All Is Well ,slowly Things Returning To Normal...happy For My Sister

blessed, both of your threads on this topic have been an eye-opener in so many ways. Even with the mystery around the son's behavior cleared up, I have noted it down somewhere for future use -- never assume (married) kids will be happy to host you any time you want to visit them. Other lesson is that there there can so many reasons why people behave how they do; we never know till we know.

The reasons listed for 'naturally' being 'dead against' the girl's relationship with that man are like the reasons parents produce when child wants to have a love marriage. Looks like the man's age, marital status, being a dad, financial state after divorce were the reasons to reject him. Maybe he is a good person also? The girl has completed her masters. She must be around 23-25. Old enough to choose? Maybe she saw something in him?

I wonder why we educate our children, bring them up in the USA or send them abroad for studies, but when they try to adopt any of the other American life style parts, we fall back to 'meeting the man without girl's knowledge, telling him to back off' and so on?

It is a general question. I also might have similar reaction if my child falls for someone like that man. One more lesson I learnt from these threads. Meet the child's choice, give them a fair hearing, and don't reject outright based on profile factors like divorcee, poor, has a child.

Also, why blame the guy only (cunning, getting a beautiful girl for second innings...). Maybe she is getting a green card? Again, this is natural. When our child or our niece/nephew behave in a way we don't like, we blame outside factors for it. For the son's inexplicable behavior, the DIL was blamed, for the daughter's affair, the divorced man is blamed.

I hope my children don't feel they have to hide things of this enormity from me like this for so long.

blessed, for parents like your sister, the heartbreak of a son who has changed, or a DIL who is cold, is one thing. That of a daughter in an affair like this is another thing. Your sister needs you more than ever now. I hate to say this: such affairs rarely break up once and for all. Now comes the tougher part of keeping it under wraps, esp. around the time of groom hunting.

See... now she is asking DIL to take care of her daughter. If only she had gifted that DIL the diamond necklace son was going to pay for.

 

blessed, we all post responses in threads, argue animatedly, then forget and move on. Your threads struck a chord and ran for pages. But, you don't owe any detailed follow-up or updates, or any clearing up your nephew's behavior. The patch-up and all-izz-well can be shared without going into details.

The first thread was fairly or barely anonymous, and was only about a changed-after-marriage son and bratty DIL. This one has too many details. Even if one person from that campus or town reads it, now or in the future, and realizes who the people are, it could lead to irreversible damage for a young girl, a man, and people associated with them. Campuses are now having to look very closely at any relationships between faculty and students.

IL is quite well-known even among people who don't post or read regularly.

I would suggest you work offline with admins to see how this thread can be edited.

 

In such times, family is family. Sometimes a sibling needs some guidance or other help. Foreign land .. a little support from brother and SIL can help the girl. Of course, the DIL should be careful and not overdo things, but she cannot remain completely detached from the matter. "Not nice to her.." to be expected from a girl who is in love (?) being advised to break up.

When a sibling is going through major life stuff like marriage, affair, divorce, job loss, challenge with child ... they need help from sibling.