AIBU to be really upset that Grandparents are moving to be near favourite grandchildren

[betty10k]

This might be a long one....
We're very lucky that our in laws live nearby and have my son (19 months) one day a week and the rest of the week he goes to nursery as we both have to work full time to pay the bills. I miss him immensely and wish i didn't have to work 5 days a week and commute but i do. It was softened by the fact that he was with his grandparents once a week and they love having him - always said it was the highlight of their week. He is close to them and i feel so grateful that he has a close relationship with them. Way back when we started talking about having a family they always said they wanted to have him/her once a week, there were ideas about him going to the local primary school which is walking distance from their house and him going back to theirs everyday for his tea. All dreams and all far off i know but my parents moved abroad when i was young so all this was important to me. I'm also an only child so this is probably where some of this unreasonableness and lack of understanding is coming from....?

Everything changed last year when my brother and sister in law + 3 grandchildren (all over 10) moved to the other end of the country (4hours away). Grandparents were distraught and slowly but surely they started dropping the days they could do so they could go up there and see them and stay there. They have a holiday cottage where they can stay. (This obviously was a bit of a pain as we've had to use up our holiday to look after him when they've not been able to) So i suppose you could say he would be better off in nursery all week. But it's just not what we wanted and nor can we afford it.

They got back from 2 weeks staying with brother in law on Sunday. My husband dropped my little boy off at his grandparents this morning as usual and they announced they wanted to move to be near them (4hours away) and would be selling up and obviously wouldn't be able to have our son anymore. Husband is upset but like most blokes probably won't say anything. Although he did say he's not surprised and he always comes last anyway and no'one in his family tells him anything so from this i take it that he clearly does care. Grandparents whole family live in the same area so they won't just be leaving us.

I've now gone from angry to upset. I never thought they'd actually go as when mentioned before they said they wouldn't because we needed them. This is true. But more than anything i'm upset for my son because like my husband he's been put last by them and he adores them. I've got to see them tonight and i don't want to (sounds pathetic i know but i don't deal with confrontation well and will probably cry) What do i do or say? Tell the truth or just let the resentment simmer?

The relationship we have with them will be so different. We don't have much spare time, husband is self employed trying to grow his business and works 6-7 days a week so we will only be able to visit them twice a year at most. We have a small cottage with not much room for visitors whereas they can go and stay with brother in law whenever they like in the holiday cottage they have. Their kids are all over 10 ours isn't yet 2 and hopefully one day we will be able to afford to have another one so i thought they'd want to be here to see them grow up and be a part of that. But i can understand that brother in law's family have more time for them as sister in law doesn't work so life is one long party - family dinners every week etc. (trying not to sound jealous but i am - i'd love to be able to look after my child myself and not work!)

So a very long rambling AIBU which isn't written very well. Can someone give me some advice without making me cry please.

It's ok to cry!

It's a big change and you'll miss them.

It's even ok to tell them you will miss their relationship with your ds.

It's just not ok to try to influence it which you're not!

remember op you have a lovely little family of your own and who knows what may happen in the future.

tell them you are sad. that's ok. you sound nice and some of the comments here are nasty.

I think YANBU to be sad but you are BU in some other respects. I don't think you should tell your InLaws that you are upset with them. It won't achieve anything other than upsetting them. We lived in another country to my parents but my kids are extremely close to them. I am sorry but I am another poster who thinks you just need to suck it up.

As hard as it is you really just need to accept this. It really isn't favouratism is it.

My niece used to go to nursery 4 days a week and to my mum and dads 1 day a week, when my sister returned to work when my niece was 4 months old. It was made clear from the start however, that if they had something planed on that day then alternative arrangements would have to be made.

Those were the ground rules and my sis and my bil accepted this. My Dsis has a very high powered job and my dbil works shifts. My parents as I and my DP, help when we can but it is not to be assumed.

YANBU for missing them, but YABVU in your reasons for wanting them to stay. Stop and think about it from their point of view. It seems as if they are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't.

I hope you feel better soon OP. I know this must be hard and I think you haven't been treated fairly on this thread. Before anyone says "It's not favoritism blah blah blah" Have you ever been the one who is not favored? I have and it's rotten to feel like your child is second best. I currently feel this way about my mother and her husbands GC who is the apple of their eye while my DD is someone who is easily over looked.

Have a glass of wine and talk it over with the in laws. Like others have said it will effect your sons relationship with his GPs IF you let it. Good luck OP. YANBU to be upset either.

Do you think, you say they have a holiday home up there, that it's simply that they prefer that neck of the woods?

With sibling 'favouritism' - you'd be surprised. DB would tell you I was spoiled, I'd tell you he was the golden boy. We both had very differenet qualities and personalities

With the ILs it might have been assumed there was a favourite bias towards BIL, but it was over protectiveness because he is acutely dyslexic, quite possibly on a spectrum somewhere, and thoroughly dislikeable - so they over compensated for the genuine affection everyone showed DH. I know they also preferred DH no matter how they tried to disguise it; but privately DH will tell you his DB was a spoiled brat because he was dyslexic and didnt find things easy.

I don't think UABU to feel upset but UABU to expect them to stay because of you.

Maybe they prefer the part of the country where your ILs live?

Just think when they're older & need help sil will cop for it !

Or maybe it's somewhere nicer.

It is most certainly favouritism. The other sibling moved away and grandparents have followed them. They have clearly favoured the other grandchildren

What? It's not clearly anything! How can you possibly know that for sure?

I posted a very similar thread to this in relationships a couple of weeks ago. In laws are moving 6 hrs away to be with sil.

I've got over the shock but I'm still quite hurt about it, i wish i wasnt but i really am. dh is now quite resigned to it I suppose.

There's not much you can do but I sympathize. Do tell them how much you will miss them.

My grandparents moved to me in the next village to my family, 200 miles from where they lived. We were the only grandchildren at the time, but dm's siblings had all just got married (and grandchildren follwed shortly). For all the siblings it was further away, one had lived in the same village, and all the others were down that neck of the woods.

Was dm the favoured child? Not at all. Their favourite, if any, was the one who lived nearest. I think dm was pleased, and we saw them regularly, but they didn't often baby sit or anything. It also meant we saw our uncles and aunts and families quite often when they came up.
Dm certainly hadn't pressurised them. They looked round a lot of areas and decided ours was the one they liked to retire to.
And it also meant that dm did almost all the care in their old age.

I think you're mourning the dream of the possible Happy Families life that was talked about (in vague terms) before you had DS. I noticed you're an only child, I know my father, also an only, had very strong feelings about creating a large extended family when he married my mum.

YANBU to feel sad and a tiny bit resentful about this - but it really is their decision, and they're slightly damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I have two teenage twin dds now, and it's already hard enough trying to support the two different career paths while they're still at school. The day is surely going to come when one's graduation ceremony is on the same day as the other's, or something equally catastrophic! I know I will want to be near them both in the same way as my own mum was near for me when they need me, and the way life goes, careers have a horrible habit of forcing our children to take jobs where the work is, not where it's convenient to live for family support reasons.

Favouritism up to a point, your poor DH doing all those repairs which he probably didn't have time for, but the GPs will have seen the other 3 GCs grow up from babies, they are probably used to spending a lot of time with the SIL who doesn't work.

I wouldn't have wanted my DPs or DPiLs living too near. I think you are very influenced by the fact your parents went abroad and that you are an only child. It can be stressful having family so close and interfering. And when my DCs were busy with school stuff and friends they didn't want to go visiting relatives (except ones with DCs similar ages.

Concentrate on the other family and friends nearby OP. I'm sure you'll adjust quicker than you think.

look we have 4 kids. what if they all move around the country/world? do me and dh have to draw a central line so we are in the middle?

op I see you are upset and Soverylucky you too although think you are projecting a bit. and we all do that.

my dsis would tell you I was the favourite and I think she was.

dh is one of 5 and his parents were the best ever but his sis is full of angst about their choices.

op the way forward is to sure tell them you will miss them but visit as often as you can, you can go without your dh too if he's working, go on the train as an adventure.

your sil had had 3 kids, no picnic.

stay as a family. be happy for them and stay positive.

YANBU to feel upset but ultimately it's their life and their choice. You do sound unhealthily obsessed with your SIL as though you think she's doing this to spite you. You said your in-laws dropped the number of days they were caring for your DS - how much were they doing previously?

it is ok to cry! and ok for them to see you crying! no bad thing for them to realise that what they do impacts on you.

i'd also be upset, and while there's nothing you can do other than tell them how much you'll miss them, it's still very hurtful.

see how it plays out. you may find they come and stay with you for a week or so at a time and be a tremendous help still.

in their minds i bet they don't think they have favourites. my mum thinks she doesn't have a favourite but she does not me

I think YANBU to feel the way you do - we had a similar situation and it was upsetting. I think you have to accept it gracefully though. Skype is good for keeping in touch.

OP, I am so sorry you are in this position.

My PIL clearly prefer their other dc to dh, and help and support them with their dc very happily whereas they won't lift a finger for us or our dc.

Dh finds it extremely hurtful, as it brings back all the times in his childhood when his parents' favouritism hurt him so much.

I personally think that anyone who puts on dc over another doesn't deserve to have a relationship with either of them, so just see it as a way of getting out of having to do anything for them in their old age. But that is partly the bitterness of experience talking, when ds1 was born I was hopeful that the gps would be like a second set of parents to him, just like my gps were for me and dh's for him.

I agree with struggling.

If we accept your and H's view that the DS who has moved away is indeed the favoured child, then it might be best for your DS not to spend too much time with grandparents with form for favouritism and three older GC of their favoured child, in case he starts to feel like your DH. Poor DH (I don't say that often!)

sIL campaigning for her in-laws to move nearby is odd!

That said, it's their choice of course, and not a lot you can do. Presumably they can visit and vice versa.

It is looking like favouritism, when you consider the ILs blew out the OP in favour of the other brother at Christmas already! How did they ever justify that?

My Mum had friends who moved away to their son and his family. Left their daughter behind, very upset. Within months the relationship had broken down completely with the DIL, she did not like them being close and meddling with the day to day lives of the GC. It was a complete disaster and the family never recovered. Sometimes I think people don't think things through properly. YANBU OP, but I hope you start to feel better soon.

How did it go, op?

Mimishimi - honestly not unhealthily obsessed with sister in law we are good friends - going to see them for a weekend in a few weeks time and really looking forward to it. I was just dealing with the shock and hurt of yesterday's bombshell and said a few unreasonable things as a result sorry everyone! They only ever looked after him 1 day a week.

AlpacaLypse you are so right - mourning the dream (i daydream a lot) and i do know how much my being an only child has a bearing on all this. I don't understand not coming first (even though parents moved abroad!) - please don't slate me for that comment. I'm now working on getting my head around it because lets face it that is life!

Dozer My in laws are lovely hence i don't want them to go.

So it went really well - i spent a lot of yesterday fighting back the tears, finally succumbed on the train on the way home - a stranger gave me a tissue! They came round for a cup of tea, dh was at work so it was just me, them and my dc. They asked me how we felt - i said that we were of course upset that we would really miss them but they have to do what is right for them. MIL and i both cried, she feels very torn but they explained the whole situation and i do now understand but i'm just so sad. Sorry for starting a storm in a teacup everyone! Now i just need to learn to deal with it. Part of me does think maybe it will be nicer having them to stay (we will all squish in) as we will probably get better quality of time with them than we do now - life is one big rush!

Nursery can take him for the extra day in a few months time - i'm just going to have to try and get my social life back on track so i feel able to ask my friends for help for those emergencies when the train is late and i don't get back in time to collect dc etc. I will now understand how hard it is for working mums with no family nearby to support - i've been very very lucky so far!