What WIthe Children Think

A great thread Starlady.

How wonderful for you Pink, your news gives a glimmer of hope to all EGP's I'm sure. I've always believed that we are fated never to see our GC but maybe one day we will. Thank you for sharing.

Apologies for going a bit off topic, but I think "the children" are often very badly affected by "so called" adults messing with their minds.

My son (now almost 39) has a huge chunk of family missing from his life. His father abandoned us when my son was only a few months old and he only saw him again a handful of times before he died (aged only 50). My son has half sisters, brothers, aunties, uncles, cousins etc. that he has never seen. His biological fathers lack of interest has effected him badly over the years.

So sorry for all the pain people in here have experienced!

Glad you appreciate this thread, though, Buffybee! And such exciting news! Please keep us posted!

Pink such good news! It may be a while before you get to see the 12-yr-old, of course, but glad she's interested and that you've been able to renew your relationship with GS!

Clearly, Pink, saying something like, "Your GM wouldn't give me money when I asked for it!" (or whatever she said) didn't help DD.

I'm getting the impression from this thread that how the GC see the situation may depend largely on whether or not their parents give them believable and acceptable reasons for the estrangement and whether or not the parents are open to their contacting the estranged GPs, etc. when they're older. Then again, I appreciate the fact that, as Maggiemaybe points out, by then, it could be too late.

I used to think it would be best to just say, "It's a matter of grownup problems." But perhaps that leaves too much of a mystery?

Sorry that some of you find acronyms and abbreviations annoying. I use them b/c it saves time & space, especially with words that are used over and over. There's a list to click on at the top of the page, and as Bibbity said, one can always ask. Also, as Bibbity said, all the forums seem to use them. But I get that some posters choose not to.

As for me, I'm used to using them and will continue to do so. Please feel free to skip my posts if these things irritate you.

I agree about acronyms srn63 and never use them when writing about family members - SiL is the worse one as can be sister or son-in-law. You have to read the whole thread to work out which one they mean.
This subject comes up often for discussion and never gets resolved - not sure what can be done about it to be honest

Totally agree regarding acronyms it makes reading posts so difficult and you loose the will to live if you have to keep referring to the "translations" pages, I just don't bother to read if there are too many. My loss probably but life is too short.

My father had a serious psychiatric illness and self medicated with alcohol eventually combining it with anti-psychotic medication. He was nevertheless able to work and function and outsiders saw him as charming and handsome - 'a perfect gentleman'. He had limited contact with our children but was never alone with them. I eventually stopped him even phoning after he disparaged my husband (and children's father) to our 13 year old son when he answered the phone one day. I told him I was reducing his phone contact to my phoning him regularly. He did honour these rules. We explained the reasons to the children. By then we were living several hundreds of miles apart and the children never saw him again. We arranged for him to move to our home town when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer but our son chose not to see him again. Our daughter was abroad during this period and he had died a few days before she returned. She was very upset that we hadn't told her till she came home. Both were in their late teens by then. They know my dad had a troubled childhood and came home from the Korean War very damaged by what he had seen and we made sure they understood that he had little control over his behaviour for many reasons and that we wanted to protect him from the damage my sister and I, as well as our mother had suffered as a result.

I posted yesterday at 18.59 about my sadness as I had never been allowed to meet my maternal Grandma.
This afternoon I found my cousins landline number, I haven't seen him for about 25 years.
Nervous!!!
A bit stilted at first and had to clarify who I was but I asked him if he had a photo of our Grandma and any information about when and where she was buried.
He has one photo, which he sent on Whatapp, along with where she was buried in 1976. At last I have some connection with her, she looks a lovely, cuddly, soul. I'm going to find her grave.
Ten minutes after I had thanked him for his help, he rang me to and asked if I'd be interested in meeting sometime for a chat.
I'm seeing him this Thursday, my big cousin who I loved, I'm so thrilled.
Thanks for this post Starlady.?

Annarami I am with you on this post, why can't we just take a extra second and type the full word.

It’s shorter. This is the accepted form of communication on Internet forums. There have been several helpful posts that explain them all.
And if anyone is ever confused just post and ask what something is.

Why is this site so full of abbreviations? It does spoil reading the comments and trying to sort out the “ codes “ as well as sometimes trying to understand some very complicated situations. Could I request please that full words are used ? If not, why not ? Is there a good reason for abbreviations ?

I’m not to concerned about my DC feeling a piece of them missing.
DH is in contact with his two brothers (one who’s fully CO MiL and the other is very very low contact) and with them come the cousins.
There is a great Aunty and if we bumped into her it would be lovely but they’re just not close. Nothings happened it’s just the way their family is.

I wonder if it will depend on if the children ever hear another version of the events leading up to the grandparents been cut-out?

My dil has no relationship with her maternal grandparents, slightly different situation as it was them who cut out dil’s mum, as well as several other family members. I once asked dil if she’d ever consider trying to initiate contact, but she said that knowing the hurt they’d caused some of her loved ones, she knew everything she needed to about them.

In the case of my dil, there are lots of people who’ve been treated the same way by her grandparents. I don’t know if she would feel differently if other relatives had positive relationships with them.

It’s possibly noteworthy however, that a couple of years ago there was a death in dil’s family. One of her siblings attempted to make contact with his grandmother, who literally closed the door in his face. At the funeral, my dil overheard someone asking her grandmother if dil was her granddaughter and she replied no, that she didn’t have any granddaughters. My dil was absolutely heartbroken by both these events. So obviously there was still part of her that wanted her grandmother to love her, despite the way her grandmother had treated her mum.

It’s an incredibly sad story, my dil is wonderful and comes from a lovely family.

It’s all very well saying children can make their own minds up when they’re old enough. My mother cut off both her parents, wouldn’t talk about why, kept no photos. By the time I was old enough to make my own mind up they were long dead.

I was actually cut off from half my family history, as I know nothing but the bare facts of dates of birth, marriage and death of my grandparents and their family before them. I’ve no idea whether looks or personality traits have been passed on to me, my children or my grandchildren, and have nobody to ask, which I think is sad for all of us.

I think we were put off the scent by the OP's reference to COing. You can't cut off-ing. Can you? I guessed it referred to estrangement due to the context. I am not stupid

Regarding errors in posts - don't other people have a "Preview message" button?

You are quite right summerlove. I didn't read the OP carefully enough.

My maternal aunt cut my family off when I was 11 after my mother died. My father encouraged contact because “family”, so as a child I was sent to chase a grown woman. When I could get her to answer my calls or letters, she spent the time badmouthing my father, my beloved stepmother and my new siblings. As time went on, she even started to blame me for the estrangement.

I wish my father had not encouraged me to keep in touch, and let me be hurt for six months instead of having the years of my favourite extended family member blanking me, and causing me to feel the guilt.

Instead of the healthy attitude of “she’s missing out” I internalized that I was missing out, And that if I just tried harder I would be good enough. I would have gotten over being cut out, but the constant rejection was very damaging.

Gone girl, not knowing extended family members doesn’t mean children are from a “broken home”. What even is that anymore?

Annarmal Have I missed something? Acronyms? Sorry if My post offened. I used Some abbreviations but only becuse I got told off on gransnet once for not using them. The rest are my fat fingers I would love an edit button but I just need to be more careful and read back before pressing post.

I am not answering this thread as there are just too many obscure acronyms which makes things difficult to read or understand. I never use them myself as I think they are a right turnoff. One day people will only speak in acronyms. RIDICULOUS!

Thank you I just want others to know that while there may be pain now there may be hope in the furture.

pink what a lovely post.
Very best wishes for happy continuing relationships.
Will you tell us more please, in due course?

All the abrevations looks like the script from "Line of Duty"

grands net needs an edit button