I think it's a bit sad. My brothers children, my kids cousins, have only met them once. To be honest I've only met the older one once before that. They lived the opposite end of the country and their mother felt we, and our boys, were a 'bad influence'. She always presented herself as being from a higher social class than us, and for some reason the rest of the family accepted it, probably because they felt socially intimidated, although their backgrounds were not at all dissimilar. When she left my brother, because he didn't have enough money and she wanted a bigger house she told him, he really struggled to see the children at all as ex-wife did everything she could to make impossible (courts recognise this sort of behavious now but they didn't back then). Their children tried to keep in touch by phoning us, we weren't allowed to call them, but they were too young to keep it up in the face of mothers disapproval and we have had no contact for over 20 years. Personally, I think it's going to be their loss as my kids get on with everyone and are very confident and sociable. It is sad though, we don't hold out much hope of seeing them again. OP, I do think that your role is just keeping the two families in contact, the lines of communication open, it will allow them to make choices about if, or how, they interact as they get older and start to look outward to their peers and are no longer so much in thrall to the familiarity of their parents ways.