Do I post the letter?

[ThelittleBee]

My step mother has fallen out with her entire family by starting a relationship with my dad's (her then husbands) friend soon after he passed away. He was still married and living with his wife and children. This caused a huge rift as not only were the family still grieving from his loss a few months prior, but no one wanted any part in destroying another family. This was three years ago and today we found out that she has went ahead and married the man as he has had a recent terminal diagnosis and is now also very close to death. So close they married at the hospice. I felt nothing but empathy for her until his daughter got in touch with me and asked for my help contacting her as she is refusing to let his children see him and make thing right before he passes. I felt strongly that she is repeating the same thing she did to me by denying anyone else the right to grieve and once again is seeing this man as only her husband and like he was nothing to anyone else besides her. I wrote a letter to her today, at first just to vent and get things off my chest, but now I am considering sending it to her. There is already chatter about how she wanted to make sure she has financial security over his assets but that is speculation and I do feel for her despite the past. The letter explains that I wish she would acknowledge that these men are and were peoples fathers, friends, and loved by people other then herself. I did express my hurt and shock, but also explained that I want to be someone who moves with kindness and compassion. Do I send the letter? I feel she needs to be told that she cant control someone else's relationships but I also feel its not my place? (Note she had been in my life for 25 years before my father passed and this all kicked off) I am the only person who can say this to her as all the others don't want anything to do with it/ her.

I'm not sure this is the letter you should send just now. I think it will have helped you to write everything down but if your aim is to get the daughter to see her father then laying blame will probably not work. You can tell her later how much you were hurt if you want.

Is the man still in the hospice or at home? If he is still at the hospice, I would suggest to the children that they speak to the manager of the hospice to see if there is any way that they can visit their father there. Presumably she leaves to go home and shower/sleep and perhaps the hospice could allow his children to visit when she is not present. Hospice staff tend to have a lot of compassion and I'm sure they would be happy to discuss all options.

No he is now receiving end of life care to die at her home.

I'm sorry to say it this way, but death has an awful habit of surfacing the most dreadful behaviour.

you SM is controlling who can and can't see her dying husband. ok not great, he's your father - but if you haven't been in contact with either of them for years, you have no way of knowing her side of the story nor her motivations to take the actions she is.

and you're now coming back into the picture just to rub it in how kind and generous you're being to her, even though she wasn't to you, for your own selfish reasons to make yourself look and good, but to whom? Telling her she "deserves" compassion isn't your place to do.

it all sounds messy and misguided - sending a letter of any description is adding fuel to the fire. The most you should be sending you SM is a card in due course with the brief message of condolence.

He is not my father. Read the post.

So even more odd why you feel the need to be involved in your SM's decisions to the extent of writing to her. I just don't get the motivation to do it, other than you needing to appear magnanimous. To what end?

I think its because up until two years ago (before this relationship was official and he was divorced) she was a huge part of my life for 25 years? I don't think its that odd to want to reach out to someone who was involved in a huge chunk of your life when major life events happen? She messaged me last year when she still had social media to say her mother had passed away and I sent my brief condolences then. She's not some stranger who was married briefly to my dad they were together for a long time and she was in my life from 7 years old

Do not do what I would do

I would go round mobbed up with my siblings and put her in another room - and let his children see him

What the fuck can she do about that. Not very much apart from call the police - and very little would happen

So why do you need to ask whether to send a letter to her or not, if she has been a key part of your life for all those years. You know her far better than we do.

It sounds like you know your own mind so work with that reality. Just don't do it just to "look good" otherwise that isn't being authentic

I think you need to take a minute. This post may have hit a nerve? I am simply looking for a sounding board and a place to reflect. Thanks for the response though

His children wrote to OP in desperation. Their father's wife did the same with OPs father.

I'd be focusing my energies more on talking to the children of this man and encouraging them to just go. The worst that can happen is that they're refused entry (and I appreciate that would be painful). They need to try, and I'd be strongly urging them to do that.

I have told them that they are better to turn up and try. At the very least she denies them entry they can walk away knowing they did everything they could for him, as shit as it would be.

leave the letter, your ex SM wont care and it wont help anyone,not even you.

The kids of this man need to go round to her home and see their dad. whether she likes it or not. Is he never alone in the house?

No she is on bereavement leave so I have heard and he is residing with her since divorcing his wife. He is too sick to use his phone and is receiving in-house palliative care from the hospice nurses. She has refused them directly on multiple requests claiming that it will disturb him and that he doesn't need that right now but as a nurse myself, I can tell you 100% that no patient who was passing that I have ever treated or heard of anyone else treating has not wanted to right the wrongs with their closest family so close to death. Even if he cant have a deep conversation with her, I'm sure having his kids even briefly by his side will make him pass so much more comfortably. I do not believe for a second that he can raise children for 30 years and decide in the last two that they now mean nothing to him, He still wanted a relationship with them even when they were angry about the affair.

Honestly from what you have said, I don't think your letter is about showing her compassion. Is about saying you will never have a relationship with her and what she should do for his family. Not saying your feelings are right or wrong but I don't see empathy or compassion FOR HER in what you have said.

I think that sending her a letter that is JUST full of sympathy would have been disingenuous, however I do in still care about her. She was family to me before my fathers death and we had a great relationship. I cant scrub away the hurt. But I think that being one of the few people who tried my hardest to support her, even at the cost of my own mental health, I should still be able to feel sorry and wish her well whilst still being able to be hurt? And surely I am allowed to be honest without needing to be nasty

I don't know why you are bothering. She sounds a right old witch and I very much doubt your well meaning letter will make a jot of difference.

but you haven't mentioned that you have expressed any sympathy. I am not judging you or saying what you should do, but I repeat, from what you have said you haven't shown her any empathy and compassion. Its fine not to but I think you are perhaps not being honest with yourself?

It's unfathomable to me that a person could stop someone's children seeing them before they die. Unconscionable. I'd be going round with them and staying on the doorstep until she let them in.

Perhaps I am not. I just wanted to express that although the past has happened, they deserve to have peace and so do his kids

Write it by all means. But if she is as bad as you imply, sending it to her wont make any difference and she may even get a kick out of it.

You're a far better person than me x

I think it's probably been quite cathartic for you to write the letter, but I wouldn't send it; you know it won't change anything. This man's children need to fight their own battles.

I think this subject is likely to divide opinion and there is probably no single right answer.

its easy to get embroiled when family members "write in desperation".

Im just not a fan of intervening during a period of intense emotion, and certainly not when the OP says they want to send the letter to make themselves look good. I'm not saying it makes them a bad person, who am I to judge, I'm just giving my honest opinion that on this one, the optics don't look good. But others may disagree.

And also I avoid confrontation and intervening (aka getting sucked into) family matters having personally had my fingers burned so it has been a learning for me ever since (along the lines of "never let a good deed go unpunished"!)