Dear Prudence,
Last year, our son announced that he had eloped with “Karina.” This was not even nine months after his divorce, and it rang all the alarm bells. Karina is a single mom to a teenage boy and girl. She has a criminal record and has been married three times before. We tried to give the benefit of the doubt and paid for all four to join us at our other daughter’s Christmas celebration and bought extensive gifts for the teens. We didn’t even make it to Christmas.
These kids were little snakes that played sweet to our faces and then turned around and were vile to our younger grandchildren. They were caught filming our teenage granddaughter and making fun of her stutter and her younger brother, who has a neurological disorder that affects his face. At this, Karina basically rolled her eyes and excused it as kids being kids. Then the teens were caught on camera going onto the upper porch where the home office was. That room is usually locked inside, but our son-in-law forgot to check the outside door. Several hundred dollars in cash, plus the expensive bracelet our son-in-law bought to surprise our daughter, went missing.
Karina denied that her kids took anything and refused to have them searched, even though her daughter was caught red-handed wearing the bracelet! It was at this point that they were asked to leave. Our son basically stood around silently while his wife ranted and raved as they were shown the door. We don’t know where they went; our son later called asking for all the gifts we bought. My husband informed him that everything was to be returned and given to his sister to reimburse her family.
Now, Karina and her kids are permanently persona non grata to our family. We have never been so insulted and hurt in our lives. What do we do with our son, though? He basically has denied any wrongdoing, despite being in the room when we found the girl wearing the stolen bracelet, and he lives several states away. We know he was severely depressed during the divorce, but this is beyond the pale.