Family ties aren’t sustainable when they’re not reciprocal

Two years ago, my husband and I separated after 27 years of marriage and five children. He was abusive.

I had a relationship with his parents and regularly had them over for family dinners. They blame me for the separation, but I continue to invite them for holidays and family meals so they have contact with their grandchildren. They come when invited and bring a hostess gift, but never reciprocate. They make no effort to see the grandchildren outside of these dinners, and never call to ask how we are. Incidentally, they are quite wealthy, and we live day-to-day. My children say my former in-laws don’t care and I am a fool to keep inviting them. Should I stop?

I wrote two different answers to this question.

My first was full of saintly “clergyspeak,” counselling you to remember the difficult position they are in, caught between their son and you. I advised you to consider these dinners an “investment in your children’s future relationship with their grandparents,” reminding that their willingness to come, complete with hostess gifts, was a measure of how important these occasions were to them.

So “keep inviting them,” I piously pontificated, “for the sake of the family.” Preach, brother, preach!! I’ve deleted that response. The truth is this: social arrangements, whether with family or friends, take effort, time and dedication.

Making dinner for guests is a lot of work and costs money. There’s no getting around this. That, among other reasons, is why sustainable friendships and family connections have to be reciprocal; energy travels both ways.

On this Mother’s Day weekend, many Canadians look forward to spending quality time either with their parents or children; it’s a spring ritual of reconnection, often for the first time since the midwinter holidays. So it’s a very good time to think about the give-and-take nature of healthy family relationships.

At the extreme ends of life, it’s fine for familial interactions to flow in one direction.

When we’re infants (or in cases of extreme disability), almost all the vitality and nurture flows from parents to their children; that’s how it’s meant to work.

On the other end of life’s spectrum, that stream of energy may be reversed, as feeble or forgetful parents are cared for by faithful, sometimes long-suffering, offspring. Again, fair enough.

Between those extremes, however, healthy family life, like other forms of “friendship,” needs a reciprocal quality.

Roads run both directions. Meals are cooked in different kitchens. Phone calls go back and forth. Texts are sent and received. Invitations are offered and accepted.

That’s the way it has to work. And when it doesn’t, the kind of resentment you express is almost inevitable, even if, as in so many families, it festers in silence.

You don’t tell me how old your kids are, but regardless, there’s a teaching moment here. Your kids are teaching you that, when folks don’t reciprocate in a relationship, that’s a sign they really don’t care much about it.

So don’t invite grandma and grandpa, for a while at least. If they miss you or the grandkids, they’ll take the initiative to invite you to their house.

And if they don’t, you haven’t lost anything because there was nothing there to lose. Send your questions to star.ethics@yahoo.ca