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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To encourage people to get back together?

61 replies

SummerNorth · 04/08/2019 14:44

To summarise would you get involved/try to encourage a couple to try and work it out in this situation. I know it isn't my place but I can't help but think they should try and are right for each other....

So my niece (of sorts) is 22, and has two gorgeous twin boys who are 2 and recently started an 'adult' job after recently graduating - the dad of the boys is 29 and in the Marines. They split up 9 months ago just before he was deployed for 6 months.

While he was gone she wrote 'a paragraph a day' about what each of the boys did - since he has been back she has organised days for them all and been amazing with access.

While he was gone, he financially supported them (more than expected) and since being back seems to make a lot of effort with both her and the boys.

Is it wrong to thing that someone should encourage them to be together rather than basically being together without actually being?

OP posts:
SimonJT · 04/08/2019 15:38

Leave them alone, my ex and I are best friends, despite that our personal lives mean we simply don’t work as a couple.

Original poster
SummerNorth · 04/08/2019 15:42

I guess the conclusion from this post is that I should not get involved.

I do wonder in a different time I'd imagine they'd of never broken up in the first place, but these days is whats done.

OP posts:
hadthesnip2 · 04/08/2019 15:42

I'm I the only one that wants to know what this "adult" job is.....??

TiredSloth · 04/08/2019 15:43

I’m not sure why you think saying/encouraging anything will have any impact at all? Like they’ll suddenly go ‘oh yeah! We were silly to split up! Now that auntie SummerNorth has shown us the error of our ways, let’s get back together!’

They are adults in control of their own lives.

bee222 · 04/08/2019 15:46

I know it isn't my place

You got that right!
It'a absolutely nothing to do with you and none of your business. Stop nosing into other peoples lives and keep your beak out.

Original poster
SummerNorth · 04/08/2019 15:47

Adult job as in just graduated uni, is a grad job for big company with lots of benefits. Versus when she was at uni and got financial support from others and waited on, worked in a shop - was on zero hour contract that kinda thing.

OP posts:
PortiaCastis · 04/08/2019 15:48

Nope keep your nose out and why are you so over invested in someone else's life

Original poster
SummerNorth · 04/08/2019 15:49

I feel shes quite a young adult though - in a lot of ways like a child, gets a lot of physical (and financial) help from her parents (and ex).

OP posts:
Original poster
SummerNorth · 04/08/2019 15:52

Also I'm not overly invested, I care about her and also her sons - who ultimately are going to be the ones most affected....

OP posts:
motherheroic · 04/08/2019 15:52

Why do you keep adding things into the thread that you could have just put in the first post?

Sounds like things are fine as they are, leave them be.

Original poster
SummerNorth · 04/08/2019 15:55

@motherheroic I'm only responding to what other people have replied/to add more depth to my question.

OP posts:
Alloftit · 04/08/2019 15:56

It’s absolutely none of your business, keep your nose out. You don’t know what’s happened or indeed is happening behind closed doors.

JacquesHammer · 04/08/2019 15:58

Also I'm not overly invested, I care about her and also her sons - who ultimately are going to be the ones most affected....

And it sounds like they’re doing a great job co-parenting. In what way are you concerned about how that’s affecting them?

1stmonkey · 04/08/2019 15:58

Oh no, i think stay out of it. If they are getting along and parenting well that is wonderful and an enormous achievement. I'm sure they have their reasons for not being together. If it's something they choose to work on and get back together, then that should be down to them.
There are a thousand reasons why it may not have worked out and i'm sure they know what's right for them.

suitcasecoveredincathair · 04/08/2019 16:00

I just find it strange they act like a couple but aren't one? Surely they'd want to be for there kids.

You only find it strange because our culture seems to favour a scorched earth approach when it comes to relationship breakdown.

ExH and I usually have a meal together with our children at least once a week, and we do things like play board games, go for walks, general family stuff.

We are emphatically no longer a couple not if he was the last man on earth but we have children together so we do our best to get along and have fun.

Idontwanttotalk · 04/08/2019 16:03

Don't interfere and that means keep what you consider are encouraging and positive comments about their relationship to yourself as well. Your opinion on how they get on while co-parenting is probably of no interest to them.

If she decided she didn't want to be in a relationship where she did everything while he was deployed then at least now she is free to find someone else who is going to be around for her.

They can co-parent well while both finding partners who are more suited to them. He needs someone who doesn't mind when he is deployed overseas and who supports his career. She doesn't want that. Not everyone is cut to be the partner of someone in the forces.

cottonwoolsnowmen · 04/08/2019 16:04

Absolutely none of your business.

You have no idea what a relationship or the people in it are like behind closed doors.

Just because in the past someone in her position might not have had the option to end the relationship, doesn't mean it would have been a good outcome. Women used to spend a lifetime being abused because allowing them to be abused was considered more palatable than allowing them to end the relationship.

RosaWaiting · 04/08/2019 16:09

what on earth has it got to do with you?

sonjadog · 04/08/2019 16:13

What if you encourage her to get back with him and it turns out that he is verbalt abusive in private, or that he cheating every time is he away from home? Even if he seems like a great guy when you meet him, you can’t know the person he is in private. That is why you should never get involved in this kind of situation. You may be pushing someone into an awful situation. They need to work it out for themselves.

Ibiza2015 · 04/08/2019 16:16

It’s not your business to tell her what to do. There may well be stuff going on you don’t know about.

However you can talk to her about how she is feeling. It’s kind of difficult to explain what I mean, but I mean along the line of counsellors who encourage people to talk about how they are feeling and get them to examine their own feelings more deeply. So for example you could ask her about how co parenting is going and if it’s easier for her now he’s not deployed and see how that goes and if it leads to what you hope from her own feelings. But telling her - just no.

SilverySurfer · 04/08/2019 16:16

It's beyond my comprehension why you think this has anything to do with you. MYOB, get on with your own life which must be boring as hell to make you want to interfere in other people's relationships.

MoreFrog · 04/08/2019 16:19

My exh and I split up because he'd been unfaithful, and that was a deal breaker for me. However, we didn't tell anyone the reason because his family would have been appalled and shocked at his behaviour, and I wanted to protect them and, to an extent, him from all the freaking out our respective families would display. We just said we didn't get on and would be happier apart (if anybody asked).

I wouldn't have appreciated anybody sticking their nose in.

MoreFrog · 04/08/2019 16:24

My exh and I split up because he'd been unfaithful, and that was a deal breaker for me

I should add that we'd been drifting apart for a couple of years so there wasn't much shock or heartbreak involved.

Fundays12 · 04/08/2019 16:24

Don’t get involved it’s none of your business. They are good parents and have put there kids needs first be incredibly proud of them as not everyone does this but there relationship is there business.

riotlady · 04/08/2019 16:42

Unless you are very explicitly asked by one of them, keep your thoughts to yourself