UPDATE on a family divorce situation

Agreed. So many good responses on this thread. You have a kind heart.

You say you're not close, and it doesn't sound like you care for either one of them much, or know her very well. Send a private message to her if it makes you feel better. Stay off her wall. Send a very neutral private message and don't bash the pending ex-DH.

I would facebook message her.  That is not shown on the feed.  You could tell her how you feel and no one but her could see it.

When my parents broke up, my dad's mom (nana), continued to have a relationship with my mom. My Dad didn't like it at all but Nana explained to him that HE brought the two of them together and just because Dad was done with her, it didn't mean Nana was going to break up with her, too.

Over the years, my Nana was very gracious and kind, even though I knew (firsthand from her) that she had numerous issues with the way my Mom behaved. Just before Nana passed, she told me her kindness towards my Mom was so that she could continue to see me: she knew that Dad wouldn't bring me around and she still wanted access to me and that was the best way to do it.

In our family we say that there are three sides to divorce: his, hers, and the truth. Take the Switzerland route, stay neutral and send a private message. I'm sure she could use a little kindness thrown her way, and it sounds like you can dish it to your in-laws just fine if they've got unsolicited commentary on this.

It's a tough spot to be in: even if she initiated the divorce, his behavior might have forced her hand. Divorce is very difficult and a little kindness will do a world of good for the relationship between your kids and their cousins. Just make sure she understands there is to be no info back and forth regarding BIL: no asking/no telling. As Volt said, it can work if you work at it. Good luck!

it's almost never a mistake to say something kind to someone

she might be suspicious of it, but I still think it would be nice

I would send a PM, too. I did this for a cousin and his wife getting a divorce. Never met her, but I was just going through a similar situation with my XH and knew what it was like. I figured the support would be nice. This was 7 years ago and we are still "friends" on Facebook and comment every once in awhile on each other's posts. Still have not met her in person.

DH and I are still friends with my ex-SIL (DH brother's ex). They've been divorced almost 20 years. I've known her longer than anyone except my DH at this point. My BIL does come up in conversation mostly because they still have a secret relationship (that everyone knows about!). I don't know if it's sexual or not, but probably. He's remarried, she's not. We live 90 mins from ex-SIL, in-laws are all 600+ miles away.
My BIL has made comments to others complaining about her showing up in my facebook feed when we get together, but that's not my problem.
It's never wrong to offer kindness. Your other in-laws' feelings are not your responsibility.

I reached out to my bil's wife when they got a divorce. She was the mother of my children's cousins, in fact we got together often over the years for birthdays etc. and we are FB friends today. He is on FB but not on my friends list. 

I just wanted to make sure she was okay. We kept it neutral, didn't talk about anything personal. I just wanted her to know that she still had a friend in me and we still considered her and her children part of our family.

Bil didn't like it, mil talked to me about it. I explained that even though they were no longer together, I still considered her a friend and wasn't going to drop her just because they were no longer together. So basically, back off, lol. She understood, or at least acted liked she did.   

First, ask yourself what you want to come out of the contact.  If you just want to let her know you are sorry that her marriage came to this end, and you don't want any sort of relationship with her in the future, you have some great examples from previous posters on how to let her know that you are not just erasing her existence and that you have compassion for her circumstances.

If you would like to maintain a connection with her and see whether a friendship could develop from this, I would strongly take voltagain's advice on not discussing anything about the other parties to anyone.  Keep the relationship just about her and don't carry any tales.  Relating stories about her soon-to-be ex husband or other members in the family is a disloyal thing to do and will more than likely cause irreparable harm to those relationships. And this is easily avoided by never speaking about her to your DH's family and the family to her.  I wish my own sister was capable of doing this.

When I was going through my divorce, my sister developed a relationship with the woman my ex had an affair with.  When I found out, I was hurt.  But then I realized it wasn't for me to say who she could talk to.  But since she was my sister and privy to personal information about me, I asked her to please not discuss anything about me with this woman.  I don't think that is an unreasonable request at all.  My sister said that was too much for me to ask and that I naturally came up in the conversation every time they talked.  I told her if that was the case, then this woman did not want a friendship with her, she was just using her to get information on me.  My sister refused to believe that.  I told her that if she could not respect my privacy by refusing to discuss me then she left me no choice other than to not see her or talk to her during the divorce process so that she had nothing new to pass along. My sister chose my ex's new girlfriend over me so I stopped going over there and also asked my mom to not pass along anything that was happening in my life.  Mom respected that.  I felt terribly betrayed by my sister.

Fast forward many months.  When the girlfriend realized that my sister had no news about what I was doing, and she got tired of all the same complaints and stories, she dropped my sister cold.  It was years before I felt I could have that sister in my life again.  When we did attempt to regain our sisterhood, I asked her what happened to their friendship.  She admitted that both my ex and the new girlfriend were just using her and I was right. But, there was still no apology offered to me.  She absolutely didn't see what she did as wrong or betraying our relationship.

I continued to see her, but kept a lot of my life private from her.  I am the type of person who believes that families are supposed to be your safe spot, accepting you no matter what, and always having your back.  I knew she could never be that for me.  I also disagreed with so many of the decisions she made in her daily life, but I never once criticized her for any of it.  I felt that wasn't my place.  If she asked my opinion, I gave an honest one, and that usually pissed her off.  

Most of what bothered me about her was her lying to her husband and children.  Or her extreme gossipy nature, especially once she got on the local school board.  That ended up biting her in the butt though, because she gossiped to the wrong person who promptly took it to the object of this gossip. And rightly so in my opinion.  A school board president, which she was at that time, should not be spreading rumors or voicing personal and negative opinions about individual board members to other board members behind their back.  And this was not her first time doing so.  She had also written a very gossipy email to someone about other board members.  The recipient brought that email to the board's attention.  My sister was forced off the board completely.

Over time, I became more and more disgusted with her behavior and loose relationship with the truth.  But I felt I had to maintain a surface relationship with her because Mom would go back and forth between this sister's house and mine.  We needed to see each other and trade information about Mom, and I was not going to do anything that caused Mom any stress.  As soon as Mom passed, I quit putting any effort into our relationship and within a few weeks, I backed away completely.  Although, I do need to go to her home to pick up my portion of Mom's ashes and the this I had given Mom.  I'm not looking forward to that.


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How about....

I am sorry this is all happening. And then something like when everything is done and over I would love together for coffee, the kids would love to see you. ( I am sure somebody can word that better).

I wouldn't.

I thin you had a good plan. Don't feel bad about not reaching out first. What you do in the future will mean more to her. And you are right about not wanting anything brought up before the divorce.

You know, I have been divorced from my ex since forever and I still have a pretty decent relationship with my ex's family, particularly his parents. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I didn't particularly like them when we were married but over the years have gotten to know them on a different level and have come to realize that they are pretty cool people in their own right.

But it did take us a couple of years to navigate some new boundaries-like the fact that I didn't particularly need to talk about their son and his new divorce, or his newest wife, or whatever. But once we got there, it has been nice.

I think that it can be done, but you do have to create some gentle boundaries and stick with them. And my ex never had a problem with it (I think that is pretty key too) and didn't care that when his parents were around we would get together because he knew that we weren't talking about him (those boundaries again.)