I woke this morning thinking about my feelings toward the situation of my husband 's plan to bring his grandchildren here to visit. There was a time I felt close to these kids,in fact I spent almost 3 of the first 4 years of this marriage raising some of them to keep them out of the foster care system. After the last one went home I have not involved myself with any of them. Once again Katrinkie wrote a post that hit home for me,because I too had felt the children just did not want any relationship with me. I felt I was only being used as someone to take advantage of and the children were the pawns that the mom's used to get what they wanted. Here it is 7 yrs. later and i would not know these children if I past them in the aisle at the store.
Maybe they never felt that way. I spent a long time placing the hurt I felt on the parents who never came around with the kids after my services were no longer needed. I placed the hurt I felt on the adult step children who refused to visit anymore when I would no longer loan out money that never got repayed. Actually, I placed way to much blame on them. There is some blame on on all sides but the one who had the most opportunity to correct the situation was my husband. It was he who told me that they did not come around to visit him because I would not let them borrow any more money. [Should have been him that was honest enough to tell them he was broke from years of his single life style and handing them money.] I wonder now ,did they ever say that? He had a history of getting angry with them and cussing them out or slamming the phone down. It was he who told me after the children went back home to their mother that she did not visit because I wanted to keep her kids. [I was the only one standing in court saying "Give the kids back to mom" My reaction of hurt built the wall that went up between us. I wonder how many other things contributed to the problem? Changing to cell phones stopped the usual chit-chat that goes on when answering a phone call for another household member. The fact that his adult girls were no longer at odds with their mom and had all moved into the same apartment building as she could easily brought about the sense that their ties of her being grandma needed to be more pronounced. Who knows? The only contact is when he makes the effort to visit. Maybe he never had much of a relationship to begin with and when I quit providing the childcare, the parties, and doaling out money it was obvious they were no longer in his life.