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Relationships

NC with DH's family but his Neice has sent DS1 a FB friend request

51 replies

FurtherSupport · 15/07/2015 08:56

We've been NC with Dh's family, his parents and sister for years. His niece was 4 last time we saw her and DS1 a few months old. For a while I did still send her cards and birthday presents but we never got a thank you or a reciprocation, so I stopped. (Dh always thought it was a bad idea). DH stopped contact with his parents, but it was his Sis who stopped contact with us.

DN is now 18yo and from FB a very attractive and popular young woman. Not sure if that's relevant but she doesn't "need" the friends IYSWIM.

Anyway, out of the blue DH & DS1 have received friend requests from her. TBH, I'm amazed she even knows we exist. We have a very common surname, and high security settings, no pictures. They would have taken a lot of finding!

I don't do FB, so perhaps it's fear of the unknown, but I'm a bit uneasy about it. I can't think of any reason for the requests other than curiosity. Ds has all the highest security settings and knows what's Ok and not OK to post but obviously being his friend means she gets to see what's going on in his life and I don't think I'm comfortable with DH's family seeing that.

OTOH it's a shame the cousins don't know each other.

There've been no messages, just the friend request. She is a very active Facebooker, so maybe there's nothing more to it than that, but.....

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AnyoneForTennis · 15/07/2015 08:59

well this is where you start to lose control and restrictions you may have imposed become an issue. you cant stop this sort of thing,he's an adult and may be curious too

all this 'NC' stuff people impose on others can only ever last a short time

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DottyCotton · 15/07/2015 09:03

So you have been no contact for about 15 years? And your line of thinking is that she is being used as a tool for her mother to probe into your life? Or it could just be that she is interested and wants to know her family.

Life is short, it's Facebook. Even if her mother is behind it, what difference would it really make?

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GertrudeBell · 15/07/2015 09:04

How old is DS?

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sonjadog · 15/07/2015 09:04

It might be that she wants to know her family on her own and her parents aren't involved. If your sil was the one who cut contact, she may not be interested in what you are up to.

I guess it depends a bit on what the problem was in the first place, but if you son would like to get to know his cousin, then I would let him accept her friend request and then see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, then he can delete her again.

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AnyoneForTennis · 15/07/2015 09:10

Gertrude

he's 18!

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Damnautocorrect · 15/07/2015 09:11

I'm waiting for this one in my situation.
What does your son & dh think?

For me, there's 2 ways of looking at it.

  1. this is the same as any other stranger friend request. Ignore
  2. you accept and set the settings so she can actually see bugger all.
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FurtherSupport · 15/07/2015 09:11

No, DN is 18. DS is 14.

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Toffeelatteplease · 15/07/2015 09:14

It's quite easy to find hard to find people even with common names if you can follow the links - so you look up either a common "friend" or a likely friend with an unusual name, look through there friends list find either 1) you or 2)someone you might know and then you keep going until they find you.

HoHow does your husband or ds feel about this?

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FurtherSupport · 15/07/2015 09:21

Fair enough Toffee, but DN wouldn't know any of DH's friends. There're a couple of old school friends that his sister might remember but no family and no mutual FB friends. She wouldn't know anyone on DS's list.

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mummytime · 15/07/2015 09:22

Discuss with your son. Does he want to accept? Have you explained why you are NC? Is he good with his privacy settings (might not be that necessary if he uses it as little as my DD - she mainly uses it to see what others have posted)?
You can set people as "acquaintance" and they see much less, or confine them to a group who don't get to see much.

Its a great opportunity to discuss privacy and FB in general - without seeming interfering.

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brassbrass · 15/07/2015 09:23

if you've been NC for 15 years and there was no accompanying message with the friend request I would be inclined to ignore it.

She may be 18 but there's no reason why you should all suddenly jump without knowing what their motives are.

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junebirthdaygirl · 15/07/2015 09:28

I have two different friends who are NC with their sisters. As soon as their children got to 18 they made contact with their cousins. They hugely resent that they don't know their cousins due to family issues. The other cousins felt the same. They now all meet up as adults and both sisters have accepted it. They have no choice. Cousins are adamant they don't want to continue the feud. So niece may just be sad she is missing out on cousins but your ds is only 14 so bit different. I wouldn't be totally suspicious and necessarily see it as a horrible awful situation.

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rouxlebandit · 15/07/2015 09:29

I can't find where on the site to ask this so I'm asking here. Sorry. Maybe someone can tell me the right place. I'm learning some commonly used acronyms as I go along but I'd like to know the meanings of these which appear in this thread but are not in the forum's list:
NC
DS1
FB

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Toffeelatteplease · 15/07/2015 09:32

Non contact
eldest darling son "1st" son
Facebook

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rouxlebandit · 15/07/2015 09:35

Thanks

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BertrandRussell · 15/07/2015 09:35

Up to your son what he wants to do, really. What has he said about it?

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Joysmum · 15/07/2015 09:44

If your DS is old enough to be on Facebook then he's old enough to be told the history behind why you are NC and make up his own mind.

DN is the next generation and it's not for us to impose retractions on our kids, as hard as that may be.

This year my mum took my DD (12) to meet her parents whom I've been NC with since before she was born.

She asked why and because it was nothing serious, just that I don't like or respect them, I didn't tell her and said we'd discuss it when she got back. She doesn't want to go back and didn't like them either!

My mum was NC with her mother which started when pregnant with me. Serious stuff but not my place to share. Her mother tried contacting me by letter and I knew the history and as hard as it was, my mum trusted me to make the choice and keep myself safe. I chose not to meet her.

We can choose Nc for ourselves but others don't have to abide by that.

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mummytime · 15/07/2015 09:46

rouxie - If you look at the top it says "Mumsnet Talk" in black.
Under that it says "Talk:" one of the headings next to this is "Acronyms". If you click you get a set of the most commonly used abbreviations.

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FurtherSupport · 15/07/2015 09:47

DS has accepted the request because "he thought he recognised her" which is a worry in itself. He has lots of friends, all of which, he tells me, he knows in RL, so we need to deal with that.

He's never shown any interest at all in DH's family. He now knows who she is, but there hasn't been any contact either way. TBH the only thing she'll have learned is that he and his mates a pretty silly Grin but that could change as he gets older.

Dh accepted to avoid rejecting IYSWIM, but again, no contact. He only uses FB for games, o she won't learn anything there.

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brassbrass · 15/07/2015 09:49

I think it depends on the reasons for going NC in the first place.

If you don't trust someone you shouldn't be exposing your child to them.

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FurtherSupport · 15/07/2015 09:50

The "reasons" basically boil down to them not being very nice. They caused us a lot of trauma before Dh decided enough was enough but there's no one terrible thing to tell anyone about. DS knows that, there's nothing else to tell.

I don't know why SIL stopped contact. Can only assume PIL put on pressure (her own relationship with them was similar to ours) or that she decided DH had been unreasonable.

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EducateTogetheralumnus · 15/07/2015 10:04

If your DS has the highest security settings, and they have no friends in common, she shouldn't have been able to send him a friend request so first off, you need to check his settings again. I ran into an old friend I'd lost touch with a while ago and I had to downgrade my settings so that she could friend me and then I increased them again once she had.

From what you've described - I'd encourage him not to accept it. Sounds like your DH has already made that decision.

I avoided Facebook for years and only signed up once I had DD1 as all the "new mum" friends I was making were on it. I am now friends with other people - and it's nice to be able to keep up with people like the one I mentioned above with whom I was really sorry I'd lost touch - but in the main, it is curtain twitching. And a way for people to boast.

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penguinsaresmall · 15/07/2015 10:09

OP he is 18 and an adult so I would say there's not much you can do other than make sure your son knows why you're NC and is clear that you don't want to be involved in any contact with her/them (if you don't).

I would be more concerned about him getting involved if there had been something awful like abuse etc. But if it's just that they're not very nice, and he knows the situation, he should be able to work out for himself who he wants to get involved with, or not.

Having said all that, you have every right to make it clear that you want no part if it, and if there are family pics, etc on his page that you wouldn't want anybody to see, you could ask him to make them private. If you don't use FB you probably don't know that you can have different levels of 'access' with people you friend, including allowing somebody to friend you but giving them very restricted access to your page.

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FurtherSupport · 15/07/2015 10:10

I thought anyone could send a friend request to anyone else on FB?

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FurtherSupport · 15/07/2015 10:11

He's not 18 penguin. DN is 18, DS is 14.

You're right I don't understand FB, all I really know is that it seems to cause a lot of trouble!

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