Potential Step Dad for Grandsons
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Hi all,
Although not a step parent myself,our son is split from wife and living with a new guy.Our two loving grandsons are shuttled every 2 days between the 2 households and it is killing my wife and I,the split hit us hard as he is our only child !!
Anyone else here involved in a similar situation ??
If so,how do you cope ??
The boys are 7 & 9 and both are smart and seem to be coping well but who really knows ??
Thanks for any input .
Just to clarify,our son's
Just to clarify,our son's WIFE is living with a new guy !!!
It does not matter if he
It does not matter if he moved in with a guy/woman or a dog....
he's an adult and it's his life, you and your wife have no say over the matter, your son is not the first person who got divorced and will not be the last person as well, there's hundreds of kids doing what your grand kids are doing..
and they all survive, it's best for the Grand parents to remain Switzerland in this case and do not take sides,
simply enjoy the Grand kids, how your son and his Ex wife deals with visitation has got nothing to do with you
You are not really upset about the grand kids, seems like you are more upset about the fact that your son is gay...
also nothing you can do about that, accept it an move on...
Absolutely. Far too many
Absolutely. Far too many parents/GPs/Families coddle kids and when there is a divorce/COD situation it is even worse.
These families ruin children and sadly few from these situations seem to ever reach completely viable adulthood.
Your advice is excellent IMHO and should be followed by both intact initial families and blended families and everyone in the sitaution. Those who refuse to do it as you outline should be written off and kept far from the kids in the picture.
IMHO of course.
When we fired our original
When we fired our original Family Law counsel and hired our amzing and very effective current attorney what hooked us/me was the questions he asked.
Before he accepted us as clients he asked the followingL
1. Are you doing this to get at BioDad or for the best interest of the kid?
2. This could be expensive, do you have the resources and the commitment to see it through?
3. If I believe that what you are attempting to accomplish is either not possible or unreasonable are you willing to consider my advice and any alternatives I provide.
We had a long discussion around these questions and cut him a retainer check before we left his office. He has been our attorney ever since and has delivered on anything we engaged him to deliver for 20 years.
I am sure that some clients are not reasonable and often not well informed and those must be challenging clients for attorneys to work with.
Huh? I never considered
Huh? :? I never considered the firm Vs solo attorney perspective. In hind site that is likely what we experienced. Our first attorney was a Jr. partner in a small rural firm in my ILs agricultural community. Not very effective, billed every second and had a propensity to let my wife cry to her on the phone and vent rather than keeping the discussions focused on the legal effort.
Our long term very effective attorney is a solo act, exceptionally direct and effective, and won't let the discussion deviate from the topic at hand ... except if we are having dinner together after a successful day in court. That he doesn't bill us for.
He does very well and turns a ton of cases very quickly. He has been in practice in our county for about 20 years, we were one of his earlier clients, and recently was named the most prolific civil attorney in county history. He has represented more clients in county court than anyone ever. He is very active in the legal/social circles and activities in our county, politically active (interestingly he was a big time Dem before moving to TX and shifted to the GOP because to remain successfully politically active and relevent in out county that is the choice) and he does a lot of charitable work too.
He gets more done legally for us in a couple of hours than our last attorney could accompish with dozens of hours.
A truly no BS great guy.
Thanks for enlightening me to the firm vs solo perspective.
Yep, you are a good one. It
Yep, you are a good one. It shows. Just as the ineffective performance of the bad ones shows.
So, why does it seem that the ineffective bad ones end up on the bench as evidenced by their rulings? :?
My ex in laws, with all their
My ex in laws, with all their flaws, have handled this divorce with a level of grace I did not expect. It took a while to get there but now they are pretty much neutral ground. I do not have to bring my kids over. Their father is in prison for abusing me so I owe him and his family nothing. Please take the Switzerland advice. At the beginning, my in laws had my ex call their cell phone when they were visiting and he insisted on speaking with the kids. This was a violation of my civil protection order so I called the sheriff. They only made this mistake once. From that point on, they were aware that I was not going to put up with any shit. The wife owes you nothing. No holidays, no visits, no phone calls. Either play nice or get ready to see your time with your grandkids be cut in half or more.
My mother in law, who is a
My mother in law, who is a nice Catholic lady and therefore anti-divorce, has told me that even she feels that her grandchildren are much better off than when her son was still married to their mother.
If you are worried about your former daughter in law's choice of new husband, until you have specific, real complaints about him try to remember she chose your son. Chances are she chose someone pretty similar for the second time around.