Grandfather is being inappropriate around my dc

[Friendsoftheearth]

I feel quite sick writing this post, but I really could do with some guidance and advice.

My father was extremely abusive when I was a child both physically and emotionally. He would tell my brother and I that he does not like children, and only agreed to have them for my mother. I have no happy memories of my childhood with him at all. My mother stayed, she tried to leave a few times but did not in the end. I am very close to my mother.

Fast forward to now. I have a low contact arrangement with my parents. I could not go completely nc because it would mean never seeing my mother again, as she does not drive and it is difficult meeting her on my own as my father is always there (retired)

We did have to go nc for a number of years and it was extremely hard for me, I missed my mother so much. We have started seeing them again, but I am careful to keep the meet ups brief and 'light'. However the last few times my father has taken to saying the following to my teen dc (16 and 14):

What lovely legs they have, shape etc
Weight - asking them how much they weigh - this is a no go area with teen girls in my view even if they are not overweight
Describing one of them as dressed provocatively - his words (She definitely was not it was just a pair of normal shorts)
He forces them to cuddle him, they obviously don't like it
He makes spiteful jokes about their skin and spots - made my dd cry all of the way home
Makes fun of their eyebrows (no idea why)
Comments pretty much non stop on something or anything to do with them. One of them is vegetarian and he went on and on about it.

It took a lot for me to pull him up on his spiteful remarks about their skin, as I still feel some level of fear around him, and his answer was that we being over sensitive and can't take a joke!
My reply is that his 'jokes' are not remotely funny and are causing offence. You can't speak to anyone like that, especially not teenagers. He said we lack a sense of humour and everyone is being too fluffy, and the dds are turning into 'snowflakes'...

Am I being precious and over sensitive?
Am I right to stop him from saying these to my children? They are, by the way great fun most of the time but my carefree girls who usually have easy smiles and cheerful dispositions have grown to mistrust him, and they now look edgy around both of my parents now. The eldest is now refusing to go, I respect that of course.

Where do I go from here?

I love my mother dearly, but can not reach her because he is always there, they live 3 hours away, I can't just drop in. I can't seem to have a relationship with her without having to put up with him. They are talking about visiting again, and I don't want them to. Christmas will be next...

I don't want him anywhere near my children again.

YABU for not speaking up for your children and for taking them into that situation.

Arm them with some comments of their own.
'You've bit ok weight grandad'
'You smell funny'
'What are you wearing??'
'Your skin could do with some care'
'Your hair is awfully greasy'
'You're a rude old man'
And when he makes a comment ask whether he thinks he's being a bit over sensitive, take a joke grandad, don't be a snow flake!
Arsewipe

@Friendsoftheearth

I am still trying to sort out someone to talk to, and I am keen not to make the same mistake as before. I have found someone but she will be accredited with BACP next year, I understand that she hasn't done enough hours just yet looking at their website, but she does have some experience in this area? Should I really be talking to someone that is already accredited? What a minefield finding the right person is.

Oh OP, I have just read through all your posts and want to say how sorry I am for what you have experienced with your family. You sound willing to explore yourself and your rationale for allowing the contact you have, is clear, you sound like a lovely mum with a lovely relationship with her kids.

I’m sorry if someone has already answered this, but your query about accreditation: research shows it is the relationship that is the main factor supporting change in therapy. The model/approach is less significant. So in some ways you have to trust your gut in looking at who appeals to you, and meet them a few times, and if you’re not feeling it then don’t worry about letting it go and trying someone else.

Another important factor is a person’s ‘readiness’ to do the work - to go in and look, to discuss the pain, to reflect, to allow change, and only you know, but you sound like you are in that place to me. Bear in mind sometimes things can feel worse before they feel better with therapy, and try to plan time alone after your therapy - maybe you will want to be with family - but give yourself the option after sessions to digest what you have discussed, otherwise you may well be preoccupied or suppressing emotions around your children/dh which probably isn’t good for you or them.

Arm them with some comments of their own

I did think about this, but decided years ago I did not want to raise two mean nasty kids in order to simply cope with a family member.

They are lovely people, and I am not saying that just because they are my dc, and I don't think they would ever want to be unkind to their own grandparent. Or bring themselves to say those things Nilly

I would rather not teach them to be as mean as he is.

Better to keep them away from people like him I think.

@Friendsoftheearth

Arm them with some comments of their own

I did think about this, but decided years ago I did not want to raise two mean nasty kids in order to simply cope with a family member.

They are lovely people, and I am not saying that just because they are my dc, and I don't think they would ever want to be unkind to their own grandparent. Or bring themselves to say those things Nilly

I would rather not teach them to be as mean as he is.

Better to keep them away from people like him I think.

Actually I think I agree with you, OP. It's great if you have the mental strength to stand up to nasty bullies (worse if they are people within your own family, who are supposed to love and care for you). But the mental energy of preparing to defend yourself- even before you are with them - would be draining and likely, I think, introduce a warped kink into the personality of the person defending. I'd rather just cut people like that out if my life as they are not worth being in any part of my life. And I have done just that in my life - with great relief. 🌹

friends about the counsellor - find out what experience she has. If she's got very little then maybe meet her for an initial session to see if the click is good, but strongly consider trying to find someone else. Your childhood was pretty extreme and someone with experience will know better how to handle it.

If she has experience but not yet accreditted -and- the click is good, then go ahead

@Friendsoftheearth

I am still trying to sort out someone to talk to, and I am keen not to make the same mistake as before. I have found someone but she will be accredited with BACP next year, I understand that she hasn't done enough hours just yet looking at their website, but she does have some experience in this area? Should I really be talking to someone that is already accredited? What a minefield finding the right person is.

I think you're sensible to take your time finding the right therapist, OP.

Do you mean this therapist isn't accredited at all? Or just not accredited in this one specific area?

Maybe worth scheduling a one-off session, write a list of questions, see how she answers? A good therapist will be more than happy to answer your questions and point you to further info, I would say.

So many therapists/counsellors are now offering zoom consultations, there should be any number of people available. Remember that you are in charge of the process, here, and you can try an introductory session, and not pursue further sessions, or if at any time you feel it's not working out, you can always call a halt, have a break, or try someone else.

OP I did mean to add you sound like a wonderful mum and never doubt that as it's easy to think badly of yourself when your own self esteem has been trampled on.

It is up to us to break the cycle of abuse. I feel privileged to live in a generation that can obtain enough information around this subject that we can make informed decisions something I don't think my mother had the luxury of this I think from your earlier posts the counsellor saying to forgive your parents is right but you can forgive them and live in peace that they are victims of their own circumstance whilst you remain nc and keeping you and your dds safe from them.

Come backs won't work. You'll still feel horrible at the end. I've been there!

I wish you well whatever you decide to do

Floral, I agree I also feel lucky that I'm able to draw on the support and knowledge of others so that I can understand how these manipulations work however, I still think that forgiveness is a bit much, I would suggest starting with 'letting go of the need for revenge'

I've just finished your whole thread and alot of it resonated with me. Firstly I would like to say by deciding not to have contact with your dad because of 1 how he was with you growing up and 2 the disgusting things he has said to your daughters you have totally done the right thing! Your mum is a separate issue... with dv going on in a household you were growing up in its difficult not to 'rock the boat' and not to lie as your mum asked you to do. Although in my home my mum never asked me to not say anything to anyone it was understood that it was so awful that you didnt talk about it. I have had the 'tapping therapy' -( cant remember what it's called!) And it helped enormously as the flashbacks I had were taking over my life and afterwards it felt like I was watching it rather than living it if that makes sense. I also felt that the roles of mum and daughter swapped and I was responsible for her and my brother not to get hit. After she left him things were very rocky between us but over time and talking it has vastly improved and we have a much better relationship. I have no contact at all with my dad and only my older son has met him 2 times and my youngest not at all and I'm fine with that! Good luck with your therapy and I hope it will set you free🌺

If the therapist is nice but not qualified or experienced then you are essentially getting someone like a friend you are paying to listen to you. She might say the odd insightful thing but do would a friend.

Honestly why would a so called professional organisation put a trainee on their website?? You need experienced. You need an expert. You have already worked 80% of this out and are very smart with a good life. You've probably done so much just on this thread. You don't need a click. You need someone who knows what they are doing with women in your situation.

God therapy depresses me. Anyone, literally anyone can do it. The biggest barrier is have you got the money to shell out for your own therapy 3 times a week? For years and years. Which is cheap per session but expensive to do overall. Apparently that's why most of them do it, they just really want that much therapy. They are all very nice and always sympathetic but that's really not enough.

@Lovingtheglitter excellent suggestion! It's called EFT or TFT. And the trauma specific version (similar but not the same) is called EMDR.

It looks like it shouldn't work. It doesn't fix any boxes. And yet it does work. An ex was a bomb disposal guy for the army before I met and got caught in an explosion. He did emdr and facilitates it within the army (or maybe to civilians too I don't remember) who use it for ptsd.

And it doesn't require years and years.

Ah thanks vodka for the name of it! Yeah it was really good and it really doesnt take long at all - I'm sure I only had 3 or 4 sessions - it was a long time ago! It desensitises you to the trauma i would definitely recommend it. Although I dealt with only the one trauma at the time it seemed to lessen the others because I didnt get 'stuck' and it meant I could process other issues i had

My mother stayed, she tried to leave a few times but did not in the end

Ah but it's not the end because she's still alive.

If i were you I'd explain that for your dad's sakes you're going to have to cut contact and you will still.see her separately (even if he's there) but he will not be present/around your DDS. Soooo - she can either arrange to see the DDS on her own (with or without you) or she will not see the DDS.

Or she can leave, with your support and careful planning .. (and perhaps live with you, temporarily or permanently, if it's possible?).

There always the possibility. It's always possible.

Dd's sake.

I did think about this, but decided years ago I did not want to raise two mean nasty kids in order to simply cope with a family member.

Fair enough but unfortunately your father is going to be far from the only nasty person they'll encounter in life so perhaps it's s life skill worth learning .. abd it's not nasty, it's assertive.

(Of course you're better to swerve the person altogether if remotely possible and that's the important lesson).

I suggest if your father says anything again, you throw out a few close to home veiled insults too a d when he reacts say use his routine; it's a joke, can't he take a joke, it's only banter etc etc

Oh sorry, I see you've stopped seeing him too.

I am going to work backwards, I know exactly what you mean about learning to handle yourself gilbert and I completely agree, and you are right the dc need to be assertive. There is always a bad apple in every cart sadly, and dealing with them is a life skill.
My father is quite elderly (76) and I am not sure it would sit well with them to go for him, it would feel abusive even if he deserves it. They go to a girls school so they have plenty of chances to assert themselves in RL, but the thing he says are so awful and so shocking that it is not always possible to see it coming, we didn't see it coming at all.

One minute we were singing to my mother with the cake, the next he delivered a killer blow with his words. Never when my dh is around.
I told dh on the way home, and he was horrified and asked me over and over again incredulously if that is what he actually said...and it was. My girls were blase and said poor Grandad to be so old and miserable and that was the end of it, but for me I was absolutely fucking seething. With myself as much as anything.
My 14 year old would have had it out with him there and then, birthday or no birthday. My 46 year old self out of practice after so many blissful years without him and had forgotten how brutal he could be, and that he would choose his moments so carefully.

I have completely given up hope my mother will leave him after four decades and counting, it hurts too much after hoping for so long that she would. I have let that go now. It is better for all of us that we don't wish for something that will never happen. If she surprises us then we would welcome her with open arms, but it isn't going to happen.

vodka so help me out here! I neither have the time or really the wish to give up even more of my life to this, it is quite frankly going to take years to sift through it all with a therapist, and all for what to confirm he is a cruel bully and ruined my childhood? I know I am a black sheep in the narc dynamic, I understand that it will never be fixed, and that distance is the only thing that can keep me and my dc. I am not holding onto false hope, or fairytales that he will suddenly change.
I do feel so close to closure already, and to understanding the problem. I don't think the therapist can plug the 'totally alone no parent feeling', nor the dark days when I miss having a mum - I am not sure anyone can do that just by talking. So the short cut sounds really good! And one that works. I need proper strategies not really endless talking and dwelling on it all. He has taken up enough of my time and life already.

loving It is so good that your mother left him, because it means you can have some connection with her without him, I know you may not be able to forgive her for putting you through it as a child, but she is at least safe from him now, and so are you

Sorry but your mother also sounds like an abuser but in a different way. As a parent your main role is to keep your kids safe. She had no intention of doing that one basic fucking thing. Not only did she sit back and watch you be abused, she fucked up your relationship with your brother by getting you to lie about him to the authorities. Something he will blame you for forever. He must’ve been terrified.

The woman is manipulative and nasty. She’s a non violent abuser but mentally abusive.

She made her choice when she stuck with your dad. Keep your kids away and focus your attention on building bridges with your brother. He is also a victim. They fucked up both of your childhoods with the abuse and the playing off one against the other. He must feel so messed up and shit being made to be the golden child and seeing you be beaten but feeling helpless because his mum is master manipulator who is clearly willing to lie and throw her own kids under the bus to protect herself at all costs.

I say all of this as the victim of childhood abuse. Cutting people off hurts but it gets easier over time. They state to fade from memory. I will of course be upset when the perpetrator dies but my mental and physical health is more important. I also don’t want my kids around this person. There are better people to focus their time on.

You won't know if a therapist is right unless you go to see them.
You are paying them (or they are being paid) to treat you. Just say it's not a good fit if it isn't - there are many others to take your place.
One mistake I made was not to be completely open because of shame/embarrassment. So I wasted time there. Only when I was honest did I make progress, in the end I saw a life coach! so not exactly a counsellor at all.

OP I’ve just read all of this. You’re doing a wonderful job, it’s so hard.

My father is abusive (belittling, emotional, financial, spots/fat/ugly comments, etc). My mother stays with him but keeps toying with leaving and is very unhappy. My sister has just married a very similar man despite my best efforts and idolises my father. I am NC with my father since the birth of my child. My mum has to make it work. She sees very little of her only grandchild but that is her choice, she’s an adult. She ultimately failed to protect me or my sister; I fought, left, married someone my dad hates but who is very decent and non abusive. My sister has an eating disorder, a series of relationships with controlling men.

Breaking this cycle takes courage and therapy. I have had a lot of therapy. And you feel lonely and guilty. But seeing abuse tolerated perpetuates the cycle. It’s so awful and trapping for those like my sister who think this is what love is.

It took me so many years to see it this way but the first step was just understanding that I, that we, did not have to have anyone in our space or lives that was abusive to us, regardless of relationship, money, or anything else. We are all valuable human beings and we don’t deserve it.

I wish you and your daughters all the best.

building bridges with your brother

I don't know if I can, as much as I would like to. He does blame me, for most of it, because he listened to the fact I was a 'difficult child' and 'caused problems' so many times over the years that he actually still believes that to be the case.

I actually thought it was me too for years and years!
I carried around their words as if they were concrete facts for ages. That I was trouble and it was all I deserved, and that I had ruined their lives. So I can't blame him if he still thinks the root of all our childhood horrors was me.
One day I realised that no 2/3 year old child upwards can be to blame for a grown man hitting them repeatedly and for no real reason, I only really understood it entirely when held my own small dd laid in my arms, and I realised there is nothing she could ever do that could 'make' me hurt her, and I would literally do anything to keep her safe. As dds grew up I would look at their little arms and tiny legs and wonder how you hit a child so small and defenceless. How do you do it? Or even an older child? How does anyone do that whatever the cause. So I stopped blaming myself a long time ago, and realised I was actually a great little person with two very shit parents. That took 30 years give or take.

He has swallowed the excuses my parents made for my abuse, and quietly blames me, he spent a long time trying to forget what happened to us so I am not sure he would welcome me dragging it up.

He is still embedded in the whole dynamic, my mother still fawns over him and has given him so much money over the years, it is not in his interest to look at them for what they are. It is maybe better to leave them to it?

@Friendsoftheearth vodka so help me out here! I neither have the time or really the wish to give up even more of my life to this, it is quite frankly going to take years to sift through it all with a therapist, and all for what to confirm he is a cruel bully and ruined my childhood? I know I am a black sheep in the narc dynamic, I understand that it will never be fixed, and that distance is the only thing that can keep me and my dc. I am not holding onto false hope, or fairytales that he will suddenly change.
I do feel so close to closure already, and to understanding the problem. I don't think the therapist can plug the 'totally alone no parent feeling', nor the dark days when I miss having a mum - I am not sure anyone can do that just by talking. So the short cut sounds really good! And one that works. I need proper strategies not really endless talking and dwelling on it all. He has taken up enough of my time and life already.

Sorry love wish I could!!!! Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to overcome all of this?? All I can say is forget the navel gazing and find a good cbt/emdr person who will take the sting out of the trauma for you and help you rationally get through the stuff around your mum.

But they can't give you back your childhood. So I guess it's like a grieving process where you have to get up some kind of scceptance and not take it personally. So, so hard - but you ARE nearly there.

You know what would really take the sting out of it? A nice cancellable dream holiday booked for Christmas for the four of you in the Caribbean. Barbados to be specific. Or anywhere nice. For AT LEAST two weeks. Think of it like this.., 2 years of therapy at £60-80 a week equals minimum £6k - £8k

£6 - 8k buys a proper fuck off two week holiday in Barbados. A butler (maybe). Turquoise seas. Cocktails. No parents.

Now that is a good use of therapy money!

As for your brother leave him to it. He has inherited your mother's weakness of spirit and self pity. You need to build a 12 foot high wall around you and yours.

No one comes in unless invited. If they aren't wonderful they get shoved out and the drawbridge pulled up. You have everything you need within your 4 walls. Amazing kids (read some threads here to see how lucky you are) a wonderful husband who deserves you without shit and stress a rewarding career. Honestly, for everything that's happened you have it all now.

The EMDR will work. You describe what happened so vividly and being able to recall those specifics is The key to success with it. Can be done via zoom too. And since it's got trauma they ALL specialise in your kind of thing!

I got a rec for someone sent to me a week or so ago. I'll PM it to you. Pretty sure it's a good one. If not it's one session.