PIL issues. Wanting to see GC separately

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Hi mumsnetters, I genuinely don't know if I'm being unreasonable about this particular problem so please help me! My MIL is a tricky person, diagnosed personality disorder along with a host of other issues, she is very negative and has been nasty about me for the whole 16 years I've known her behind my back, face to face she is pleasant enough. She adores my 2 DS and they her, however she treats my eldest DS as if he is the second coming, she has openly admitted she prefers him and sees her as 'hers' whereas my second DS she describes as 'theirs' meaning my family's. She only wants to see them separately but plans for my second DS always seem to fall through so she sees him far less. He notices this and has started pulling away from them. I hate it as it seems like such obvious favouritism. My FIL always used to seem so rational but he also agrees they only want to have them on their own as they can't cope with both. He thinks they need time apart from each other, which may be true. They go to the same school and we generally have them both together so it's possible they would benefit from time apart. My DS are 6 and 4 and get on well mostly. I'm conflicted as I know my own views of my MIL may be tainting my opinion but aibu to dislike them seeing them separately?

Well when she cancels on DS2 then he gets the next day out, it's his turn next do they don't get DS1 at all until DS2 has had his turn, don't allow it to be a case of his turned is cancelled and it's back to DS1.

But if things aren't fair then you absolutely have to go no contact, you cannot allow one child to be do favoured over the other

She can't use personality disorder as excuse and neither can your OH. "She has openly admitted that she favours him." She recognises it. You have to make a stand - DCs must be treated fairly and equally or there's no dice.
I understand this may cause arguments, but it sounds as if arguments will be a pattern anyway. If you stand firm, take the flak and show that you are not moving, they will have to accept it.
I once had to do this. I'd booked DC into a holiday course because it was important at the time to encourage friendships for DC. MIL wanted DC for entire half term to entertain a much younger (favoured) cousin she was looking after (ie as a babysitting aid) and insisted in the teeth of all explaination. I offered compromise of two days/nights (losing money on the course). She turned it down flat. Didn't really care about seeing DC . It was a week or nothing. So she got nothing. DC really enjoyed course and developed friendships. She was furious but actually I realised by this time I was used to this, I'd made the right choice for DC and I weathered the storm. You will too.

I think you need to protect your children. Whether the different treatment of either child is due to her personality disorder or just her personal preference, either is an unacceptable influence.
Your children are young and impressionable. If it's personal preference then it's disgraceful behaviour and the children should be protected from it. If it's an aspect of her mental illness then again, you need to safeguard your children from the impact - just as you would protect them from a relative with a drug or alcohol problem.

FiL is presumably an enabler of her behaviour and I would question his telling you that 'they need time apart from each other'. It may be the case but coming from him, I'd suggest it's coming from their self interest rather than about the children.

It's really not OK. Trust your instincts and be courageous with your parenting. You don't treat your kids with favouritism so why allow someone close to them to do this? So supervised access is the way to go.

They sound horrible. I would tell them where to go and what to do when they got there!

Her personality disorder is not an excuse.
Either she behaves in an acceptable way or you don't go and see her.
To be honest if it is that much of a disability then I wouldn't allow your children (especially at such a young age) to see her unsupervised.

My MIL struggled with depression and other emotional issues. I wouldn't have let her have unsupervised access to my children, because it was never certain what would trigger her suddenly start weeping. And one thing that did trigger it was any mention of WWII, which is tricky when DC study it at school and want to ask Grandparents for any memories/stories they might have.

Also in your case - who knows what she is saying about you when you aren't there?

No way. Pil see your boys together with you or DH present.

You're letting a woman with a diagnosed personality disorder that has been nasty to you for the past 16 years have unsupervised access to your children?

If that's the case, please stop it straight away. She will be damaging them both, especially the youngest.

Tell them that from now on you or you dh will come with both children.

(Personally I wouldn't be letting her see either of them at all)

No, absolutely no.

This will eventually blow up in your face when your kids grow up and tell you how much this awful treament affected BOTH of them.

They are a crap influence, not good for either of your DC.

Family visits, all together, supervised, any whiff of favouritism and that's it, bye.

Never on their own, together or separately.

She may well destroy the boys' relationship with each other if you allow this to continue and develop in this manner.

They see and have both; or they see and have none. If they cancel or forget to do things for DS2, they don't get to do things with DS1.

Frankly, I would tell them they won't be allowed to see the boys without you actually being there for quite some time so you can monitor their treatment of the boys. You need to be there for them.

If they can't treat them both the same, then cut off contact.

On their own without you and your DH I meant.

Nobody with form for bad-mouthing me behind my back would have unsupervised access to either of my children, together or individually.

You need to protect your children from this behaviour by having nice family time all together while being prepared to tackle obvious favouritism head on. If that doesn't work, you need to prioritise your children's needs and stop the contact altogether.

My MIL was like this and, in the end, DD1 (the favourite) started to refuse to see her.

Neither if your Pil gave shown they can place either of your children's needs above their (Pils) wants. That's not safe for either child.

I wouldn't insist they spend a day with the least favoured child, that way leads to resentment from Pils which they may act out on your child.

From now on NO unsupervised time and no separation of children. It's not their place to decide if your kids need separate time and even if kids would benefit from independent space/experiences it is for YOU to provide not the Pils.

I would reduce contact and have future visits closely supervised with no chance of them showing favouritism or distracting you while Mil sneaks off with DS1. Your DS2 will grow up thinking YOU preferred DS1 and have self esteem issues if you don't stomp on this behaviour, allowing it to happen is as bad as condoning and encouraging it.

This behaviour was rife in my family and I was in DS2s position , the way it affects you is insidious and far reaching. Please stand up for him anspd stop your Mildriving a wedge between the brothers.

This doesn’t just affect how they see themselves in the context of a relationship with the grandparent.

1 it will affect t how they view each other, potentially driving a wedge between them

1. It will affect how they view their relationship with you and dh, because you will be seen as condoning this.

This kind of favouritism can cause massive psychological damage (i speak from bitter experience.) and it needs to be nipped in the bud. Your dh and you need to sit down together and talk this through - what will you accept? What is unacceptable? How do WE deal with MIL is she says/does this? Where are our absolute boundaries? Dh May have to do some difficult and unpleasant talking with MIL. That’s hard but it must be done.

The most important thing is to protect your children. I would be having no unsupervised visits at all. Young minds are too fragile for this shit. Her personality disorder is not an excuse - she is on the brink of irreparably harming your children

I had same bad mouthing me, nagging them saying things such as I hadn't taught them proper table manners ( i jolly well had!). They had the same reaction. Didn't enjoy the visit, were upset and didn't want to go back, they still remember it. My view was if she couldn't ditch her resentment of me for long enough to be kind and jolly to them and make their visit fun , make them feel loved and cherished , it was her problem.

They either see both of them or neither of them. They will create trouble for you and your sons if this favouritism is allowed to continue.

Given that one is favoured above the other at 6&4 I'd be very reluctant to send them to PIL alone at all, I'd worry about the non favourite being left on the sidelines and ignored.

Yep agree with previous posts, PIL, my dad and also brother and his girlfriend will take all children (we have 3), or will take one or two at times depending on activity, if they all want to go, if one is with us or at school etc. The overall thing though is that they treat them fairly, don't favour one and don't blow out on promises.

Those of you who were the less favoured child, did the favoured sibling not speak up about the unfairness of the situation? I can't imagine not trying to help one of my siblings in that situation.
My dearly loved grandad always used to tell me I was his favourite, I found out at his funeral he said the same to all 13 of the grandchildren!

It is not normal, protect your dc from this horrible woman, PD or no PD.

Feltcarrot, the favoured sibling may not have seen it until years later, and by then, if my brother and sister are anything to go by, they had normalised the situation and would rarely speak up for me against my mother.

Also, a lot of the abuse from my mother was done when no one else was around. She then made out I was lying, or had forgotten what happened. In fact, she still tries this when given an opportunity.

I haven't let her or my siblings off the hook in adulthood. I am about a year into no contact with my mother, and low contact with my siblings.

Another one in support of supervised time with the gc. As they grow older then you just reinforce the normal side of things I.e. both your boys are brilliant, the problem is not with them etc. The problem is ensuring you don't allow your family to be drawn into perpetuating the favouritism by feeling need to make it up to the younger ds and so on. It's all really tricky and I feel for you! But you and dh need to take control of the situation and not allow her to do it.

Aww that’s really sad
I can understand the spending time separately (although surprised it needs to be every visit), but as some others have said that’s clearly not the issue- the favouritism is.

If she sees the first one then cancels on the second one, surely the next time she has time to hang out with her grandchildren, it should be the second one not the first one who gets to see her next. I don’t see how she can excuse that!

This will start affecting your DS relationship with each other and your youngest DS self esteem. It's pretty damaging behaviour and you need to put a stop to it.

Ugh I hate that, I don't know how adults can be so cruel to little kids

MIL law did this with a much favoured GC (DN)

He was rolled out on every visit and treated like a prince .... isn't he marvellous ... he's done X Y and Z ... gush ....

My kids were the age yours were and would question ' Why have GP got more photos of X? Why does x have is own room? Why are these X's toys and we don't have any?'

We took an outdoor toy over one afternoon for them to play in the sun/water and MIL insisted we leave if for DN to enjoy all summer .... he was so good a time it!!

Errr no .... my kids toy .... I'm taking it back ... they brought him one

Totally ducked up as now teens refuse to go round

Not acceptable...it is both or neither. If they can't cope with 2 then they shouldn't be having them unsupervised separately. It's potentially damaged for the children to see one favoured over the other and I would put a stop to this immediately.