Hi Aiyana and Inky – thank you both for your thoughtful and caring responses. Interestingly, you both advise some form of engagement with my father-in-law. I will need to give that some further thought. To answer a few of Inky’s questions, my husband is definitely his father’s biological child (the three siblings are spitting images of each other). As I’m a relatively late entrant into their complex relationship, it is very hard for me to separate cause from effect. My husband was the apple of his mother’s eye (perhaps he was *her* favorite prior to the onset of MS?). His sister is functional but has a low IQ and struggles with social interactions/friendships (she needs her father more?). His brother is 10 years younger and really never experienced his mother when she was healthy (perhaps he feels closer to his youngest son because of this?). My husband’s ex-wife HATES his family and made no effort to hide this fact. All these and other factors combined may contribute to his father’s favoritism but I still don’t buy it.

My relationship with my stepchildren is very loving and strong but this did not happen overnight. The love and bond with each of his children grew at very different speeds and in very different ways. In a step-parent situation, there’s not that instant deep bond that exists between biological parents and their children. The trust and love needs to be earned and it’s not always easy, which made me doubly cautious to never, ever show any outward signs of favoritism. You have an obligation as a parent to be fair and equitable even if sometimes you feel a bit closer to one child than you do to another. In this respect, my father-in-law has failed in his role. No matter what the circumstances, he should have found a way to rise above it.

I’m reluctant to bring these issues up with him directly. First of all, my complaints would all sound a bit self-serving and petty (you don’t praise us the way you do others/you don’t send us presents/you don’t have our pictures up in your home/you don’t acknowledge our accomplishments etc.), even though in totality they paint a pretty clear picture. Secondly, my husband wouldn’t want me to. I don’t think he would want to emotionally engage a man who, at the end of the day, has hurt him time and time again. It’s easier for him to have low expectations and be in a constant state of irritability when he’s around his dad.

Thank you once more for taking the time to respond. We will keep sending him (framed!) pictures and hope one day he sees in his grandchildren that what’s so obvious to me.

Thanks,

Hester

Hello to you both again! Thank you for the additional feedback. Inky – I’m sorry to hear your relationship with your father is strained. Some men struggle to express their feelings, especially towards the ones they love. Also, I sometimes wonder whether some fathers in a father/son relationship perhaps don’t feel a little competitive with their child. It must be hard relinquishing the reigns to a younger male. I’m not sure. Just speculating. The issue I describe in this post came up because we happened to visit my in-laws last weekend. We only see them a two/three times a year so it’s all very manageable but when these instances of favoritisms do creep up, I become enraged/perplexed and have to work through those feelings. I’ve tried to resist psychoanalyzing the situation because doing so presupposes that there may be some legitimate reason why his father behaves the way he does. Perhaps it’s all more about understanding why he does what he does while still remaining critical of these patterns of behavior. Anyway, thanks once more.

Aiyana – your post made me smile! 🙂 Thank you for your suggestions. Perhaps my efforts to encapsulate family dynamics across four decades and three generations made it all seem a bit more dramatic than it is day to day. I wish you good luck with your father’s day efforts.

Take care,

Hester