I have a son who's now 11 and who's father lives in another country. My son hasn't seen him in 8 years. He doesn't send money and would call maybe once per year. Recently, I recontacted my ex and tried to convince him that his son would still benefit from at least talking to him, so he calls sometimes. But basically my son doesn't have any significant relationship with him.
We've been living with DH for 3 years now. Before that, they knew each other for about 2 years. DH has 3 children and when they were all younger, we did activities together. Everything seemed fine, but maybe because of the number of kids we had at the same time, I never noticed that there was never a direct interaction between DH and my son.
My problem is the following. My son is very very shy. He never starts conversations with adults. So since we moved in together with DH, there's no interaction between them. When stepchildren would come, he would play with them without any problems. Once they were gone, the house would become silent. DH works from home and works a lot. If he's not working on his job, he's working on the house and he goes to visit his children. When we're at the table, there are only 2 way conversations: me and my son or me and my DH, so there's no motivation even to be at the table together. DH tells him good morning and when my son sees him before going to sleep, he says good night. That's it.
I tried to talk to my son to explain to him that people have to interact in the house, I encourage him, but I don't know what else to do. I talked to DH, he says that he's done what he could and nothing changes, but I think another person could have tried more, the same way, I tried with his daughter and one of his sons when we had issues. My relationship with his children is good now precisely because I didn't abandon. When I met his children, I got involved with them, I did things with his daughter, even though she was coming EOW (more in the summer)....
DH is a reserved man, but he did some activities with my son alone, rarely, but it happened. He's been driving him to school since I had the baby 17 months ago, he says he tried to initiate conversations, but the response is very brief. For the past 2 summers, he brought him to play a team sport, he was explaining him things related to it. My son does bring him something for Father's day (something his kids never did for me), he does share things with him, I sent him to help DH with some outside chores for the house, which could have been an opportunity to connect. But nothing changes. They are just 2 strangers living in the house.
Whenever I ask my son why he doesn't talk to DH, he says he's shy, he tells me that he would have liked to talk more to DH, but when I tell DH, he says that my son looks uninterested. Looks like both of them just accepted the situation, but it makes me sad. Is there anything left to do or should I just stop caring about their relationship?