I feel like Amy really missed the mark with her response. "Unless your mother-in-law is inviting the ex to family events, forcing her into proximity with you and your husband, you really have no say in how she chooses to conduct this relationship." Maybe there was additional information edited out of the letter that contributed to this answer, but did Amy miss the part where MIL IS inviting the ex to family events? And then excluding her son? The question was about how to deal with MIL and make her realize how much her actions are hurting her son, not her husband's relationship with his children.
Of course, there could be missing factors that contribute to the prioritization of the ex - maybe husband had a torrid affair, or was physically abusive, or gambled away all of the family savings. Maybe MIL is trying to show grandkids and ex that she does not approve of her son's decisions. Who knows.
I saw a couple of other comments speculating about "We haven't been married long, and his divorce was a contentious one. His ex managed to delay every step of the divorce" - I swear I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, but I have very close relationships with people whove been through situations that could be described very similarly to this so I want to provide additional perspective.
My sister M was 23, living in Hawaii, dating a man in the Marine Corps. They found out she was pregnant a couple months before he was scheduled to be restationed, so in order for her to be able to move with him and for him to be an active father in their child's life, they got married. Unfortunately, M miscarried a few weeks later, but she still moved to North Carolina with her husband. A couple months after the move (and about 7 months after getting married), they admitted that their relationship just was not working and decided that they needed to get divorced, but NC requires a couple to be legally separated - which includes having completely separate residences - for a full year prior to filing for divorce. M and her husband had just spent a massive amount of money to relocate and to rent a place, plus M was having delays with securing permanent employment, so they still had to live together for another two months. M moved out and started dating just to have a social life, met someone she really hit it off with about 3 months after the decision to split up and 1 months after the legal separation; by the time she could finally file for divorce, new boyfriend had moved in with her and they'd been together for a year. M was just really screwed over by the laws of the state she moved to.
My friend B bought a house with his girlfriend 4 years into their relationship; one year later, she moved out of the house while he was at work. This started a lengthy legal battle regarding ownership of the house, because he wanted to buy her out of it and she thought they should sell and split the profit. She kept turning down every offer he made and demanding more money from him; he eventually found out that she knew she wanted to leave him 6 months before they bought the house but that she stuck around because she thought it was an opportunity to get money out of him and his family (she'd bragged about this to a friend, who ended up relaying it to B). Between the information the friend shared and video evidence B had of his ex stealing his mail and entering the house when he wasn't home, B eventually ended up getting his ex to agree to an amount that was roughly $3,000 higher than what he'd initially offered; of course, by this point it had been almost an entire year and she'd accrued thousands of dollars in legal fees as well. B spent time on dating sites during this entire ordeal which is actually how we met, but the contentious breakup was well underway before I met him.
no subject
"Unless your mother-in-law is inviting the ex to family events, forcing her into proximity with you and your husband, you really have no say in how she chooses to conduct this relationship."
Maybe there was additional information edited out of the letter that contributed to this answer, but did Amy miss the part where MIL IS inviting the ex to family events? And then excluding her son? The question was about how to deal with MIL and make her realize how much her actions are hurting her son, not her husband's relationship with his children.
Of course, there could be missing factors that contribute to the prioritization of the ex - maybe husband had a torrid affair, or was physically abusive, or gambled away all of the family savings. Maybe MIL is trying to show grandkids and ex that she does not approve of her son's decisions. Who knows.
I saw a couple of other comments speculating about "We haven't been married long, and his divorce was a contentious one. His ex managed to delay every step of the divorce" - I swear I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, but I have very close relationships with people whove been through situations that could be described very similarly to this so I want to provide additional perspective.
My sister M was 23, living in Hawaii, dating a man in the Marine Corps. They found out she was pregnant a couple months before he was scheduled to be restationed, so in order for her to be able to move with him and for him to be an active father in their child's life, they got married. Unfortunately, M miscarried a few weeks later, but she still moved to North Carolina with her husband. A couple months after the move (and about 7 months after getting married), they admitted that their relationship just was not working and decided that they needed to get divorced, but NC requires a couple to be legally separated - which includes having completely separate residences - for a full year prior to filing for divorce. M and her husband had just spent a massive amount of money to relocate and to rent a place, plus M was having delays with securing permanent employment, so they still had to live together for another two months. M moved out and started dating just to have a social life, met someone she really hit it off with about 3 months after the decision to split up and 1 months after the legal separation; by the time she could finally file for divorce, new boyfriend had moved in with her and they'd been together for a year. M was just really screwed over by the laws of the state she moved to.
My friend B bought a house with his girlfriend 4 years into their relationship; one year later, she moved out of the house while he was at work. This started a lengthy legal battle regarding ownership of the house, because he wanted to buy her out of it and she thought they should sell and split the profit. She kept turning down every offer he made and demanding more money from him; he eventually found out that she knew she wanted to leave him 6 months before they bought the house but that she stuck around because she thought it was an opportunity to get money out of him and his family (she'd bragged about this to a friend, who ended up relaying it to B). Between the information the friend shared and video evidence B had of his ex stealing his mail and entering the house when he wasn't home, B eventually ended up getting his ex to agree to an amount that was roughly $3,000 higher than what he'd initially offered; of course, by this point it had been almost an entire year and she'd accrued thousands of dollars in legal fees as well. B spent time on dating sites during this entire ordeal which is actually how we met, but the contentious breakup was well underway before I met him.
Just a little food for though.