Connecting with niece that I haven't been close with
Hi All,
I'm new to the forum and found it while looking for advice online. My husband's family has never been close. In fact, they never got along that well as teens, so it was probably a natural occurrence that they distanced themselves from one another after moving out of their parent's home. Each brother went to opposite sides of the country and have only had contact at big family events, like weddings and funerals. One brother has two kids, our nephew and niece, who we've only seen a few times in their lives over the last 20 years. We had always thought about them and tried to start a relationship by sending cards and gifts when they were very young. Their parents did not seem to respond to our initial efforts. Because the brothers weren't close to begin with, we didn't push the relationship and ended up losing contact-- again, except for seeing them at major events. Sadly, our nephew just passed away at 20 years old. Our niece is 19 years old now, and we would like to be there for her as much as we can, as she has no other siblings or cousins on our side of the family. Of course, we want her to know we care about her and want to be in her life, despite not being around much for her childhood. When we were at our nephew's funeral and staying at their house, we tried to comfort our niece as best we could and spend time with her. We exchanged phone numbers so we can keep in touch and invited her to come visit us. How do we start this relationship without overwhelming her and pushing her away? We truly do care about her and feel terrible that we did not push harder to be in her life all of these years.
Any advice would be very much appreciated!