WWYD with a grandparent like this?

[alana39]

I have run out of ideas. Before I start, this is not meant to be MIL bashing and I will try not to bore you with any of the details - but I do really need some advice about how I might handle this situation.

My MIL lives abroad, and when she comes over (several times a year) to the UK she stays with friends as we don't have a spare room. She loves her grandchildren and they are always pleased to see her, and she would usually come round most days for a few hours when she's here.

BUT....she has always had a difficult relationship with her son. He remembers problems going back to his teens, she seems to think it all started when we got married. My feeling is that she's just quite a difficult woman to get on with whoever you are, as she has had issues with other family members / friends etc, not just her son. I don't get on with her as we had both hoped - I don't for one moment absolve myself of all blame for that, although I think it's largely just that we have personalities that mean we wouldn't be great friends however we had met.

Since we have had children my opinion has been that I should be making a bigger effort to make sure her relationship with her grandchildren doesn't suffer just because she seems to think her son is a disappointment, and her DIL definitely is. However, when she gets the hump with something DH has said or done she will disappear without saying goodbye, not visit even though she's staying quite near to us, not return phone calls etc. Generally I don't cause these problems directly (other than just being married to her son) as I try to be diplomatic, and also she doesn't know how to wind me up the way she can with her own child.

I don't really get how she can be upset at missing her grandchildren when she's not here, then come to the UK and refuse to come and see them. Our DS1 is now old enough to know that something isn't right because he understands when his GM tells him she's here for 2 weeks, but only comes to see him once.

DH has kind of had enough - am I doing the right thing trying to patch things up and keep the peace between them? Should I just give up? They don't fight in front of the children, although sometimes she does completely blank him, or upset him to the point of tears on the phone, so as they get older it will become more apparent that something is really wrong here.

Does anyone have any experience of this, or suggestions as to what I might do? I've tried sitting down and talking to her (DH and I discuss it frequently and I never really understood why he always said she was impossible to talk to about problems until I tried - she stared at the floor and refused to discuss it, then flounced out) and I'm at a loss.

Sorry this is so long, and thank you if you have bothered to read it all the way through!

[MmeLindt]

Tbh, I would leave it.

The person she is hurting most by her behaviour is herself. Your DH seems to have come to terms with the fact that he is never going to have a good relationship with her. Your DC are going to be more hurt by an on/off relationship than if she breaks off contact altogether.

The issues that your DH has with her - can you understand his upset, or is he too touchy. Can you give an example of her behaviour towards him?

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

My guess is you have come from a family where this type of overall dysfunction is unknown so there is a natural inclination to want to try and make things better.

Unfortunately these types of families do not and never will play by the rules governing "normal" family behaviour so it is no point in yourself trying to tackle such inherent dysfunction. I see you have tried talking with no luck (no surprise there). Also she has done all the behaviours such toxic people do i.e not listen nor accept any responsibility for their actions.

All I would say is listen to your DH here. He has had a lifetime of it and not surprisingly has completely had his fill of his toxic mother. Everyone is a disappointment to this inherently damaged woman.

Your children won't get anything positive out of a relationship with such a damaged woman for a grandmother.

I would suggest you read Toxic Inlaws written by Susan Forward and your H needs to read "Toxic Parents" by the same author.

(You do not mention his Dad/your FIL - is he still alive?).

[alana39]

My FIL is alive - he and MIL divorced when DH was young. They have both remarried but she is now widowed, he has a second family and they only have contact when MIL phones up FIL to moan about their son. He tries to stay out of it!

MmeLindt I do understand how and why DH is upset - he does talk about it, and Atilla is probably right in that my family are very different. It's hard to know where to start with examples - perhaps the thing I have found hardest to believe (not because I doubt it's true, just because I can't imagine doing it I suppose) is her sending DH off to his dad's with no notice as punishment for not especially bad behaviour. DH feels he was being used to punish his dad - literally stuck on public transport and sent to the other side of London on a whim and with no knowing how long he was being banished for.

So anyway, I can't ask FIL to have a word. She has a very close friend where she lives, but he has made it quite clear that he is on her side only and that she is the one being mistreated (to the point of an abusive phone call to us) so isn't really someone that we could try to get to mediate in anyway.

Thanks for the replies, and the suggestions from Atilla.