Absolutely furious with parents of DD's non-contact father. Where to go from here?

[chesterberry]

My ex-partner left me before my DD was born in August of last year. We had been in a long-term relationship but the pregnancy was not planned and he did not accept the idea of becoming a father at all. He tried to force me into an abortion and when I refused this he made threats towards me and the baby and said he wished I would miscarriage. He then changed tactics and denied the baby could possibly be his before moving back to his home town and leaving me alone and pregnant.

Aside from me emailing him once to announce the birth of our DD there has been no contact between us since and he is not on the birth certificate, however his parents asked to still be involved. They have been mostly supportive of me and I am in regular contact with them. They come down to visit us (they live several hours drive away) once every month or so for the day and now my DD is no longer ebf the last few times they've visited they've taken her out for a few hours to give me some time to myself. They are lovely with her, my DD is happy with them and I am pleased she can have a relationship with her paternal family.

However I have just found out they have breached my trust in a huge way. My ex-partner and I have a lot of mutual friends and today I was having lunch with one of them. She asked me whether my ex was now in contact. I said no and asked why she thought that and she said because of the picture on his facebook. I didn't know what she meant (I have deleted him from facebook) and she pulled up the picture to show me. It's a picture of my DD with her paternal grandmother in a T-shirt which says 'Daddy's Little Princess.' My ex has been tagged in it. It's been posted by my ex's father (who I'm not facebook friends with) and I'm unable to see the photo from my facebook account.

I don't know if I'm over-reacting but I feel absolutely furious that they that they have broken my trust like this. This was clearly something premeditated as they had to go and buy the T-shirt and then secretly photograph my daughter and post it without me knowing. They have in the past expressed disappointment in their son and expressed they wished he would accept our DD as his. They know some of the story regarding us breaking up although not that he made threats towards me or his wishing I'd miscarry.

I know I was probably being unreasonable but on seeing this photo in the anger of the moment I sent my DD's grandmother a message in which I have essentially told her she will never see my DD again. I don't know what their motives are or what my ex thinks about this but I do not want him to have contact with our daughter, the person he became on finding out I was pregnant was not the man I was in love with, he made threats towards us and I am terrified if he was in contact with our daughter he would hurt her. I know legally he has a right to see her but I am dismayed that they are encouraging him to acknowledge her, I'd prefer his apathy really. I also no longer feel I could trust them to have my daughter on their own, I am terrified they might arrange to meet up with my ex and take her with them or something.

I don't know where to go from here. WIBU to simply cut all contact and refuse to let them see their grand-daughter? I know that's unfair on my DD but I don't see how I could ever leave her in their care again and I don't want to have to be there with them for supervised contact. I know that on the face of it what they have done, photographed their grand-daughter in a T-shirt without checking with her mum, is not a massive thing but I'm angry that they tried to hide this from me and that they are clearly trying to get their son to have contact with our DD. Maybe I am over-reacting, I don't know. Any advice would be welcomed, thank you.

Another one advising cutting contact.

I thought it was illegal to post a picture of a child on the internet without parental consent. (Even when my DD was 18 I was asked to sign a consent form in case any picture of her appeared in youth orchestra online publicity.)

If it isn't illegal then it should be.
That's bad enough but to dress her up in pink glittery clothing is disgraceful.

They are manoeuvring to gain legal footing at some point. I wouldn't trust them an inch.

It's not illegal. Consent forms are used to avoid civil action for damages.

Well, they won't get custody as grandparents, especially if their son isn't involved, so OP deal with the issue you have now, not an issue you might potentially have in the future.

As another poster said, yes their loyalty will be to their son but that doesn't make them BAD people or bad grandparents. It makes them parents.

I've ridden out several storms with my xmil and I'm so glad that I never gave her that ammunition to use against me, the "your mother kept me from you" ammo.

Be smart OP. You don't have to trust them 100% but fgs, just let them visit occasionally and be nice to their faces.

Fake civility 'til it's real. I have the stripes.

As another poster said, yes their loyalty will be to their son but that doesn't make them BAD people or bad grandparents.

Actually, I think in this case it makes them shit grandparents.

The fact your ex-p has been tagged and hasn't untagged himself would raise alarm bells for me. I bet they have been working on him to take responsibility for months and as soon as he has started to come round they have done the t-shirt thing. This would really worry me.
I generally think the best of people but the T-shirt thing is so calculated and odd.
If it were a cack handed way of getting their son to take an interest, as soon as they got your message saying you'd seen it why haven't they been straight on the phone apologizing and trying to sort it out.

I would take it as a warning to be on your guard.

I think you need to look at from the point of view of your dd missing out seeing her grandparents not the other way round.

I would put any money on the fact that they are mortified about their sons behaviour. The t-shirt is just pretence for the benefit of their friends. There is no way he secretly travelled with them. I can see why you would be pissed off but they are desperate to make things look normal to their golf-club cronies.

At what cost to OP though? It shouldn't be just a blanket 'do what is best for the kids', it's sometimes that if our role as parents is compromised then that is bad for the kids. It seems simplistic to blindly insist everything is for the children's sake, without looking at it carefully and weighing up what may be going on.

I don't think DD will miss a thing. She isn't going to remember them at this point.
Not having them in her life isn't a bad thing in and of itself.

I do think you need to speak to them regardless of what you feel is right at the moment. You need to at least try to find out what happened with the T'shirt and why.

I don't think my exp's mum was a terrible person just because of the way her son acts and was to me. I do think she was spineless giving up her first grandchild, but understand she chose her son over her and I suppose she has every right to do that.

It may be that they don't understand breast feeding and probably used bottles - for some the idea is baffling and you shouldn't hold their ignorance as a sign they are intent on being malicious. Talk to them about why they bought the shirt, changed her and put it on FB. If you do it face to face you will know whether they are lying and go from there using your gut.

Thank you for all of your replies. I have a lot to think about. DD’s grandmother hasn’t replied but I have had a message from her grandfather. I don’t know what to make of it. He says that DD’s grandmother is too upset to reply and they’re disappointed I’m trying to hurt them by threatening to stop them seeing my DD. (I did threaten this which I know was unreasonable. My second message apologised for my immediate reaction.) He has apologised for the photo but says they thought as her grandparents I wouldn’t mind and would accept they want to show her off. He hasn’t acknowledged the T-shirt although I think I was clear in my message that was what has upset me more than the photo or even ex being tagged. He has agreed it would be good for us to meet up with DD at the weekend and talk it through so that we can try and move forward.

I do now realise that I need to be decisive and very clear in my conversation with them as I can see how they are trying to twist this around and avoid the issue. I will be very clear that our next meeting (which will not be as soon as this weekend) will be without DD that we can discuss where to go from here (I did say this but perhaps not clearly enough). I will also explain my reasons say I am unwilling to discuss this until I have had a proper apology and explanation regarding why they took a photo of her in the T-shirt (why couldn’t they show her off in her normal clothes? They have bought her lots of clothes and I always dress her in an outfit they have bought for their visits.) and then tried to hide it. I need to know their motivations.

I think I will go down the letter route as well as I agree it will be hard to be frank and honest about everything if we try and have a conversation. I will explain everything that happened between myself and their son and explain my feelings and reasons for not pushing him to have contact. I don’t know whether they will believe it. I think his mother will, not sure about his father.

I will definitely reduce contact as well, at least until she is older. I hadn’t really realised how concerning their behaviour was until I read back what I had written and saw it all laid out like that and I see that their motives may not solely be wanting a relationship with their grand-daughter but are probably all mixed up in what they want for their son. I think that’s understandable but equally I can’t trust they have my DD’s best interests at heart and so I think I need to step back from this, at least for now.

Thank you again for everybody’s helpful replies.

'Grandmother is too upset to reply' - wtf? It seems that instead of apologising profusely she is trying to manipulate you into feeling guilty for making HER upset! Classic toxic behaviour or what?.. And her husband is enabling it.

Im affraid the more i read about them the more im inclined to think you are doing right cutting/minimizing the contact. Wasnt obvious before but your last post tells me they are toxic. Beware.

Nice bit of gaslighting/avoiding the issues from them then.
I agree that you need to meet up without DD and later than this weekend as emotions will still be high. You need time to decide what you want and how you want to say it.
But more than that they need to realise and respect the fact that you are the parent and you make the decisions. If they are unable or unwilling to respect your choices I think you might have to consider going NC. They don't have to agree with them but they can't go behind your back, undermine you or try to force you to do something that you do not agree with.

Agree with Approaching, classic toxic and narcissistic behaviour. Expect tears, wringing of hands and a mysterious life threatening illness next time you see her - but no apology.

Be very careful, OP.

Just be aware that every meeting they have with her helps set a precedent for contact.

That was one very manipulative conversation. Making you feel guilty. 'Apologising' for something slightly different to what they KNOW the real problem is. Playing dumb. And then glibly repeating your suggestion with an innocent seeming misrepresentation- with DD not without.

Meet them, after they've had your letter, and go in very hard. Pull no punches. Insist on thm explaining WHY a t-shirt like that, when it's a simple lie? What did it do for them? Why tag their son? What is going on?

If you get any blustering, smile and get up from the table and say you're sorry then but you're simply not prepared to take one iota of bullshit when it comes to your DD. Good bye.

And even if you get a clear answer, I'm afraid I'd be telling them that I've rethought the situation and want to step back from contact. That what this has shown you is that they're on their son's side, not their granddaughters. And that given what they know now, they should understand that you are simply not prepared to risk there being ANY, even indirect contact where you are not there to protect your DD. That if their son wants contact, it will be through proper channels, supervised, and with your full knowledge, and there's not a chance that you will a.allow and b. Not find out about attempts to promote contact behind your back. So if they do love her, they'll understand why you don't now think that letting them take responsibility for her is in her best interests. She's a person, not something they need to co-opt in order to not feel awful about their son. You're her mother, and they think it's ok to go behind your back. So again - goodbye.

I see that their motives may not solely be wanting a relationship with their grand-daughter but are probably all mixed up in what they want for their son

I think that's very insightful. So much so that you should print it out and read it before any contact. It may well be that you can agree a way forward but be very wary and keep that ^^ to the forefront of your mind.

Thinking further: I acknowledge that the grandparents aren't responsible for the way the father has behaved, because he is now an adult. But there is a similarity in behaviours, which makes me think they did a crap job as parents, and are likely to be crap grandparents. It does sound to me that they are a somewhat dysfunctional family; and if you haven't experience such dysfunction before, you'll be trying to sort this situation out in a sensible and caring way. But that might not be the way they operate.

Your outburst was not unwarranted. Their behaviour with the t-shirt was sneaky and underhand. You are right to be very suspicious of their motivation, and keep them at arm's length from your child until they've proven they understand that it's the child that has rights, not them.

I don't trust them at all. Tread carefully. I think you would be well within your rights to say 'no more' and be done with it. So far they have been testing you (the giving up breastfeeding ), I have a feeling they will get much worse and their message (or rather the grandfathers) showed that. They are trying to manipulate you. I also wouldn't be surprised if your ex had travelled down and secretly met her.

They sound extremely manipulative. I don't have a Facebook account and don't look at any one else's Facebook account but I cannot begin to understand the mentality of we just wanted to show her off.To whom?

If I were them I would want to keep this low-key and private until I had fully won and deserved your confidence. Or are they lying to friends and family about what the situation is?

I think you're about to learn where their son got his charming personality from...

Be prepared for them to swing between aggressive and threatening (we have the right to see our GD) and sobbing about how mean you are.

Decide on your mantra and stick to it. It needs to be something that makes everything clear. So along the lines of: 'I am unhappy that you've behaved this way, and that you don't understand the problem'. 'I'm starting work soon and don't wish contact to continue as it has been. I will be in touch with other arrangements once I've settled into a new routine'. Don't let them bully you into agreeing to anything. Just keep repeating your mantra. If you engage too much in a debate you could end up on the back foot and agreeing to something you regret.

Stand tough. You are right to be worried.

I also wouldn't be surprised if your ex had travelled down and secretly met her.

I also would not be surprised if this has happened. The GPs have already shown they can't be trusted.

As astonishing as their response is, at least they've revealed who they actually are early enough for you to do something about it; I agree with the comments above - looks like narcissism. This form of toxic behaviour is a recognised form of abuse.

I'm going to PM you but for the sake of the discussion here, these people can never be trusted.

I was on the fence as to whether YABU or not until I read the GF's reply. Very clever piece of manipulation there.

I agree with Bruno.

I would put a stop to this fast.

I wouldn't normally suggest that but this has red flags all over and I don't think it will end well.

I am sorry you are going through this but the more you post the more I think that this situation is going to turn out really badly and they can't be trusted full stop.