delicate family problem, WWYD?

[sunflowers63]

Definitely NC for this. Will try and keep it short.

I live in the UK, my parents live in another country and I only see them every couple of years at the most, when they come here, usually for Xmas. I get on OK with them but my father can be a bit of a twat and our political views etc do not coincide. So I tend to be fairly superficial with him, otherwise I get annoyed.

I have a stepdaughter, who is 24 and at university. She is single at the moment, and is a very pretty, bright, fab girl all round. I have a brother, let’s call him Ted, who is 37 and lives in another country (not the one where my parents live, although that is not really relevant). My brother recently got divorced, after a pretty disastrous marriage which we in the family were all very sceptical about from the beginning (I kept my scepticism to myself and tried to be friendly to my SIL, however my parents, on the rare occasions when they met her, were quite rude to her and about her, and made it abundantly clear to my brother that they did not approve of her).

My parents are coming to us this Xmas. I was hoping that stepdaughter would also come home for Xmas, in the uni holidays. She has now told me that she won’t come while my parents are here because of something my father said to her a few months ago (when she happened to be visiting the country where my parents live). He reportedly said to her that she should sleep with Ted, in a jokey kind of way. I suppose he thought he was being funny and probably that he was complimenting my stepdaughter by saying that he wished poor divorced Ted could get such a lovely girl.

My stepdaughter was disgusted by this, she did not say anything to me immediately as she did not want to upset me (we are very close), but over the summer holidays, when I asked her if she was coming home for Xmas she said that she could not, because my father will be here, and she had to tell me why. I was embarrassed, horrified and had no idea what to say (still don’t). My DH does not think I should say anything to my parents, my father is likely to either have forgotten the incident altogether (very likely), just deny it, or to say it was just a joke and not understand why anyone would make a fuss.

Should I do anything about this? It is not difficult for my stepdaughter to avoid my parents, they are here once every two to three years at the most. I just feel sad and angry that she has to.

My stepdaughter does not always spend Xmas with us in any case. When she was a child the arrangement was one Xmas with us and one with her mother. As an adult she has sometimes come to us, sometimes to her mother, and sometimes been in other countries with friends or boyfriends (eg snowboarding, as she will do this year)

@MoonageDaydreamz Mon 16-Sep-19 05:47:17
In my opinion this is a typical Mumsnet overreaction.

I think your stepdaughter is being very overly sensitive about a silly comment made by an old man from a different country (maybe different culture?).

I'm not excusing it, it is unpleasant. But is it really worth all the fuss? Sounds like a typical millennial being 'triggered', it's not like he made a pass at her himself he just said something that was inappropriate.

This 1000%

@LiveInAHidingPlace Mon 16-Sep-19 05:56:55
moonage so if it happens to you, don't be offended.

Nothing HAPPENED to the girl. It was an inappropriate comment .

@toomuchtooold Do you really like the Captain Awkward blog? I had to give up reading it because I just couldn't get over the woke bleurgh of having to state your preferred pronouns when writing in.

I also think that she is overreacting to what is, at worst, an insensitive and silly comment. However, I would leave it up to her to decide what she does.

A GF figure saying ‘you should fuck Ted’ is a silly comment? It’s disgusting not silly.
Long live the misogynists; men & women!!

In my world, grandfathers and grandfather figures dont discuss their grandchildren's sex lives at all. Thankfully.

OP. I admire that you are trying to resolve this.

Its clear from some responses on your thread that some wouldn't.

Your words sound as if you feel you are in a blackmail situation.

i.e. you can't act because of his repercussions.

You are beholden to him.

He is a 75 yr old who should know better telling a 24 yr old family member that she should fuck her far older uncle!

What would be the repercussions for that exactly?

There is a vast difference between you disagreeing with some of his bigotted views (you mentioned), and managing his actual sexual harrassment of your dsd and showing her its wholly unacceptable.

I also don't think its worth getting into arguments with ignorant bigots, and not just because of wanting to avoid any nuclear fallout.

This isn't that. You sound scared to act for fear of his consequences, i.e. him punishing you for daring to be unhappy about his sexual harassment of your dsd!

Bless her, excluding herself from her own Christmas!

I would be utterly floored if my dm accepted that as an option. Horrified that my discomfort around a creepy old man who spoke to me in a asexually harrassing way, meant I had to lose my family Christmas.

I might not want to cause a fuss, but I would expect my dm to be as furious about it as I was - and you are, but just not doing anything about that directly to your father.

I would say, no, you keep your seat at the Christmas dinner table, don't leave. He's the one in the wrong here, andnit wouldn't be a private word, we could all be adults and support those that haven't done wrong.

Buy her a holiday, yes, but not Christmas, that alters nothing...perhaps your conscience. It doesn't give her a great message either.

I would want to raise it as a family all together when they arrive. So before Christmas. All meet up and have it out, face to face, because huge offence and upset and discomfort has been caused, not to mention sexual boundaries crossed.

Why shouldn't he have consequences for this rather than you fear consequences of speaking about it...because its not worth it?

At least if you are all face to face it can be clear what words have been used. DSD will face the one who sexually harrassed her, hopefully shes not too scared now to ever speak with him?

She will get eh opportunity to speak out about what he's done, and learn that this is the way to go, not hide everything away, but use the family support.

Maybe she already knew he wouldn't be confronted over this and so felt powerless to do anything but have to exclude herself from her family Christmas.

Everyone else tiptoes around the aggressor.

This is why aggressors continue.

I'd choose my stepdaughter over my parents.
I wouldn't

For those who have asked: no cultural difference. Me, my DH, his daughter and my parents are all from broadly the same cultural background.

I don't get posters who seem to think this is a very trivial issue and the young girl should just get over it.
If that were situation in my family, I would tell my father why my stepdaughter doesn't want to be anywhere close to him and ask him to apologise for highly inappropriate comments.
It's not a joke. He's an older man who made a very inappropriate comment and shouldn't get away with that in 2019.

My parents' way of dealing with anything has always been...not to deal with it. Just to contextualise, there is a huge family secret in my family which they have lied to me about all my life, and I have never confronted them about it (or let on that I know it) because to do so would be too much conflict for me to handle and would probably kill my mother.

To try and have a confrontation over this would end up being truly nuclear, believe me, and would mean that I probably never see my parents again. They are 76 years old, not in the best health, and I only see them very rarely anyway. They have only seen their grandson four times in his life.

My stepdaughter is very very important to me, no less so than my son, I brought her up and we are very close. But she understands what a difficult position I am in. I don't think she thinks I am making a wrong choice here, but I have written to her now to check, and reflected some of the views on here.

@derxa
Aren’t you lovely

@sunflowers63
Tbf I’m mystified why these people are so important to you? Vile bigoted father, mother who turns a blind eye and lying to you your whole life?
I wouldn’t want them in my child’s life nor would I financially support them.

to do so would be too much conflict for me to handle and would probably kill my mother

That last bit really jumped out at me. This isn't directly relevant to this dilemma with your DSD, but has your mother's health/ability to cope been used as a stick to beat you with/keep you in line for a long time?

@fink I try and pick and choose the bits I like. I totally disagree with her about the trans stuff, and I also think that her advice misses out on the complexities that come in when you have kids to look after, but for adults dealing with other (difficult) adults I think she's really on the money, and quite funny with it as well.
(I think I once got a temporary ban off of the comments section for saying that you can't identify out of motherhood )

My mother's health isn't the problem, not her physical health at least. But she reacts very badly to conflict. It is something I just accept. I live very very far away from them, and that means that things work fine mostly.

Why are they important to me? Well they are my parents. My father is not "vile", he does have views which I don't accept but he also has many good qualities, including spending many years working himself to the bone to pay for my education, which has meant that I could have a wonderful career (which in turn allows me to financially support them now). My mother is pretty odd, but I love her. She has not had he easiest life for various reasons. I am not going to be cutting them out of my life.

So yes, you are beholden.

I feel horrible for you, that you have felt you've had to carry this burden all your life, and had to toe the line, and put up with anything and everything he chooses to throw at you, because of this blackmailing going on.

I can also see that your part in this is about protecting yourself.

I think the best way to protect yourself is to step away from it all.

This might not feel like the best protection though.

Have you read the stately homers threads? I believe this is their lives too, until they stepped away. Stepping away can be incredibly difficult though.

Once he's dead will all issues pass with him OP?

All the time you maintain relationships, this type of scenario can occur over and over. Maybe until your dsd has stopped coming.

You are unable to protect yourself from him, it sounds like.

I wouldn't bring him here. You should visit him, on your terms.

I have never toed the line! I did exactly what I wanted to do, including moving to a different country, much against my parents wishes, as soon as I could in adulthood. It has worked very well, I can still love them and have all the happy memories of my childhood, which was very happy, but don't have to deal with them day to day. If I had to see them all the time things would be completely different and I probably would have to make some hard choices. I am not going to step away from them at this late stage in their life. They are firstly financially dependent on me (and will become even more so when my father retires, which I imagine he is going to have to do soon), and secondly I do still want them in my life, and certainly don't want the trauma of any kind of rupture at this stage. I would not deal well with that myself, never mind my mother.

Thats why they are prioritised and will get Christmas when dsd doesnt.

Noone is asking you to do what you can't do.

The price you pay is your OP.

My stepdaughter will "get Christmas", she will be snowboarding with friends, just as she did two Christmases ago. As I said, she does not always come to us. She did come last year (as did her sister who is also not coming this year, but for other reasons).

What about your son, sunflower? Are you confident your father wont come out with something profoundly hurtful over Christmas dinner? Does your son have the choice not to be there?

There is no room for nuance on this thread, it has to be all or nothing. I can believe the OPs father is not vile, even if this part of him is unpleasant and problematic.

I also imagine the words of people calling him vile and suggesting she is in the wrong if she doesn’t cut contact with her family are pretty hurtful to someone who is obviously trying very hard to balance the well being of her loved ones (and her own).

I find it hard to believe all these posters don’t know anyone who is both good and bad.

I would urge you to pay for some really good counselling.

These matters sounds quite extreme for internet advise, very complex and deep rooted.

Yes, she went snowboardin before.

She has excused herseld from her family Christmas this year, because of him. So you bought her a holiday.