To feel v upset Mil told 6 year old, 'daddy doesn't love granny' ¡

[Howwlydufeel]

How would you feel in these circumstances.

I'm already very wary of Mil and what she may or may not say to younger dd 6.
Usually they visit maybe 3 times a year and she is with elder sibling. On one visit it seemed like fil took older dd off to one room and Mil took younger elsewhere, which I found odd. So dh asked that they are kept both together.
Then dd would say odd things, eg getting her to bed dd would say ' I love you mummy, I don't love grandma.' When I've not said a word about anything related... Her tone is odd like someone has been saying something like... 'you love grandma more don't you' then in firm answer.. Dd is responding... She would come out with stuff like that.

Dh doesn't get on with his dp he finds them extremely challenging, negative and Mil is just strange, always so negative, the subject, tone.... It's just not pleasant being around her.
So we cut dc visits right down and to less time and usually ask older to watch younger and as said dh asks they are kept together unless they naturally go off to play.. Anyway, for 3 hours younger went alone and this is what she came back saying!

'granny said daddy doesn't love her because he doesn't go round and there and I want a sleepover.'

I never get the impression dd is saying this off her own back re sleepover because the next mornjng i say brightly 'so dd, would you like a sleepover soon' and she says very firmly 'no'..
Fil is pushy salesman and repeats and I've seen him action before putting ideas into their head... 'wouldn't you LOVE a sleepover with granny and grandpops, wouldn't that be fabulous, yeeeeesss, indeedy' and it's the tone of they go along with but once he is out the picture, it they don't want to go.

Years ago both dd had occasional sleepovers and both would return saying... 'please don't send us again'.

If we say, would you like a baby sitter next week or go to gp, they choose baby sitter. If we ever drive past and say to them... Would you like to pop in... They say 'no'.

Pils quite strict, very precious over house, Mil very much in control etc. Very ordered.

I never want them to feel that they can't see their gp. They only have one set. And when they have not seen them for about 5 months, and gp.. Take them out, the children really enjoy that. But they wouldn't want to see them for while after!

I just feel I can't trust her even less than I thought before. Personally I think that's a horrid thing to say to a 6 year old!!

For the record my dream situation would be normal kind people who put gc first and just be kind and happy. I would dearly love the odd weekend away whilst knowing dc having truly lovley time with gp.
It has not worked out for us, we have tried.

Is what Mil said emotionally abusive??

She has said to older dd in the past... 'I can't get toys here for you because I don't see you enough' (at that point they saw them for whole day every 3 months) roughly..

Hallo I couldn't argue with, that I agree.

Re sleeping over, this was before dc said didn't like it. Since born they have slept there about 5 nights maximum. After last time they said didn't want too we stopped it.

I really think it is you who is conditioning your kids to do what they don't want to. That their wishes are less important than yours or your husband's or your in-laws.

You need to stop living in the future.
You need to deal with the here and now.

A great many things might happen. Yes, when the dc are older, yes they could visit and MIL could stick the knife in then.

But all that is an uncertainty. It hasn’t happened yet.

Your dc are saying they don’t want to visit now. If the dc say, for example, 6 months down the line that they want to see them then fine - and you go as a family. Be guided by the dc. But be guided only by the dc, not by ILs or what you think you should be doing.

In the meantime, you need to cultivate your own support network. Good friends are often far better than toxic family relations. And as for the wider family - you can work on seeing them away from the ILs. It might be hard but you can do it, I promise.

OP, after your last comments, it's clear that MIL & FIL can't help but be abusive shits even IN your presence, so therefore I'd go completely non-contact due to emotional abuse.

You CAN put your put down if your DH disagrees. You are aware that children get removed from people who cannot safeguard them from harm? Extreme way of thinking about this, I know, but your ambivalence here could cause you to lose everything. Don't ever put your DH over your DDs.

You mention wider implications.

They are children. You owe no explanation to anyone as to why you cut contact.
You have a duty to protect your children and that should come above any awkwardness it might create with extended family.

It's hard to do it.

Last week I had to visit my father (who walked out on us). I haven't seen him in person for 7 years though we talk daily. My youngest son met him for the first time, he adores him because he is his Granpa.
But my father lost his temper over something so silly, and it scared my child and it was completely inappropriate.
I literally got our stuff together, put our coats on and removed us from his flat.
Because it is my job as a parent to protect my child from that. We were abroad, my time there was limited and my father is ill. I'll probably never see him again. But even that didn't stop me from putting my child's emotional wellbeing first.

Rosbel, just to be clear, we ask them every few days months if they want to go and if they say yes, they go but if they don't, they don't want go.

I usually ask every school holiday.

Certainly in the past I might have chivvied them to see them, years ago but certainly not now.

My older dc has a phone now and I'm worried about them getting her number and then coercing her directly.

I agree with all these posts by the way. If circumstance s were different we wouldn't have seen them at all really.

But literally having no family or support on my side does have an impact.

I also know from my side, it takes a long time sometimes for people's toxicity to appear. So my dc would go to their gp as say older teens. Sil is there maybe cousins and all smothering them with attention and love and in that hour or two, my dc think...

They are wondeful people who clearly love us, why on earth didn't we seen them more.

Also as adults it would be less easy for pils to get away with being shits.

If dh however was able at that point to say, well... Blah and blah... I wouldn't think about it too much but again it will come back to me.

I know even though he finds it hard to be around them his dm makes himself feel guilty. And yes! I've tried to get him to to read FOG stuff, narracisitic stuff... He doesn't want to know. He's sick of me talking about them and he's also sick of them.

Or about my other dd 'she's a good actress isn't she', when dd was holding her head after fil threw a ball at it

Deliberately?

The problem with 'supervised' access is that neither dh nor I really want to spend any time either them.

But you are inflicting them on you defenseless children??
they either go accompanied by an adult aware of the situation (you, your DH, trusted baby sitter aware of the situation) or they do not go at all.
I really really hope this thread is a joke. Your older DC shouldn't need to protect their sibling. You (and your DH) should protect your children!

I honestly don't see what the big deal is. Your PIL are unpleasant to the extent that your DH doesn't want to see them (so it's not about you being a bitch - it comes from their own actual child), so why bother making the kids see them? Especially when the kids themselves don't enjoy themselves?

See them once or twice a year for a short afternoon visit to do your "bit" and leave it at that. You don't need all this hand-wringing about making the children spend time with them, when their own son chooses not to because of their unpleasantness.

There should be no concerns about leaving your kids with GP. no question marks, no worries about manipulative conversations, no worrying feedback from the kids. you need to take your children's comments seriously. For me the GP behaviours are incredibly odd and troubling. I would have to consider NC

Don't ask your daughters if they want to go. This is an unfair choice to put on them and you are the adult.

Don't allow your DH's guilt or wishing things were different to cloud your judgement.

Do protect your family.

Na, fuck that. I would forever be busy.

You have 2 broad choices: go completely nc, or, if you are not ready to do that, go as a whole family. Keep the visit a lot shorter than 8am to 6. Arrange an activity so you are in a neutral/public space, not in their home. With you and dh both there you can stay 1-on-1 with the kids so no reason for them to be alone with gp. And increase time between visits.

we ask them every few days months if they want to go

I usually ask every school holiday.

Certainly in the past I might have chivvied them to see them, years ago but certainly not now.

My older dc has a phone now and I'm worried about them getting her number and then coercing her directly.

But you are pushing your children to keep contact OP. You keep asking them if they want to go, do they want to stay, do they want to stop by, do they want to spend holidays there, etc. Stop asking. You are the one that started up contact again after your hospital stay. It doesn't appear that it is your DH that is doing this, but rather it's you creating this situation. You don't even want to be in the room so you bring up the visit then leave your children to cope alone. Stop doing it OP. Let your children make up their own mind if and when they want to see grandparents. Let your children make this decision for themselves and it will help IF PIL ever got your child's phone number and tried to coerce. Teach your children to find and use their own voice and opinions op because atm YOU are giving the children the impression that they must maintain contact whether they want to do not. You are doing this verbally and through your own actions.

Maybe ask your children 'What would you like to do this holiday?' and discuss whatever they say without bringing up the PIL. It doesn't matter that they are your DH's family, if they are toxic then go NC. Stop dreaming up what rumors PIL will spread about you controling your DH. You have to do what is best for your children and stop letting unreasonable fear keep you in this horrible situation. I think you need to go to counselling for the impact this situation and not having family around you and having medical issues, etc is having on you and now also on your children.

Oh ffs. If neither you nor dh can bear to spend time with these people why on earth do you think it's OK for your poor undefended to do so? Of course they say yes if you a them, they see other kids having a lovely time with their gos so they think they should (could?) be too, AND they trust you to know what's best for them so they believe, wrongly, that you wouldn't even suggest it if you thought it was a bad thing. Doesn't matter if it's only a few times a year, that just makes it more significant and memorable and important.

Do your job as a parent. PROTECT your children from emotional harm. You are setting them up for their future relationships, do you want the to normalise this sort of bollocks?

People have mentioned "conditioning". where do you draw the line between "conditioning" and "grooming"?

My mother tried to be like this with me and was forever trying to diminish my father in my eyes. I learnt to look like I was listening while actually furiously thinking about something else. I stayed close to my father till he died, I cut my mother out of my life when I was 28 and never saw her again. She died at 58.

SOMETIMES you have to be tough about relations. I am really struggling to see what the benefit of staying in touch with these two is. you can choose your friends you cannot choose your relations. so you are not obliged to be in any way friendly with relations who are so downright underhand, manipulative and generally creepy as these two are. Don't let your children be pawns in their games. Or worse.

Bloody iPad keyboard! You should be able to get the gist of ^^ post anyway.

Don't let your IL's see them alone. I know you mean well and hope for the best but you have been let down too many times. If you are going to insist on keeping them in your lives, you should only see them as a family - and ideally doing activities where they can't get the dc's alone.

I've just read the thread again. Lots of excellent points and comments and what I would be posting if this was someone's else's thread.

On the plus side, dh heard say re 'granny said daddy doesn't love her because he never visits', so I think that would be very hard for him to 'excuse' away.

The other consideration is that pils are v wealthy, large house etc. Along with my previous worst case scenario that they go rounds there, Mil is wondeful, sil and fil both mils fan club and dc prefer to be there because their house is bigger and nicer than ours. Also ££ bribing them with dosh.

However I do agree with poster saying, 'deal in the here and now'.

Fil wanted to give dc ££ for isas etc. We were unhappy about that and stopped it.
This was because we didn't want dc to have access to what might have been 20 grand or more at 18. Fil is very good with tax implications, but not with human emotions and what a good child at 18 might be like.

However maybe that was the wrong one thing to do because he will probably do something anyway for dc then make it them beholden at 18 and it's more direct than dc getting it into isa now.

It's v complicated.

As a child I went to see my grandparents. They were quite bad too.
I would have much preferred not seeing them then having to go and see them and be the the tool they used to get at my parents.

Grand parents are not entitled to see their grand children when they are awful to them.
Children won t miss seeing their grand parents when they are being manipulative/abusive

I've only read your first few posts @Howwlydufeel, I would normally read them all before commenting but my jaw is on the floor so I'm going to jump in right now before going back and reading the rest of the thread -

YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND NEED TO MAN THE FUCK UP AND PUT YOU DAUGHTERS BEFORE YOURSELVES.

Look at what you've written!

"The problem with 'supervised' access is that neither dh nor I really want to spend any time either them."

I could not believe that, given all the obvious red flags you posted in your opening post. You don't want to be with this poisonous pair, but you'll throw your small children to these fuckers? When your children have already given you this heads-up - "Years ago both dd had occasional sleepovers and both would return saying... 'please don't send us again'."

FFS. Going back to read all your posts now in the hope I find something more comforting than this total abdication of responsibility.

No amount of money is worth more than protecting your girls' emotional and physical safety.

If the ILs get nasty (nastier?!) there's legally, practically and emotionally nothing they can do to hurt you - as long as you take the decision to cut them out.

Brenda yes, that's how I feel, let down too many times.

My friend also heard my dd say about granny... I wonder if I could get him to write this down as back up in case....

I had not heard the word 'conditioning' before this thread and I'm very grateful for it because its exactly what fil does. He tries to condition us all that Mil is normal.

Yes I agree when does conditioning stop and grooming start.

Also very very good points about writing all this down. And roughly putting in what happened in each visit.

It's v complicated

That's an excuse. It's actually quite simple.

I know that, three.

But what about my dc, when they are potentially handed a large amount of very helpful money at 18 and feel immensely grateful to gp who seem lovley and were not allowed to see!