Is it me or am I overthinking this. Ever since my mother fell ill and my brother in San Antonio made no effort to help with anything, we have kind of grown apart. I know this is due in part to his wife who wants nothing to do with my family, but the way I see it is that he makes his choice in how he deals with his blood. Here is the situation that inspired this thread. My brothers daughter had her sweet 16 this past Saturday. He told me one week before. He texted me asking for my address to send my invite, He said he barely got the invitations because the printer messed up the order. I called BS on that. Then he asked if I could bring my son along because my 1st ex could not make it. My first thought...how long did she know beforehand. I immediately asked if my other ex was going. He said yes. I was like WTF. They were both invited before me. I told him to save his stamp and keep his invite. Then I told him that he should have invited ME with my sons first, but its his call who he wants to invite to his family events. He never responded, which is how I will handle any of his calls for awhile. Ironically, both my exes couldn't stand his wife, but now they seem to be very buddy buddy. As far as I'm concerned, they can have each other. Personally, I don't care to have anything to do with my exes. I'm really pissed at my brother, but he has never stepped up for anything in my family, so I'm not really surprised. I guess I'm just venting here. Anyone else have to deal with family keeping exes involved in their famillies.
Your ex wives should not be going to your extended family's events, let alone be ahead of you in the pecking order of invites. That itself seems weird to me. I mean, I get it if they were "aunt so-and-so" for so long that they have a vested interest, but I always took divorce to mean you are divorcing the family as much as the other person. Why remain connected to extended family and make it weird for everyone? And for that matter, why the hell is your extended family going out of their way to stay connected to your exes? Unless it's one of those rare super friendly terms situations, which this doesn't seem like it.
Um, yes. My first marriage was strained in large part because she did not get along with my family. My oldest sister and her really clashed after liking each other at the beginning. My family acted like petulant children at our wedding/rehearsal dinner and never welcomed her as a member of the family. I was stuck in the middle and when it was finally over, they didn't even try to hide their pleasure. Oh, did I mention it ended because she was cheating on me and still owes me thousands of dollars (my fault for not writing it out in the decree, but I trusted her still for some reason)?? Fast forward four years and I'm happily re-married and my wife is pregnant with our first child. I find out my oldest sister and her are friends on Facebook and were making comments on each other's pages. I sent my sister a message that basically said "I really couldn't care less who you and my ex are friends with, but I know it hurts my wife to see that, so can you keep it off Facebook?" She says sure, but a few months later, I was really uncomfortable with it and not really understanding why my sister would want to be friends with someone who treated her brother like that, who she hated when we were together and is 17 years younger than her. So I sent her an e-mail letting her know it did bother me and if she didn't mind, could she stop socializing with her. That sparked a long e-mail about how my wife and I never invite her to do anything (she had just moved from Tyler and was single for a long time), how my friends never reach out to her to do anything and my ex at least wanted to do stuff with her. So at that point, I severed ties and said she obviously cares more for my ex-wife than her current family. A couple weeks later, after trying for years to get my ex to pay the thousands she owed me, I noticed a section in our decree that said if we owed taxes in the year we were divorced, we would split them equally. Sweet! It's not the thousands she owes me, but it's at least one of those thousands. I send my ex and e-mail with the decree pointing that part out saying we could be square if she just pays me that. If not, I may file saying she still owed me money based off our decree. The next day, I get an e-mail from my sister copying my ex. She had done our taxes that year, so she went back and re-did them, but where we filed separately. "Renee would get a return of $45 while Blake would then owe $4600 in taxes. I would recommend filing an amended tax return to reflect this." (numbers aren't exact, but are in the ballpark). So basically, my own flesh and blood decides to not only stay friends with my ex, but literally tried to screw me out of thousands more dollars. Then my nieces (14 and 12 at the time) started being friends with my ex and posted on Facebook they don't understand why their uncle is such a dick, but their Aunt Renee is so nice. It was close to a year later that she apologized and we accepted her back in our lives. The only reason we did is because of my parents. My sister has some real issues in her head and they always play off her behavior as "she's not taking her meds!! she has a disease!!" They're old and we thought it'd be a nice gesture to do that. Things were pretty good for a while, but fell off the deep end again in October 2015. It's a long story that culminates in my sister calling my mother-in-law a ****ing b**** in front of my daughter, the sister I actually like and her kids. Then sends a long apology e-mail that wasn't an apology at all, but a diatribe at my in-laws. Since then, it's been pretty much over. We suffered through a family cruise because it had already been booked by that time, and then we had an issue at my second daughter's baptism that goes into more family stuff (my parents greatly favor her kids because their dad is a deadbeat so they think they have to spend more time with them to make up for it). The last straw was in Colorado last summer when we had a big long sibling talk about how we can heal our family with no one telling me the night before my sister called me an awful father in front of half my family (we were at a concert), instead making it sound like a couple passive-aggressive posts making fun of the parenting "tips" we were receiving that trip (telling a 13-month-old screaming baby "no, ma'am" doesn't work, FYI) was the cause of our family rift. The nails in the coffin were they are now all friends again with my ex, knowing that's the one thing that we will not tolerate. For some reason, my brother's family has taken their side in this (we didn't ask anyone to take sides, my other sister hates her just as much) and cut off contact with us as well Long story, short, we're no longer speaking and we LOVE it. She's an awful person to be around and when you're around her, it's all walking on eggshells. She's constantly negative and judgemental, so not having that in our lives any more is liberating. My recommendation would be to do the same on your end. Family isn't just blood. I have had life-long friends who have treated me like nothing but a brother. I've met people on Clutchfans that have treated me more like family than she ever has. Family should support you, not bring you down.
That's exactly how I feel. I wanted to make sure I wasn't being childish. At first, my first ex declined, but in the end, she decided to take my son to san antonio, but not attend the event. I can respect that from her. However my second ex, (Tara on here from years ago) not only went, but also took her current boyfriend. I have no idea why she chooses to stay connected to my family, or why my brother wants to stay connected to her. It's not anything near a super friendly situation with me.
We are a hispanic family, but my brother and his wife think different. My mom would always squash that BS, but that won't come from her anymore because of mom's condition.
Your second ex and your brother are out of line in this situation, especially if it is openly against your wishes for her to be there. Either your second ex is pushing her way into the picture to needle you, or your brother is reaching out to them/her to needle you, or worse, both. It's possible everyone here is just a well-meaning fool (no offense) and doesn't know they're are crossing you by doing these things, but that seems very unlikely.
Holy cow....same BS here. I already blocked my brother on all social media. I've told any and all family that if my ex is on her FB, I won't be and proceeded to purge my FB friends and family. It felt damn good too. Damn Rocketman, we haven't had the family fallout yet, but I sense it coming. I just don't want my Dad to have to lose both my mom and his family unity...which their really is none, but I don't think he see's it yet. It does feel great to cut out the toxic people from my life though.
That last line is so true. I'm not going to lie and say I didn't say some very awful things to her during this time in response. But I hated the way she made me think, so cutting out that toxicity was so healthy.
Nah, they know. Nobody could be that stupid. I want to say it's my brother's ox....I mean wife that is doing all this, but my brother is going along with it, so he is as guilty as any of them.
I usually am very tactful in what I say in real life...however, I feel the most relief when I cut loose and tell it like it is....which is coming. I discovered cutting out toxic people in my life years ago. Unless someone has done it, they won't understand how amazing it feels. My 1st ex has an obnixious cousin that worked in my school district. I COMPLETELY disregard her in every way. She can be talking directly to me, and unless it is about a professional matter, I completely ignore her. Some might think of it as passive aggressive, but I'm doing it for my well being....not to harrass her.
Damn, prayers out for your mom and I hope she gets better. My biggest fear is something like this happening between me and my siblings. We have an uncle who's done this to my dad (we didn't get wedding invitation until week before the wedding) and it's only made our family tighter.
Well whatever you do don't let it get to your kid. That's what happened with my cousin who I grew up with. Now I might only see him once every two years.
I don't know how close my boys will stay with their cousins, but I'm beyond overjoyed that they stay in contact with each other, being half brothers and in different houses/schools and all.
My family have had falling outs with my significant other/now wife over the years. For the most part, we are all past that. It's probably partly helped that my one sister, whose spouse they adored... he ended leaving her when their twins were like 1 year old and being an absolute dick in the divorce and since. And my other sister, whose spouse they also adored... well she's definitely NOT on good terms with my mom at the moment (which stems from my mom having given serious preferential treatment to my other now divorced single mom sister and her kids for many years because, well, she's the divorced, single mom one so apparently needed a lot more preferential treatment....). I'm not saying these things happen in all families, or even a majority of families, but I suspect a lot of families. My mother-in-law, who is the nicest person on earth, has had on-again/off-again relationship with her younger sister, and she/we won't even talk to that younger sister's son (so her nephew) because he's always trying to borrow money and being a dick when you say no. Of course, now that I have 4 kids of my own, I can also see all perspectives. If 3 of my kids grow up to be super successful and 1 is having all kinds of problems, can't hold down a job, yada, yada... well, I'd probably give them what seems like preferential treatment. Falcon, with regard to your situation, it definitely doesn't make sense / isn't ok for both of your ex's to be invited to this party before you. On the other hand, I don't think it's that bad that they are invited at all - like they shouldn't be banned. Your brother and/or his wife and their may still have a friendly, almost family like relationship with your ex's. I don't think it's necessarily fair to "ban" them being connected on social media. That said, if the ex's were horrible people and treated you like trash, and on social media they are saying horrible things about you, your current spouse, whatever, then clearly that's not cool.
My parents think we're the only family going through something like this and it drives me crazy. Most families have some sort of drama. And I'm sorry, my family is now my wife and kids. If other "family" is going to start ******** on that, you're cut out.
Stop being so selfish this is about your niece and her birthday. Man up, be there for her, screw the drama. Be an adult. DD
I suspect its more common than not. And you as a person become more aware of its common-ness as you get older, because the older you get, the bigger your extended family gets and the more life events happen that you are a part of (marriages, kids, deaths, etc.), and that you and/or others in your family may not handle appropriately. I suspect a strong correlation between these kinds of issues and "larger" families. I am one of 4 kids for example. I mean I sincerely hope my 4 grow up to be either the best of friends or super nice and happy to each other and us (their parents) and I don't have to deal with tons of drama for the next however many years.... but I'm not naive either. We'll do our best.
