No, we don't talk at all. I wish the boys happy birthday via personal message on FB, but that is the extent of it. We chose to not have negative hurtful people in our lives any longer, though it is hard to make that choice.
Bob called his Gramma last night and while
Bob has gone in to anaphylactic shock multiple times and now has celiac, his Gram and Uncle spoke continuously of Denise's "egg allergy". She isn't allergic by any stretch.
It was (and is) just so continually hurtful for all of
us to work so hard to maintain a relationship with someone who thinks of you as merely a FB friend not as a sibling or aunt.
Bob's parents chose Dee and her kids over
Bob a decade ago, and we tried very hard to not lay the blame of their decision on Denise. We worked hard to try and maintain a relationship with her through those years, but realized that she is a superficial person who demands love and adoration at all times. She treats strangers better than she does her own family, so we just can't have that in our lives any more.
She (and her parents) would tell
us that we make too big of a deal over the kids having autism and tourette's, and shouldn't let it "get
us down", but she caused a huge stink ( and still discusses) the time her son "almost" had scoliosis. It is just repeated incidents like that, which repeatedly hurt our hearts and that led
us to let the relationship go its' natural course.
As with my parents and
Dh's parents,
if we aren't calling, writing or visiting, we don't see them, hear from them, etc... One sided relationships are exhausting and with all we have going on in our lives, we simply don't have the emotional or physical energy to maintain a fallacy of what should be a loving family relationship.
We saw a therapist who suggested
us not trying so hard. He suggested that a lot of our heartbreak was from the continual rejection and disappointment of trying so hard to get our family to "like"
us or "care". He said we shouldn't have to work that hard at loving family relationships. He was right. Once we stopped fighting so hard to make those relationships happen, we saw that there was no relationship at all, just
us fighting to make something of nothing.
Mind you I still cry over it nearly daily. When I married
DH I thought I was getting this awesome, loving family, which I always had hoped for. The reality is that we mean no more to her than the lady that bags her groceries at Publix. That was and is hard to swallow, but it is the truth.
The rest of
Bob's extended family treats their immediate families like family. They get together for holidays, take family trips, call and write each other. It is so hard to see that everyone else seems to have that family and we don't. Dee has her parents down there and also Bill's entire family of aunts, cousins, parents, etc...
I thought that we could rotate holidays. I suggested
us have one holiday in Fl, one year in Ohio, and then PA and even do FL twice since her parents and her are there. She laughed her loud, obnoxious laugh and said her boys weren't EVER leaving their home for the holidays. We are all welcome to visit, but Santa (who the boys are afraid of) only comes to their house. That meant that my kids would never have a holiday with their grandparents as they go where Dee is. Can you tell it still hurts??
We drove down the first few Christmas's and it was torture. The year we drove down with Ilijana was the worst. She was not even 2 and we wanted to surprise everyone Christmas morning by announcing we were expecting Milo. We woke up Christmas morning to a note from
Bob's parents. They had left already (before 8am) as Dee's boys get up early for Christmas morning. They completely missed our daughters Christmas morning when we had driven over 1000 miles. We had Ilijana open her gifts from
us and then headed over to Dee's. We were ignored. It hurt so badly. We never even got to tell them we were expecting DS as Dee was going on and on about how she had to get dressed up (that meant taking off her holey stained t-shirt and putting on a less stained and holey t-shirt) to go to her in-laws.
Anyway, we have a lot of hurt as you can see. This still hurts, but at least there are no new wounds.
We so desperately need some family in our lives. A few years ago we flat out asked
DH's parents to visit
us and especially the kids. They told
us "we aren't living our lives for anyone but ourselves". The truth is they left their lives for Dee and wrote
us out of their lives. They've never missed a holiday, birthday or special occasion with Dee's family. They have never even met my kids. That hurts. Dee used to say she understood. How could she?
Nicole - 
I'm sorry Nicole. I didn't mean to open up old wounds. I know how that must hurt. I didn't know that the grandparents had never met your kids though. WOW even my inlaws are not that bad and that is saying a lot. 
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