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!

"She clearly has no respect for our family but we try to keep the peace."

Why are you blaming her? Your problem is with him. He has no respect for your family. He didn't tell you he was getting married. He didn't invite you. She can't have been behind that when she had never met you. He, for some reason, doesn't want you involved. If you want to get to the bottom of it you need to find out what his reason is and stop blaming her. All she knows about you is whatever she heard from him.

"Hi Mumsnet. I don't like my DIL because she's foreign. My DS has a problem with this for some reason. Neither of them seem to want to see me. AIBU?"

There you go, OP. That would have been much quicker to type.

@earlyoclock I was pregnant 4 weeks into my relationship with my late dh, and met his parents when pregnant. My PIL and MIL greeted me quite literally with open arms and have never stopped treating me as their daughter. However lovely the lady you know is, that was a very rude and risky way to behave.

I don't think the son was right to exclude his family from the wedding, but dwelling on that isn't going to help the OP.

I'm guessing his wife is very young, like 18/19 young when they married, hence saying you would disapprove? If so the comments on here would be making a sharp u turn on the whole situation!

Of course they’re able. They don’t want to though, so they don’t.

He has been with them just around Christmas time both years but his wife has taken them during summer and for easter and he hasn't gone with them. I'm not sure why.

She was 20 when they met and 21 when they married.

We initially expressed some concern that this may be the case, it was from wanting protect DS rather than being prejudiced. When we were told we were wrong we apologised.

The fact you blame her solely for your poor relationship with your grandchildren suggests your apology wasn't genuine.

Your DS has seen your judgement of his wife and has chosen to limit his contact with you.

Instead of repeatedly slating your DIL perhaps consider the fact that your DS feels the need to keep his children away from you. Him. His choice.

You say ‘she clearly has no respect for our family’ then the entire rest of your post suggests you poor DIL probably feels the exact same way about you. Do you feel like you ‘have respect for their family?’ Because it doesn’t sound like it from what you’ve written.

You are very welcome to your opinions and they may be well meaning/correct from your point of view but that does not absolve you from other people not liking them and avoiding you. X

Ok you started off by saying 24 hours was a problem. But it isn’t. It’s Ukraine.
You objected to her age. You told your son she was a gold digger.
You turn up unannounced frequently.
She doesn’t have to hang out with people who absolutely detest her and only want to meet her because she bore their grandchildren?

Two sides to every story. I imagine the other sons are more like you? Sounds like the estranged son has decided, as a grown up, who he chooses to spend his time with.

Are you going to address the fact that you all but called her a foreign gold digger?

OP here's a wee exercise to try - when you speak about your DiL to other people say only positive things. Talk about how well she looks after her children and your DS. It must be difficult for her living so far from her family, even if they live in a quiet area she must be very worried about them. She has had to make a new life in a new place, without support from her DH's family. You may find that you start to see things from her point of view and develop some respect for her.

Mostly, though, you need to work out why your relationship with your DS is so poor. Why do you think your opinions on his life and family are valuable or wanted? Instead of criticism offer support. When you have so little contact make every visit enjoyable for them.

Plus it was your son’s choice not to invite you. Why are you blaming her?
And it is your son who refuses to bring your grandkids? So why is all the vitriol for her.

Sorry OP it sounds like your son has gone low contact with you because he finds you difficult to be around, due to your judgemental and critical nature. It's odd that you blame your DIL for this, she doesn't really owe you anything considering how you've reacted to her. The best thing you could do would be to work on developing a kinder and more compassionate and accepting personality, and demonstrate to your son that you are a changed person.

Op I think the second you say someone’s disrespected you you’ve just lost in every way. People choose to get married without their parents. You seem to have so much anger and are putting so much on his wife who you don’t really know if you’re honest.

I would say it’s so sad but it’s their choice also. Try to start taking their excuses at face value- my brother and sister have busy jobs and young kids and I only see them extremely rarely (sister a year ago now). I go through sad/ bitter phases but people just have crazy lives. If you’re simmering as much as you appear to be it’ll be tough for all of you to be around each other. You need to find a way to get this out without them deciding they just can’t take it anymore.

He is the one making no effort. She might be calling the shots but he's letting her call the shots.
I'm afraid there is little you can do about it and it is their own loss. I'm afraid you'll have to learn to live with it.

My inlaws have a similar situation with one of their sons. Married a foreign lady, who's parents are divorced and not on good terms and so she didn't want family from either side going to their wedding. Which was extremely strange for my inlaws. Now they have one child they barely see. When they visit us they are on a strict timetable, they would barely spend an hour with us and never seem to stop reminding us that they need to go asap to feed their child (he's 7 now and they use him as an excuse to leave but she is the one who can't wait to get out of here). The lady has a lot of anxiety and would suffer from depression, really struggles to spend much time in company, doesn't seem to like her own family either and likes to go on holiday in the summer for 6 weeks, much of that is on her own with the child and her husband will join them for 2-3 weeks of it.

I am as nice as possible to her when I do meet her and would never comment on their behaviour. It's only going to annoy them and add to her anxiety. I genuinely quite like her when she's here but the struggles are her own not ours. I don't take any of it personally. Her child is missing out on knowing his first cousins and grandparents due to her behaviour and her partner is too clueless to do anything about it or take it upon himself to bring his child on his own.

I don’t feel you’ve told us the whole story. There must be a reason your DIL doesn’t like you. They are her children first and foremost and if she wanted to take them home to see her family that’s not a choice that has anything to do with you. You’ve probably really annoyed her.

over involved much?

I am no contact with my in-laws and have zero interest in having anything to do with them again.

As far as I’m concerned it is completely up to DH how much contact they have with DD. As in, if he wants to invite/host them, I’ll make myself scarce but I completely leave it up to him to organise.

They see DD every 3 months as DH dreads their visits. Every time they’ll bang on that they don’t see DD enough, make snide comments about us/the house/our life decisions.

In the past they’ve said some absolutely awful things to DH from how disappointed they are in him moving away to ‘raised him to be better’ etc etc. I’ve been the one to have to hold him as he cried. I’m the one that’s had to rebuild his confidence. I’m the one that’s held his hand as he’s had to have difficult conversations with them.

They presumed that I wouldn’t know. They tried to blame him for ruining the relationship as he shouldn’t have told me. I’m not sure on what planet would a couple not confide in each other.

Once DD was born they expected us to brush it all under the carpet and play happy families. Unfortunately life doesn’t work that way anymore.

Your post is full of red flag behaviour.

if we show up uninvited on the weekend

So they say their home is too small or its not convenient and YOU TURN UP UNINVITED.

You weren't invited to the wedding FOR A REASON.

Think long and hard about why that might be.

You act as if you should have ownership of the grandchildren.

Really really. You are in this position for a reason.

You are very clearly toxic as a parent.

You definitely have a son problem. My son would never behave like this.

It always surprises me how people pressure their children into unwanted visits, offer judgement and disapproval to their partners and give unsolicited opinions about the choices they make… then wonder why they have a bad relationship with them and their family.

Bet he would if you called his future wife a gold-digger - as OP did to her son.

You have no business commenting on where the children's mother takes her children to visit.