Advice from Divorced Women

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My mother has had her second divorce in her lifetime. Her first divorce was with my dh’s dad and it was after a 25 year marriage. She did not mind that divorce for she hated that man and there was physical and verbal abuse involved in that marriage. She left the Catholic Church after that marriage. She never got an annulment and married again a man who was 20 years younger than her. She was skeptical at first to do this, but he assured her that age didn’t matter to him and he would always love her. She fell in love and married him by a judge. The were married for 15 years and adopted her granddaughter. Now, he fell in love with his neighbor who got a divorce and left my mother in law. My MIL got a divorce in August of 2009. She is still dwelling on the marriage and how wonderful her husband was and that his mistress is at fault for changing him. Well, her ex is getting married on March 13th. My MIL is very depressed. She doesn’t handle stress well and she is not handling this well. She has a little girl that is mentally challenge and has to think of her, but yells at her all day long when she has her or just crys a lot. She is a mess.

I wanted to write a letter of encouragement to her. I have done this before in the past to her and she told me it helps her and she saves my letters and re-reads them. *What I would like is advice from women out there who have been betrayed in their marriage by their husband with another woman and have had to divorce. What advice would you give to this woman to move on? Please no bashing of men./I] My MIL is not moving on in her life and if it is anything like her first divorce, in which she is still talkis about her first husband with hatred. She use to mention him to me every time we saw each other. Now she mentions to me her second husband about ten times when we talk and how she dreams about him every night. Let me put in there too, that he does not talk to her on the phone or take any of her calls. He doesn’t respond to her emails unless he thinks it is very important and about his daughter. He won’t answer her text messages either. He has not been taking his every other weekend visitations with his daughter either. So all this is upseting my MIL. I do know that before her ex stop talking to us all, he did say that he knew she was still in love with him and he felt it would be best that she did not talk to him on the phone. As far as his daughter goes, he does email her when he wants visitations. My MIL just wants him to call her and hear his voice. That won’t happen for he knows she is still in love with him. She still thinks that he is having some sort of nervous breakdown and when it is over, he will return to her. She is in denial.

I await your advice, but I do want to write this letter before the 13th. We will be spending most of the day with her on that day so that she won’t be thinking of him getting married.*
 
Jesus taght us;

"Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mt 9:13)**

Too many of us are wannabe martyrs, not enough of us are self-sacrificing Saints!!!

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Peccatoribus!

mark
 
your mother in law needs counseling because she’s obsessed. if she refuses counseling, your letters are not a suitable substitute to professional help.

if she refuses counseling, your words will not have any real power in her life, but your words *****will *****have power with God. if she refuses counseling (and even if she goes to counseling,) pray like mad for her. your MIL is obsessing over a decades-long sinful union.

finally, what ***real things ***can you do to stop (what sounds like) verbal and mental abuse of the mentally challenged daughter? (has she been assessed with developmental disability? how old is the girl?)
 
Encourage her to seek Confession and to return to Jesus.

oh yeah, that, too.
 
I agree I MIL needs counseling and there is no way I can convince her if her own three sons and past two husband could not do it. She won’t listen to me. She is seeing a psychiatrist for she is on antidepressants, but I am sure it is because of husband #2 leaving her for a younger woman, or his age, and divorcing her and getting remarried again. Like I said, from day one that I have every met her, she was never able to handle family stress, yet able to handle job stress for she is a paramedic and an ex-ER nurse.

As far as reminding her to go to confession, she won’t for she is no longer a Catholic and abhors the Church. She blames it for her 25 years of marriage to an abusive husband, but she was an abusive mother as well. She has returned to a church, a protestant one thanks to husband number 2 though. She continues to go, so she says. I don’t know for sure.

As far as her abusing our niece, my husband’s niece, we don’t have any evidence for sure. The only one who tells us that she yells at the little girl is her own sister and she won’t turn in her own sister. She considers her sister as a daughter more than a sister, long story. The only other person who has also witnessed the abuse is the dad of the child, but my MIL claims that he is not the biological dad and that they did a DNA on her and the child and it is unlikely the child is his, so she won’t let him near her. He says he has seen his mother hit the child so hard that it has pushed her down to the floor. I have never witnessed anything, but her loving the child. My dh doesn’t doubt she is abusive to the child only because of the way she was when he was growing up, but he can’t report her on her past. Trust me when I say, child services here in Florida is worthless. I have seen them in action in my sister’s case with real abuse by her ex and his wife and time again the cases get dismissed. Child services won’t do anything. There has to be marks on the child and even that is hard for this child has physical disabilities too and is always falling and has bruises on her body all the time. When I take care of her, she is always falling in my house and it worries me for I have tile and it is not carpet. It is just not easy to prove abuse or her husband would have done so for he has told me that the child has told him that her mommy, my MIL, has called her “stupid,” “mental case child” and etc. So this child is not totally stupid as my MIL thinks. Sadly, her adoptive dad has lost interest in her too. She is just a hand full for my MIL. I can’t possibily go into all the physical problems and mental problems this child has at the young age of 8. She capacity is that of a 3 to 4 year old.

Well, I guess I will take what my three divorce sister gave me as advice to help my mother to move on if that is at all possible. She needs to put her trust in God and not obsessing about this man and think of this child and herself. One of my sisters said it the best, she said she puts God first and than gave her time to her sons so that they would not feel abandoned too since their dad left the house and than she took care of herself and would work out at the gym and put her all into her work. :rolleyes: My MIL has yet to learn to do that. She is in self-pity mode and has been for a long time.
 
My ex-husband left me to move in with the woman he was having an affair. At first I was really bitter and full of anger and hate. With time however I realized that my life was much happier without him. I also realized that I had no desire to be with a man that not only cheated on me, but also didn’t want to be with me. I deserved to be loved by someone that put me first and didn’t want to be with someone else, which is what I have been blessed to find. I also found my faith, which was I was sorely lacking before. I have been led to the catholic church and the love, faith and guidance I have found there has helped me more than anything.

I would suggest that you MIL needs someone to talk to (counceling) and time to heal. I would also encourage her to reignite her faith.
 
As far as her abusing our niece, my husband’s niece, we don’t have any evidence for sure. The only one who tells us that she yells at the little girl is her own sister and she won’t turn in her own sister. She considers her sister as a daughter more than a sister, long story. The only other person who has also witnessed the abuse is the dad of the child, but my MIL claims that he is not the biological dad and that they did a DNA on her and the child and it is unlikely the child is his, so she won’t let him near her. He says he has seen his mother hit the child so hard that it has pushed her down to the floor. I have never witnessed anything, but her loving the child.** My dh doesn’t doubt she is abusive to the child only because of the way she was when he was growing up, but he can’t report her on her past. Trust me when I say, child services here in Florida is worthless. I have seen them in action in my sister’s case with real abuse by her ex and his wife and time again the cases get dismissed. Child services won’t do anything. There has to be marks on the child and even that is hard for this child has physical disabilities too and is always falling and has bruises on her body all the time. When I take care of her, she is always falling in my house and it worries me for I have tile and it is not carpet. It is just not easy to prove abuse or her husband would have done so for he has told me that the child has told him that her mommy, my MIL, has called her “stupid,” “mental case child” and etc. **So this child is not totally stupid as my MIL thinks. Sadly, her adoptive dad has lost interest in her too. She is just a hand full for my MIL. I can’t possibily go into all the physical problems and mental problems this child has at the young age of 8. She capacity is that of a 3 to 4 year old.
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it is indefensible that you and your husband are not doing anything to save this poor child, his adopted sister. you’re suffering from a tragic case of misplaced priorities when you’re worried about writing soothing letters to your mother in law instead of doing something real and concrete to protect that girl.

i’ve begun to pray for this poor little girl to beg Our Blessed Mother to protect her with her motherly care. to protect her from your cruel mother in law and to protect her from the astonishing apathy in your family.

i love children with special needs. i wish i could adopt her.
 
monicatholic said:
it is indefensible that you and your husband are not doing anything to save this poor child, his adopted sister. you’re suffering from a tragic case of misplaced priorities when you’re worried about writing soothing letters to your mother in law instead of doing something real and concrete to protect that girl.

i’ve begun to pray for this poor little girl to beg Our Blessed Mother to protect her with her motherly care. to protect her from your cruel mother in law and to protect her from the astonishing apathy in your family.

i love children with special needs. i wish i could adopt her.
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Adding my prayers to yours.
 
I don`t have any advice but will keep her and the rest of your family in my prayers.

Sincerely,

Maria1212
 
mswood said:
My ex-husband left me to move in with the woman he was having an affair. At first I was really bitter and full of anger and hate. With time however I realized that my life was much happier without him. I also realized that I had no desire to be with a man that not only cheated on me, but also didn’t want to be with me. I deserved to be loved by someone that put me first and didn’t want to be with someone else, which is what I have been blessed to find. I also found my faith, which was I was sorely lacking before. I have been led to the catholic church and the love, faith and guidance I have found there has helped me more than anything.

I would suggest that you MIL needs someone to talk to (counceling) and time to heal. I would also encourage her to reignite her faith.
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Thank you, this is what I was looking for. God Bless you.
 
monicatholic said:
it is indefensible that you and your husband are not doing anything to save this poor child, his adopted sister. you’re suffering from a tragic case of misplaced priorities when you’re worried about writing soothing letters to your mother in law instead of doing something real and concrete to protect that girl.

i’ve begun to pray for this poor little girl to beg Our Blessed Mother to protect her with her motherly care. to protect her from your cruel mother in law and to protect her from the astonishing apathy in your family.

i love children with special needs. i wish i could adopt her.
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Thanks for your prayer for Kristina, that is her name and I am sure she appreciates it. But with due respect to you, you really should not judge me for you don’t know all the facts. I told you that I could not mention or go into detail with all the facts. Again, if I reported to DCF, that is child services here in Florida, that I think my MIL is abusing the child, this is what they will find. They will find the school that the child goes to praising the mother for she switched from a normal school that was not for this child and where her grades were failing to a special school that was miles awayfrom where she lived, in fact just a mile from my house. They will find a mother who works many hours to support this child when her adopted dad did not want to pay child support. They will find a mother who fought with her ex, the adopted dad to get this child sent to that special school and where that child is doing so much better. They will find that this mother went to Shand’s Hospital for a week and suffered for a week in a chair and slept there while her daughter was getting tested with a week long EEG which came out abnormal. They will find out that this mother always went to bat for this kid especially when her adopted dad withdrew from her bank account and took money out of this child’s own money. This money had to hire an attorney to get her ex to return that money, which he has yet to do and she is in the process for get him still to do. So you see, in the eyes of everyone else, the doctors, the attorneys, her friends, the schools (several of them) of the child, and etc. this mother is an excellent mother. The only ones that know what goes on privately are the ones that live at home and right now that is Kristina and her, my MIL. DCF is not going to take the word of Kristina because she changes her mind a lot and she can’t even keep her mind on subject for long. Trust me. I have tried to question her to see if my MIL is beating her and she would not keep her mind on the subject. She could not answer simple questions. Like I said, she has special needs.

So as you can see, it is not as easy to judge me or my dh and say what you said. Our priorities are not misplaced, we just know what we can fix, and what we can’t do anything about. If I can get my MIL happy, my niece will be happy. That is what we can fix, if that. That may be out of our control too, but I do know that if my MIL could hear from other women, like the person (mswood) who just responded here and told us how she felt and what she did, that is what will encourage my MIL. I would have never thought to say what she said or look at things that way, that she would not want her ex back bec. of the reason that was stated above. That is why I asked for women’s responses. I did not asked to be judged.

I am glad you have a place in your heart for special needs children. I have three in my family. On my side, I have two nephews and on my husband’s, he has this niece. So we love them too.
 
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