Excluded from grandchildren's life

[GrandmDEA]

I'm going to try and keep this short but I have 3 sons, one of them moved abroad many years ago for work, it was meant to be short term but he fell in love with a girl 10 years his junior, married her 9 months later and they had a child a year after that. A couple of years ago this same country that they were living in and she was from ended up in a war, they moved to the UK with their 2 children immediately. They live in London, fairly central, they pay way below market rate in rent as someone he works with owns it but it is a tiny 2 bed and they have 2 children, one who has just turned 5 and the other just turned 3.
We have always had issues with them, we weren't invited to the wedding, in fact we didn't know they were married until after the wedding happened! We had never met her. She clearly has no respect for our family but we try to keep the peace.
This year we have seen our grandchildren 2 times, we only live an hour away but they don't let us visit, if we show up uninvited on the weekend, they are always busy. If we ask to go up to see them it is always "no the house is too small for guests". My sons is meant to bring them to see us once a month but most times he ends up coming alone with some excuse. We haven't seen his wife since Christmas!
Our son was meant to be bringing them to see us tomorrow, we have spent £100s on birthday gifts for them as they both had birthdays at the very end of August. Today he has messaged saying sorry we can't come the girls will be too tired after a week at school/nursery, we will see you during half term! This happens every time.
We have had some big fall outs over decisions they make such as his wife continues to take their tiny children to a war torn country to visit her family, putting them through 24 hours of travel to get there and back! My son never goes with her and I don't think he actually agrees with her but lets her do it anyway. It stresses me out when she takes them to there, I worry for their safety so I have voiced that I don't agree with it. We obviously also got off on the wrong foot with the lack of wedding invite to anyone in our family. We only mention things that concern us out of care but it is always taken as an insult.

AIBU to be really hurt they keep excluding us? The grandchildren have spent several weeks this year with their maternal family and they all live in a war torn country, but barely 2 half days with us who live much closer!

I don’t think anyone would disagree that having concerns is unreasonable. I’m sure the parents have them too (and are in a much better position to judge them). What is unreasonable is getting into rows about it- it’s none of her business

Your racist assumptions, judgemental criticisms, surprise visits and entitled attitude have led you down this path with your DS and DIL. Your posts are pointing the blame towards them rather than taking accountability for what you have done. If you ever want a relationship with your GC, I suggest taking accountability and making major amends.

We are LC with my MIL because of racist comments in the past. You have made assumptions about her ethnicity. Do you not realise how that would make her feel? I wouldn't want my kids around that and it's clear they don't want that around their family either.

Op in this post you're not just insulting your DIL but your son as well.

I imagine you are not blessed in tact and this is the consequences to that.

I understand you being concerned about her taking the children to Ukraine but I guess it depends on what part - she's obviously not going to do anything she feels is unsafe for her children and will be in contact with relatives there to assess it all before she goes. That's between her and your son.

I think from your posts you're doing the classic mil trick of blaming your dil for holding boundaries on reaction to your own behaviour and blaming her for your sons decisions and choices when he is an adult man. I think there's a lot here you need to own. You may have apologised but your attitudes are still very clearly current given your opening post and subsequent posts so don't expect anything different from them if you aren't going to change your own behaviours.

He was correct! He obviously knows you very well.

It is the parents decision where and when to take the children - not yours.

‘Hi Ben*,

Understandably you don’t want to drag the kids out to Surrey with the weather being the way it is. We don’t mind travelling to Greenwich and finding a cafe with a soft play - or anywhere you suggest.

If that doesn’t work, the four of you are always invited over here, open invitation. I know how busy you all are so I’ll leave the ball in your court.

I did get the girls a pretend kitchen for their birthday but now thinking about it, I should have asked if you had the space. Should I return it and just give the kids vouchers?’

This in spades.

Anything the OP does or says at this point is going to viewed through a very suspicious lens, rightly so.

The only thing a person can do at this point is a quick call to apologize for their very active part in running this relationship off the rails, no qualifications no requests, no expectations. Then leave it to the others to set the pace (if any) in the relationship.

OP, this is really simple. Your DS and DIL don’t like you. You have disapproved of your DIL as a suitable match for your DS and also openly disapproved of her parenting. I’m not surprised they don’t like you.

You don’t get to have a relationship with your grandchildren if their parents don’t like you.

If you want things to change, you need to change so that they all actually want to see you. Moaning on MN about how disrespectful and irresponsible your DIL is isn’t going to change a thing.

Sometimes people use "respect" to mean "treating someone like a person" and sometimes to mean "treating someone like an authority"
For some, "if you don't respect me, I won't respect you" means "if you don't treat me like an authority, I won't treat you like a person"

It sounds like you are disgruntled with your Son and Daughter in Law not treating you like an Authority.

If we show up uninvited on the weekend, they are always busy

🤣🤣🤣

Some of the responses here do seem harsh, but it does come across that you had issues with his girlfriend from the start? What might these have been - given that you say you hadn't met her before the wedding?

Op as you can see in the modern world grandparents exist only to provide cash and childcare. Although it used to be said that it takes a village to raise a child now it's the parents sole right to make as big a mess as they please. Unless it gets to the stage where they are actually violent when you are expected to step in and contact social services.

You can only back right off and wait to see what happens. If the children get killed in Ukraine they still wont accept you were right to have been concerned, it would probably make things worse.

You have other children and grandchildren, in your place I'd focus on them.

Oh dear OP. You just dont get it do you. You may not have said the words "She is a foreign gold digger" but you havent even denied on here that thats what you implied to your son. You said think apolosing makes that go away, it wont and your son will never forget.

Maybe some Eastern Europeans can enlighten us - don't people tend to get married on average in their twenties anyway? Not like the West where some wait until their 40's. It's not the same as a British 20 year old getting married.

OP expressed concerns that the woman may not have honest intentions regarding the relationship due to her age and background (eastern European). And her financial status.

My friend from Belarus had two kids already by 24. Totally normal respectable woman, also was a doctor.

Would you include people in your village who called you a gold digger and accused you of neglect?

A lot of adult children do rely on grandparents for childcare. My husband and I take and pick up our granddaughter from school every day, and when she was a younger child she stayed with us a lot - as my daughter is a single parent and has a job which means she cannot do the above herself.

So you blame her for not 'respecting family' - I think you mean 'not ignoring the pretty awful things we've said about you without bothering to get to know you'...

And not your son, who is the person who moved a LONG way away, and got married without inviting you, doesn't bring the GC to see you, cancels visits etc etc..

You turn up uninvited, and press to be invited to stay in a property that is clearly too small for the family living in it, let alone guests..

You've suggested she is a gold-digger and that she puts her children at risk, and wonder why she doesn't like you?

Yeah, I'd avoid you like the plague too. Your 'concerns' are rude, based in ignorance and prejudice, and need to be kept to yourself.

Just, if you can and I suspect you actually can't - imagine how YOU would feel if YOUR MIL decided a bunch of things about you, based in tiny scraps of information and a ton of prejudice, and then gave you a hollow half arsed apology based in 'bugger, we have got to apologise or we'll never see the grand kids' not genuine regret for your actions/thoughts/nasty mind...

You'd hate that. You know you would.

There is nothing in the OP’s posts suggesting that this is anything to do with her DIL.

it sounds like the OP’s son is protecting his wife and children from his mother and her judgements and criticisms.

which is exactly what either of the couple would be told to do on here if they posted that his mother turns up uninvited, criticises the DIL repeatedly and even assumed she was a golddigger before she even met her.

YABU for turning up uninvited at the weekend

I'm 20 years younger than my husband - and certainly my parents had concerns over his motives; and I'm pretty sure that his did too about me - though privately.

Well, he was right about the judgmental part. I think he knows you well enough to stay away tbh. But the good thing is you can change all this. But it has to start with you RESPECTING your son and his life choices, your DIL and the choices she makes about her children. You can think whatever you want But they are adults and the only thing you manage to do by voicing your opinions is driving them away. And for the gifts; why didn't you send them on their birthday? Or wad it a bribe to come and see you? I love my MIL, we don't agree on everything But she respects that I'm the mother of her grandchildren and I get to decide what's best for them. On the other hand I have always told her that when you have your GC you're the boss because I trust you. She still calls me to ask if it's OK for GC to have this etc. It's about respect and boundaries. If you are willing to see your shortcomings and work on them you might be able to have a good relationship with your son and his family one day.

You are the one with everything to loose here. Even if you don’t understand how you have presented in the past you need to make changes for your own sake. To stand any chance of a positive future relationship with any of them you need to apologise unequivocally for your past comments and opinions. Going forward you need to keep your opinions to yourself no matter how difficult that is.

I have a MIL and am a MIL myself, and have seen that there is another side to these things. People are harsh and judgemental to the OP- that's my opinion.