is fucked up, all I have to do is look at who raised him. I later found out this crap is why he wanted to sneak off and get married. Nothing to do with me, just his screwed up parents.

    • gizfield

      Doug, I want to apologize if my comment above about the graduation party was too harsh. I’m sure the fact that your former sister in law and her children didn’t attend the party for a number of reasons, including the distance, and also the circumstances. I’m sure they too are busy with their own lives. The post had me thinking they were teenagers that live locally, not adults 8 hours away. so they did actually make their own decisions on whether out not to attend. Anyway, I hope it all works out for best .

      • Doug

        No apology necessary. Not harsh at all. Regardless of the distance, we fully expected them to come as Linda and I (and our kids) traveled the 8 hours to all of their graduations, etc., and consider ourselves to be pretty close to them. We feel they didn’t come solely because of their Dad’s situation.

    • Tryinghard

      I too did not realize the daughters were adults. They could have come and made the new wife extremely uncomfortable by ignoring her. Ugh family dynamics are tough let alone throwing infidelity into the mix. I actually can’t stand family get togethers. I get very nervous around too many people. I feel like I am under a microscope and now with my husbands infidelity it’s even worse. I’m afraid I am becoming an introverted loner.

      • Doug

        They could have indeed but that would have been quite awkward to say the least. Two of the kids are the type of people that would not have ignored her, but would have said something to her – especially after they had a few drinks in them. What kind of sucks – and I failed to mention it in the post – is that Linda’s brother and wife only stayed at the party for about an hour and a half at the most. I believe they were the first to leave. Our nieces and nephew could have stayed (and would have) until the wee hours of the morning.

        • Strengthrequired

          Doug, I will still say this, it’s the new wife. She didn’t want to go, she would have only went to show her new husband that, she would go for him, but I would suspect for just a little while would have been her agenda.
          Linda’s brother, no doubt would be missing all the family and I would think he wanted to be there not only for your daughters and Linda as well as yourself, but he would have hoped that to see his children, could be another reason he left early.
          It’s sad, because unfortunately linda’s brother is living the consequences of his actions, and it will eat him up inside eventually. He will realise what he gave up for this new wife of his one day if he hasn’t already.
          Yet considering he has now made this decision and married the woman that turned his world around, he is going to try to make it work, until it can work no more, all because he doesn’t want to hear, I told you so.

          • Strengthrequired

            I should say turned his world upside down.

    • exercisegrace

      I too didn’t realize the kids in the situation were adults. However, I think when it comes to your parents, there are ways in which you will always feel like a little kid. Infidelity would be one of those situations where I could very much see that in play. I have never been in this situation, but if I were I think I would be perfectly fine with making the choice NOT to be around the interloper that ruined my family and hurt my mother. I would likely have had a discussion with my father PRIOR to his marriage and let him know that if he chose to marry his affair partner, it would change our relationship in terms of how freely we would be seeing each other. I would choose to see him alone, without his new wife. Is this mean? Is this unforgiving? Actually I think it would just be setting healthy boundaries for ME. Might that change in later years? Maybe. But if there is one thing I have learned on my own journey these last few years, it’s that we EACH have to (aside from our kids) put our OWN healing FIRST. We have to learn to set boundaries that protect us, make us secure, and keep our lives where they need to be. Had I done so to begin with, I wouldn’t even be here. Instead, I let my husband trample my boundaries in his own selfish pursuits.
      I am so sorry for how this has impacted you, Linda and your family. I have a feeling it is just too painful for these family members to be around this woman, and they are far healthier for the choices they are making. Even when it seems unfair to the rest of the family. It may also help Linda’s brother understand what he has given up for so little.

    • Strengthrequired

      My baby girl 2, when she saw her daddy after almost a week of not seeing him, while I was holding her, she said:
      “I miss you”. At first I was unsure of what she said, so I asked her what it was she said.
      “I miss you, daddy”
      If that doesn’t make someone want to change for the better for the sake of his family nothing will.

      My h took her from me and just cuddled her so tightly, and she snuggled right back into his chest.

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