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!

You certainly sound as though you are letting your experience as a GP get in the way of your impartiality or acknowledgment of the facts in this particular situation. In fact, are you OP’s best friend?!

I don’t think you are going to find a huge amount of support for your views on this.

No. I have a wonderful relationship with my mother in law, actually. And I had a difficult stretch with my father and stepmother in early adulthood, but fortunately they cared enough about the relationship to reflect and make changes when I set boundaries and made it clear their behavior was going to result in my distancing myself. Now we’re close and that feels like the distant past - I sincerely hope OP can follow the same path.

What OP described is low contact. But neither her son or DIL have said this is permanent or irreversible. OP can still choose to take accountability for the hurt she’s caused and make a sincere, lasting change on her end if she wants to repair the relationship. Nothing she has written here says that her son and DIL aren’t willing to let her do that.

So she's quite attractive and you think she has/had ulterior motive. Perhaps she did, but so did your son.

He got a younger, attractive woman, that he probably couldn't have got in the UK and he knows this.

They not have each other. That's how it works. As long as he's happy let it be.

You have pretty much placed all the blame on her, but your son is the one who excluded you and his brothers from his wedding. He probably knows she wouldn't have been interested in him if he wasn't in his position, but he's made his choice.

I'd take a step back (stop reaching out and giving unsolicited advice) and enjoy the time with the grandchildren that you see.

They can only apply to courts if the children have lived with them. There’s no such thing as grandparents’ rights in the UK. In this situation it would also be entirely inappropriate. The grandparents haven’t been prevented from seeing the gc and still aren’t being prevented - they have chosen not to do so

Yeah. One of family memebrs and few frienda voiced their opinion that maybe my DH might be marrying me for papers.
Needless to say, they are not in our lives since then.

This has to be a wind up.

I think they have made the right decision for them and for their children.

They don't want to see you no matter how many birthday presents you buy because what you bring to their lives isn't positive.

Your disapproval of everything you do oozes from you. I honey don't think there is any point in pushing to have a relationship with them.

Doesn’t matter how much the dil sees or doesn’t the in-laws. The son can and has clearly taken the children to see his parents that’s why they have seen them twice.

But her own son clearly has issue with her and doesn’t want to bother more than he already is.

Maybe rather than hiding her sons choices and being over opinionated she should have just welcomed his new girlfriend back then since she became his wife.

It’s a lesson she should have known. You don’t know which partner your child will pick long term so unless there is genuine reason such as abuse you shut up and smile and be polite. She’s alienated her own son.

@Nannyoggapple
If you had a grandchild, and someone told you that you could never see that grandchild again.
How would you feel?

A manipulative question there pet. As is your insistence that the courts support grandparental rights, when you know that that isn't necessarily the case. You can't bludgeon reluctant participants in the grandparental situation, you know.

But to answer it I would feel extremely sad indeed. But I'd also be asking what -I- did in this situation. Did I contribute to it? Can I do something to make things better?

Can you see the daughter in law's points at all?

Or do you think that grandparental rights > all?

As far as I'm concerned, people's situations vary, the nature of the grandparents and of the children and grandchildren vary. There isn't a one size fits all rule for all, not at all, for grandparental situations.

But I do know that people are people and acting in a way that openly thinks your DiL is a gold-digger, or being so judgemental that your own son doesn't want you at their wedding, really isn't a wise or sensible way of getting on with people.

If the OP was sensible and sensitive she'd take the advice on here and firstly back off, just email the DiL and ask what sort of presents the children would like and get just that - not too OTT - and then gently try to re-establish some sort of respectful contact, and hope the DiL will give her a chance, and slowly build up bonds with her and the grandchildren. She might never be close with the DiL but mutual respect might work. And an apology somewhere along the line.

Just read this thread this morning and then read a very similar one (different user name) kids ages other details all the same. If it is the same OP then in that tread you are very critical of their diet how the wife disciplines the DC and their hobbies it’s no wonder you don’t see them much.
Son & DILs Parenting - concerned?
60 replies

I came to this thread via the other one this morning, as several posters had mentioned it. Definitely the same poster and looking at the information OP has given across the two threads it seems she finds fault with everything they do - now it’s the childrens’ diet and the pace of their activities in question. I don’t think OP needs to look far to understand why they are very low contact with her.

You will be surprised my DS has court ordered grandparent contact twice a month !!!

Perhaps OP was referencing when the children couldn't visit them an hour away because they're too tired after nursery.

I think OP said their destination was a 12 hour overnight train trip from Kyiv, hence 24 hours door to door.

Yep! It's 24 hours door to door.

But it's not at all stressful - OP was acting like the DIL was forcing her kids to backpack fifty miles in the desert and then they were being bombed from the Polish border to the town they're going to... It's really very straightforward as so many people are doing it - including on a monthly or, in some cases, biweekly, basis.

No contact is zero contact ie emails aren't answered at all, calls are totally ignored, permanently. If not that, it is low contact.

I am guessing you have never had to go low/no contact with a family member. It is usually extremely, extremely stressful and only done when necessary for mental well being of the child/ren.

I think she said 24 hours London to Kyiv, incorporating train ride - not 12 hours from Kyiv going on to somewhere else after arriving in Kyiv. Love your username btw, exactly how I feel.

Surprised how harsh everyone’s being 😮 . Find some time with your son, just him if he’s willing and ask him honestly what’s at the bottom of this avoidance and what could be done to build towards togetherness? Good luck

@GrandmDEA Could you expand on your phrase "She clearly has no respect for our family but we try to keep the peace.".

In what ways does she not respect your family?
What do you actively do to try and keep the peace?

Pretty certain she already knows... its the bit where they suggested his wife was a golddigger and a shit mother.

I would feel terrible but I wouldn't have made those judgemental and xenophobic comments about my future DIL in the first place.

Maybe some things are too hard to forgive.

That poor young woman. Her country is ravaged by war and she has left her entire family and culture behind to bring her children to safety. She gets here trying to settle her children and establish her family home in a new country all the time worried about her family and guilty she left them behind. She must be exhausted and terrified about what comes next. And then here you are, complaining about such trivial things I doubt she even has space to register them let alone address them.

If you want to see more of your DGC you are going to have to be proactive and problem solve - negotiate a date, rent an airbnb nearby so there’s no hosting required and build that relationship up slowly - you are going to have to build trust with her and the children and that takes time. And please stop voicing your concerns about visiting her family. As their mother trust she has their best interests at heart even if you don’t agree with her choices

Grandparents can apply to court to get access to grandchildren
and completely destroy any hope of a future relationship with their parents. This is madness.

I don’t think grandparents really have any access rights in the UK.

Nope. You have to apply to even get permission to apply.

Then it’s for cases where you’ve basically raised the child for years and then the parents taken them off or for say your child’s died and the remaining parent refused contact but again you’d have to of been more than a once a month grandparent.

But a poster on here said that her child has been ordered by a court to see his grandparents twice a month?