No contact with nieces for two years

[Murtaghjames]

Bil (DH brother) seperated from his wife about four years ago. They have two girls who are aged 10 and 11. Their seperation is ongoing and there has been issues between them regarding bil not paying maintenance and basically being a crap father, both myself and DH agree with this. After they split we had no contact with our nieces as BIL didn't want us getting involved. We know now its because he was not paying maintenance or visiting his daughters. We managed to get in contact with his ex wife and we got to see the girls and they had sleepovers in our home with our children. This happened regularly for six months. BIL was aware of this and began to make an effort to see them. His ex wife agreed to let their daughters stay with him overnight if he didn't drink alcohol or have anybody in the house. He did both, drank and had his on/off girlfriend stay. All of a sudden we had no contact with our nieces again. Of course we only found out the full story about a year later. We desperately miss them and would love to make contact but not sure how to go about it. I want to be respectful to my ex sil and also my nieces. Bil wants us to contact them but I'm not sure what's the best way to do this. We have continued to send birthday gifts, Christmas gifts etc but at the moment we have no phone number for my sil. DH thinks we should just call down to them but i don't think that's the right thing to do. Any advice welcome please.

I would call in to see them. They are still your family and you have had a good relationship with them. I was in a similar situation and worked hard to keep on touch with ex sil and my nieces. Good luck

@Buzzer3555, thanks, I'm just worried about my sils reaction if we turn up unannounced. We have always had a good relationship with her but I think we should maybe give her some notice. I don't want to put her on the spot if that makes sense.

Why not send her a letter offering to visit? - Whether she replies or not is your answer to her wishes.

@Buzzer3555

I would call in to see them. They are still your family and you have had a good relationship with them. I was in a similar situation and worked hard to keep on touch with ex sil and my nieces. Good luck

No, don’t do this Write to her and say you appreciate things have been difficult but you would love to maintain both your and your dcs relationship with the children It sounds like BIL is a bit of a shit and I suspect you are getting the fallout from that so keep your relationship (if you can re establish one) separate from him, don’t contact her on his behalf or facilitate him seeing them

Agree with sending a letter. Acknowledge how shit your bil is, and reassure her that you won't let them down like he is and that you want to be a regular positive part of their lives. And if she sets any conditions, like not letting bil see them at yours, you will happily abide with her wishes.

I would write to her and say you would like to keep in contact with her and your nieces.

I am kind-of in the same position that your SIL is - since separating from dh a couple of years ago, I have had no contact whatsoever from his siblings (we were reasonably close) and nor have my children. I strongly suspect that my former dh has told them that I want no contact with them and I won't permit my children to see them either, but I don't know for sure. But former dh is only sporadically paying maintenance and barely sees the children which is what they want and I think he is worried about lots of his lies being exposed. But I'm only guessing here. He was never quite the great dad he liked to paint himself as!

Anyway, my point is that you have no quarrel with your SIL and there is no reason for you to suppose that she has any quarrel with you. But as you are her ex's siblings, she maybe feels it would not be appropriate for her to approach you? (Just basing this on my situation). So, write a short note asking how she is and asking whether she would like to get in touch/meet up. I guess the approaching end of lockdown gives a good excuse for making renewed contact and asking if she would like to meet up.

@coronabeer,BIL has definately told lies to everybody to cover his disgraceful behaviour. My SIL did say before that she didn't want to approach the family when they seperated as she didn't feel it was her place.