Learning from the past in hope to NOT recreate it in the future!

The other day my husband and I were able to have some one on one time while the kids were at grandma's house. We actually had a great conversation about our families. After the divorce my family fell apart. My dad moves around constantly but is truly the only one I have contact with and that is through his new wife. My mom, though only a mile away has become self-involved and is only a part of our family when it is convenient for her (which is maybe twice a year or on the kids birthdays). Overall my family is non-existent since that's all I have and we're okay with that for many reasons.
What took us for surprise was his side of the family. Maybe it's due to how spread out everyone is and the inability to see how each has changed if at all. But we are noticing that the perceptions have never changed. At family functions they remark at what an awful memory my husband has or how badly he treated others in the family. It was funny the first 5 years, but now that we have children of our own we wonder! My husband has said that many things he doesn't remember because they were not important to him or it was something he would rather forget. What others have claimed as being treated badly were only a few times and many of them perceived differently that they were. My husband has never been one to rehash the past...it was something he hated in my family because they failed to see what was and what will be, they settled on what was instead of asking about the now. We know and hope that we are much different that what we were. We have grown so much individually and as a couple to see that what they saw is no longer what we are.

This was never more apparent then our time spent with them over the summer. We found that we are truly not a part of the family. Our special needs are far more than they are willing to take time to understand. We are no longer an important piece. It's not necessarily because what was said, but what was not said. Now I will say that our marriage has never been agreeable with his family, neither was our relationship. It was something that they had hoped would dissolve over our long distance relationship, but we survived and are stronger. I have never truly been accepted into the family and maybe it's because we basically grew up together as we've been together since we were 15. Though after all the years of dating and marriage and children I thought our accomplishments would finally be enough, even my husband thought it would be enough. I even considered my MIL as Naomi and would follow her, just as Ruth followed Naomi. They were the only family I had since mine was no longer. However, after our visit we found that we will never be fully accepted, especially now with our child with special needs. And so we do what we do best, pull ourselves up from our bootstraps and focus on our goals for our children and our family. We have lost connection with most of his family and now only make contact on holidays, making small talk in knowing they don't really want to hear what we do and make the talks short for fear of feeling less than or not enough. This is a difficult task because they are family and we always hope to make our families proud through our growth and accomplishments and the difference we make in the lives of others, which is what we have been raised to do. The lack of relationship, acceptance, and understanding is something we can not be a part of. This has not been easy, we mourned and accepted the fact we have a special child and we new that sacrifices needed to be made, we just never knew it would be family related, but we press on!

So with all of our sorrows and changes in family structure we have to ask ourselves, what can we do to make sure this doesn't happen to our family? I hope we are on the right track. We make sure there is respect between siblings, we don't allow bullying in the house and try to maintain open and honest conversation. We allow our children to be independent and respect the choices they make and applaud them for the ideals that make them stronger individuals. We strive to show them how to be thoughtful of others through mission projects, community giving, etc. We have begun to pray for their spouses, that they will be open-hearted, and open-minded as they will also help with the trials and tribulations of our son. We hope our children will remain tight-knit and will be in close proximity to each other so they can live, laugh, love, and share in each other's growth. I know somethings will never be perfect and I know there will be things I will need to make the best of, but my hope is that I will never feel as though my children are less than perfect, that they will always know how important they are in our family and how each one of them make an impact on who we are and that any contributions made by them will only allow our family unit to be stronger. I believe we are already on that track and I can not help but thank our youngest son for showing us the importance of value, honesty, unconditional love, strength and perseverance.