Narcissistic Grandparents

[Panda57]

I have come to the realisation that my MIL is most likely a narcissist. She uses lots of emotional blackmail, talks to us like we are 5 years
old who couldn't possibly function without her, more concerned with how she appears to others than her families happiness etc.

Worried about how this will effect my DC, is it advisable to never let a narcissistic grandparent have unsupervised access to the DC? Anyone with narcissist parents or in laws who have experience with this?
Just been reading up on something called grandparent grooming where the narcissist wants unsupervised access to the child (babysitting, visiting, holidays, day trips, phone calls and other access to the child apart from the rest of the family) and uses this to emotionally abuse, manipulate the child and use the child as a substitute adult (The child listens to the grandparents problems,
opinions on everyone and everything so they are groomed to be their obedient audience). They then use the trust gained to do things like feed them a sob story about how they have no one else and if the child doesn’t pay them this attention they will leave granny bereft. Or lie and imply the child is not really loved by the parents. Or starts to tell the child how bad/cruel/hurtful/unreasonable the parents are
and if only the child could speak up for them. Just a few examples.

AIBU to say no unsupervised access to my DC for my narcissistic MIL because I'm sure she will try this sort of crap, she will definitely use emotional blackmail and bribery.

I second @fusioluxe

sprouts21 what did your grandparent do regarding emotional incest if you don't mind me asking and how did you spot it and put a stop to it

My grandma hated my mum and bullied her. Dad basically looked on clutching his balls. I would be sent to see her each week where she would say bad things about my mum, tell me my mum didn't love me, everyone was bad to her, and only I cared about her. She would tell me adult things that were inappropriate.She would cry often and rage even more often. I stopped seeing her around 20 after she accused my mum of something ridiculous. Afterwards she harassed me non stop.

I'm actually still quite angry about this decades on. The poster who said her young child used to mouth are you ok when mil was around made me feel really upset. Don't underestimate the effect this has on a small child. It made me feel scared and upset, I was aware mum was being bullied and I felt responsible. After a while I grew resentful and I realised I couldn't tell mum when I was getting bullied because I knew she found it hard to assert herself. I didn't feel safe, and viewed my mum as someone I had to look after.

I hate to say this, but the mixture of my mum sending me off with grandma, and acting submissive (which to my mind equalled guilty) and being told constantly my mum didn't love me made me more and more resentful. I started to believe grandma and effectively turned against my mum. I still feel a lot of guilt about this.

Years later when I married I met grandma again in the form of mil. The usual rows happened because exh demanded that I submit to her to save his own skin. She would ring my husband regularly to ask if I had my period. Nothing was off limits. I went nc with her and divorced.

Without a doubt these people are manipative and emotionally dangerous, but the real problem in these stories are the men who bully their wives and children into accepting this abuse to save their own skin.They are simply cowards and often just as abusive and controlling as their mothers. Nobody should be putting up with abuse to appease a third party, and no normal person would expect this. They are really just using their wives as a human shield.

Op you really don't need to get your dh to agree to anything. What he puts up with is up to him. What you put up with is up to you, it's not his decision and you don't need to consult him. He has no right to insist you suffer intrusion or hostility from her.

sprouts21

I posted earlier about DN having a similar childhood sprouts21. She had some treatment for depression due to the guilt and is on medication but is not a together person (in her early 20s now). I think part of her will always be missing because of what MIL put her through.

There is a lot more that I won’t post. It breaks my heart and I have only written on here that which she posts herself on Facebook (public page).

I wonder when MIL is dead whether she will recover more (the parent who sacrificed her still sees MIL and still expects her to play happy families even though she has panic attacks about it).

sprouts21 sorry to hear what you went through as a child and then to have to have a mil like that. Asking if you had your period, that's completely bonkers. Let me guess he would tell her when she asked? Was it because she wanted you to get pregnant or not get pregnant if you don't mind me asking? My Mil would ask my DH daily if I was breastfeeding, he would always tell her until I eventually got him to stop. She then tried to bribe him/ us to try to get me to stop breastfeeding. She didn't want us to have children, telling my DH 'I hope your not trying for a baby'. When I got pregnant she was almost in tears telling my husband 'I don't think you will be able to cope' and 'I thought you didn't want children'.
With the it's up to me what I put up with, my main concern is preventing her from doing the emotional blackmail manipulative stuff to my DC and if my DH doesn't agree to stopping her having unsupervised visits. Mil is the main problem in our marriage and the only real cause of arguments. If he choose her over me if I put my foot down saying low contact/ no unsupervised access to DC and we got divorced he would allow his mum to have all the unsupervised access she wants. God this makes me sound crazy saying this

The asking about periods is in the narc MIL handbook.

I shut my MIL up (she used to ask me outright) by telling her that asking about genitalia was “chavvy” 😁

Fusioluxe do they ask because they want to know if your pregnant or as fuel to put you down in some way or they think they have a right to know every intimate detail of your life?

Panda57 in my case it was, as I eventually found out (she told me when I told her to stop it) because SIL had gone through early menopause and she wanted to know if I had also 🙄. She asked about my (dead) mother’s periods also. And yes, probably because we didn’t have children at the time but I was still young! (Both MIl and SIL started having children in their teens so anyone over 30 without any is too old to them!)

She never asked me or dh that. She was obsessed about me not breastfeeding though. She came into my room (dh let her) while I breastfeeding trying to persuade me to give up, she would constantly make negative comments about it, called my DH everyday to ask if I still was breastfeeding, asked me everytime she talked to me, texted me about it, then tried to bribe us to get me to stop. She started when I was a few months pregnant, asking if I intented to breastfeed, telling me how hard and painful it would be etc (not like she knew anything about it because she never breastfed any of her kids). Not sure why she was so obsessed about it, only reason I can think is it's a control thing and didnt want me constantly attached to baby or to bond? Meant she could get DH and DC on their own without me maybe.

My ex mil was obsessed about me bf also. She admitted she couldn't do it which explained why she was jealous I was. She would sit right next to me and watch!! Creeped me out. Starting sitting on a chair instead of the sofa!
She was desperate to have my ds's at her house alone..
She left upstairs windows open, pills on a bedside table, no way did she ever have the dc.
Exmil now. Bliss

My DF is a narcissist. My DSis and I were an inconvenience and he took no interest in us growing up, and he takes absolutely no interest in my DC. I don't think you're describing a narcissist, you're describing an emotionally abusive individual. If your MIL is really this bad then you need to speak with DH, who surely will have first hand experience of her behaviour.

After asking dh lots to get his mum to interfere less, he only told her to stop reminding him about people's birthdays (she would constantly remind him and check that he has sent card and presents for peoples birthday, sometimes trying to pick the gift we get. It's only a small part of her cake and controlling, interfering, treating us like children behaviour). Same weekend we said she couldn't visit one weekend because I was ill. She later then got me on my own telling me how she had to be in control of her family since she got divorced. Then told me how she was bullied at school and they threw her in the bin once, no idea how that is related or means she gets to control her adult DCs life. She still reminds him about birthdays constantly, dh doesn't want to bring it up her, nevermind the rest of her interfering.

Piffle11 yeah not sure what she actually is, just that's its some sort of emotionally abusive manipulative behaviour that I don't want to have effect my dc. Tried to get dh to do something, say something and nothing changed (above post) and he just digs his head in the sand about her behaviour. Sorry to hear about your childhood/ df , does he ever see your DC. Not sure if my Mil is other end of spectrum where she is so interested in her childrens life she thinks she gets to control them as adults etc.

Piffle11 what does your mum think of your df's lack of interest if you don't mind me asking

Piffle11 It definitely is narcissistic behaviour. “Taking advantage of others for their own goals “, “Selfishness In relationships”, “Envious of others”, Feelings of entitlement”... Classic.

Plus, talking to the DH? Most of them are oblivious because to them it is NORMAL. They were brought up in the abusive home, they know no better. It’s “just how she is” and they suck it up for their own protection. Many of them can’t protect themselves never mind their partners or children, they don’t have the tools. The NMIL made sure of that.

Reminding of birthdays... check.

They’re all the same (yet they think they are so unique 😂).

DH told MIL and she still did it.

We stopped this by doing it back. We sent reminders for all her adult children’s and her sibling’s birthdays, tried to get in before she did.

She did stop but we were told off by FIL 😂

Fusioluxe
She does the same with thank you cards. She posted us thank you cards to send to people for the baby gifts people got us because we were taking to long about it post birth.
Think I might have to steal that idea and send her text reminders for everyone's birthday.

Did your Mil suddenly start sending baby pictures of your dh to your dh when you had children? She suddenly started doing that when I got pregnant, she is even making a photo book for my DH with all his baby pictures in it. And suddenly telling him stories of when he was a baby every time we see her, barely ever mentioned once before we had DC.

She also says how my dc looks like me or my dad, and looks nothing like my DH or any of her family members everytime we see her. Is she trying to imply he isn't my DH's child or something?

She also denies some of the things she does, when there isn't evidence like texts or emails etc, not sure is that called gaslighting?

No, they differ here. MIL doesn’t believe in thank you cards, she complains about gifts and would never put that in writing. I send thank you cards and she said it was “posh” (she means that in a bad way lol!)

I’ve never seen a picture of DH as a child. I don’t think she has any. As for who my son looks like, she talked so much about him looking like “her” family only that I think she was implying he wasn’t mine 😆

Panda57 Denying without “evidence”, check.

FIL has actually used the words “Proof, or it didn’t happen!” to DH when he was complaining about something he said. This is from a man in his 60s.

Fusioluxe thanks for the replies, I was beginning to think I was unreasonable/ or crazy. And dh digs his head in the sand about it/ accepts it. She gets the whole family on board with her, agreeing with her, guilting us like I'm the problem. She got them all to have a shitty reply to us having a baby. When we didn't want Sil to visit because we wanted a quiet weekend and Sil is quite demanding, she sent dh a long ranty text how our behaviour wasn't normal and its your sister visiting not a stranger, how can you act like this etc so I was beginning to think I was unreasonable.

Panda, what right does she think she has to rule other adults’ lives?

We are cut off now because I refused to take it anymore. Once I opted out DH didn’t last long getting the full brunt of the PILs bullying to himself.

Spend time amongst normal people. Show DH that the enmeshment in his family is not normal.

Fusioluxe she has no right to rule other adult's lives. With the whole family going along with it acting likes its normal/ perfectly acceptable and them acting like I'm the problem in the family I was almost beginning to think I was. Bil acts like she is the greatest mum in the world, does everything she acts and acts like I'm the black sheep on the family. She constantly says 'I'm just trying to help because I care'.

Asking about periods, check.
Don't have a baby, breastfeeding opposition, wedding opposition, thank you cards, sex life questions, threats of court for baby, vandalising my character, flying monkeys, nosying around the house, fake cancer, fake heart attack and ITS ONLY BECAUSE I CARE check check check. Exh response to all of this was to state in a pathetic manner "but it's my mum".

She was also apparently constantly terrified that I would accidentally suffocate the baby, drop it, crash the car, not feed it enough or feed it too much.On and on it went but only BECAUSE SHE CARED. She wanted and needed for baby to be ill and would often suggest that baby might have this or that. She gave my 2 year old son a skinhead using a home electric shaver.

And all the while exh skulked around clutching his balls terrified of her and making excuses. He denied that she was abusive to me yet complained bitterly when she upset him.

I took absolute delight in telling my mil to fuck off. Nice and loudly in public too. Like fluxio said, my Dh wasn't too keen to take the full brunt of abuse either and quickly went nc too, but it was too late and we divorced anyway.