After a Florida judge issues a final divorce decree, you are free to enter into a new relationship. However, a divorce might also mean the loss of relationships with members of your former spouse’s family.
Every divorce is different
Your former spouse may decide that you are no longer allowed to have contact with their family in an effort to make a clean break. If you share children with your former spouse, you may be allowed to have limited contact with the other side of the family to comply with a custody or visitation order. For instance, you may be limited to contacting your former mother-in-law for purposes of making plans to visit with your child over the holidays.
There are no hard rules
You don’t need to maintain relationships with your former spouse’s family if you aren’t up to it for any reason. Of course, if you do maintain ties with former in-laws, it’s important to be transparent about those ties. It is also important to keep your child’s best interests in mind when it comes to staying in touch with extended family or not. Finally, you should never say anything bad about your former spouse or extended family members to your child before, during or after a divorce.
Unless you share children with your spouse, there is no requirement to associate with extended former family members. However, if you do decide to associate with them in some way, you are encouraged to act in a civil manner and to respect any boundaries established by your spouse or others still in your life. Doing so may make it easier to co-parent or simply move on after an emotional event.