Circumstance: Moved to Ohio when I got married. My family is in CT and my friends are around the U.S. but not many local. Was married for 8 years and in a relationship with my now ex for 10 years. Good friends with his family -siblings in the same town – folks and relatives an hour and a half away. He divorced me and married someone else. I have always been close with his family and of course the kids always want to do holidays with his parents (their grandparents) as that was what we always did for the most part. Occasionally going back to CT for Thanksgiving and in the summer for a week (he was not close with my family). He remarried within a year from our divorce. At first she, his new wife, ‘allowed me to be there’ – she calls the shots for everything (her personality has distanced her from his family but in her eyes it’s my fault) It was extremely uncomfortable/painful at the beginning for me but I did not show it for the kids’ sake. Now I’m not allowed to even stop into my former in-laws house if she is there – not even to drop something off. It’s so silly. I thought when she had her own kids she would realize how I would not want to be without my kids on the holidays but she has no problem leaving her kids whenever. I had had plans to visit with his folks the Friday after Christmas when they were going to be gone but then his Grandma took a turn for the worse and so my ex and his wife and their twin babies were still there so his Mom called me and said we’d meet up at another time. I said no worries. Then his Aunt called me and asked me to come in because her daughter and her boyfriend were in town (who I’m also friends with) and they wanted to see me. So I went and then I also stopped in to see Great Grandma at the nursing home. She passed away this past Sunday so I’m glad that I got to visit with her one last time. The service is actually today. Yesterday my son had to have an endoscopy so I was at the hospital with him and his father and he said he needed clothes for the kids for the service. So he stopped at the house afterward and goes off on me saying that I have no fucking boundaries and that I can’t go to the service and to let him have his Grandmother’s funeral. Then he implies that I’m making his Mother’s early on-set Parkinson’s worse – so while he is saying all this I feel like I’m being scolded and in fight or flight mode – I could feel my face getting hot and my heart was pounding out of my chest as I was taking all of this in. Then he says that I didn’t even know his Grandmother. I didn’t know how to respond to that – if I didn’t know her why did I get asked to provide photos of her with the family for the slideshow? At any rate it has put me in a tailspin and immediately I’m concerned about his Mom – I did not want to cause her any undue stress unintentionally. So I am not going to the service today and I will play it by ear with his folks. I thought I was doing so much better but I felt very dis-empowered after that confrontation. Right back into that elementary school kid getting scolded. Initial thoughts – his parents don’t love me anymore, I’m being cut-off, I’m going to be alone, and then I went straight back into victim pity-party mode after he left. I did get the short-end of the stick in our marriage/divorce in many ways (this is popular opinion by the way) and I think I gave in too many times on things that I should not have just to keep the peace. My brother’s wife always says that I’m too nice and that she would have just gone off so many times but I don’t see how that would benefit my kids. I also don’t want it to look to them like I’m just getting steam-rolled at every turn. Can you please offer some helpful thoughts that I can practice on the above – thanks very much in advance.