To not what my father to be involved with my ds

[loveroflife]

I'm sure this has been done before, but the situation is as follows:

My father is a pretty toxic man, just difficult and negative and other things that I don't have the time or the inclination to go into...

He has married an equally toxic woman 3 years ago and they live 6 hours away from us (ds aged 2). We had a big fall out about a year ago and haven't spoken since.

He now has contacted saying 'he has rights and wants to see his grandchild',

If I am being utterly truthful I don't want him anywhere near us as I have had a year of stress free happiness BUT I also understand that he is grandfather.

That said I will never take my son to where he lives with his wife as it is a god awful stressful atmosphere and would never ever send him up to stay with him so the deal would be he would need to come here (alone) to see him. He may do this the first couple of times but then I'm sure he would be sick of travelling all that way for a couple of hours etc and start making demands.

My concerns are I don't know what it would lead to long term - ie he is demanding and would want ds to come up and see him. He is also the type of man that would persuade ds to go against mine and his father's wishes for his benefit.

Does anyone have similar stories or advice? I feel that is wrong to cut off all contact with him but a lifetime of stress, demands, arguments and hassle fills me with utter dread.....

Thanks for reading

"In the same way that you don't let him choose to play with broken glass, or to drink bleach, or to play in the middle of the road. Your job is to protect him, and that is what you are doing."

Shhh. Don't say that to my mother please. I was the kid who drank bleach!

GrahamTribe - Yes, that was our next plan to let dp deal with him, but dp is just too polite at times, and my dad has always thought dp is a bit of softie(because he doesn't shout, swear etc and have the appalling manners of my father - thanks god - why do you think I married him?!) and will probably just ignore him.....

Thank god for distance though.....

ds has woken up from his nap now, so I'm going to have to run as we're meeting a friend for lunch....

thanks again everyone -just 30 mins on mumsnet and feeling so much better and empowered

Good luck and hold firm, no matter what he throws at you.

It may be good if DP does deal with him, if he is less bothered or stressed by it it may be one way of dealing with it. But as someone else has suggested, say no further texts, calls etc will be answered.

He doesnt have any rights, at all.

The only time a grandparent has any rights is if they already have a GOOD relationship with their grandchild and a court feels that the child would benefit from that person being in their life. Which is clearly not the case here.

Your father sounds vile and I would suggest the next time you move house, you dont tell him where it is, and do not give him a phone number.

You are an adult, and a parent whose duty is towards raising your child. He had his chances when you were his child, and fucked it up. Tough shit for him.

Very few shit parents make good grandparents, and just because this man is a blood relation to your child, it does not mean he would be a nice person to have in your sons life.

OP just to add what everyone else has said. Absolutely no need for your father to be involved with your child - i've never believed the "blood is thicker than water" line anyway.

My grandfather is a fairly foul person - i've not seen him for years and intend to keep it that way. He has never met my children and nor will he. I realise that he is the great grandfather so a little different to your situation, but i would still not introduce them even if he asked (which he never would!).

as for He also loves to throw the 'XX can't make up his own mind yet, so you are making it up for him'

All you need to reply to that is "yes you are correct, because as a parent, that is MY responsibility. If XX makes the choice when he is older to contact you, I will not stop him but until then, he is MY son and I make decisions on his behalf."

oh and ditto to everything that squeaktoy has just said ^

I would also add, this can work both ways. My husband has a daughter who he has no contact with. Her choice, due to her being with a controlling tosser who will not allow her to sort out an argument from 3 years ago. They have a child who we have not seen in all that time.

My stepdaughter knows that our door is always open for her and we are very sad that we have not seen our grandson growing up, but it is their choice and we have to respect that. We would not dream of trying to force her into letting us see him. She is his mum and it is her decision to make.

Interesting one, I have a few people I do not want in contact with DD.
My Sister and my brother and my in laws. All of them have brought un told misery into my life in the past, do not respect me or my DH ( particualry in laws)......

When DD was born there was alot of demanding and expectation from those quarters. For various reasons we gave into in laws....and I gave sister a chance - it bit me on the bum. We now have cut her off ( did give her a chance)...

The only person who now sees my DD on a regular basis is my Bro, He was the only one who came at us - with a " humble" genuinly sorry tone....making up for the past and who after alot of apologetic phone calls, has been allowed back in - as it were and who hasnt let me down.

After a long time - about two years....I decided I had to give him a chance, a year on + him and his wife have been great - supportive and love my DD>

I must add - I am still wary, but I know that I can pull the rug up at any time should things go wrong and they have so much to loose I really dont think they would risk being a * oles again.

Now DD2 is on the way - sister sent email " just let by gones be by gones" - no aplogy or sorry etc..and in laws arnt even gonna know about this one.

SO BASCIALLY after all that!!! IF your father ever comes at you - humbly, apologising with sincerity and kindness and genuine empthy for you and your situtation, perhaps give him ONE chance.

If not - the only way to deal with these people is by cutting off. Dont agonise over it - they wont!

If you had a grandchild you wanted to see, how would you talk to the parents...if he cant speak to you with respect even when he wants something this precious....there isnt much hope he will respect you when you are not there and as you say - make DS go agaisnt you.

He has no legal rights at all. My daughter does not see my mother and step-father. She sees lots of other family and doesn't miss out at all. As long as grandparents are not denied because of a family grudge or marriage break up I think its the parents descision what is in the best interest of their child.

As with all of these cases there is two sides to every story.
As a grandparent there is no automatic legal right to contact with grandchildren, but grandparents can apply to the court for leave to then apply for a contact order.
That is fact.
These situations are not about grandparents rights/resident parents rights, it is about the rights of the children.
There are of course some grandparents who should have nothing to do with their grandchildren, ( if proven child protection issues) equally there are some parents who should have nothing to do with their children.
It is important to keep this child focused, do they have a right to their family history, their identity?
Maybe a supervised visit, communication is key.
Children are given to us on loan, we do not own them, they grow into adults and ask their own questions about their families.
Children can turn away from us if they think they have been lied to.
There are no winners in this.

Jane surely having a child not exposed to abuse and manipulation is going to be winning, non?

I am estrsnged from my family too ... A solicitor said to me that IF the grandparents have good comms with their grandchild then apparently it is withitn grandparents rights to maintain that relationship with their grandchildren, but if there is no previous relationship, etc, then there are no rights.

I have had it written in my will that i do not want my brother, sistr or mother seeing my children if i die.

"As with all of these cases there is two sides to every story."

There are usually more "sides" to any story.

But they are not all equally valid or true.

Ultimately parents need to be able to decide who else has access to their children.

After all, they have all the responsibility.

Children have the right not to be exposed to horrible grandparents, even where there is no child protection issue.

They also have the right not to witness their mother being manipulated and bullied by an abusive, useless parent.

Anyone can tell you "family history". You don't need to spend time with a toxic grandparent for that.

It's so hard to actually enforce.

I'm in a similar position, with a toxic father who I have kept in contact with due to some sort of deluded 'he might get better as he gets older and I want my dad to love me' thoughts.
In Feb, he hit and shook my son and verbally abused the rest of the family. I've cut all ties since for all of our sakes, apparently I am, 'strange' because of it. He's also been telling the family my son's ASD is due to my parenting.
I'm so much happier since I cut all ties.

Im probably biased, but I haven't seen my dad or his dad since I was 10 and it's the best thing that could have happened! Just because someone is family, doesn't mean you've got to have any relationship with them. People can be arseholes young or old, and whether they are grandparents or not. To be honest in my experience people don't change either.

Please say no to this man. Ignore from then on. Your life is better without him. Carry on as you have done so for the past year. You both have a need and right to live without the noise of toxic people. Father or whoever.

"He now has contacted saying 'he has rights and wants to see his grandchild'"
As so many others have confirmed already, he has no rights whatsoever. This is the kind f statement used by someone who is only interested in steamrollering over other people, claiming an external authority over them. It's almost an admission that he knows you'd be in the right to tell him to bugger off.

"If I am being utterly truthful I don't want him anywhere near us as I have had a year of stress free happiness BUT I also understand that he is grandfather."
He is only technically a grandfather, in that his sperm fertilised the egg that became you, OP. There is more to being a grandfather than the biology. He has no relationship with your son, and an extremely poor one with you. He is not a grandfather in any emotional sense.

"He also loves to throw the 'XX can't make up his own mind yet, so you are making it up for him'"
Err, of course you are. Your son can't make up his own mind on how dangerous a busy road is yet either, so you protect him from that. Same difference. Your father is a hazard to be avoided.

This man lives 6 hours away from you, so in practical terms, how much unpleasantness can he create? If he phones, you hang up - better still get caller display on your landline so that you just don't answer him at all, and block his number on your mobile. Block his email address so that he can't contact you. And if he writes, return it unopened to him. What's he going to do about it? I'm sure you'll worry about what he might do, but he has no power over you apart from that which your fear and dread grant him. You can remove him from your life, you just have to believe that you can.

Good post jane. But, if the grandparent really is a bad person then the parent has the right to stop the child seeing that person, in the best interests of said child. But the points you raised are very valid.

Very helpful post WhereYouLeftIt :)

thanks for all the extra posts,

Jane: just to echo what the others said and it is of course, good to have all different views but I need to base my decision on the fact that I would never leave ds alone with him in his environment.

Not because he would hurt ds but because I wouldn't feel comfortable how he would 'manipulate' ds to go against me - stuff like "tell mummy you don't want to go home and you want to come and live with me" crap like that and he is just spiteful for e.g when he was about 10 months he took him to the park and I said I didn't want him to have any icecream or any ice lollies and he went totally against me and gave him a mr whippy icecream thinking it was funny and 'I should lighten up and not deprive him!'.

Now, whether he disagreed with me or not, that was my decision as the parent to state very clearly that I didn't want him to have one and clearly has no respect for my wishes and decisions. That's a somewhat trivial example but you get the picture of what he is like just on a very mild scale....

I also don't want ds exposed to the chaos of their environment, I was a nervous child, always on edge and I want my son to be the exact opposite of that and feel secure and comfortable in his surroundings...

Also, as I said before I've had a lovely year with him out of the picture and since he has been back in contact it has been very stressful and tense and that is the clearest indication for me I don't want him anywhere near my family.

OP I can completely see why you don't want your father invovled with your DS. I'm sure I would feel the same in your situation.

What will you say to your DS if he asks about your family and why he doesn't see them (when he's older)? Just feel I should mention it as we had a similar situation with my DH and his grandparents (his mother's parents). He did see them when he was little even though their relationship with his mum was strained, then after a while she stopped contact altogether so he didn't see them either. He has good memories of them and feels sad that he never saw them when he was older (they both died a while ago), even though he understands why his mum made the decision that she did. He also feels guilty that his grandparents sent him letters which he never replied to - he didn't not reply for any significant reason, just because he was a kid and kids don't see the long-term implications.

Good luck.

I didn't think grandparents had rights, unless they had an established relationship with their grandchild. I wouldn't let him see him, if u r his daughter and want nothing to do with him this should apply to ur ds too.

Hi greenwheelie,

Well I will tell him the truth and just explain about our argument and how he upset me and daddy and that we made a decision that we felt was right at the time why we didn't want you to see him as it would be very upsetting and stressful for years ahead.

I have many pictures of them that I have no intention of throwing away and in fact will probably sit down with ds and say "This is you with your grandad, but mummy hasn't seen him for XXX years because XXXXX"

I don't really know what else I can say but tell him the truth, but also be fair and say when you get to 16/18 if you would like to meet him talk to me and daddy about it.....

If I get any letters for him, I will open them until he is old enough to have them addressed to him (i,e 16) and leave them in a box for him if they are nice and fair letters. I'm not storing a load of unopened letters full of unpleasant language and rubbish to confuse or complicate ds when he is older. If they are rude letters abusing me and ds' father then they will be ripped up and binned....