Sister-in-law’s ultimatum to parents

[ChorltonCreamery]

My parents but especially my mother are incredibly upset.

My sister-in-law has told them they will not be able to see her three and a half year old daughter unless her older children from her first marriage are included in stuff that they do with our children.

So Essentially if my dad takes my son and nephew out without brother’s stepson they won’t see my niece.

I posted before about the impact my brother’s stepchildren have had on my family.

They see their own father rarely.

In all honesty the stepson’s behaviour has improved in the last few months but I think this is the most terrible blackmail.

My brother won’t say anything.

The kids aren’t the same though - only one is a grandchild and niece. The SIL isn’t protecting her children by encouraging them to believe otherwise or by trying to forge the issue with her in laws. While the children may be siblings, they don’t all have the same family in common. If she wanted all of her children to be the same to anyone but her she could have chosen not to have further children, but she didn’t. That’s on her.

Given that she unilaterally levelled the ultimatum behind her husband’s back, and upon learning of it he left his daughter with his parents anyway, it doesn’t particularly sound like they’re on the same page here at all.

The kids aren’t the same though - only one is a grandchild and niece. The SIL isn’t protecting her children by encouraging them to believe otherwise or by trying to forge the issue with her in laws that’s your opinion and it’s a shit one . SIL has a different opinion. I agree with SIL.

She needs to teach her children how to behave. I would never expect anyone to parent my children that's my job. If sil really wants her children to have a better relationship then she needs to start disciplining them when they play up or fight. Do you know how old the grandparents are?

They aren't the grandchildren of the OP's parents. That's a fact; they are not related by blood or by adoption; they have grandparents of their own.

They are not related to the OP. They are the half siblings of her niece, the children of her brother's wife.

The SIL wants them to be treated as if they were grandchildren and nephew or niece. She can want that.

They can agree or not agree. They go for a very inclusive "if you're linked to us in some way, you are family through and through" or they can feel there is a difference between people you're related to and people you aren't.

It's easier when it involves tiny children you see grow up and are part fo their lives from the start. It's also pretty clear cut when stepchildren arrive as older teens and don't need grandparental figures in their lives.

Somewhere in between is more of a grey area and people draw lines differently. That doesn't make any of them wrong.

That's a fact

No- that is your personal belief about how families work - your belief that DNA defines relationships. Not everyone shares your opinions- they are narrow, restrictive and often harmful and discriminatory in their effects. Furthermore , it’s not actually how the world works in practice much of the time .

It's not DNA alone, legal stuff matters too - adoption is another way of being related. But the children concerned are only "grandchildren" of the OP's parents if the OP's parents want to see them that way.

Grandparents are the parents of your parents. He is the children's stepfather, not their father. They already have a dad.

They are part of OP's brother's family. He made that commitment when he became their stepfather. He cannot make that commitment on behalf of pther people.

(edited because of a couple of sticky keys meaning letters were missing)

Yes, gathered your thoughts on that one Tandora.

SIL thinks that allowing her children to believe that people that don’t consider her children to be grandchildren, that aren’t even particularly interested in her children beyond niceties when they’re in their company, to be their grandparents, is better than acknowledging the truth that they will inevitably end up realising.

Allowing people to labor under delusion generally isn’t doing them much in the way of favors.

It's not DNA alone, legal stuff matters too - adoption is another way of being related

Yes and social/ cultural relationships matter too.

But the children concerned are only "grandchildren" of the OP's parents if the OP's parents want to see them that way

their opinions aren’t the only opinions that matter. You are right, OP can’t force her in-laws to think or feel differently to how they do. However, she can say “your family values are not compatible with my family values, and therefore in the interests of protecting my children I do not want you a part of our family”. The GP then have a choice , they can choose to respect DIL’s family values and at least behave differently (even if their private thoughts and feelings remain the same) , or they can choose to take a step back. Up to them.

So? It’s a fact that DNA defines the grandparent/grandchild relationship in OP’s family. That is indeed how it works in practice for them.

Not for SIL or her children though. Hence SIL making the reasonable choice that while GP behave as they do, they aren’t good people to have involved with any of her children.

Or they can just continue to have the same relationship they have with her through their son, without having to deal with the SIL.

Yet she wants them involved.

She can have that opinion as much as she likes, but that isn’t something that she has the power to unilaterally enforce. If she even intended to enforce it of course - she may have thought the threat would be enough to get them to agree to her demands, not actually expecting them to call her bluff.

Yeh if he agrees and goes against his wife.

she wants them involved

She wants them involved if they respect her family values. If they don’t,
she doesn’t. Thats a perfectly typical and reasonable way to enforce boundaries for one’s children and family.

I think its possible that the ways to keep being involved option was given to try not to be unreasonable and an attempt in the wider interests of the family. Rather than her actually wanting that personally. Clearly she has arranged paid childcare to start to distance herself and has started a conversation. Many would just slowly freeze them out. Just a possibility and another view point. Lots of people here absolutely hating on someone they have never met on quite an outing thread I would have thought.

Like he already has you mean?

The irony of having confidence that he’ll back her up on site where women routinely complain about husband’s prioritising their birth families - “you have a DH problem!”, particularly when it comes to stepchildren.

I doubt this is the first he’s heard of her issues with her in laws, and I doubt she would have issued the ultimatum behind his back if she believed he would agree with her tbh. The fact that upon hearing about it from his parents he rendered it toothless by leaving his daughter with them anyway doesn’t exactly suggest that he’s on her side here either.

They never have ‘respected’ her wants here lol, this isn’t news to her.

It sounds like this woman took for granted that her in laws would treat her older children as grandchildren and hadn't considered that they wouldn't feel the same.

I don't think there are rigid rules here. Ideally before blending families the couple really talks about how it will work for their household and what their expectations are.

There’s no point in us arguing about whether he will back his wife up or not 😆. he either will or won’t. 🤷🏼‍♀️

You’re the one making it an argument by trying to insist that he will despite evidence to the contrary. You’re right that he may or may not, but right now he isn’t 🤷🏻‍♀️

tbf there’s no point in arguing about any of it. People are free to suit themselves regardless of whether we personally approve or not.

I’m not trying to insist he will, you are trying to insist he wont. ( I simply said that most men generally choose their wives over their parents, but who knows how this will play out ).

You just keep saying that GP can do what they like - they don’t see kids as family- case closed. All im trying to point out is that works both ways. There are other people involved who can make their choices .

I happen to think it’s a silly argument anyway- but I know you like to make it on all the step parenting threads. Of course people are free to make whatever choices they will- as long as they don’t break the law; that’s how life works. But the general point of AIBU is to invite people’s opinions about what is reasonable or not- the ethics of their choices (not to speculate about what they might do in practice). But whenever anyone shares their view on that and you don’t agree you jump in and tell them their opinion doesn’t matter ! 🤦🏼‍♀️😆 what’s the point?

I’ve said that his actions so far are not supporting her. Without his support, she doesn’t have the power to deny her in laws a relationship with their grandchild, and her threats are empty. It is indeed ‘case closed’ in those circumstances, and she little choice, whether she remains married to him or not, to suck up the consequences of her own choices.

Yes, I pointed out the obvious in response to you saying there’s no point in arguing about whether he’ll agree with her not. You’re right that there’s no point, but then there’s no point in arguing any of it. Yet here we are.

And what I actually say in these threads is not that you’re not entitled to your opinions, but that your attempts to present them as diktats that people must abide by are meaningless. Because apparently it does need highlighting that people don’t in fact have to do what you want them to.

Because apparently it does need highlighting that people don’t in fact have to do what you want them to.

No it really doesn’t. Thats completely obvious to everyone.

Yet that’s all you contribute- time after time. What’s the point?

The point of AIBU is to share our opinions of what is unreasonable or reasonable- right or wrong - fair or not. Otherwise we might as well just agree people will do whatever they want to do (unless they break the law in which case someone might put them in jail). End of thread 😆.

And yet still you do it.

I take it that coming to terms with your own stepfamily issues isn’t going well, huh?

So far I’ve contributed an opinion in opposition to your own. I tend only point out the aforementioned obvious when responding to you and your diktats though, Tandora, as detailed in my last reply. I’m not the only one that’s done it either, as you well know.

And yet still you do it.

Do what? Share my opinion? Yup that’s what we’re all here for.

I take it that coming to terms with your own stepfamily issues isn’t going well, huh?

I don’t think I’m the one with issues tbh.

I tend only point out the aforementioned obvious when responding to you and your diktats though

By diktats I suppose you mean my expression of my opinions?

I’m not the only one that’s done it either, as you well know

yes that’s true. A lot of people do the same.