Dil trying to ruin my relationship with my dd

[worldlyweather]

When my son met his now wife he was still living at home as was my dd.
Dil used to spend a lot of time at our house with ds but admittedly my dd didn't take to her straight away and while my dd didn't realise she was here dd came in mocking her and she overheard.
Ds and dil then moved to their own house and have since married and had a child, I didn't go to the wedding as dd was excluded.

Dil wants nothing to do with my dd and ds has backed her decision, this means our dd has never even met her nephew and misses her brother and is utterly heartbroken by all this.
I haven't met him either as I have been instructed not to come with my dd but have decided not to exclude her knowing this is so hurtful and have explained my reasons to ds and dil.
I have tried to get my ds to put things right with his sister but he's not interested and is refusing to see me at my home because she might be there and I will not turn her away because they don't want to be friendly.
Ds says I should be on their side as dd did wrong and I shouldn't protect her but I feel this is an overreaction and needs to be addressed, while I agree that she was perhaps unkind she didn't deserve to be cut off.

The family have been invited to visit but again this is to be with the exclusion of my dd who is devastated and so far we've stayed away until she's included, unfortunately this doesn't look like it's ever going to happen and I miss my son and I'm missing out on my first grandchild.
They have never made any ultimatum but it feels like there's an invisible ultimatum that if I want a part in their life it's to be at the exclusion of dd or I lose the relationship with them altogether.
I feel in an impossible position as in my mind I'm standing by my dd over dil but my son sees it that I'm standing by my dd over him and that I'm choosing not to see them by choosing her.

I highly suspect that if the son and dil had said some awful things, we would know about it already. That would have been one of the first things op would have told us.

Logically though the daughter was likely banned because she’s been mean and won’t say sorry.

And cut your other child off and showed a complete lack of ability to forgive? Proud?? I would be appalled.

It’s you who’s issuing the ultimatum OP. You’re showing them you will not continue a relationship with them unless they let the thing with your daughter blow over.

The neutral thing to do would be to continue relationships with your son and daughter separately and not take sides as you have.

You are acting as a complete apologist for your daughter’s behaviour. The tone of your post is very ‘poor her, poor us’, but your daughter has caused this situation by being unpleasant. If she wants to be included it is up to her to take steps to repair the damage she’s caused to the relationship.

A good place to start would be with a genuine, thoughtful apology that acknowledges her behaviour was wrong and the hurt it has caused DDIL and DS. It’s the right thing to do and the only way things will move forward. She has to accept they might not accept the apology or that it might just be the beginning in thawing relations.

You have probably made the whole situation much worse by giving your daughter the message that she doesn’t need to take responsibility for her own actions and trying to strongarm your son and his family into doing what you want (ie indulging your daughter in the same way you do).

I imagine your son must be incredibly hurt by your behaviour.

What about a daughter? You would be happy with a daughter who mocks people behind their backs, and then refuses to apologise when the person in question heard? You would be happy with such a cruel daughter?

You are being unbelievably unreasonable in my opinion. You missed your own son's wedding and you are refusing to see your grandchild because you're "standing by" your dd. Your dd, who has behaved atrociously towards her SIL and failed to even apologise? It is hardly surprising that they don't want to see her. I imagine that they will cut you out too eventually, if you continue to make your favouritism of dd so obvious.

No, you don’t take sides. Which is exactly what this mother has done. And what you fail to appreciate.

As a mother I would be very upset if my children fell out to the point of no contact. However also as a Mother I would not be refusing to see any of the children. Yes I would like them to resolve their differences but unless one if them had committed a crime against the other then I would still be treating them the same The son and dil want a relationship with his mother, they want their child to have a relationship with its grandmother. If the OP cared equally about her children that would be happening

I wouldn't cut either of my children off. Their drama is their business to sort.

But I would be ashamed if my son married a woman and then sided with his nasty sister over her. His loyalty should be with his wife and children.

The word 'trauma' is bandied about far too lightly these days (see also 'abuse' and 'narcissist').

The sister has behaved in a childish, rude, spiteful and hurtful manner. The brother has not retaliated in kind. He has merely taken the sensible step of removing his family from further behaviour of this kind: this is not 'traumatising' her. A simple cause and effect correlation has led to this state of affairs: actions = consequences. It's a basic lesson her mother evidently hasn't seen fit to teach her.

A person's behaviour does not have to be 'abusive' for it to be unacceptable. I wouldn't consider my own in-laws' immature passive-aggression to be abusive either, but it's nonetheless unpleasant, and after many years of taking the high road with this BS I have decided I don't want to be around it any longer.

It appears the brother in this story feels similarly.

I'm all in favour of forgiveness, but the dd has never even apologised. A genuine apology might have gone a long way, but the dd chose not to bother.

No of course I wouldn't but I would be more upset by my son responding as he has. Yes be angry and hurt- but to cut her off and break up the family because his sister impersonated his wife? Come on, not a normal response from a loving brother.

They have obviously been deeply hurt by whatever was said and neither OP or daughter has made any effort to discuss or apologise for the things they said. It's totally on them.

Many on here think it's disproportionate of a mother to refuse to attend her own son's wedding or have anything to do with her own grandchild for 4 years due to a feud between her adult children and that this demonstrates how little OP cares about DS and his family. Why is it up to DS and SIL to be around somebody who has no respect for them, doesn't show them any respect and doesn't bring them any joy? Maybe they'd just had enough of such negativity and had enough of being the only ones who call dd out for her shitty, disrespectful attitude and being made to feel like the horrible ones when they do

He isn't breaking up the family. He has cut out one person, and one person only, because he is supporting his wife - as he should, she's his family now too.

Op has done more damage in terms of breaking up the family. She's the one that refused to go to the wedding, she's the one that won't visit without her daughter. Maybe, just maybe, if she had taken a more reasonable position she would have been able to help mend those broken bridges - but she has exacerbated the situation with her actions and her favouritism.

Why are you taking the side of your daughter over your son and his family?

You should have told your daughter, years ago, that she was wrong and needs to apologise!

Good on your son for backing his wife!!

She didn't go to the wedding as she knew it would be cruel to her daughter to go- maybe they are exceptionally close and the brother knew exactly what he was doing.

If she felt offending her daughter by going was worse than missing her son’s wedding, then that shows which child she prefers.

Again, not what a loving and loyal mother would do.

@Janedoe82 Would you forgive your mother for not coming to your wedding or to meet your first born child?

@Janedoe82 I genuinely cannot understand your thinking. Do you truly see the OP's daughter as the victim in all this?

I would see it as more than offending- she risked her daughter seeing her mother take the side of her sibling who was being exceptionally cruel by essentially saying his sister meant so little to him he didn't care that she wasn't at his wedding.

People make mistakes and do silly things but the biggest mistake has been choosing not to apologise, and you're probably the reason she hasn't, you've supported her bad behaviour. I don't blame DIL at all. How do you think she must feel when your daughter hasn't bothered to apologise in that time and you've blatantly backed that up by not bothering to make amends? I don't understand how you can't see this from DIL's point of view. Imagine you're her, your husband's sibling took the piss out of you in his parents' family home and everyone was clearly okay with it. You don't know what she could have going on, she could have her own silent battles going on. Or even, just expect not to be ripped into when she's just spending time with her partner. What your daughter did was unkind and yeah she was young but not too young to know better. You're even worse in this scenario. It's mortifying that you could even see it as DIL's fault.

Everything in your post has been maybe this or maybe that. Everything is speculation. Everything is a theory.

What is clear however is the daughter was rude, and she refused to apologise, and Op has supported her daughter in refusing to apologise. She has also not explained any behaviour by DIL that would help daughter’s case, and instead has relied on the very poor defences of daughter didn’t know DIL would hear and she’s not been able to apologise. If daughter was justified, she would have given a better excuse than the poor ones given.

That’s all you need to know, rather than coming up with random possible scenarios to blame DIL, which is really very odd.

I would never have put my mother in the position he did. I would have invited the sister and then just ignored her if I was really that annoyed.

I could perhaps agree with you if the dd had made a sincere and heartfelt apology. I think family is important and it's good to let bygones be bygones. But when there is no effort at all from the dd to make amends, I'm not sure why all of the magnanimity needs to come from the brother and his wife?

Unfortunately, I think the OP has made the situation so much worse by siding so obviously with her dd. The dd will now be getting the blame (perhaps unfairly) for the OP not attending the wedding/making an effort with her grandchild.

His sister started this. All she had to do was apologise and be a better person. Instead, she decided to continue being a selfish person and her mother enabled this. I’m amazed how you think the daughter is the victim here.