Help Please !
I have been married to my second husband now for 21 years. I first met him in 1998. When we first met I was divorced and had been on my own happily for 12 years. My children were then 23 & 19, my eldest daughter had left home and was happy pursuing her career & my youngest son had just started university. My now husband had been separated from his then wife for 5 years they had sold the family home and divided the assets and each had their own home. It was his first wife who wanted their marriage to end. His children were 10, 15 & 18 when I first him. The children lived with their mum during the week and my husband had them to stay every weekend. I was first introduced to his children 11 months after meeting him. The youngest son who was 10 seemed to quite like me but the older 2 were very reserved which I could quite understand. I was extremely careful about not over encroaching on their family time at weekends and would occasionally just pop in and say hello and spend an hour or so with them all to try & get to know them. After 2 years of us being together my now husband asked his first wife for a divorce, they had then been separated for 7 years by then and he told her he had asked me to marry him. The divorce proceedings started, my husband offered an extremely generous divorce package which was accepted, but it was then that his soon to be ex wife started to hurl awful abuse towards me. His daughter then started to be very hostile towards me and would have nothing to do with me. I asked to meet with his ex wife as I couldn’t understand why all this anger was being aimed at me. At the meeting his ex wife told me very clearly that all the children really disliked me, she also said she still cared very much for her ex husband. I was very polite to her but then she got up said she should never have agreed to meet me & stormed off. This episode really did make me wobble. My husbands mother & his sisters & my own chikdren were all extremely supportive of my relationship with my now husband and said you must just get on with your own lives. We went on to marry, his younger son spent many happy weekends & long school holidays with us but the older 2 children would have nothing to do with me. My husband would meet up separately with his 2 older children without me. His eldest daughter who is now in her forties comes to the the house but treats me as if I didn’t exist and on some occasions just completely ignores me. She’s civil but has no interest in talking to me In fact I feel extremely uncomfortable in my own home when she visits. I always go out of my way to try & make her & her 3 children feel welcome. I will always make cakes and biscuits for the little ones as I want them to have a lovely time with their Grandfather. My hope is that one day she might accept me but perhaps not. I am sorry if I have waffled on, but I really do find her attitude towards me extremely upsetting and I still don’t know how to deal with it. My husband tells me to just ignore her behaviour. The older I get the harder it seems to get. I would be most grateful for any advice. Thank you.
