That whole story is sad, and I’m sorry that you and your kids lost a friend. I’m also a little surprised that she would make that kind of move. If she wasn’t happy with his relationship with your family, I don’t see why she married him.
Thank you. I'm sorry, too. It is sad. As you know, deep friendships are rare gifts, and should not be thrown away for light reasons, like a petty jealousy. I am only sorry that he chose to marry someone of such immaturity and foul temper, and that he did not have the strength to tell her firmly that there could be no risk to their marriage if he maintains at least an email friendship with my young son, who adored him.
It doesn't surprise me that she cut him off from his friends. I've seen this to be more common than not, where the man meets a new girlfriend or gets married, and the new woman in his life cuts him off from all his previous life. It also doesn't surprise me that the new relationship or marriage crumbles soon after.
I have a male friend from 1974 who moves into and out of my life. We seem to just pick up where we left off, sometimes in mid-sentence, as if there were no interruption of time. It seems to me the degree of contact we have is directly proportional to the degree of insecurity of his current flame. If she is pretty OK with herself in life, the three of us do fine on those few occasions where I am invited to join them (his new love is his main focus, as it should be). If she's a little insecure about "something", either in herself or in him, that tension usually shows itself within the first few minutes of meeting between myself and his new woman.
Maybe it's that "intuition" thing between females, but it nearly always becomes obvious during the first few minutes of meeting his new woman, whether or not I will hear from him again anytime soon or not, sometimes for years, until they break up and he's free to run his own life.