Need advice about my friend and her grandchild

[ClarityIsAll]

DH and I have been friends with another couple for over 20 years. We met at a shared hobby that DH and I no longer take part in, but the friendship has carried on and we would miss them if they were no longer in our lives. BUT, there is now a problem I am finding hard to get to grips with.

We all have adult DC, DH and I have grandchildren, who are asked after now and then by our friends, but not a lot of interest has been shown in them. This is fine, we are not upset by this, the grandchildren aren't local so they haven't really met them, and I think it normal that they wouldn't be that interested. However, our friends daughter (who lives with them) had a baby last summer, so they now have a grandchild themselves, and here is the problem - there is no let up, none, on updates about this child. It is not possible for us to visit them without their grandchild being the sole focus of every conversation. It is impossible to even finish a sentence when talking to our friend without her being distracted by a look from the baby, or a sound from the baby, or a sudden need to tell us about how many times the baby has smiled that day. I love my grandchildren, and could understand the obsession at first when the baby was a newborn, but 8 months on and it is still just as bad, if not worse.

Over the years we have had some lovely evenings, and some great times together. Whenever we invited them to our home for a meal for example, they readily accepted, and reciprocated. This was a regular and enjoyable thing we used to do, and prior to their grandchilds birth it never occured to them or us, that the invite was for adult children too, (unless it was Christmas for example), but now they expect to bring their daughter and her baby every. single. time. Let me stress that their daughter is a great Mum, she has no problems in looking after her child, so it is not because they are worried about leaving her to cope alone. Neither is she a very young Mum - she is 27! This completely alters the dynamic, and the whole visit just involves talk about their grandchild, offers for us to hold the grandchild, photos of the grandchild passed around for us to exclaim over....it is all about the grandchild, and I'm fed up and bored with it all to be quite frank.

I've just had a message from her saying that she hasn't seen us for a while, so to let her know when I am next free during the day and she will bring her daughter and grandchild over so we can have a catch up and I can see how baby is growing, and we can sort out an evening when we can all meet up so that my DH doesn't miss out on seeing her grandchild too.

FFS - tell me wise mumsnetters how do I deal with this and keep the friendship? AIBU to want to have some adult time now that all our kids (and theirs) are grown ups? I understand the love grand parents have for their grandchildren, I feel it myself for my own, but I don't understand at all this level of obsession and i have no idea how to tackle it. By the way - I am bad at setting boundaries, have social anxiety and am not good at being tactful, which makes finding a way to save the friendship even harder.

Any advice welcome! Oh and just in case some lazy tit sees this as an easy route to getting published - FUCK OFF DAILY MAIL, DAILY MIRROR, THE SUN, IN FACT FUCK OFF ANY LAZY JOURNALISTS! (sorry for having to add that - I was trying to come across as sane but if this got picked up she would recognise herself in a heartbeat and I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings unnecessarily)

[knitandpearl]

In their 60s, I think!

[Ferfeckssake]

knitandpearl Ha Ha .How old are the grandparents?!

[Easterbunnyiscomingsoon]

Bloody hell I have many many dc, if they all reproduce I may not have enough space for all the names!!

[knitandpearl]

I know some grandparents who got the grandchild's name tattooed on them when he was born

[gamerchick]

Tell her you want to try bingo. It's cheap, you can win money and no kids allowed.

[M4J4]

@contrary13

I agree!

[Ferfeckssake]

OrigamiZoo That is hilarious !!!

My cousin hands out picture calenders on Dec 1st of her DCs - yay , every month a new pic of her kids. But she evens sends them to extended ( very ) to the point where my great uncle had to ask me " Who the f##ck are these kids "?!

[DontCallMeCharlotte]

"We're free Friday at 7.30pm if you and OH would like to come for dinner. We can plan something with the rest of your family another time."

This is perfect.

[PolarBearDisguisedAsAPenguin]

I’d be honest because that way you stand a chance of salvaging the relationship. Otherwise, you’ll just end up distancing yourself more and more and your friendship won’t last anyway.

[DiscontinuedModelHusband]

venusandmars

that's exactly the sort of approach i'd take, with the sort of outcome i would expect as well.

obviously it'll be an uncomfortable conversation, but nothing of real emotional value comes easy!

[twoshedsjackson]

Counter-intuitively, would it be a reality check if you joined in with the baby adulation, to the nth degree, so that it might dawn on her that she is overdoing it a bit, or would she be oblivious and think that you finally see things her way?
Maybe make a point of engaging the daughter in conversation; not much of a life for a 27-year old, trailing round after Mum; make a point of raising points of conversation from a broader perspective.
How would she react if her daughter was invited, with grandchild, to a child-friendly activity, when the baby is a bit more active, in the company of one of your offspring, plus their children, if they are amenable? She might be grateful for the break, and move away from her role as bearer of the wonder child.

[venusandmars]

I have a friend who became like this, not about dgc, but instead about a hobby. It was something I was slightly interested in but my friend became obsessive and every conversation turned back to her hobby / the hobby committee / the ins and outs of the hobby friends struggles etc.

To be fair the obsession happened at the same time as my friend had an illness, lost her job and was forced into early retirement. Her hobby became her whole life, and what she focussed on to distract her from the shit in other places. I understood, and was sympathetic to her plight but eventually I couldn't stand it and we had a frank conversation. I told her I was hurt by her lack of interest in my life and that our 30 year friendship didn't seem to matter any more, and though I was interested in her hobby I really wanted to have conservations about other things.

Apparently her dh had told her the same (maybe others had too?)

These days when we get together she makes a conscious effort to talk about other things, and I will ask her direct and specific questions about her hobby (which is easier for me because I actually listen to the things she tells me, rather than mindlessly saying 'yeah, yeah' for hours. If she goes on about it too much then a gentle reminder works well.

I don't usually confront like that but a direct approach was the only one that worked with my friend. And we still have a friendship, which was seriously at risk a couple of years ago.

[Nanny0gg]

As they're so obsessed - is the husband the same? I'm not sure it's worth the bother...

Friendships have a lifespan. Maybe this one died?

[DiscontinuedModelHusband]

just be honest!

if she's definitely someone you value as a friend, it's worth a try surely?

"this is difficult, because i love you and value our friendship, but it's becoming a little one-sided, and i miss what we used to have"

if she's got any sense of reason or values you as a friend at all, she'll take it on board and will try and adjust her behaviour (whilst at the same time being a bit embarrassed and upset for a bit).

if not, she'll be mortally offended and will storm out of your life, and you won't have to put up with it anymore either!

although if this is the case, she's probably not the sort of friend you'd want to hang onto anyway.

[Lizzie48]

They sound very self-absorbed TBH. They weren't at all interested in your DGC before this and yet now they bore you rigid by bringing their DD and DGS along with them all the time.

I find this very strange actually and weirdly co-dependent. If I had one of my DDs living in our house with a baby, I'd be keen to get away sometimes and not have them tag along everywhere.

I think you're going to need to spell it out to them. They won't stop doing this otherwise.

[VampirateQueen]

I would say to her, look I love you, your DD and her baby, he really is adorable and I love getting my cuddles, but I am staring to miss you, can we mix it up a bit and sometimes all of you come over, but sometimes just you, so we can have a good catch up, I love seeing your GC and I don't want to stop seeing him, just every other week can we do something just us, or just you and your DH come over for food one week and you all come another?

[contrary13]

I was the first of my group of friends to have a child... and whilst I didn't take her everywhere (I was a lot younger than 27, too, I have to say), and I didn't blather endlessly about every single thing she did, I have noticed that when my friends "caught up", so to speak, and started to have children of their own, one or two would behave like your friend does. It was almost as if they were competing to prove that they were "better" parents than me, or that their baby was somehow "better" than mine. Pure competiton, I'm afraid. And it bored me. And I realised that I was better off without them/that in my life, so I started to limit how often I saw/spent time with them and their (actually pretty normal) children. Now that we're all knocking on a bit, I have a feeling that the same thing will happen regarding grandchildren...

Your friend doesn't understand why you're not obsessed with/obsessive about your own grandchildren, OP. She's (possibly) subconsciously trying to prove to you that she's a better grandmother than you are. Hopefully she won't realise this... but you have two options, the way I see it: you can either talk to her about it and hope she realises what an idiot she's being, stops bringing her daughter (who must be bored out of her tiny!) and grandchild with her to every single meet-up, and laughs at/about her idiocy with you... or you limit the friendship and potentially lose it, I'm afraid. Perhaps she's worried that unless she's seen to be a brilliant, involved, doting grandmother, she isn't all of the above? Maybe she thinks that you're a good grandparent and is struggling to deal with having a baby in the house after so many years without broken nights of sleep, constant crying, and all that chaos? Maybe there's something going on with her daughter that means she's afraid to leave her alone with the baby, that you simply don't know about. Unless you have a conversation with her - a frank, "this is how it is", chat - you're not going to know. But if the friendship is worth saving, then you need to try to get to the bottom of it, I'm afraid. Good luck.

[kbPOW]

'Don't bring DD and GC - we're planning to play strip poker'

[SynchroSwimmer]

...”Jeff and Janice are coming round for supper and a catch-up on Friday, why don’t you and (hubby) join us, that would be nice, the SIX of us”
With other guests present it would also be easier to have different (non monopolised) topics of converation?

[Redwinestillfine]

Just make all invitations after the babies bedtime. No exceptions. Decline all invitations when their daughter is there, and remind them how much fun it was as just the four of you.

[kbPOW]

'Why don't you and your H come over? I'm sure your DD would be delighted to have the house to herself for once and we can talk about something other than your grandchild'. That should do it

[The80sweregreat]

Clarity, you sound lovely and it's sad that your friend is blind to just how boring she is being about her family.
Some good advice on here.
I hope that things don't fizzle out for you all but she does need to realise that her obsessions are not yours. It's sad really as they sound nice people and 20 years is a long time to be friends.

[AcrossthePond55]

Honestly, unless you want to form the habit of having to shell out £££ every time you want to get together, I think you're going to need to go down the "Oh a family get together would be lovely at another time when we can get our children/grandchildren to come too, but this time it would be so lovely for just the four of us to sit and visit/play cards/play a board game".

But to be honest, the only difference is going to be the physical absence of the DGC. It's still going to be the only topic of conversation for an obsessed grandparent. Been there/done that with a friend regarding her DD. Lovely girl, but her mum would drone on and on about her ad infinitum.

[fadingfast]

Very tricky situation, and I really only came on to say that you are DEFINITELY NBU. I think the only way to get the message across is to say something along the lines of: "You know I love to see [friend's daughter] and [grandchild] but perhaps this time it could just be the four of us? It's been ages since we've had a proper catch up and I miss our old chats". Yes she might get slightly (hopefully temporarily) offended but I think that's the only way you'll get through to her.

[ClarityIsAll]

Wow thank you all so much for the suggestions and supportive comments - it's nice to know I'm not being a selfish ass. To answer a few questions:-

Their daughter doesn't have a partner and is a lovely girl to be fair. She has no mental health issues that I know, and seems just like she was before baby arrived. To be honest it's not the daughter I object to our friends bringing with them so much as her child - because my friend just cannot take her eyes off the baby and interrupts all the time to say banal things in baby speak at him, wave, coo, tell everyone in the room to see what he just did....honestly it is exhausting.

We never used to make a pracrtice of actually going out to restaurants, cinemas or theatre as we don't have a lot of cash. They are much wealthier than us, but were always sensitive enough to understand that dinner at theirs and dinner at ours was the way forward, but maybe we could try and afford it now and then in order to keep the friendship alive......though if she keeps on talking about him while we are out I think I might explode after spending money we could have utilised elsewhere to better effect.

And Incontinentia .......