Dear Prudence: My daughter stole my other daughter's husband

[lemonsharks]

Q. Choosing sides: Four years ago, my daughter “Cindy’s” husband “Andy” impregnated my other daughter, “Allison.” Andy left Cindy for Allison, and our family imploded. Cindy and Allison (and my third daughter, “Alice”) were very close growing up, so Allison hurting Cindy this way came out of the blue. Cindy suffered a breakdown, and our family rallied around her. A consequence of this is that we (my husband, Alice, and I) were not as involved with Allison’s pregnancy as we would otherwise have been. Alice sided with Cindy and largely cut Allison out of her life. My husband and I have seen Allison, but we despise Andy and were incredibly disappointed in her.

Allison and Andy now have two children and seem to be very much in love. I love my grandchildren, and I see them often. But, perhaps unfairly, I always give Cindy first dibs on the holidays, and my husband and I celebrate with Allison’s family on a different date if Cindy wants to spend it with us. I know Allison longs to make amends with her sisters and is sometimes upset that my husband and I don’t broker a peace. This holiday season we got in a fight because she feels that I’ve chosen Cindy over her and am punishing her children for something she and Andy did.

Am I a bad parent or grandparent if I never approve of their marriage? Cindy is engaged now, and Allison says that when Cindy has children, she worries I will favor them over her own. She says she knows what she did was wrong but that my husband and I shouldn’t punish her forever. I don’t want to punish Allison, but I just can’t bring myself to ignore the hurt she and Andy have caused our family.

A: The question of whether you’re punishing Allison is an open one—you may be!—but alternating holidays between her and Cindy is not a punishment so much as an acknowledgment of reality. It’s also not retribution that you haven’t “brokered a peace” with someone who’s very clearly uninterested in making peace! You cannot force Cindy to forgive Allison, and it would be wrong of you to promise anything of the kind. If those are Allison’s only objections to your conduct, you should kindly but firmly let her know you make no apologies for keeping Cindy in your life or respecting her limits by not trying to force them into the same room together. You say you love your grandchildren, see them often, and seem very clear that they’re not in any way responsible for how their parents got together, so unless there’s something critical you’re leaving out here, I don’t think you have to subscribe to Allison’s fear that you might someday favor Cindy’s hypothetical children over hers. Rather, her fear seems to be the idea that you’ll continue to maintain an independent relationship with Cindy and any children she may have, and that this will sometimes mean you can’t spend time simultaneously with Allison and her children. Again, that’s not a punishment—merely a consequence of only being able to be in one place at any given time.

If, on the other hand, Allison objects to how often you bring up the circumstances of her marriage to Andy, or any other (in)direct ways you remind them of your disapproval, you might find an opportunity to change something there. You don’t ever have to like how they got together, or even pretend that you do, but it is reasonable to ask that if you’re going to maintain a relationship that you act, after four years, as if they already know your opinion on the subject, and therefore don’t need to hear about it again.

Comments

exes might not be so bad

[redbird]

The problem isn't only that Andy is now married to his ex-wife's sister and wants them to play happy families. It's that he started dating his new wife while he was married to her sister.

"I know this is weird, but I want to date my sister's ex-husband" might be OK, depending on things like how and why the original couple split up, and how long ago. Unlike this mess, it wouldn't be guaranteed to hurt the first sister, and it wouldn't have to start with the family rallying to give her much-needed support, and some of the relatives refusing to see "Allison" as a result.

Though, part of my reasoning there is that if Andy and Cindy had divorced before all this started, Allison might have tried asking Cindy if she thought this would be okay. It's still a weird thought, but "How would you feel if I dated this guy you divorced five years ago?" is at least a question that could be asked without blowing things up if the answer is "please don't" or even "how could you even suggest that?"