I had been warned/hinted at. oh my. I really really do like the look. he's just so yummy.

Family rifts can be intense. DH has absolutely no contact with his maternal grandfather. Nor does his mom. Nor do any of her siblings at this point. He cut off the family after their mother died and he remarried. Forget about not knowing the names of his great grand children. He doesn't even know he has any.

Er, can someone post a link in Spoilers or email or something? I don't watch Castle, but I have a crazy mancrush on NF.

I haven't seen it yet, Erin, but my understanding is Castle goes meta with Halloween: link. You should totally watch it. It's mancrush feeding. NF is having a ball.

Erin, here's the spoiler the character of Castle, played by NF, a novelist -Castle-, dons a Captain Tightpants f costume for Halloween. His daughter tells him it is sooo 5 years ago. Space cowboys? No cows in space. And then there is a staked dude and he references Buffy. If there was more, Horrible?, I was out of that loop.

I understand, intellectually, family rifts. But I just can't understand it outside of abuse of various sorts. (There are very good reasons to cut family off. SIL's sitch doesn't seem to rise to the occasion.)

Oh, hey. Hey. Mmm.

Okay.

Ok, serious manlove.

Thanks, guys!!

I understand, intellectually, family rifts. But I just can't understand it outside of abuse of various sorts.

Some people are just mean spirited. I have an aunt I never met. Once she married and moved out, she just never wanted anything to do with the family, even though she lived in the same small town they grew up in. She particularly resented my mother (the youngest) and slammed the door in her face when she brought my Dad to meet her. Naturally, she's the one who took the few possessions my grandparents had when they died. At one point, one cousin went to her house and refused to leave without my grandfather's WWI medals.

It's weird because the rest of the family is very close, but we have cousins and 1st cousins once-removed that we've never met.

ETA: And now I feel bad for not calling my aunt today on her birthday.

Well, yeah. It just is so stupid. Especially this one. SIl has good reason to be hurt, but she tried despite being hurt. And they just aren't. hand flapping Stupid.

It also upsets me because it means my nephews don't have a set of g-parents through no fault of their own. Not right.

I'm going to posit that no grandparents may be preferable to those grandparents. Doesn't make the current situation less hurty, but it simply may not be fixable.

My cousins have a grandmother on their other side who always treated them like second-class grandkids. Right in front of them she would dote on the others and ignore them. SHe would send gifts to the others, not to them. She distributed family things, then sold the rest before they could have some. really nasty. Still her son and his wife kept the contact, but neither of those grandkids ever go see her.