Big row between DH and my DM. AIBU or is he?

It seems to me that there are two parts here.

1. How much contact your DDs should have with their horrible grandmother. Your DH wants it reduced. How much time do you spend together? How did he phrase this to you? Have you discussed it calmly? Do you know which aspects of her behaviour he is trying to protect them from?

1. Your fear of her rage when she realises that DH isn't playing along with her shit anymore. He is happy to quietly ignore her without any big announcements. This is the correct approach with a person like your mother. Your DH is being smart. You are shit scared of her knowing that DH isn't going to roll over, which is a sign that DH is correct.

If DH continues to behave correctly your mother is going to be pissed off. Accept that. Given that DH is a good man doing the right thing, how will you cope with your mother's inappropriate reaction? Can you just let her tantrum away and ignore it?

I guess your DF doesn't stand up to her. He let her do this stuff to you for your whole life. So you have never seen a man protect you by doing the right thing.

OP I feel for you, I really do, but I think you may know deep down that you are flogging a dead horse with your Narc mum....

Yes your DC love their nan. But sadly children love all their relatives, including abusive ones That's why we need to protect them.

My Dsis used to see our Narc M a lot. From day 1, Narc M favoured one child over the other, and it got more and more obvious over the years. Dsis was 'scared' to confront our M because she knew she would 'go into a rage'.

Now it's at the point where the two children involved have a really volatile relationship - the favoured one is hated by her sibling who is intensely jealous of her. And the favoured one makes it clear she thinks more of her GM than her M . My sister is having horrendous problems trying to deal with it all.

I'm not saying it will turn out that way for you, but then neither did my sister

Okay my FIL had a favourite Grandchild, and we all knew that BUT he was scrupulously fair and never treated any of them differently (told off the same, photos stuck up the same, same money for birthdays etc.). It was just obvious in very subtle ways to the rest of us from the way he spoke, and he did try very hard.
It didn't affect my DC, as none of them were the favourite. If one had been I might have interfered if it had affected them.

FIL also lived a long way away - we still only visited for hours, it made for very long day trips (or sometimes we combined it with an overnight in a hotel and a visit somewhere else).
FIL wasn't narcissistic, but I do suspect he was on the spectrum (or had traits).

From what you have said your upbringing was disfunctional. Was the Grandmother who had favourites your mother's mother?
I also suspect that if your DD does have SN they may have a genetic basis. It will be even more crucial that you parent her carefully so she doesn't have to contend with a disfunctional family as well.

Listen to your DH. You know your mother has issues, you need to protect your children from them.
Knowing you are loved less doesn't make you hate the person, it often makes you a person pleaser etc.

OP - what about weaning them off her and reconnect with a friend, so they can build a similar relationship with them instead.

I think that if your DH felt you absolutely had his back here, he might be might be inclined to agree to low rather than no contact. I'm taking this from what I see as the contradiction between your agreement with him that your children would not have unsupervised contact with your children and your statement

"They only spent a few hours with her at the weekend while I had a migraine"

I can see that it was a difficult situation for you but wonder how you would have handled it, if you had been alone with them? If I were him, the 'only' in that comment would taunt me, so I would feel that I needed to make my views felt a bit more strongly, as he seems to have done.

What does your husband think? This is a situation that you need to be united on. I suggest you talk to him and you decide a strategy together.

So she's self centred, likes to always be right and gives more attention to her eldest grandchild with suspected SENs.

But she is there for you more than your friends and a decent listener.

To be honest she doesn't sound that bad to me, certainly not cut-out-of-your-life bad. Does your DH have form for trying to isolate you? People with narc parents often end up with narc partners.

When I was younger, my GP's were similar and had favourites, I accepted this as normal for some reason, them getting pocket money for sweets and I didn't etc. I wasn't spoken to much or taken for outings like them. It started to hurt eventually, and we visited every week, I wish I hadn't wasted some of my time, but I was forced to be there. When older I did try to have some kind of relationship with them, but they turned out to be nasty. The last straw was when I confided my worries to them about a relationship a family member was having (they agreed with me - it was toxic) for them to turn around and inform them of my (our!) opinion etc. Relationships like that are only detrimental every step of the way.

"Not sure why people keep saying I can't see it, I started a thread about it!!"

Well, not quite, you started a thread asking whether your DH is being unreasonable and thinking he should "suck it up."

I get that she's family, but all toxic people are related to somebody, it doesn't mean they are good to have in your life. You chose to make your DH your family and have DC with him, why should your mother's bad behaviour be prioritised above his wishes? If he had not given it a good shot already I'd say he might be BU, but 13 years of seeing you obviously not standing up to her adequately is long enough I'd say.

Btw I say this as someone who went no contact with my parents for 14 years. Was hard, but ultimately better for my mental health.

Your husband has put up with 13 years of upset, hurt and abuse. He should not be forced to suck it up and he should not get crap for trying to protect his children from getting similar treatment.
Do you even love your husband? You want him to shut up and take abuse and don't think 13 years is enough. You are lucky as I would have filed for divorce by now. Is your mother worth losing your husband for?
Your daughters will start noticing that there is a favourite. This could well damage their relationship with each other. Is your mother worth risking that?
I am no contact with family. I know about the guilt and the pain that goes with that but I had to protect my kids and myself from my family. Your children should always come first.

TY (xposted)

OP my practical advice is to do a bit of googling and read up on having a narcissistic mother, and what you can do to try and diffuse the situation you find yourself in. It's hard though - if she truly is narcissistic, she won't let you - or your DH/DC - just 'ignore' her without a big, big drama.

The contact with the DDs depends on whether you can recognise the behaviour and protect them from it.

FIL has had really damaging behaviour with the other GCs (he called one an idiot, for example, and had a rant about his behaviour that got very nasty). I have told DH that he can see DD but will never be alone with her and if I feel that he is emotionally dangerous to her, he won't see her again. I tell him when he's getting close and he listens. Because he has received the message that nothing will be tolerated.

The issue is that you don't see or don't mind the behaviour.

My gran clearly favoured a cousin of mine, and also wasn't the easiest woman, but I'm still glad that I had her in my life, so I'm not convinced that stopping contact is the best thing for the girls either.

But did you know that narcissistic behaviour tends to be passed down (unintentionally) in families because it becomes the 'normal' family dynamic? Maybe it's time for you to break the cycle, for the sake of your DC.

You say you don't want to have to confront her because she will have a 'narcissistic rage' - so basically you are acknowledging that you have to behave the way she wants you to, and put up with whatever she does, because she will rage at you if you ever dare to disagree.

How is that a healthy, positive person to have around your DC, under any circumstances?

I've been there btw - so I do understand how hard it all is

Does it really have to be all or nothing? Could you not find some middle ground here where you cut down on contact, but without actually breaking it off? Then you can reassess the situation in a year or two when your DD2 is older and see if it is necessary to make a complete break or not.

I think that if you want to maintain contact (and as an only child myself I know that can be tricky), then it has to be just you, visiting them. My DH doesn't ever visit my mum: it's not that he doesn't like her, he just finds it intolerably boring. It is, as well, although having been brought up in a stultifying household, I can put up with it a bit more. I did have to explain it and didn't quite come clean.

With your DDs: I wouldn't take them unless you've spelled it all out to your mum, and be prepared to pack up and go if she starts playing up. Tough, I know, but not fair on either of them otherwise.

I feel like DH needs to suck it up

But actually, why should he? This is an abusive person he's having to deal with - and whether she is your mum or not, she is abusive.

Maybe your H isn't just sick of having to see her himself, maybe he's also worried about the effect her narc grandparenting style is having on his children. And he would have every right to, imo.

I know it's hard, but I think you need to re-think you whole 'acceptance' of her behaviour.

Ok again similar ish situation to us here are a few things we did

1. DH takes DC to MIL to give me a break for a few days this favour is returned by me having them for a weekend for him to do something he likes
2. When MIL does come we have a plan to go out and about to stuff kids like placing emphasis on her joining things they like rather than everything being centred solely on her - obviously within reason of what is appropriate - I dip in and out of these weekends and do have contact with her but not 24/7

My MIL is a good granny and not playing favourites - but I wonder does your DH perhaps hold a frustration with you that you have not or he thinks you are not prepared to tackle the issue of DDs being told off differently you cannot stop people having favourites but if she is telling one off more than the other in your own home I think you can and should say something.

Your H is not at all U about wanting NC for himself and to limit contact for the DC. He can't, of course, decide for you and you as co parent get equal say re the nature of DCs' contact.

If he doesn't wish her to visit your home you might need to visit her, for example.

Your father's decisions are up to him.

Well of course YOU don't see it as that big of a deal. She's been brainwashing you into thinking her behaviour isn't THAT bad. It is.

You're an adult, you can choose for yourself. But you shouldn't expose your children to it.