My beloved father-in-law’s cut me off

DEAR BEL,

I’M 47 with a 12-year-old daughter and share custody with my ex-husband. I work full-time in a job where I’m valued. I own my own home, but money will be tight until I can secure a better-paid job once my daughter is old enough to work.

Considering the last six months of lockdown I feel blessed to be employed, to have the love and support of my family, friends and relatively good health. But on a personal level I’m stuck.

My decree absolute was finally awarded earlier this year after a seven-year battle with my ex-husband — he’s always been very stingy with money. Despite the pain of the past seven years, we actually co-parent well. He very swiftly moved on with a new partner and I know my daughter is happier because she can see he is happy.

But I’m not. I feel stuck and lonely — and scarred emotionally, even if I’m stronger for having broken free from a loveless, sexless (my choice) marriage to a man I no longer respected or loved.

He was a bully who never accepted his part in our marriage failure and even suggested I needed to see a psychiatrist because he felt I had changed so much. He made me feel unwanted and unloved.

I am a naturally caring, loving and nurturing woman who feels more comfortable as one half of a partnership, so I know that I don’t want to be alone.

In the past 18 months, I’ve had two short-term relationships with local, separated men whom I met online. Both were loving and honest, with younger children than mine, but neither had grieved the breakdown of their marriages — so sadly, because of their own personal battles, I could not see a future with either.

I miss being in a romantic relationship, one which is a true partnership. I’m sure you’ll suggest the usual options: try a new hobby, get out more often, develop friendships with men etc. But given the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic and my own personal circumstances of being a full-time working single parent, these options are not there.

How can I move forward more positively to feel less lonely? JILL

DEAR BEL,

I HAVE been married to my wonderful husband for 30 years (with two grown-up children) and was very close to my father-in-law until February 2019, especially after my dear mother-in-law died in 2015.

I’d always viewed them as second parents. Then he took offence at something I did and cut me out of the family. It sent me into a deep depression.

I don’t want to go into details but what I did had the collective agreement of the whole family — following a discussion about his health and our concerns. I was just the one who ‘pushed the button’.

In spite of my hurt, I encouraged his son (my husband) and grandchildren to keep in touch.

My father-in-law is now 88 and, at this time, should want his family close, but he never rings or contacts anybody. Last year, he didn’t turn up for Christmas at my son’s. He has turned himself into a lonely old man.

My husband visited him recently and offered an olive branch saying I would forgive and forget. He said he’d ‘think about it’. This was another blow — as if he could just wipe me from his life.

Looking back, I acted in good faith but the falling -out has left me feeling guilty. My family are very supportive and my husband is my rock, but can’t change how I feel.

I worry my father-inlaw will die a lonely, sad, old man and I can’t stop my old feelings towards him. It’s devastating to remember how close we were all those years. Do you have any advice?

THERESA

THIS kind of family dispute is (sadly) all too common — and the fallout can be disastrous. Over the years, I’ve read versions of your story again and again, and it’s heart-breaking. I understand why you give no details of your offending action (though naturally we can’t help being curious). But presumably you and other family members decided you knew better than the old man, and for some reason you were the one who chose or was asked to ‘push the button’.

That is my first problem. Why you? Your husband is surely the one who should have intervened to stop his father doing something (or perhaps seeing somebody?) judged bad for his health and wellbeing.

What you present to me as a sort of family court, a consensus, resulted in father-in-law excommunicating you and withdrawing from the rest of the family, too. That sounds pretty serious.

And while I have every sympathy with your evident hurt — the worse for the memories you have of happier times — the guilt you also feel suggests to me that maybe a little voice inside you is whispering that he had some reason.

And might you also think that you were too ready to be the one to muscle in?

Those two questions need to be pondered before you find a way forward.

Within families, the question of when to intervene nearly always presents a terrible problem — whether the issue is disapproving of a daughter’s boyfriend or noticing Dad is drinking too much or disliking the idea of Grandad’s lady friend.

When family members decide to speak up, they can have right on their side, yet at the same time commit wrong.

There’s no blanket advice anybody can give. I urge readers to be tactful in such situations. You are distressed and with Christmas nearing will feel so much better if you can sort this out and alleviate the loneliness of this angry, hurt 88-year-old.

You tell me your husband offered ‘an olive branch’, saying you were willing to ‘forgive and forget’. Put that way, it laid blame squarely at the old man’s door.

My only suggestion is that you flip the implied blame within that approach. By that, I mean that you request him to forgive and forget — even if you believe you have right on your side.

I would dig out a couple of old photographs from those happy times and write a letter telling him how much you miss him, how you thought of him and his late wife as another set of parents, and how sorry you are. Ask him if he can put it behind him now. Let your husband read it before you send it and get him 100 per cent on side. He needs to help you make up with his Dad and put the old man’s needs before your pride. I believe you can make this right.