I'm here b/c I could not find anywhere else to fit in. DH died 16 mos ago after our 14-y marriage. We had no kids together. He has 1 grown daughter from his first marriage. I was his 4th marriage. He was my 3rd. From the beginning I felt like an intrusion between his daughter and him. Well, intrusion is too strong a word, b/c I wasn't even that much to her. I came to feel more like his new maid. Not that she wasn't kind to me, but always more like she tolerated my presence. I never seemed to be accepted as part of the family. At the point in his long illness where he needed hospice care, it was determined that her home was more accessible due to the extreme winter in the mountains, and she came to our home and took him to her house where she and her husband (both CNAs) could care for him and hospice could be available. I had remained in our house to take care of our pets and then drove to SD's house next day. Upon my arrival at his bedside, it took her all of 5 seconds to step back so I could be close to him, as if all of a sudden she realized I was his wife. I had to return home again overnight b/c of the pets. When I called her house, the grandson answered and when I asked to speak to SD, he said "She's taking care of my grandpa." These words cut me to the core. As if I didn't even know his grandpa. As if he didn't even realize his grandpa was MY HUSBAND! That was the first true indication to me where I stood in the whole scheme of things. After 14 years of loving marriage, suddenly here I was not only losing my husband, but apparently also being put in my place as nothing more than an acquaintance. I am trying to shorten this. After his memorial service, I handed SD and SIL each $500 cash from his insurance as I felt he would like that and they could use it. I also gave them one of our cars and a number of other things of his. The car was actually ours. I had used part of the ins. to pay off the loan on the car. I also paid the ins on the car for 6 months just to be sure it was covered for them. There were other things of his that I also gave to them. It's not that these THINGS are important, but in the 16 mos following his death, I feel as if my grief for my husband has mattered very little to them. It's all been about SD's grief for her father and the others in their loss. To make this shorter, I just feel like not only was I robbed of our marriage by SD, but am now even robbed of my grief as his wife. It's taken me quite some time to come to the realization that I truly am no longer his wife in their eyes, nor have I ever really been so much in their eyes. I understand that I need to simply accept this total separation now from his family and move on as a whole person, no longer his wife and as his widow being nothing. I feel as if our life together was nothing more than a parenthetical event in his life, something that will never be mentioned again in their memory of him. I wish that I could find someone who can relate to this and help me come to terms with this feeling of being robbed of all I lived for over the last 14 years of my life.