Would like to know how many here have had the experience of former friends and family who dropped you like a ton of bricks after the divorce.

If you were NOT the one who filed, did you get the impression that since the XWS dumped *you* then *you* must have been a loser all along who also deserves to be dumped by XWS's family and also by any mutual friends you once had?

Do you think some of this stems from embarrassment over the fact that these people knew something was going on but never told the XBS and even supported the XWS, tacitly or otherwise?

And maybe because they've been tolerating infidelity in their own relationships and don't see why you shouldn't do the same - and are, again, embarrassed because they lack the courage to confront this in their own marriages and in a weird way you're making them look bad - ? (This is a lot more common than you might think.)

I'm probably not who you're looking for. My WXH's family has dropped not only me, but also the children. I think they are really embarrassed by the whole thing. They do not support his infidelity, but believe that you are supposed to be supportive of family. I've been really shocked by how they have acted towards the kids, but not at all surprised that they dropped me.

Due to a lot of circumstances, we did not have many mutual friends by the time of the divorce.

Hi Kirby, sorry that happened to you. Yes, I think Embarrassment Over the Whole Thing hits a lot of friends/family.

Sometimes former friends don't know what to do or say, so they say nothing and do nothing.

But others, particularly the XWS's family, often drop the XBS deliberately in order to avoid embarrassment over their own actions. They have to blame somebody and it's not going to be their family member - so they blame the XBS.

I think I can gather what your experience has been Mulan, but I hope you'll share more. It is certainly a provocative subject and one I have thought about frequently in the 18 months since separation and just over a year of divorce. In fact I read the post this am and have been thinking about it throughout the day.

I have almost zero relationship with any of my former in-laws. But my situation might be unique in some ways. For one, I never spent any time with them except at family gatherings. My family is all far away, so I enjoyed going to their houses for all the holidays; we would rotate. They all live within 15 miles of us.

I have not reached out to any of them, so it is probably more on me than them. However, they haven't reached out to me much either. Her Dad was nice enough to say something during the separation phase, to the effect that he still wanted to maintain friendship or whatever. He's a dear man, but has a history of adultery, and was never that impressed with the amount of support I got from him around the divorce. I'm kinda lukewarm about all that.

I just received a Birthday card from her mom. I happen to know that she's a little manipulative and insincere. The last things I remember her saying to me was that I would have to "give WW enough rope to hang herself with" (meaning let the affair go until....something, I don't know what), and "you might have to give her what she wants (to win her love back)" (regarding SEPARATION). I didn't think those were things that someone should say to the father of their grand children. I have not had much desire to have contact with her ever since in any way. Plus, she lives far away. --to your point above, she has tolerated much much infidelity in her relationships...

Some of them I did enjoy being around from time to time. But I just can't go out of my way to do so. And, besides, I believe it would just be a trigger since I was always with now-ex when I saw them. It would probably set me back. I'm all for moving on, even at the expense of a few relationships.

I have no idea if any of them were/are embarrassed about anything. The lot of them have few boundaries and most of them see things a little differently than I do now, although we all got along famously when my boundaries were low. I can say that my exposure procedures were not the best, so while I harbor some resentment that they never slapped ww up side the head and said "you're losing the best thing that you ever had," they probably never got the full gist of ww's exploits.

Blood is thicker than water, so they would stick with exww anyway. I can't blame them there. ...I'm sure they miss me. Divorce is an ugly ugly thing.

Friends: that's easy. I have changed almost all my friends. MB has helped me hold myself to a different standard. I'm no longer into the same things. I'm no longer interested in the things that tied me to those people. The married couples, well...I'm single now, have nothing in common. Besides, I'm a single parent half the time and the other half I'm trying to build a relationship with a lovely woman who gets the concept of UA and spending time together. I now have 3 strong relationships and a whole bunch of acquaintances. That's working fine for me at this time.

Sorry if this isn't what you were looking for and that it was so lengthy and unconcise. I guess I have a bad habit.

opt

Hi Mulan~

I filed in my sitch.

But even prior to that, IL's were done with me. I had the MOST ideal relationship with them prior to sitch. I loved them like my own parents, and thought they loved me like their daughter.

I loved SIL as my own sister as well as her H and COM's.

ALL, have CUT ME OFF.

I am certain that FIL facilitated the relationship between POS/OC/OW when I thought they were NC.

I am also certain that "I" am the bad guy in their eyes since I wanted NC with OC AND OW.

FIL is a big "church" guy, deacon, etc. I SO want to write a letter to his pastor about this whole deal as he HAS been a proponent for OC and NOT my marriage. (But I won't.....) Subsequently, my D will be final in likely 30 days or less and I expect POS and OW to marry by Christmas. Had FIL supported my marriage and supported NC, I guarantee you I would be typing a different story.

On the day I discovered POS moved OW/OC in with him, I texted MIL, FIL, SIL and BIL to let them know. NOT ONE texted me back. It was then I knew I was no longer family.........

Friends? Not so much. MOST are shocked and appalled at POS. But NONE have written me off. Wish I could say the same for him.....

I've definitely learned that blood is thicker than water....

My kids' dad and I were married for 23 years. He was controlling and didn't treat me and our children right. I wanted a separation so I could have some peace because I was dealing with so much stress at work and at home. He left and came back months later. We agreed to get marriage counseling and see our doctors for medication. In the months that ensued, I could see his "attempts" to save our marriage were a show for everyone in our church and he had little regard for me. He filed for divorce, one month later it was over. I was blindsided and didn't have $ for an attorney because I'd been handing him my paychecks.
Because I was the one who had originally wanted a separation, I received all of the blame for the divorce, even though I'd wanted to salvage it. I think people judged me for what they didn't know anything about. People I'd been friends with for 23 years threw me away. I received hate mail. I had to screen my calls. It was a nightmare. I don't think he was a bad person, I think he had some problems and got bad advice on how to work things out. At the time I hadn't heard of marriagebuilders, although I did read some of Dr. Harley's books but I couldn't get my husband to. I think if we had gone to marriagebuilders we could have saved our marriage. I find the entire outcome sad. I do not have any friends from that period of time in my life and my daughter will not go to church (she's now 29 and this all happened 11-12 years ago) because of how they treated me. It made our children much more cautious about marriage. Holidays are now split between the parents so we each have less time with our grown children. I still can't bear to look at our family pictures. The thought that comes to my mind is "another family bit the dust". Would I take it all back and try all the harder to save things if I could? You betcha. Another sorry lesson in life...

My MIL and SIL are friends with POSOW and her family. They dropped me and all my kids faster than yesterday.

Once I did FULL EXPOSURE. I turned into the devil and it was the worst thing I could ever do to my WH.

What I found out ab out WH is that MIL actually had an affair on FIL and that produced my WH. She kept that a secret from my WH for 30 years. Also, my MIL almost broke up another marriage and had an affair with my WH's 18 year old friend (she was 42 at the time and my WH was 19).

I also learned FIL and MIL's divorce was from her cheating on FIL and then FIL having an affair. FIL dropped out of WH's life after they divorced when WH was 10.

I believe MIL, FIL, and SIL's influence on WH today is why he is full steam ahead with the D and believing a life with POSOW is love made in heaven. My MIL is old and alone today. She has no one and the men she chooses to date today are azzh0les.

Just my experience with a wayward family!!!

OMG itstoughlove!!!!! Although I'm not aware of any infidelity on my IL's part, EVERYTHING you wrote about how they treat you I can SOOOO relate to!!!!! (BTW, I WOULD NOT be surprised AT ALL if it were revealed that my FIL had an A before.....NOT. AT. ALL.)

These poor POSOW.......they just latch on and milk our families for what they are worth.

You know, after I typed my response above, I thought about how VERY ironic it is that MY family NEVER dropped POS (well, until now). They LOVED him unconditionally. Told me if I could forgive, they could forgive. My dad continued to reach out to POS as a friend and counsel him. They WANTED our marriage to work. To bad, IL's were more concerned about the well-being of the OC and POS stbxH parenting his kid that reconciling with me.

Wow, itstoughlove! That's really tough!

In my case, b/c it was so clear my XH was trying to escape into his fantasy world, even his own family tried to talk to him, yelled at him, got mad at him, cried in front of him, etc. I was lucky that his parents and most of his siblings did not drop me and my son, although two of his sisters becamse 'his side' saying that 'whatever makes him happy'.....that kind of stuff.

Although I distanced myself from those I knew would 'judge' me or our failed marriage during that time. There are some who treat you like a germ who may spread the 'divorce' disease or 'pitty' you. I figured they had not gone through roughness yet in their own marriage and would not understand. Those who have experienced pain in the past tended to be more understanding and supportive in my opinion.

I am sure my XH has told his fiancee all sorts of bad stuff about me to justify his leaving his family (and his sister-in-law told me that he has never disclosed to his fiancee that he had been arrested multiple times because of his SA and substance addiction, which obviously contributed to our failed marriage).

XH and I didn't really share many friends. The ones that we did share remain my friends, not his.

As for my XMIL...she has not made one single phone call to me in the 2 1/2 years since I filed for divorce from her son. I am the mother of her only grandson (who is one of the only 2 grandchildren she has) and I was her DIL for 26 years. Not one call to check on me. Getting her out of my life is one of the true blessings of my divorce.

My XBIL (XH's brother) remained friendly with me and we talked often up until the time I met my now dh. I know he would still help me if I needed anything. He is the one who told me that XH's relationship with much younger OW will not last. (he has been there done that and he knows what a big mistake his brother is making)

When friends and family drop an innocent person from their life I think it is often because continued dealings with said person bring up such negative memories that it is just not comfortable. That shows the shallowness of their friendship though.

Oddly enough, even though I lost all of our common friends of 23 years, I retained good relationships with all of my in-laws except one, and we were never close anyway. My FIL said the divorce was between us and had nothing to do with him, and as far as he was concerned, I was still his daughter. I continued to visit him every week until the day he died, last March (he was in assisted living). My SILs and BILs also kept good relationships with me, occassional visits, phone calls, cards, etc. But then these people are my kids' aunts, uncles, grandpa. My MIL passed away years ago, I took care of her the last nearly three years of her life while she was bedridden with cancer. She was my best friend and I know she would have remained so even after the divorce if she had still been alive. It's just how she was.

My family (except for my crazy mother) still loves my kids' dad and doesn't judge either of us for the divorce that occurred, only wish it would have turned out different, but have accepted that what is, is.

I think if people drop you from the circle just because of the divorce, unless the reason being your affair, abuse, illegal stuff, they clearly were not true friends to you.

I guess I am lucky that even though I am a FWW, all of our mutual friends are friends with both us. The in laws that I was close to, I am still close to and they treat me like family (they all know everything that has happened since d-day). But pretty much the entire group of 30 foreigners have shunned me and will not interact with me if that counts.
On the other hand, even though I told my parents what happened, they do not want to have anything to do with him (they never liked him to begin with:(

30 foreigners???

I live in a small town in a foreign country so I am also considered a foreigner as well. (sorry also what I mean by foreigners are English speaking foreigners)

That is hard, now that I understand what you mean by the group of foreigners - when you are in a foreign country, other 'foreigners' with similar background become very close, creating a small family-like community..., if they dropped you, it must have been like you lost your family, which is extremely tough when you are not in your home country.

Yeah a bit tough but I made a few good friends with the locals and a couple of foreigners who decided they would judge me based on their interactions with me instead of word of mouth. What is strange is that most of these foreigners came months later after d-day....

Not divorced yet but I haven't spoke to any inlaws other than ww's stepmom of 30 yrs in probably 6 months or more. She hasn't supported anything ww has done. She has really been a blessing to me with her spiritual insight.

Everyone else won't talk to me. I still go to the same church with mil and a few other inlaws and none of them talk to me. After exposure, they either made excuses for her or chose to say nothing. Now that I think about it, months ago, mil told our pastor she had nothing against me and that she had bought me a Christmas gift (we separated last October and ww filed in November). We approach Christmas 2011 and I still haven't received that gift and she sees me at church every week.

Interesting.
About 2 weeks ago I got a call out of the blue from my WexW's uncle. We had a tradition of spending Thanksgiving with their family. They would be in my neighborhood and asked if they could take me and my kids out to dinner. I asked if it was okay if GF joined us. He said "of course."
We had an excellent time and it was nice to see them. I always enjoyed him and his wife, who was at my daughter's birth. I haven't spoken to them in 2 years.
There was no awkwardness. Enough time had passed, I guess.

WexW's father is on hospice. I have made an effort to see him a couple of times (like if I'm picking up the kids there). Once, my ExSIL was there. It was "all good."

I guess everyone handles things differently, but I think time does help.

opt