Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Do I post the letter?

56 replies

ThelittleBee · 08/08/2024 13:49

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.

OP posts:
daisychain01 · 08/08/2024 17:17

Knittedfairies2 · 08/08/2024 16:36

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've written many a letter that I've torn up and thrown away. A very useful technique!

Miffylou · 08/08/2024 17:36

It sounds as if your letter is trying to combine two different things: your feelings about what happened to you in the past and your plea on behalf of the other "children". I think the second of those things would have more chance of success if you weren’t simultaneously trying to get your feelings about your own situation off your chest.

Could you not just say something like "I know we have had our differences but…" and talk about the desperation of the other "children" who have had a relationship with their father for x years, and how sad it would be for everyone for it to end like this.

If you really feel the need to get your own feelings across to her, you can always do that at some point in the future, when it won’t matter so much if she feels angered or alienated by them.

Polyp0 · 08/08/2024 17:45

She won't think you're being compassionate, she will think you're being smug and condescending.

deeahgwitch · 08/08/2024 20:10

Your stepmother sounds like a right piece of work. Was she involved in the break up of your parent's marriage too ?

Despair1 · 08/08/2024 20:22

ThelittleBee · 08/08/2024 14:05

Although I was honest in the letter about how I have been hurt by her in the past, I did very much try to use empathy and compassion as the key undertones for the letter. I just want her to know that although our relationship wont be saved, she has the chance to allow people to have their goodbye and that she too can find comfort in knowing she did the best by her (new) husband in his time of need. I also gave her address to his daughter for her to try in person as I do believe its a cruel thing to deny a father and daughter.

You sound incredibly kind and caring OP. The contents of the described letter sound like you have carefully chosen the 'right' words. Something tells me that you might regret not sending the letter. Take care

Notamum12345577 · 13/08/2024 22:12

daisychain01 · 08/08/2024 14:52

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.

Eh?! Did you read the OPs first post and update?!

New posts on this thread. Refresh page