AIBU - to not go nc?

[Foggytoday]

Long back story so please bear with...
I have always had a tricky relationship with my mother. For an unknown reason boys are better than girls in our family. Mother has always felt like a disappointment to her mother, and has projected the same on to me. Mother destroyed my self confidence to the point where I was convinced that I ‘can’t do’ a lot of normal things like drive, run a household etc.
Last year we moved away from them and I started at a new Gp surgery who diagnosed depression. Have had meds and counselling. Am now at the point where I can see what she has done and how damaging it was to me. However, I have broken the cycle. I have a son who is loved for who he is and a very sensible and supportive husband.
So this is the issue - people in my counselling group have suggested that I now need to confront her and then go nc. But I don’t feel the need to. I can see that it was done to her and that she would just make excuses. My son adores her and it would be hard for him to understand. Now that I can ignore her comments, what would I gain by going nc?

Let’s hope you don’t have more DC and it’s not a girl as your opinion of going NC may change...... I understand you have resolved your own issues and it’s luck you have a DS.

Well, my worry would be if you had a daughter and she treated them differently.

There is no chance of any more DC. I’m nearly 50. She does treat my niece differently to my son and nephew.

Then if your son is seeing that, he's seeing these corrosive attitudes. He's learning that granny is nicer to him because he's a boy.

Honestly, I wouldn't want her around my child. I wouldn't want my child quietly watching the dynamic, seeing his mother talked down to and there being an air of 'mummy is a bit crap' which he sees you accepting, tacitly.

And I'd be more worried than anything about my child 'adoring' her. Are you going to be so pleased that they had such a close adoring relationship when you see him modelling her misogynist thinking, and telling you, when he's 13, that 'I don't have to listen to you, because 'granny says you've always been useless and you're a crap mother!'

Think very hard before letting her 'inside' the dynamic of the family you have now built for yourself.

When your children are young, you are in the driving seat and can control these things, but once they're older their relationships are their own.

My parents don't see our children because I refused to let the dysfunction continue within my family. And continue it would: if people are 'inside', so are their attitudes, thoughts and feelings.

Your mother damaged you. Her relationship with your son will damage him in a different way, because she is the same person. Its about more than your realisation and taking action - it's about practicalities. 'Breaking the cycle' means just that. And it will be too late to change your mind once your son is 12 and telling you that granny says he can come and live with her and she'll look after him better so don't try and tell me what to do.

It sounds as though you have now reached a position of healing and strength, where you can be yourself and have banished your demons.
You are clearly a mature, loving, forgiving and compassionate person, who can understand the pattern of behaviour and the reasons for it, and have been strong enough to change the narrative.

It sounds as though DM and DS have a good relationship, so why take it away, unless you wish to punish DM for past hurts, in which case DS becomes collateral damage. You have been empowered and you should do what you think is best, not what a random bunch of people at your counselling group say. You have more chance of changing your DM's unhealthy views through contact than NC.

I hope you all don’t sit back and allow obvious different treatments of the DC? My DH grandmother was an awful woman who made it clear that my DH was her favourite. His younger DB hated her with a passion and my DH couldn’t understand why. He didn’t see the differences. Adults have a responsibility to ensure anything like that is stamped out and I hope your protecting your niece from this vile woman’s attitude.

My DB and SIL are aware of how she is. They almost overcompensate. My SIL recently told me that DB is on antidepressants partly to deal with the guilt he feels from how he was brought up (to be the special one). Now we have moved, none of the DC spend long periods with mother. DB lives at opposite ends of the country. We need to talk all this through but at the moment he is not able to.