In Laws - Hamburg,PA

Hello, I am so sorry you are having to face these type of issues. It is so sad that the kids are the ones that suffer the most. The first lady to respond had some great ideas. Hope you try some of them. I want to mention two things. First, you and your husband and all your kids are a family unit and you should not be "spliting" up on the Holidays. It is not a good example and it is only a temporary fix. If your marriage is a as good as it sounds, neither one of you should want to apart on a family holiday. Start spending Christmas Day at home and invite the extended family to your house if they want. The other thing is that your husband needs to be protecting your kids from unfair treatment. He should see it and he should not tolerate it. He is the "man" in thier lfe and he is setting an example of how a husband and a father should act. VERY IMPORTANT FOR GIRLS TO HAVE A GOOD MALE EXAMPLE IN THEIR LIVES. Do the siblings see the discrimination? They also should be speaking up. Maybe they could point out to your husband the obvious "neglect" your kids get from his parents. You can't change your in-laws, but you can and should find a way to get through to your husband. Be "one" in your marriage and work together to find the solution for the sake of your kids. We as adults have NO IDEA how things like these shape and scar our kids. I am from a divorced family and had my own issues that I didnt come to terms with until I was an adult. I will protect my kids all costs from that kind of pain and heartache. It sounds like you have the marriage to handle this, you just have to find the way. I will say a prayer for you and you family. Good luck and God Bless.

It does sound like there is a lot of tension there. That is a shame. I was lucky growing up - my parents divorced and my father remarried after a couple years. My step family all welcomed my sister and I and we have always been close. I have always felt very blessed to have a third "side" to my family that loves me and wants to help me. While divorces are never fun, if all of the parties can set aside their own issues to best meet the needs of the kids, it doesn't have to be all bad either. I'm so sorry that your kids are not feeling so welcomed.

I don't know if this is a possibility or something that you've considered or suggested to your husband, but here's an idea about the holidays...it stinks that you and your husband have to split up and not get to spend those special days together. Now that you are a new and blended family, what about starting new traditions? You could try having the holiday gathering at your house and inviting both of your families there - then you can be together and anyone interested in celebrating with you could be welcome to come and join you and all of your children. This is something my husband and I started for our Christmas eve celebration after our first was born - we decided we didn't want to be running around town visiting everyone and would do enough on the other days. We have an open invitation and anyone is welcome. Usually both of our mothers, a boyfriend and 3 grandmothers come. Another idea is either alternating holidays - all of you visit one family for Thanksgiving and the other for Christmas. Or you could do Thanksgiving at your place and since the Christmas season tends to carry over several days (at least in my family), spend one day/evening with each extended family all together. (I'm sorry - you could do this same thing with Hanuka or another celebration too imagine). Both my husband and I have many extend family gatherings and celebrations (both of our parents are divorced) over both Thanksgiving and Christmas. We do our best to stagger visits and join everyone for some time, but our first priority is our small family staying together. If you chart it out a bit, you might find that events don't overlap as much as you think and can find a way to accommodate all of the families together.

Perhaps approaching your husband with the thought that you would really like to spend the holidays with him would help him to be more open. Make it more about the two of you being together than about the kid/grandparent issue since that seems like a sensitive one. It has a bit more positive tone to it and see if you can come up with a solution to ease both problems by changing the focus.

I realize those suggestions deal with the physical component of being in the same place and not the emotional welcoming. Hopefully over time of being at the same celebrations, your children and families will begin accepting one another gradually and they will get to know each other and develop a more positive relationship. If the spoiling is an on-going issue, maybe you can set up some guidelines to help make it fair and let your in-laws decide how to fit into them....tell them that it is very hurtful to your children when they see the others receive gifts or such and they do not. Do not demand gifts for your children, but simply tell them that you and your husband want the kids to either all receive a gift or none of them and that it is their choice on how to handle it.

Sorry you're in such a sticky situation. It's hard to know what things you've tried and such, but hopefully you can take something from these ideas and use them to make your holidays go a bit smoother and make them more enjoyable for everyone.

H.

I was divorced and have since remarried. My ex-inlaws (who I still love) live eight houses away. What I did was tell my family and my hubby that I'm married to now, along with his family, that Christmas is at my home. This way, my daughter can run back and forth between my home and her other Grandparent's since her Dad and his wife spend Christmas there. The one occassion where her father had Christmas at his house, I still had Christmas at my home. This way my daughter knew she could spend time at both homes. None of us put any stress or time limits on her. She is welcome to dinner at both homes. What our family has done is to have a Christmas Eve open house and we get together at their house on Christmas Eve, they come to our house Christmas Day. Now that my oldest has grown up, I still do that. The only difference is that she spends Christmas Eve with her fiance's parent's. My little one (she is 5 years old) feels no pressure, and understands that we all accept each other.

There's nothing you can do to change your inlaws minds. Truth be told, and they don't mean any harm by this, but they probably don't veiw your kids as part of thier family. You shouldn't try to force your kids on them or make them care for them in the same manner that they care for their biological grandkids. You just have to keep in mind that they're old and thats just it.
I would start having the holidays at home. OR split the holidays, like you go your seperate ways for thanksgiving and easter but stay home for christmas. that way you still establish that you are a family.

Blended family drama can be the worst. Just keep on thing in mind, Your family comes first! If you want all your kids to really feel like a family, they need to be together during special times. You and your husband need to be together too! I learned really early that you can't please everyone and you can't change other people. What is most important is that you develop a sense of togetherness and family in your own household. Separating your family for the benefit of others isn't benefiting you.

Hi! I am so sorry you are going through this. That being said, I really understand. I didn't have quite the exact situation, but I did have a similar experience with my ex-husband's Mom and step-father with my children.

My husband has two children from a previous marriage, and I had one. We then had two boys together. They only lived five minutes down the road, but it was such a chore to get them over. I would go to their house, and the children (unlike yours) did want to go. They really wanted attention. I would get angry; however, when I would invite them to baseball games or school concerts of the children, and they were soooooooooo busy, but she could drive 3 hours to Fairfax, VA to watch her daughter's son play football, or soccer, or do something with school. I was very ill once and couldn't get her to come help me with the children. I was only asking for that day. She had to work. My sister-in-law had her breasts enlarged, and you guessed it, she drove to stay for a week (took vacation from work) to help with the children. Every now and then (I mean rarely) they would keep my husbands two children, but NEVER our two boys or my daughter. They would take my sister-in-law's 3 children for a couple weeks, or weekends, consistently.

There isn't anything you can do to change them. You can only do what you need to do for your family. If your children don't want to go to their house, fine. Your in-laws are the ones missing out. You are married to your husband, not his parents. We hope for one big happy family when we get married, it doesn't always work out that way. Resentments formulated toward your husband won't be helpful. He can't do much to his parents either. Acceptance that your family is the way that it is will be more constructive. I am remarried now to a wonderful man (the remarriage had nothing to do with the ex's parents). His parents always remember to send a card for birthdays, and his mother will show up to concerts. His father attends almost every Boy Scout event. They include the children on holidays, but other then that? I'm okay with it. I chalk it up to it is what it is. I married Dave, not his parents. He is the one I fell in love with.

This might not help, but I hope you get some comfort in knowing you aren't alone. Good luck...