When I was about 9 my dad left the country, seen him once since and I'm now 38.
A couple of years later my mum met someone new and he became my mum's main focus. I have two older brothers and thankfully my nan was in the picture so we still had someone there who really cared for us. My mum was always "around" but never really present - iykwim.
About a year after my nan died, my mum sold up & moved up to cardiff (as that's where my stepdad was originally from - moved down here way before my mum met him) it's roughly about 200 miles away.
Anyway i had her first grandchild almost 3 years ago, she sees her about 3 - 4 times a year, then complains to me that my MIL sees her more often (she's 5 minutes away).
Went off to their second house in Spain for 8 weeks when my little one was a few weeks old - I was suffering from bad PND.
For obvious reasons this year my little girl has only seen her once, she's only been around for 1 of her Christmas's and no birthday's, for one reason or another. My little girl would love to see her more often.
I asked if this year would make her rethink her living situation (all her family live down here, all her friends live down here) but she refuses to even discuss it and gets in a mood if I bring it up.
Also she lives next door to a married couple - almost exactly the same age as us, they have a little girl - same name as our little girl (born one month apart from my little girl) and they are always having them over (when not in restricted tiers) and always baby sitting for their child, and telling me little anecdotes about her.
It just feels like they have this replacement family up there and who cares about their own grandchild.
Not to mention about a week into our little girl being born she said, oh i can't wait for your oldest brother to have a baby, he has no intention of having children and i just wanted to scream - why can you not just be grateful for what you do have.
Just feel so alone a lot of the time, don't get me wrong my MIL is great and I would be lost without her, but it would be nice for my mum to care a bit more about her own children / grandchildren.