To destroy my mother's happiness to protect my daughter from my father? Please help me.

[Haahhpy]

I'm sorry in advance that this will be long. There's a lot of history and the back story is necessary. I am worried about the influence of my dad on my daughter (12 weeks old) but it would completely devestate my mum to restrict her contact with her granddaughter. There are several aspects I need help and advice on.

My dad is a very difficult man. He is I think extremely emotionally abusive. He has been diagnosed with depression but I am unsure whether there is some other mental health disorder which is undiagnosed (he lies to the GP). His default reaction to any adversity in life is rage. This used to be directed at me and my brother but since we left home this is focused solely on my mum. He can go months being very nice and kind, he's very good at DIY and loves to help people. But then when something goes wrong (can be quite a small thing) or there's any kind of slight disagreement in the family he will just turn. He becomes so angry, shouts and yells, says terrible things, is menacing and hostile. This can go on for weeks or months with long periods where he just completely ignored your existence (as a teenager living at home with him he once did not acknowledge me or speak to me for three whole months). He also gaslights when he is in these episodes (and I know the term is bandied around but I mean properly). He hides things like keys etc, breaks things and denies it, rewrites history, swears black is white and makes you question your sanity. He has had therapy, he's on antidepressants, he's done CBT and mindfulness courses. There have been numerous 'showdowns' and ultimatums about his behaviour. Things will improve for a while and each time we all start thinking maybe he has changed but eventually he slides back to his old patterns of behaviour.

My mum is a kind, patient, gentle woman. She has spent the last 35 years trying to 'fix' him. She spends a lot of her life miserable because of his episodes. We have a very close relationship and speak or see each other every day (usually just us, not with my dad too). I have thought for as long as I can remember that she should leave which she knows but does not have the strength to do / chooses not to. I feel like my heart is actually breaking watching how much he hurts her.

Through the years there have been times when I gave cut him off completely but gradually for my mum's sake I have let him back in to my life. For full disclosure out of me, my mum and brother I am the least affected by him and his behaviour. I have never been afraid of him like they are. I call him out on his shit and will say it like it is (have told him to his face I think he's an emotional abuser). He hates this as he can't stand being disagreed with. Also, for full honesty he was physically violent with me a few times growing up (kicked me quite hard a few times etc) but as I said our personalities do clash and I always gave as good as I got (verbally as I was obviously no match for him physically). I have told him that any relationship we have is for mum's benefit only.

When they found out I was pregnant both my parents were overjoyed (it's their first grandchild). They immediately offered to provide childcare for her when I go back to work and were generally very excited for the future. My dad loves kids and we all thought maybe this would be a fresh start for him. Looking after her would give his days meaning and purpose and he seemed very positive about the future so all was well. We were all very hopeful.

Fast forward to this week. His estranged step father died (virtually NC for 20 years) and he's gone into a tailspin. Screaming and raging at my mum to the point she had to come to stay with me. All our hopes that he'd changed have been dashed again.

I'm now wondering if leaving my daughter with him is an irresponsible move. I don't honestly think he'd ever hurt her but I want her to be influenced by seeing positive relationships as she grows up, not abusive ones. However, when I broached this with my mum she was devestated. She's so looking forward to having her when I'm back to work the thought of missing out on that destroyed her. I know people will say she shouldn't depend on her grandchild for happiness but what else has she got while living with him?

So to my AIBUs:

1: AIBU to accept their offer and let them care for my daughter (possibly but setting good toke midels for relationships). I feel incapable of hurting my mum by taking this away from her when I think it's basically her only source of real happiness.

2: OR AIBU to be so hard on my dad when he does after all have mental health issues? I am so unclear in my own mind how much of his behaviour is illness or if it's abuse? Where do you draw the line? And how much should you tolerate while making excuses because of his mental health? I'm so confused as to whether I'm a cold bitch with no sympathy for mental illness or whether my mum is just buying into the old chestnut that all abusive men are actually tortured souls who need a woman to save them.

Sorry it's so long and thank you if you've read to the end. Any opinions or advice are welcome. Thank you x

Whether he's " nasty" or he's " ill" is, here completely irrelevant.

You're a parent.
Your job is to protect your child from those who will hurt them; physically, and also emotionally.

Your Mum, an adult, has had to come and stay with you because of his behaviour.

Repeat, " screaming and raging at my mum to the point where she had to come to stay with me".

No.
No, you can NEVER let your child be around him, unless you are there so you can remove her as soon as needed.

We all have complicated feelings about our parents. Most of us want to make them happy.

But NO. Your parents can NEVR look after your child without you being there. Not for 5 mins.

Your responsibility is to your child. 1000% more than to them.

Your mother could choose to leave him, and have more contact with your DC. Her choice.

I agree with PP. You can't trust him around your DC.
And you should be upfront and honest. 'Mum, I know you'll be disappointed, but I have to put DC first. And DF just isn't stable enough to trust around DC. He's shown he can't control himself again and again and there are no chances left. You're welcome to visit and I'd like DC to grow up knowing you, but if you start pressing me to leave my baby with a man who has been physically violent, mentally abusive and has kept everyone on edge for as long as I remember, then I know I can't trust my baby with you either.'.

There’s no way in hell I would leave my child with this man. Even if he isn’t directly abusive to her she will pick up on it and be damaged by it. I’ve seen the damage my 3 year old niece has had from her dad who was emotionally and physically abusive to my sister and I wouldn’t want my kids around someone like that growing up thinking that behaviour is normal. It’s sad for your mum but you need to put your daughter first here.

Your mum has a choice (to leave). Your baby doesn’t. There is no way in hell I’d be leaving my child with him around. Sorry for bluntness.
You’ll spend all your time worried and there will come that day when he is abusive to your child
Maybe you deciding this will help your mum accept how bad his behaviour is.

Sorry that sounded harsh.
Perhaps have a chat with your mum about how you see it and see what she suggests?

Clearly he is capable of hurting children if he hurt his own. What do you think will happen as soon as your dd is old enough to be difficult, disobey, have tantrums and back chat? She’ll be treated exactly the same as you were.

Your mum made a choice to stay with an abuser and subject her innocent children to him. Don’t let her guilt you into doing the same with your daughter.

I feel very sorry for you but I have noticed that you are concerned about your mother and your father. You have not mentioned your child much at all. I know you love her very much so please reframe, putting her at the centre
"AIBU to leave my DC with a man who is physically, verbally and emotionally abusive to me, my DM and my DB?" Yes yabu

The priority is not your mum's happiness, it's actually your daughter's physical and emotional safety.

This is a very sad situation but it would be completely irresponsible of you to have your child in that environment and you know it. Your father is an unstable and dangerous man.

Having your own child makes you question everything about your own childhood if you have had an abusive upbringing because it brings to the forefront the type of parent you want to be must more importantly it brings to the forefront the type of parent you DONT want to be. I can speak from experience that bringing up my own children dredged up a whole host of childhood trauma that i had dealt with at different stages of my upbringing leading to anger and upset at why it was allowed to continue by both parents.
I was brought up in a similar setting to yourself and finally snapped when my dc were about 7yrs after they had to witness my (D)F being physically abusive towards my DM. (Something i promised myself i would never allow to happen) It was only then that i saw myself as an extension of my DM in that i excused his behaviour and tried to pass it of as 'just him' or tried to shield the DC at any given point of an outburst.
The following day i told my F to never come near us again and told my DM that she was welcome to come to our house but i would never be back in hers.
It took that one event to make her see the life she was living wasnt normal and she finally managed to leave a few years later and has never been happier.
Go with your gut feeling.
Sometimes you need to step off the Monopoly board and free yourself from playing game that everyone else is happy to keep playing around an abusive person.
Good luck

The cruellest thing you could do at the moment is put your daughter in the care of someone who is abusive and someone who enables that. Your childs needs must come before your parents wants. If this is a difficult decision for you I think you may need some support, can your GP refer you for counselling so you can work on setting clear boundaries.

I know you're all right. Because of some quirk in my personality his histrionics have always been water off a ducks back, so I've always been able to support my mum when it kicks off. I'm used to making things better for her and it will be so hard for me to be the one contributing to her unhappiness. I love my daughter more than words can say and I want every influence she has to be a beautiful and positive one.

Your poor mum and poor you.

Honestly? I wouldn't be letting them mind your baby. He sounds very unwell and dangerous to a large extent. The unpredictability of his anger would have me on pins the whole time.

Telling your mum you won't be leaving the baby with them might ( big might ) be enough for her to make the leap and leave him.

To #1 - yes, in this situation YABVVVU towards your DAUGHTER. You have to be 100% selfish now, for her sake, as she is totally and utterly dependent on you to protect her. From what you've said, you simply trust your dad to do that. And I would agree with PP that you should also think very carefully about letting your mum provide regular childcare too - how likely is it that your dad is going to guilt-trip your mum into letting him spend time with your daughter whilst your mum is caring for her?

To #2 - YANBU AT ALL - see my above comment... Your one and ONLY concern from now onwards is the safety and wellbeing of your daughter. If you wish to accommodate any changes or compromises that would benefit your parents, then by all means do so, but ONLY if those compromises don't impact negatively on your daughter.

Good luck, I now how horrible you must be feeling right now because my husband and I have had to make the same decision about my parents. We've not even started trying to conceive yet but my sister has told them we're talking about it (they seem to have interpreted this to mean we're actively trying right now) and they rang me over the weekend to offer to move near to us when they retire in a couple of years time so they can be available for childcare..... I'm currently taking an ostrich approach and hoping if I ignore it for long enough, then one of my siblings will get pregnant and they can move near them instead! I have a very difficult relationship with my parents (particularly my dad) due to a horrific childhood full of physical, mental and emotional abuse that I am simply not willing to risk inflicting on my child, made worse by the fact that they have never acknowledged their behaviour and flat out refuse to discuss it and pretend it never happened.

No, the cruellest thing you could do would be to put your helpless infant daughter in harm's way because you don't want to have a hard conversation with another adult.

Your mother let you down. She chooses not to leave. There are consequences to that, and one of them is that she cannot care for your daughter. She didn't protect her own children from him, what makes you think she'll do any better with yours?

You're a mother now. Your child comes first. Not your mother's feelings.

I’m afraid you will have to hurt someone in this situation, either your mum by not allowing her to provide childcare or your daughter by exposing her to your father with no protection. Bear in mind that older people have less tolerance for noisy crying babies or loud toddlers.

That is your choice. My opinion is that your daughter had no choice, she needs you to protect her, your mum didn’t protect you from your father so what makes you think she will Protect her grandaughter?? Plus she will
Still be able to come and see her granddaughter when you are around

Nope, nope, nope.
He does not get to see your DD.
It might be very difficult for your DM if she can visit but he can't, that will turn out to be her fault, obviously.
Get a nursery lined up.
Parental support is not going to be good, reliable or valuable. All of which you need when working.
Tell DM that if she ever wants to leave him, you will help and she can see DD as much as she likes. Might be the incentive she needs to leave a man who sounds like a nasty piece of work. He's able to control where he directs his nastiness, that speaks volumes, this is not sounding like illness, more like just being a horrible person.

You cannot let him look after your baby, with or without your mom. I would never let him have unsupervised contact.

And you may not like to hear this, but you cannot trust your mother. She did not protect you from someone who was unstable and abusive, both emotionally and physically. She stayed with your father despite the affect it was having on her children. She cannot be trusted to protect your daughter.

You absolutely must not let your parents look after your child. You have to protect that baby.

And you are not taking anything from your mother by protecting your child. Your father is making this impossible by being so angry and unpleasant; and she is making it impossible by staying with him and enabling this awful behaviour.

Keep your child safe. That's all you have to worry about.

Absolutely do not offer your daughter in a plate to this madness

You can’t expose her to an abusive tyrant just so your mum can have some positivity! She’s not a toy!!!

Stay strong and safeguard your baby.

Absolutely no way on earth would I leave my child with a person like this. I would also be wary of your mum looking after her. I know she’s not the abuser, and you love her, but she clearly is beholden to your father and his rages. I suggest going over to stately homes as you will find like people with similar relationships there.

Your mum couldn't protect you and she won't be able to protect your dd.

It's sad, but she's made her choices and she can't be allowed to make that choice with your precious little girl.

This is such a no-brainer. Of course you don't leave your child with child-carers who are emotionally and physically abusive, or those who for whatever reason can't protect them from them.

Even if your mum looked at your dd at your house, she'd let him call round, or he'd come round and she wouldn't be able to say no. It would also ramp up her abuse.

This is really sad but your mum will just have to live with her choices, and you will have to live with your, hopefully better, ones.

@Haahhpy please don't think you are contributing to your Mum's unhappiness, it's a consequence of your Dad's behaviour.

I can't imagine how awful your home life was. In one paragraph you mentioned your father kicked you several times. Can you honestly say that if your baby daughter upset him in a trivial way, he wouldn't lash out ? For a man you describe as "loving kids" he didn't exactly act that way towards you and your brother. I feel for your mum, but it doesn't sound like she stepped in to protect you from a violent and abusive father. Please don't let history repeat itself, in your situation I'd keep my daughter well away from him.

It’s awful for your Mum but she made the decision to not protect you from this man and you can’t do the same to your daughter. You don’t realise how fucked up things are when you’ve grown up with it.

OP, when I was a teenager living at home my father ignored me for a year after I changed the TV channel, he completely blanked me for 12 whole months whilst we lived in the same house.

Like your father he would be fine until he flew off the handle for some tiny thing, then my mum would tip toe around him for weeks trying to placate him and cheer him up.

He sees my DC very rarely, at large family gatherings only. We see my mother, but less often than we would if she wasn't still married to my father.

I don't want my DC to see him regularly enough that they think his behaviour is normal or acceptable, or to think my mum's placating of him is normal. And it's a shame my mother has chosen to stay with him still, that is her choice to make, but it obviously has consequences as I am not close to her.

I would not have either of your parents provide childcare. No way. If you try to get your mum to do it alone, he will keep on at her until she relents. I would see your mum regularly without your father, and only see him very occasionally if at all.

You need to make decisions with your dc's wellbeing as the first priority.