Sunday, November 15, 2009

Turn the page...


turn the page
to stop thinking about or dealing with something When a patient dies, a doctor just has to turn the page and concentrate on the next patient.

This meaning of that phrase is so true for me.

We've had a "situation" in my husband's family for a few years now that could not be avoided.

Nothing to do with us, but everything to do with us.

Without a lot of detail, we hadn't seen my brother-in-law in 3 1/2 years. At first there was no explanation for his disappearance... and then 6 months into his absence there was a lot of information, none good.
We eventually told our children the absolute minimum and went on with life.

But, this guy was missed, he was a big part of our family. No one spoke about it at big family gatherings, but our immediate family discussed it plenty. My husband and I wondered if his sister was separated, divorcing, etc. We really didn't know.

Eventually we gave up trying to figure it out. The obvious thing to do would be to just ask her...
But my husband's family doesn't talk about things like that... at all.

Anyway, good news.
He is back in the fold.
She has forgiven him and they have worked it out.
We are happy for them.
We forgive him and support him...
And now we can turn the page.

6 comments:

Beth Adamson said...

Happy to hear that all is good. My husbands side of the family does the same thing. If you do not talk about it, it might go away. Ah! No! It does make it hard at get togethers. Take care

Suburban Princess said...

Glad to hear everything is ok! Families can be so hard somtimes.

Ina in Alaska said...

3 & 1/2 years is a long time to go AWOL then suddenly--VOILA! --- reappear with no explanation..... I am not going to sugar coat my comment here, your brother-in-law has some 'splaining to do!! And your sister-in-law will probably need to have some counselling.... nonetheless, glad the family is patching it up but..communication would be good... Preppy I give you HUGE credit for putting this on your blog. You are so awesome! xoxo

OHN said...

What is it with families that hush things up?

I guess I am just a windbag with no filter. I am out there for all the world to see.

My husbands family doesn't "share". When brother in law was made the CEO of a huge Fortune 500, we learned about it by reading it in the paper.
Weirdos.

preppyplayer said...

Ina- it was husband's sister's choice to keep him apart from rest of family for good reason- but still difficult for us. And yes, both are working on their issues.

Ohn, It has ALWAYS been hard for me to deal with the defensive, passive, aggressive gag order in my husband's family. ( Only his mother and sisters can discuss certain items such as infertility, illness, infidelity... you know all the i words! and even then I don't think they really do...)

Her Preppiness said...

Nice end to a hard situation