My 23 year old son played me for a fool since he was 17 or 18. He moved in and out of my home 4 times, each time running away like a little boy with his stick and knapsack tied to the end of it. The 4th time, he was set up and ready to go to the local University for 4 years. He and his mother devised a wonderful plan to drag me into a wonderful plan where he went to the Psychiatric Hospital. I was to go there and spill my guts about how my brother committed suicide and any other personal problems tied to my side of the gene pool so my darling son could get disability from the Govt. for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, I have never, ever taken a dime of state or federal money in my life.

I have only one way to deal with of this BS. I can only concentrate on how I have lived my life. I have no control over what other people do or what they have attempted to do to me. Artie, you have a lot of good things going right for you right now. You have a wonderful husband. You are painting and fixing your home up so you and your hubby can enjoy life. If you feel like you would like to share your love with children, there is always the local chapter of Big Brothers and Big Sisters to consider. Just let it go for now.

Grief work is hard concerning a loss like the death of a loved one, they have the aspect of finality that must be faced. In the case of loss due to divorce or the severing of family ties, though, grief work is hard precisely because we don't know if it's necessarily final. Not knowing is the hard part, as you put it "Rumor has it," "do I really have to process this," and not knowing "there to file it."

I went through something similar when I went through my divorce and my former spouse ended all communication. I was close to my mother in law and had driven out of state monthly to see her for a year when she got cancer. Yet when she died I wasn't even notified of the funeral until well after the fact.

We have no control and so our trust in a higher power is put to the test. All we can do is turn it over, and ask for the support of others in the mean time. Much support to you, arfie, as you seek a way to find a handle on this.

We're human. We err. It's forgiveness that's difficult. The best parents can have horrible children, and horrible parents can have good kids (look at this board!). At a certain point.... it's sometimes best to do nothing...

Vent away, Arfie, we're here to listen.

If I may be snarky a moment? Perhaps it is not a multigenerational family issue, but a Superhero Arfie tying on her cape and insisting she can and will save the grandchildren from the Evil Archvillain DIL? Feel free to snap my tail for that, but in mutligenerational conflicts in my family (even the healthy side where 80 percent of them get along well and make it all work out for all parties).... There's often an element of "I will see those grandchildren raised with what I deem is love and care", and there's intense negotiations on what that means to whom. (Often never involving the gnradhildren, I add.)

On my dad's side? My dad's mom would just don her Mantle of Wisdom and tell us how our mothers were awful mothers because they weren't mothers like *her*....

So my view of these things is skewed as all get out.

Apologies. No idea what I'm saying. Sedation from 2.5 hours at a dentist still wearing off.

General message is meant to be one of support:-)

52, It is real easy to believe the DIL is playing welfare games of the variety your ex-wife and son played. It is, in fact, hard to keep myself from assuming that is the game set she is playing. Disability/Welfare/Law-Suit-Lotto games still seem to be growing in popularity culture wide. For sure, I feel played. Her tolerance lasted as long as the handouts. Don't really want to go there. Her mysteries are her own to sort.

muji, The lack of finality does, indeed, make the grief processing difficult. The story is far from over.

Leo, That super hero thing is, I think, indeed a factor here. If nothing else, even at 61, my energy level is pretty intimidating to the average joe. I am stuck with that energy level, whether I like it, or not. To a morbidly obese woman from a morbidly obese welfare family, I suspect I look like a one-woman task force. But I only get to guess. In larger fact, I don't get to know. The DIL is literally a closed door to me. Data unavailable. I am okay with leaving her door closed. I have had 3 years of practice on that non-activity. She is not even the first closed door politician in my life. Remember, it was my grandson crying at his mother's closed door which triggered the flashback series about my own mother's closed door parenting back in June. Closed door politics run in my family like a freight train.

It be the loss of the grandchildren I am processing here. I have no intention of being the cause of their getting squeezed in adult power plays. Parents will do what parents will do. Losing yet another set middle aged mysteries doesn't feel like much of a loss.

Losing grandchildren. . . Ouch. . . Even keeping the dialogue about the grandchildren without diverting into parental yaddah blahs is tough.

Arfie, continued support. Loss sucks.

When one door closes, another door opens. It is all too easy to miss the door that is open if we focus on the door which is closed.

very sorry for your loss arfie

Support from here too arfie.

Kinda had a similar thing bomb me this week. The daughter, SIL and grands will be moving soon, several states away possibly Tennessee. Her house was sold for taxes they didn't pay...too late to stop the sale.
Just getting a handle on that.