HImom

If there are kids involved, I think the family has the right to decide to remain close to the ex, who is spending a lot of her time & energy raising those kids, even if officially it's "joint custody." My friend & her H had a rather bitter divorce, broke his parents' heart & it was awhile before they would speak with him. His folks helped the ex fix up a house she bought so she had a place to live in with the kids. His familyl is still upset at his actions and remarriage. She's mostly moved on in her life but remains friendly with the in-laws, who are the kids' grandparents, aunts & uncles. She has handled herself in a very classy manner, unlike her ex & his new wife. It worked out mostly OK.

If there are no kids involved, I think it's probably best to loosen the friendship with the ex & help the relative through the rough patch. If things ease up a bit after the split, the friendship can be renewed with no hard feelings all the way around. Of course, as the posts above indicate, opinions & situations differ greatly.

bookiemom

I can speak on this. My own mother has stayed very good friends with my XH. He left me with two small children, in very difficult financial circumstances. After a year or so, my mom got in touch with him, and they called regularly. She still talks to him and sends him small gifts on Christmas and his birthday. He and his current wife used to come to take her out for dinner with my D when my mom visited from out of state.

This had big ramifications with my second husband. He was quite upset by my mom's closeness to the XH. There were even worse ramifications with my D, as my mom told him things about my D and tried to influence his behavior toward her (to see her more regularly). There was a huge altercation there, with her dad telling her not to complain to her grandma about him. Now that she is grown, she has as little to do with her grandma as possible.

lacrossemom

I have three brothers and all have been divorced. I still keep in contact with two of the exes. My brother's are a lot older than me so I have a different pov. Both of them helped me a great deal while I was planning my wedding by pulling off a wonderful reception with hardly any money. The first exwife was one of the sweetest people I knew. She has always been supportive of me her mother made me a throw by hand for my wedding. The second one is also extremely nice. Her mother and mine were best friends. The third one, I have negative memories and therefore I don't keep in contact with.

I haven't lived in the same state in over 20 years (since marriage), but I still send Christmas cards and visit whenever I go home.

Because brother's we're older, each of them played a significant part of my growing up and I have fond memories of them. I also blame each of the divorces on my brothers....

My relationship with my brothers are fine. They know I keep in contact and they have never said anything bad about it.

lacrossemom

Also if I ever divorced my DH, I would be crushed if I no longer had any contact with my sister in law and her children. I treat my nephews and nieces as my own. We have travelled together as a family with and without my DH. We have spent nearly every major holiday together for over 20 years.

One of my friends thought up until recently that my sister-in-law was actually was my sister and not my husbands.

I am a strong believer in family which includes my extended family. I think if we ever divorced without any major fault of mine (adultery), then I would hope they would still be a part of my life.

tom1944

For me it would depend on what was the cause of the divorce. If my sibling did something like cheat then I would not give up my friendship with his wife.

bkbmom

Clearly there's no hard and firm rule about this. Every situation is different. My younger sister went through an ugly divorce. At first she demanded her siblings' unquestioning support and it was given. However as the details came to light (multiple affairs by her and more) we continued to support her but started to question her actions and ask her to be accountable for them and seek professional help. She didn't like that and over the past couple years she's cut us all off. Good thing we did end up staying friendly with her ex as he was given full custody a year ago because of sister's actions. She's only allowed weekly supervised visits with her children. He allows us to see the children whenever we want and we've seen them more than their mother - despite her living in their neighborhood and us hours away.

paying3tuitions

My deepest loyalty is to my brother, although my x-SIL and I had been very friendly throughout a 25-year marriage and 5 children among us, tightly bonded as aunts and uncles.

When they split, there was really nothing for me to say or do, but soon I had to make a clear decision whether to invite her to my son's wedding. So I decided to ask my brother directly what he wanted, and followed his wishes to a T. He said "include her" and added that he would be offended if I didn't.

They are both good people working hard to keep communications manageable if only for the sake of the older children. Two years later, both are involved in new relationships. They moved on without anyone from family giving anyone else the boot. My hope is that their children, who notice everything and are moving into adulthood, realize that they can develop or minimize any relationships they so choose from among all these families.

cobrat

Agreed. That was how one side of my extended family handled it...especially after they all placed overwhelming blame for the divorce on the cousin....not the former-in law.

What's more...the reasons were not as cut and dried as adultery or something as severe....more like differences of opinion on too many important things....like whether to have kids immediately or not.

mythmom

My ex-in-laws refused to have anything to do with me for the sake of their son. We had no children. We had been married thirteen years, from when we were 19. I met their daughter when she was 11. I considered them my family. It was very difficult, especially since the divorce was their son's idea.

My ex MIL died soon after, and I was absolutely devastated that I could not attend her funeral. Then my ex FIL tried to date my widowed mother. I guess he did not feel he had to honor his son's wishes.

Most of this was just anger and revenge on my ex's part, which I never understood since the divorce was his idea.

Now, neither I nor my current H are close with our siblings at all. I envy all those of you who are.

I would have loved to have been there for the last year or two of my ex MIL's life since I loved her dearly.

great lakes mom

My ex inlaws were initially very supportive of me and the kids when their son and I split up-he initiated. I don't know if they ever knew part of the issue was him taking up with a young thing, and I wasn't going to be the one to tell them. When one of my 5 year olds returned from a visit, and told me, "mommy, they were saying bad things about you in Florida" I knew things wouldn't be the same. But I got along with them well, we shared vacations, and really had a nice time together prior to the split. I really appreciated their efforts to stay connected with my kids.

We live a long distance from all family, and I never really saw them again until they came to town for a HS graduation many years later, and I invited them over for lunch. I knew the pump had been primed by a great deal of trash talking by the way they treated me. It was a loss, however I really felt he needed his family, as the mutual friends stayed close to me, and he moved on. He totally rejected my family in the process, sadly for my niece and step/adopted brother, who grew up with him being in the picture.

Is this the way I think things should be? Not at all, and I'd be very happy to have remained more communicative with his family. Emotional splits of all sorts are harder on the kids.

To the OP, a cooling off period, and a sense of what the boundaries of the relationship from this point going forward might be wise.