After DH's divorce, he moved in with MIL because he didn't have enough money to afford a place big enough for his kids to stay EOWE. When he and I became engaged, he moved in to my apartment (which was also not big enough for his kids to stay) and then stayed at his mother's house on his visitation weekends. MIL travels somewhere between 3 and 6 months of the year, so she was around a little more than half the time he was staying there. When she was there, however, she took on a large parenting role with my SSs, which DH allowed her to do. She would make food for SSs, do their laundry, etc. This is not the issue, rather it's context for the situation.

DH and his siblings all still have a sort of teenager-esque relationship with their mother. They allow MIL to help them with things that they need (e.g. DH's grown adult sister lets MIL pay for all of her travel expenses, buy her clothes, pay for medical expenses, etc; so she can live as a "starving artist"), while then turning around and telling her she's overstepping her bounds when she wants to butt in, in other areas of their lives. I've told DH many times that he can't have things both ways with his mother, he can't take advantage of his mother in some instances and then tell her that doesn't want her to be involved in other aspects. He either has to act like an adult around her (meaning he does not take advantage of her when he needs something) or accept being treated like a child (in response to acting like a child by expecting his mom to step in when he needs something).

Since we got married, DH and I have bought our own home, which is large enough for the kids to stay with us, so MIL is no longer involved in visitation weekends. However, now DH has sort of stopped talking to his mother and doesn't make a big effort to take SSs to see her. Last night, he and I had a long conversation about this - started because he mentioned something that he thought I should do about my own parents, which then led to a conversation about his own family.

I told DH that I thought he resented his mother because he felt like he had been the one who had come home to take care of things for his mom after his father died (when DH was in his early 20s, before he married BM) and he felt like he didn't get to live his life as a result. I told him that he might have also held it against his mother that she encouraged him to marry BM because she told him that at his age, he should be married. DH told me that, that was part of it, but that he also resented his mother because she refused to help him when he was getting a divorce. DH had asked his mother if she would help him pay for an attorney and she said no (I knew his mother had not helped him, but didn't realize he'd asked her outright for help). He also asked his brother - who is an attorney - if he would be willing to help or knew someone who would and his brother also said no (I knew that he had asked his brother for help and that his brother said no). Now, before you think that maybe MIL didn't have the money to help with an attorney - two years after the divorce, BM asked MIL for a "loan" of $5000 because she "needed money". MIL gave her that money and BM never repaid it (not surprising, even though BM earns over six-figures a year).

DH thinks - and I tend to agree with him - that his family believes that he "caused" the divorce because he was working far away during the final years of their marriage. He was working far away because that was when the economy was bad and he had to go where the work was. He was away during the week and home on weekends for a little over a year, I believe. However, he and BM had not been happy for years. According to DH, he thought about ending things 2 years into their marriage, before they had children, but didn't. DH also said that he thought children would "fix" his relationship. In addition, DH has a cousin who works away from home for months at a time and has done for many years, but he and his wife are happily married. I think if you have a functional, strong relationship, you can survive dealing with hardship if it comes up. If you don't have a functional relationship, that's when things crumble. I also believe that in almost all instances, both people "cause" a divorce.

I tend to agree with DH that his family holds his divorce against him because MIL has said things that indicates that she resents DH for getting a divorce. She's also told him that he's a bad parent, regarding things that largely have to do with the divorce. Finally, DH's SIL is downright cold to both of us and one of the only comments she has made to me was about DH's divorce.

A few things that bother me about this:

1) DH's family fails to recognize that the divorce was not DH's choice. He actually fought against it, even though he was miserable with BM. His family also don't seem to care that he was miserable with BM. Yes, it's challenging for his kids to grow up in a "broken home", but it was challenging for his kids to grow up in a high conflict home before that. Could DH have made the situation better with BM? I honestly don't think he could have, because I think BM has a personality disorder and two separate counselors (including one that met with both DH and BM) surmised that BM was emotionally abusive to DH. Also, BM had met another man (her now husband) before she filed for divorce, so she wasn't interested in working anything out. It boggles my mind that DH's family would be mad at DH for going through something that was very painful for him, instead of just feeling sorry for him.

2) Who are DH's relatives to judge what happened in his marriage? They aren't living it. Why can't they just view it as something unfortunate, accept it, and move on? I have an uncle who had a terrible marriage that ended in divorce. When he was married, he never came around because his wife (now ex wife) had decided that she hated our family. After his divorce, he was all of a sudden back and my dad's family accepted him back with open arms and no judgment. My uncle let him move into his house, my dad found him a job. No one held any resentment against him, they just all viewed the whole thing as unfortunate and were glad they didn't have to go through any of it themselves.

3) It kind of boggles my mind that no one in DH's family would help him with the divorce. Because he didn't have a lawyer and BM did, he not only got taken to the cleaners financially, but also got largely cut out of his children's lives. He sees them only EOWE, with some very limited time over the summer. You could argue that DH's family just wanted to stay out of his divorce, but they still don't stay out of things. When BM wants DH to do something for her that he doesn't want to do, she'll tell him "I'll just email your mother and brother and then you'll do it." Then all of a sudden, MIL is telling DH that he should do the thing that BM wants him to do, even if DH had already told BM that he wasn't going to do it. I hold MIL at arms-length because after "a long conversation" with BM, MIL reached the conclusion that one of the reasons BM and DH have conflict is because *I* refuse to interact with BM. MIL had the nerve to tell DH that *I* should sit down with BM and work out my differences with her. Um, we don't have differences that can be worked out, BM is crazy and I choose to protect myself from that crazy by avoiding her.

My family certainly has their own dysfunctions, but they pale in comparison to DH's family. Also, I have set healthy boundaries with my family, to prevent their dysfunctions from intruding into my life. It bothers me that I now have to deal with all of this crap, when I've worked so hard to set healthy boundaries with my own family. DH's family pretends everything is wonderful, but then they have all this resentment and dysfunction floating below the surface. I think the whole lot of them should have to sit in a big group therapy session. I personally feel very detached from DH's family because of all this and because they've been sort of stand-offish around me. The only thing that DH has told me is that "my family is just protective of my children," which is interesting, since I don't think I've given any of them any reason to feel as if they had to protect his children from me.

All of this is deeply on my mind, because this weekend, DH has to go to a work event on Saturday, leaving me to take SS to his football game. The game is in MIL's town. I know that the good DIL thing to do is to invite MIL to join us at the football game, but I really don't want to. I know that I will, because I'm trying to be nice and rise above the drama, but man, it feels like a devil's bargain.