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..

I can't do supervised visits, I've had it with them

You'll happily send your kids there though even though by your own admission you've had it with them and can't bear being around them and your kids themselves have said please don't send them anymore?

Oops! just reread your response, re "conditioning" I had misread it. So please ignore my remark.

My DC barely see my DM and when they do there is tight supervision. There is no whisking off to the front row. I'm not afraid to make a scene. Some family members think I am a cow. I don't care. DM tries to make big generous gestures and on the rare visits poison the kids saying I restrict access unfairly. My children know me. They know I am sensible. I have explained the issues. It is fine.

Every excuse you give for maintaining this situation is about protecting yourself. You are effectively using your children as human shields for yourselves.

After health scares, I didn't increase contact. I tightened up the arrangements for the children if something happened to us to make damn sure my mother would be totally uninvolved in their upbringing.

Time to open your eyes to what you are subconsciously doing: sacrificing the children's mental health so you won't get told off now or in the future.

That came over more harshly than intended. It is hard to break out of the FOG. You get used to appeasement and trying to manage the abuser and/or other people's views of you when the abuser attacks. When the scales fall from your eyes it gets a lot easier. I think your scales are dropping away. Good luck.

This reminds me so much of my parents...

When I was 9 my parents made a decision to locate our family, due to my father's work - myself and my two brothers, all of us under the age of 10 - to a country in what was then called the third world. My mother's family, who at the time we lived in the same city as and were close to, were understandably horrified and my grandmother in particular made it clear to my mother that she felt it was a mistake. My grandmother was right, we all ended up with serious health problems, didn't have schooling for over a year and I was groomed by one of my fathers colleagues when I was 11. After 3 years of hell my father was sacked and we ended up living on the other side of the world from my grandmother, in a country where we had no other relations. This was in the early 80s, so it was very easy for mother to essentially 'disappear' - she had no contact with her family for nearly 10 years, and very reluctantly resumed contact only when my younger brother turned 18 and had contacted my grandmother himself (he admitted to me he'd done it when he was drunk, out of curiosity to see if their phone number was still working).
After that we had limited contact, my parents divorced when I was 21 and my mother, myself and my younger brother returned to our home country. My mother's relationship with her family never fully recovered and when my grandmother died a couple of years after we returned, the rest of the extended family gradually dropped all contact.

My mother tried to make myself and my brother have contact with my grandmother in the period before she died, purely because my grandmother was extremely wealthy and we were the only grandchildren. My mother honestly thought that even though we'd had no sort of relationship with her for over a decade, that she was a virtual stranger that we really didn't want to spend time with, my grandmother would still leave a lot of money to us...of course, she didn't. We weren't even mentioned in the will (and neither was my mother)
That was 20 years ago and my mother still bitches about it to this day.
My mother basically expected us to do what she wasn't willing to do, have a relationship with people she didn't want to, purely for money.
I was well aware at age 9 of what went down, my mother never bothered to hide her true opinion of her family and regularly complained about them to my father...but she still expected myself and my brothers to spend time alone with them. It was extremely stressful, we hated the time alone, and my mother didn't even give us the option of saying no....mainly because my mother was still getting financial help from my grandmother and my mother knew if she stopped the contact, the money would stop. My mother guilt tripped us to spend time with people we didn't like/know - for money.

Towel my own relationship with them is toast.

I don't care what any of them think of me at all. But I do care about that one day my children may blame me for stopping access to their gp.

But I do feel with this latest comment, enough is enough. She's not to be trusted. Dh heard it too, usually he hears it through me.

One dc is nearly teen and her outlook and life is becoming more independent and I think this is age where dc are least likely to think about gp.
Other dd never asks to see them so I also feel this is good age to phase them out.

I was pointing out how pushy fil is.
Mil has said repeatedly he has to WIN anything and at any cost.

he's an unpleasant man.

That's an interesting post princess thank you.

However, you have mis read the money side of the problem. We are not pushing our dc to see them due to money.

Fil was putting £ into their isa and we stopped him for different reasons. We stopped the money.

But we can't ultimately stop fil doing his own saving thing!!

Wotcha many dils can't stand their pils. It doesn't mean they should stand in the way of their dc seeing gp.

How many people I know in rl and see on here where dil can't stand pils or mil at least.

Then when pils come over, dh their son would bugger off, and leave dil with pils! It's very common.

It's also common for neither dil nor the son to want to go to the house but but but they are good gp and the gc like them.

If, as adults, your children blame you for blocking access to GP you've got much bigger problems! Assuming you are normally nice reasonable people they aren't going to think you are maliciously keeping them away from something perfectly safe and lovely. They will be strongly minded to believe your account when they are adults.

Even if your children later did believe you had over reacted it wouldn't ruin your relationship with your own children. My teenagers definitely think I barred them from things I deem too unsafe that they think are fine and I am unreasonable. Meh. That's parenting. They know it and I know it. Even if it gets brought up in rows, ultimately I believe I have made a "good enough" decision.

You both don't want to spend any time with them yet your kids have to?

They clearly hate her. Grow a backbone and say no more. You're their protector. Do your job.

I can't do supervised visits, I've had it with them.

Then do not inflict them on your children!!!
You either suck it up and do supervised contact.
or you do not let your children near them.
And no, I don't mean that you just stop asking them...
You, your DH or a person you trust needs to be present to supervise.

anything else sounds unsafe.

And it sounds as if you're putting the burden of protecting your DC from adult's on the shoulders of your oldest. Which is really fucking horrible!

I'm a bit confused. Your children aren't keen on seeing their to is that right? If it is then why would they blame you in later years for not having a relationship with them. More likely they'll be grateful you saved them from such toxic people.

Rosebel, they like seeing them every few months, roughly every 3 or 4. They enjoy days out. They'll come back and say they have enjoyed themselves.. But if I then said, would you like to go back next week, they say no.

They enjoy very little and not often.

The more they see gp, the less they want too, put it that way.

I think there is a much greater chance of your kids blaming you for protecting yourselves while allowing them to be emotionally abused by the ILs - especially given that neither you or dh will subject yourself to any discomfort to protect them

However, you have mis read the money side of the problem. We are not pushing our dc to see them due to money

TBF to the poster, you're the one who brought up trust funds, wanting money when they're 18, talking about how the gp's have a big house and lots of money that they bribe the kids with
Oh, I don't even know why I'm bothering.

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

Why on EARTH are you leaving your dc unsupervised with people you don’t like or trust and are clearly at the very least emotionally abusive?!

That’s insane!

I come from a deeply dysfunctional family where there was physical and sexual abuse too. Dd has NEVER been left alone with any of them. Even though my father was the main perpetrator the others minimise and defend and clearly cannot be trusted.

Stop forcing your dc to spend time with people they aren’t emotionally safe with or from the sounds of things particularly comfortable with.

You are showing them that their emotional needs don’t matter, that’s a horrific and harmful lesson to teach them.

To be quite honest I’m not convinced that there wasn’t physical or sexual abuse in your dh’s childhood home.

Does he have siblings? Do they take anything to do with pil?

He may not have been a victim himself but he may have witnessed or be otherwise aware, I think you need to be VERY careful here.

Like hell would any child of mine be with these people unsupervised!

I’m telling you as a survivor the HARDEST part of abuse to unravel is the emotional shit! I’m 47, haven’t lived at home since I was a teen as I wasn’t safe there and I’m STILL dealing with the emotional fallout!

Did you even ask the dc WHY they no longer want to do sleepovers? Are you afraid of what they’ll say?

I have an extremely toxic mother who has never even seen my kids as I don't want her abusive ways to taint their lives. NC means that the cycle of abuse has stopped with me. They are teens and know why I don't talk to my mum. They don't know details but they trust me and therefore know I'm not making things up. I don't want her dripping poison in their ears.

Your situation is very fucked up. Why does your older child think that she needs to make sure that her sibling doesn't leave her side? Who puts that kind of responsibility on a teen? If FIL and MIL start saying poisonous things is she confident enough to tell them to stop? It's gobsmacking that you would send your kids into the lion's den while the parents avoid contact. I think that your dd are more likely to be angry about being sent to them for outings than the fact that you kept them away. Sometimes that's the far kinder thing to do.

They wouldn't get contact in a court. If you find examples of this it will be because the parents are awful or the grandchild lived under the same roof as the grandparent for many years. Less than a handful of overnights in their lifetime is not a reason for grandparent contact.

@Howwlydufeel correct me if I am wrong but you have posted about them before?
The thing about them checking the school website and turning up to events rings a bell.

What are you really scared of happening if you break contact? Is it actually because you pushed DH to act against his instincts and now you realise he was right?

They'll come back and say they have enjoyed themselves.. But if I then said, would you like to go back next week, they say no.

I suspect your children have already learnt not to upset you, which is really sad. If they really enjoyed themselves, they would want to go back. It's that easy.

Stop being so comfortable and start protecting your children, FFS.

Your children may say "yes" to seeing what happens if they stick a fork in an electric socket or what happens when they accept sweets from strangers. But you wouldn't let or encourage them to do it whether or not they said "yes" because you, as the adult, should know it wouldn't end well. Apply that principle to this. Emotionally, it won't end well.

And as for Room 101ing them with something you can't abide yourself and putting the onus on your older daughter to shoulder the burden of parental duty? That is really unfair. She may consider later on in life that she didn't have a relationship with her grandparents or, given she already has issues with them, she will more likely reflect upon how you and your husband failed to shield her from the emotional manipulation whilst protecting yourselves.

I think you're right and the girls are saying what they think OP wants to hear. They've been conditioned to know that OP will ask and that they have to say yes occasionally.

My grandmother was like this, we had access, but always supervised. We never really questioned it as kids but looking back I know my DM (no deceased) was protecting us. And I'm very grateful to her for doing that.

You don't make children decide whether to hang out with an abuser or not. Especially when they don't even know what that kind of abuse is. Let's face it, many fully grown adults can't identify themselves as victims of emotional abuse, they just think they are over sensitive or whatever. Kids stand no chance.