As you can see from my prior blogs, my SS 35 has not spoken to my husband or myself other than to have huge adult temper tantrums since my husband's mother died two years ago. My SD 33 has refused to talk to us and let husband see his grandchildren since I did not invite her 2 children to go to the show with me, my visiting sister, my visiting neice, and my two DDs last Christmas. She has thrown several huge adult temper tantrums since this time - but I don't consider that communication just yelling and cursing on her part.

The issues they have which is behind their emotional blackmail boil down to this. They started not speaking to husband in an attempt to get him to give them his pitiful inheritance from his mother. At first they said they wanted some small token of hers. My husband let them go into her house before it was sold and they got to pick and choose from what the heirs did not want. No other grandchild got to do that. This obviously was not good enough because they stopped talking to him again and now expressed a desire for addtional "unnammed things". They told him they wanted their "share now". When they were told that he did not have much for them to inherit that most of the things were mine, they both refused to talk to him at all (this was right after the show incident). I think that since they realized that he has little to give them and they knew that calling me all of the ugly names had burned all chances with me they do not feel the need to pretend to maintain a relationship with him any longer! Hence - we may never see them or have any real relationship again.

Despite all of their hatefulness, my husband has continued to bring over presents for the grandchildren's birthdays, Valentines Day, etc. He left the presents on their doorstep. He sent a card with enclosed money (a check) for Sd's birthday. The check was cashed. My husband voluntarily performed a service for SD and her SO that resulted in about $6,000 savings to them this past year - otherwise they would have had to pay someone this much for these services. We have had no response to any of this. No thank you. Of course no acknoledgement to their father or their half sisters ( DDs) on any of their significant days has taken place this year.

It is time to shop for Christmas presents. I feel bad about not giving anything to the step grandchildren because none of this is their fault and I do not know what to do or how to advise husband. I think he has decided not to send anything to Skids or their SOs. It is really the grandchildren that has him and me torn. The trouble is - if we send money I doubt that it will get to the grandchildren as Skids have done this before with prior gifts thatI have sent. If we send a present and he put it on the doorstep will the grandchildren even know we sent it? Will anything we send be good enough as SD has been PASing the grandchildren big time. Also, SD 33 and SS 35 admitted this paat year about how jealous they are of our two BDs and both totally ignored them on their birthdays - I have to admit this does cloud my judgment somewhat because BDs are also minors and have done nothing to deserve this treatment from thiem either. I had raised BDs without telling them all of the ugly BM history so that they could have a chance at a relationship with their half siblings. I guess half siblings took care of that!

Your thoughts on the pros and cons of what we should do and potential ideas for handling this situation would be appreciated.

Torn LTSM