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.

Well, they sound a right pair, don't they?
Jesus. OP, you have been nothing but fair, reasonable and even handed though this whole thing-from the shock of having a man you thought loved you turn abusive, to trying to give your daughter contact with his parents.
What they did RE the T shirt was really sneaky and odd, and the fact that they wont apologise for it unreservedly just rings so many alarm bells for me.
I can totally understand why you haven't told them the full story about their son's real behaviour. I have an estranged MIL currently who is very upset with me for not being in touch for the last 6 months. I haven't been in touch because her son has behaved so appallingly, and, so far, I can't bring myself to get into it with her. He has fed her all kinds of rubbish about me, and she will, of course believe him. I haven't been able to bring myself to get into it with her, so have avoided the conversation entirely.
Not saying that is the right thing to do, but sometimes you have to act in the interests of self preservation.
It's NOT only about your DD. It is also important that your DD's only parent is OK. I also am not convinced they haven't been arranging contact with their son, and if they haven't already, they will certainly be planning on it.
You can't trust them, so don't feel you HAVE to do anything you don't want to do wrt your daughter. Steel yourself, tell them in no uncertain terms what your Ex did, then Supervised contact only, with a beady eye on them.
And make sure they know very clearly who is in charge.
Children need good people in their lives, that's all. You be the judge of who those people are.

And do not spend one second angsting about whether Ex is ready to be a father/wants to come back etc etc.
What he chooses to do/want/think is up to him. You are not responsible for his choices, or his feelings.
If he wants contact, he needs to contact you, and go about things in an above board fashion, with your full agreement.
And don't even think about the "what ifs" or about him sitting somewhere pining and wanting to come back. He has shown you his true colours, you know that. Keep moving forwards, you are doing great.

Yes, agree they seem to be toxic. The emotional roudabout is one to be wary of. Trying to do the whole "We're more upset than you" after their behaviour is very telling.

Actually agree with everything IfNotNowThenWhen said

I'm going with the others here.

That message from the GF was guilt tripping all the way. Very very toxic.

Write them the letter explaining everything and then cut contact. Tell them you need a few weeks to sort a few things out and then just keep away.

I don't the the ex has met her as they wouldn't have had to tag him. I think they are desperate for him to have a relationship with her.

I was prepared to say you'd been a bit U, but since your texts they have shown more of their colours. Admittedly, they don't fully know what their son has said/ done, but still... I also agree that the son didn't just become like that. No wonder he is worried about being a parent if he has such dysfunctional parents.

The reaction from the GF is concerning - the manipulation, the lack of ownership of causing the problem, the lack of understanding. But the good side of it is that I think will help you to be 'stronger' to see that perhaps this relationship with the grandparents isn't actually the best thing for your dd in the long run. Wheresthebeach post is great.

Totally agree with previous posters. His response is so manipulative. I would run for the hills and cut all contact with them.

As Bruno saidh, every visit sets a precedence and if they try to go down the route of the courts to get access, having had regular visits previously will help their case.

If your x has secretly travelled down to see his daughter, why is this such a bad thing? do you think he will hurt the baby?

HONESTLY i think you need to get a grip and I say this not as somebody who was happily married to mr wonderful. I had children with an abusive manipulator too, but I managed to eventually get his family to respect my boundaries and learn that they got further faster by treating me with respect.

I'm not saying that that happened overnight but I don't understand why your dd's father wanting to see her is such a bad thing.

You need to get things out in the open. Tell his family (with back up from your own family) that you want honesty and respect.

Ryvita I don't think the issue is so much about whether he wants to see his DD - more that he doesn't/ hasn't bothered AT ALL and now they seem to be trying to get him to want to, or look as if he has bothered on FB.
You can't say that the deception has put any of them in a good light, surely?
I don't know if OP wants her ex to have involvement, but that isn't really such a bit part of what is disturbing about this set up. DD doesn't know her dad and if he does want to be a part of her life he needs to do this via the correct channels, not have his parents force him into it behind DD's mother's back. Everything should be open and honest so that there is less chance of anyone being hurt. Most of all the GP's seem to be treating DD like a toy for their own ends, which any parent would want to address.

No, it doesn't show them in a good light, but the grandparents are in a difficult position. I think taking the omnipotent move of cutting off the birth father's family would show the OP in a very bad light.

I did say be honest. Re-draw the lines. Say, look if he wants to be involved then we'll set up something regular. But don't insist that he goes through you. A 'buffer' is a welcome lubricant in the difficult business of exchanging children. So long as they are honest with you...

Maybe you think I don't understand but nothing could be further from the truth. I've had to weather some hideous tornadoes with my xils.

But if you decide on your boundaries and decide what concessions you're prepared to make, what is non-negotiable, then present it to them frankly without explanation or justification or implied criticism.

Without being drawn in to pointless debate reward their good behaviour with photos and information and contact, and penalise bad behaviour with withdrawal of privileges contact etc.

You can train even the stupidest of bad dogs to respect your boundaries. Eventually. I know because my xils aren't over-burdened with intelligence or common decency. Their default would have been to come at me with my tanks. But they learned from my actions (not my words) that that didn't give them the results they were looking for.

It's easy to hold a tiny baby and think "i will protect my baby from people I don''t like" but try, before you make any decisions to visualise yourself telling it all in court. How will it make you look? To her, to a judge?

I'm going to repeat what my mother said to me when I found things very hard. The children have a right to see him. He may not deserve rights but the children still have a right to see him.

If at some point in the future you're driven to cutting them off then perhaps that will be easier to justify to your child with twenty questions. But to cut them off when your baby is so small........... there's only one person who's going to look bad when this is all a decade+ in to history.

I don't the the ex has met her as they wouldn't have had to tag him.

Huh? That's not how it works, though...My DH sees DD every day, but I still tag him when I put a picture of her up, it just calls it to a person's attention. And incidentally lets other people see there is a relationship there, which could be another motivation by the GPs.

I would put at least a small wager on the ex having seen the child in person.
If I am wrong and it hasn't already happened, I would put a much larger wager on them being perfectly content to meet up with him behind your back in the future, if OP continued to permit unsupervised visits.

I think the tag was a form of manipulation, which they wouldn't have entered into if he'd seen her. But that is just my opinion and not that relevant really.

I think the point is here that they are extremely manipulative people and it is up to the OP to decide whether she is strong enough to handle them (I wouldn't be), and as a PP said, she needs to look after the 1 real parent her dd has.

Manipulative = tagging various people on facebook?

Honestly this is such small fry. The issue is that right now the OP is sensitive to the small stuff. He behaved badly to her, but in ten years time when the child wants to know why Mummy imperiously cut off all contact with father and paternal grandparents, some story that has to do with facebook is going to sound so lame and petty.

Although, looking back, I guess I did cut off in laws for a while. Not with an announcement, or any intention of cutting them off indefinitely. Just simply I couldn't face their abuse of me, their constant judgements and criticisms of me for having left their precious son, so, for a while I guess it was no contact. I never prevented them from seeing their gc though. I guess they just learned gradually that you catch more flies with honey.

No, the issue is (and I am not one who usually jumps on this bandwagon) that the parents and the ex sound pretty toxic. In fact, it is becoming clear that the ex is toxic because of the parents. I would want to protect my child from that as far as possible. Because if they are in the habit of manipulating and using all the old techniques in the book, they will also try it out on the OP's dd as soon as she can understand, "Oh, isn't Mummy mean not letting you come and stay with us for 2 weeks..." etc etc. I would hope the OP has a good enough relationship with her dd in the future for her dd to trust that her Mum had her best interests at heart.

They may well be toxic, but they are the ones with no power. It's difficult to erect your boundaries just high enough that you're not trampled on but no so high that you're abusing your power.

I know how this story pans out ten years down the line. And, OP, You need more to offer up than I thought they were toxic. in my opinion they were toxic. "they posted photos on fb". "they didn't tell me that their son (baby's father) secretly visited the baby.

The OP has power because the child lives with her and the father has no rights (at the moment).

So the issue should really be a conscientious focus on behaving well herself and I don't mean that in a sanctimonious way. I'm like OP but 10+ years down the line. It turns out, a good way to protect yourself is to behave impeccable and to never be selfish. You need to know that you can stand up in court and justify yourself to a judge.

OP needs to reward xils good behaviour and without song and dance, withdraw attention & contact following bad behaviour. It worked for me and my x inlaws are so toxic and so machiavellian they make this crew look like a bunch of amateurs.

I'm not a particularly assertive person which is why I ended up with a bunch of people that triedd to come at me in their tanks. I've learned a lot. But I've also learned unfortunately that in the greater scheme of things, other people won't have any sympathy with your injured ego. Cutting your child's father and his family out of your child's life when the father hsan't been verbally or physically abusive on the grounds that they didn't tell you their son came along &/or they posted pictures that gave the impression they were more involved than they were is not going to sound like justifiable reason for cutting half of her blood line out of her life.

I'm not one for championing fathers' right by the way. I do NOT think unmarried fathers should be given more rights. But I don't believe that these people are really 'toxic' when they are on the back foot here. Things are still settling down. It's an incredibly awkward situation. There's been no invitation to exchange honest changes of heart or to put 'recent' cards on the table.

My xmil would be no fan of mine, I dealt with a load of shit from her, but although she'd never acknowledge it, I know that I never prevented her from seeing the children and when it came to their father I did more than never prevent it, I facilitated it, up to a point and on a basis that was agreeable and convenient for me.

Not sure the OP is still readinng but I would just advise if you are still reading and you make the decisio n to cut off the father and his family, visualise yourself telling it to a judge. what does it sound like?

It's difficult to erect your boundaries just high enough that you're not trampled on but no so high that you're abusing your power.

There is no abuse of power. The grandparents have no right whatsoever to see this child, no matter how impeccably they behave. That is a gift which the OP can decide to confer upon them if she wishes to. I think that has been forgotten by the GPs and that the OP would do well to keep it in mind. She is vulnerable because of her wish to believe that these people wish her child well and will protect it, and because she clearly and by her own admission still has fantasies of having a happy family with the father. If she were not so vulnerable, I think she would have already put much more distance between herself and these dreadful people.

Sorry I have only just had a chance to catch up on the thread. Just for the record I am not trying to cut half of the blood line out of my daughter's life. I have always been clear that if my ex partner were to show any indication that he was interested in meeting our daughter then, unless I had reason to believe he would pose a risk to her, I would try and facilitate that.

The reason I was so angry when I first saw this picture because it indicated that my DD's grandparents had purposefully gone behind my back to do something they knew I wouldn't like and had tried to hide it from me. It was the attempt to deceive me that made me angry. The context and history with my ex made it worse but truthfully I would have been angry had they been hiding something they had done with my DD even if it had no relation to my ex. She is my DD and when I entrust her in the care of somebody else I expect them to be honest about their intentions with her and to be honest about what they have done with her whilst she has been in their care. I was angry because they tried to hide something they had done with her (dressed her in the T-shirt). Whether the actual dressing her in the T-shirt was, or wasn't, a big deal isn't really the issue. They should have been honest with me and they weren't. If they had taken her to see my ex (and I really don't think they have) I would be livid, not because I want to deny my DD a link with her father but because again I expect them to be honest about what they do with my DD when she is in their care. If I can't trust them I can't leave my DD with them, it is that simple.

As for whether or not they are 'toxic,' I don't really know that I believe that to be true. I read a lot of people being 'toxic' on Mumsnet but I don't really know what that means. I do believe that long-term my DD having a relationship with them will be in her best interests as they are good grandparents. However I recognise that whilst her father is non-contact (his choice, not mine so I don't see myself needing to explain that to a judge. He has never expressed any interest in meeting her to me.) it may be difficult for them to have a relationship with her which doesn't get confused by what they want for their son.

Anyway, I am not going to stop them from having contact. I am going to change the previous contact arrangement so that it is not as frequent and so that it is not unsupervised but I will continue to honour my DD's right to a link with her paternal side so long as they are able to stick to the ground rules I will lay down. I have arranged to meet them next Saturday without DD and will write them a letter before we meet too. I think we will be able to work through this and that if I am firm with them (I have probably been a bit of a push-over up until now) about what my rules and expectations are then we will be able to ensure my grand-daughter has a positive relationship with them. Fingers crossed anyway.

my daughter* (their grand-daughter)

bdgrl although it is factually and legally correct that the paternal grandparents of an unmarried father have no legal rights to see their grandchild, the grandchildren have a moral right to be allowed to have all of their grandparents in their life.

I have dealt with toxic people and come out the other side. I'm not naive. I know how hard it is. But cutting paternal grandparents out completely (when the child is but a few months old) well that is a huge decision that you can't make when emotions are still so raw and the situation has not 'landed' yet.

I'm glad that my very spirited opinionated children can't accuse me of cutting off their paternal gp! I've been much smarter I've let them visit so my children are underwhelmed by their paternal gp.

chesterberry You sound very fair. Your daughter will see that when she is older. I realise you are in a very difficult situation and they should respect you and they should respect your boundaries. Do you think you lack assertiveness? I know I did. A very good book that I read was Anne Dickson's 'a woman in her own right'. It doesn't tell you what to say tit for tat when somebody is trying to drive over you in their tank! but it does give you a much more confident certainty that you have a right to draw a line, to have a high boundary.

And reading that book helped me to avoid having pointless conversations appealing to their better nature! cos, ha!. I really had a bit of a eureka reading that book. I realised taht pointless debates only fed their entitlement (my x and his family) and perpetuated their belief that I needed to ask for their permission, that I needed their approval! So, I kept trying to argue with them to try and get them to see 'my side'.

bdgrl although it is factually and legally correct that the paternal grandparents of an unmarried father have no legal rights to see their grandchild, the grandchildren have a moral right to be allowed to have all of their grandparents in their life.

I respectfully disagree. There is no moral right to grandparents any more than children have a moral right to a close relationship with the next door neighbour. If it is a healthy and beneficial thing, then that's a wonderful addition to their lives. Children have a right to protection. If that means, in their one parent's estimation, not being involved with members of the extended family then that is the right moral decision for that parent to undertake.

My parents are lovely. I wish my DD would see them every day. But they would say (and I know this because I have had discussions with them regarding their relationship to my sisters' children) that they have no claim over their grandchildren.

Anyway, OP, please just be very careful. There are people on this thread who are worried about you and DD, and I hope we are wrong.

sorry, quoting fail.

But cutting paternal grandparents out completely (when the child is but a few months old) well that is a huge decision that you can't make when emotions are still so raw and the situation has not 'landed' yet.
Actually, I and many other posters haven't advocated this. We've suggested, rather, limiting contact to supervised visits, and avoiding the establishment of precedents that will be difficult to change in the future. Which I really really hope OP will do and it sounds like she is addressing the situation.