Fragmented family tree

I only find the last line sad the rest is just normal life surely

Normal life?True it's considered normal by some,it's certainly sad though,if only for the one who didn't want to break up,and the kids who will never know their extended family.

There is indeed a lot of sadness there for him, and for you. Broken marriages are not nice for anyone.

Sounds fairly typical to me too. Its sad when partnerships break up and people we have grown fond of are no longer part of close family and even sadder if that means grandchildren grow distant too as in this case.

Then of course their are the grandparents who lose all interest in their grandchildren when their son leaves his wife and children and ignore them if they meet them in the street.

Not my family but not my imagination either.

if you break it down line by line it's not an awful legacy
I have four sons .....happy line
I have seen six marriages ....happy line
I have three daughters in law ..... Happy line
I have seen three daughters in law fall by the wayside .... Sad line but it happens
I have twelve grand children .... Happy line
I have six grand children born in marriage .... Happy line
I have six grand children born out of marriage ..... Happy line
I only see three grand children regularly ... sad line

However it does say " only see three regularly"! it does nt say I am only allowed to see three grandchildren ......( I have two of my grand kids live in NZ age 19 and 15 and I have only seen them about six times in their lives) it doesn't say anyone has died or been badly injured it doesn't say anyone is fighting or hating or causing heart ache to their families it doesn't say any grandkids are in care or been treated badly
Unfortunately Utopia doesn't exist and our dreams for our families don't necessarily end up in a little house on the prairie scenario
Real life it full of sadness and rarely turns out as we wanted

Says who,I thought at least 50% of marriages worked.

I don't know any actual stats Marmark1 I meet up with 12 school friends every month 4 are still in their original marriages and 7 have been married two or three times, again I meet up with three other work related friends and three out of the four have been married twice so for me personally it looks more like a third are successful but hey ho that may just be me

That's not taking into account the innumerable couples who live together have a family and don't marry, in my case only one of my 3 children ever married that lasted a very short time but they all have families with partners some successful long partnerships and sadly some not but I see all my grandchildren regularly even the grown up ones but sadly partners that were part of my family for a long time are no longer close but that would of happened if they were married or not.

Two ex daughters in law have not encouraged access as grandparents, but I wait patently for the day when they are able to make up their own mind. Forcing these issues makes it difficult for the kids. They are under pressure from their mother. Two older ones came to a family wedding two weeks ago, it was good to see them. I acknowledge birthdays and Christmas but never know whether they have received. Thank you for your helpful comments. What I do know is that I've never stopped loving them.

My heart goes out to you and I do know how heartbreaking it can be to be estranged from grandchildren. It has been over ten years now since we last had contact with our two older granddaughters and today I found out that the eldest, 28 now, got married in June. She was given away by her step-father who from the time he got together with her mother was determined to take my son's place aided and abetted by my ex daughter-in-law. I could write at length about how much we helped, loved and cared for these grandchildren who were our first but as soon as their step-father came on the scene we were gradually airbrushed out of their lives. We used to email them a couple of times a year reminding them that we would always be pleased to see them should they want to see us but these always went unanswered and when the eldest one was twenty-one we sent a message via my other daughter-in-law through Facebook that we would like to get something special for her but she replied that she wanted nothing from us. So that was it and we tried to move on which is easier said than done. The younger one came to see us when she was eighteen and asked to see her father, step-mother and half sister and a meeting was arranged for the next day but when she left our house a few minutes later she texted to say she couldn't go through with it. I used to think that when they got married they might contact us and at least invite us to the ceremony but clearly that is not the case. I now have to try and get over the latest upset and I know now that we will never see them again. I sincerely hope your grandchildren will be different and be allowed to have their own mind.