or am I being a bitch??

[VanillaPumpkin]

DFIL has pissed my off over the last year. He lives overseas and we went to visit him last year and we all had a great time and he went on and on about how much he misses us and the dd's. So when he was back in the UK for three months this summer I reasoned he might come to visit. I was wrong. This made me and . The dd's are perfectly well spoilt by their other grandparents and so they are not missing out, but he is and is full of sadness and regrets when we do meet up . (He has acted in this way since he went overseas 6 years ago).
So I made a decision to not make as much effort with him now. We sent him a photo of the girls for Christmas. (He sent us a card asnd some money for the dd's). I then emailed the other sets of grandparents (all divorced) to see if they wanted dd's school photo as they had had one at Christmas. I did not email him and decided that if we got the others one we would get him one too. They all said yes so I have ordered them all one (inc him). MIL (divorced for 5 years now, separated from him for 8) replied to me yes please on the photo and that FIL will want one too .
I then sent some photos of the dd's to the UK gp's. I then got an email from FIL saying what nice photos they were and that he would be over in the UK in the next two months. I am a bit annoyed as DMIL (his ex) has obviously forwarded the photos. I am not going to mention it to anyone in RL as I am aware I am being a bit silly, but am I just being a total bitch. DFIL has disappointed me SOOO much since he moved. His own sons don't get birthday presents from him any more and DH doesn't either (though the other son DBIL does get a cheque for the same amount he sends for the dd's) Makes DH feel great and while I won't be overtly difficult I don't see why I should go out of my way to contact him and send him pictures and I am annoyed that DMIL has seen fit to get involved!
I am a bitch aren't I??? .

Maybe it is a living abroad thing....
I am worried that dh could go the same way tbh... He does ring his Dad (since I set up free calls to overseas places and told him), but.....I do sometimes wonder if they would ever see each other if I didn't try and arrange it . FIL is very good company and very charming when we are with him so I do actually want him to be a part of our lives, but I agree he is missing out far more than the dd's are. Well at least I think so.

LOL
Funny you should say that.
We're abroad and in another country from FIL (I posted further down).

Out of sight and out of mind? Or absence makes the heart grow fonder?

Can I just say one quick thing in defence of your MIL divorced from FIL in question - I don't think you ought to be angry with her for forwarding on photos of her granddaughters to him. If someone in my family sent snaps I might easily send them to another member - it wouldn't necessarily occur that they had deliberately not been sent to exclude someone. I think it was rather nice of her actually, esp as divorced, and clearly she knows that he wants to see the photos.

If he's made the effort to fly back to the UK, surely it is up to you to make the effort to visit him whilst he is here in the UK?

My dad recently took the coach from Inverness in Scotland to East Manchester. Since he'd made that effort, it meant that we didn't have to make the 6hr car journey to see him, so we drove for 1.5hrs instead and took him out for lunch.

When we lived in France we got fed up of people expecting us to make the effort to see them when we visited the UK. After all, we'd just hauled 2 children to the airport and flown over to the UK so the least they could do was to pop into their cars and visit us where we were staying!

Therefore my answer to the op is yes, you are being unreasonable!

Marmite - Yes I agree. MIL was actually doing a 'nice' thing and I mentioned further down that it is her son and her grandchildren as well as my children. Someone else made the point that she knows he is a bit rubbish and so is smoothing things over a bit. I agree.
Rhubarb - He stays with his partners family (an elderly but very able and lovely mother) and so I would not see that we could visit him there at that house (and we weren't invited). He was invited to ours where he could have seen his two sons, two grandchildren and two dils in one visit but couldn't make it. He had a car.
I do take your point. When we lived overseas I used to base myself at Mums or Dads when we were back and get people to come to us there, but I think it is a different situation when you have children.
To be honest this thread has been quite cathartic (do I mean that?) and I feel much less bitter about the whole thing and I am actually looking forward to his next visit. As long as he makes it....