NC Parents Secretly Seeing Kids

[AlliBali]

We're NC with my in-laws. Been NC for a year as a result of years of bad behaviours. Not got space to go into details but things like being openly hostile to me and SIL (it's DH and BIL's parents). Having little interest in my DD because she has additional needs, telling me to stop being lazy and taking advantage of DH when I was struggling with post partum depression (MIL openly thinks MH issues are just people being weak) the list is long and lots of stuff we're both just not willing to put up with anymore.

We discovered yesterday that DS15 has been meeting up with his GP's for 7 months against our wishes (he's aware of the NC and some of the general reasons why but no details). In-laws live in 30 mins away and have been texting him, arranging meet ups and telling him to keep it secret. He's been heading out to meet his friends and has instead been meeting GPs. We found out because we bumped into the friend he was meant to be meeting, asked DS when he got home and he told us the truth.

I'm livid, I honestly think this is mostly motivated by a defiance of our wishes, part of the NC was a general disinterest in all the grandkids so this recent interest is totally out of character. One of the traits of my MIL is always having to get the last word and the sense of one upmanship and triumph it brings so I'm convinced this is a part of this.

Really don't know what to do. DS says he feels bad sneaking round but doesn't want to let his GP down. I want to nip this in the bud. I've text MIL and asked her to stop and she's resonded:

"you can't stop me meeting up with who I want to, he's my grandson and I'm entitled to see him, you may think you can dictate to people but I've got news for you.....you can't."

Any ideas how to deal with this? I'm totally at a loss, I'm worried by telling DS to stop it continues to happen in secret.

At his age and stage I think he is sort of old enough to make the decision to see her

You could always tell him the full truth as to why you decided it was not in his interests in your opinion

I think it’s very sly what they have done

I think the most important thing is to ensure your son doesn’t feel he needs to keep secrets from you about this or anything else.

I would explain the reasons of the NC but try to keep it factual with no opinion or emotions swaying things. I would also explain that he can see them if he wishes but you would just like it to not be a secret and in future if he is doing something he knows you would not be happy with, you want him to feel able to tell you. You may not be happy about it but you will be proud of his honesty.

We're going to do this later. Glad I asked. I wasn't giving DS the credit to be able to deal with the details.

I am absolutely shocked at this. I have heard some terrible things on Mumsnet but a grandfather calling his grand-daughter such a horrible word is one of the worst things I've ever heard on here.

They should be shunned by all decent people.

I'm NC with MIL and very low contact with FIL so I get it, but I also think you've gone about this wrong.

Your son would have been 14 when you went NC -old enough to make his own decision. It was poor of them to tell him it's a secret and be sneaking around but it's equally poor form to expect your son to break his relationship with his grandparents unless he also wants to.

Unless they are a danger to him then I think your should have left the decision of contact to him and facilitated access if he wanted it. Or at least not interfered.

Edited to say, have a talk with him first so he can understand your reasons, but it's then upto him and you need to respect that decision.

Dear god, that is horrific. Thank goodness you have your BIL and SIL onside, too.

Tricky. I went NC with my parents- the trigger was their racism, but that was against a background of their longterm treatment of me. I never stopped DS1 talking to my mum on WhatsApp, and always thought they'd ask to see the kids at some point and, if the kids were up for it, I'd be willing to facilitate that.

What they did instead was make contact with abusive XP and arrange with him to come down and see the kids in secret 🤦‍♀️. Turns out XP arranged all this to get back at me because his ex girlfriend- who played quite a big part in the DC's lives- sees them occasionally, and he doesn't like her anymore.

The stress, arguments and rearrangements this caused was off the scale. Eventually I managed to sort it so that I took the DC to meet my parents (and waited around while they hung out).

But the important thing is that the DC enjoyed seeing their GPs. I'll never stop that if it's what the DC want, I just don't particularly appreciate 2 sets of toxic people joining forces against me 🙄

OP in this situation my 15 year old would not be meeting up with them.

I have a 15 year old son - if his sister was called that, alongside all the other delightful spoutings they utter, there's not a snowball's chance in hell he'd meet up with them.

Encouraging him to lie to you is not on. I'd worry about further manipulation too.

If your DS is old enough to pursue the relationship with his grandparents independently he has to be allowed to make an informed decision. That requires you being able to have a calm but thorough chat with him about exactly why you felt you had to go NC. He needs this information. Now you know he’s meeting them, if he only learns it later on, he may feel mis-led by you as well as GPs. Please be honest with him.

FIL called his own grand-daughter with cerebral palsy a 'sp*z'. I think that makes him a danger to his grandchildren.

He had very little relationship with them, we've been reducing contact for a few years. In the year before we decided to go NC they saw him 3 times. They were connected on WhatsApp but apart from a text on his birthday, there was no communication.

The relationship they have now that seems to be a meet up every few weeks has come after NC

This, but he has a right to see them.

Me too! That really is appalling!😡

I think you need to play the long game. He won't see them being dicks unless you let him.

So either let him see them alone or all go together. At least it will put MILS back up seeing you and hopefully she will let her hostility to you show infront of ds amd he will come to his own conclusion.

It really upset me at the time and still does. Even now thinking about it makes my eyes sting. We're going to speak to DS later, not sure if we'll talk about this bit because it'll definitely upset him too.

Everyone saying he’s old enough to make his own decisions. I’m guessing he’s not old enough to be paying for his own phone, which he uses to make these arrangements. So I’d definitely be taking it away for a couple of weeks and having a conversation about lying and sneaking behind your back. That’s actually separate from the issue of whether or not he sees his grandparents. What if it was an older man he was secretly meeting? It’s a safeguarding issue.

But it is a huge (and horrific) part of why you don’t see them - how can he make a decision without knowing the full story - he is old enough to know and you need to respect his right to make the decision to see them or not based on the full and frank circumstances

Why don't you just sit down your ds and explain everything they did.
Say its his choice to see them but you want to know before hand . No more sneaking around .
Maybe if he knows the truth he will choose to not see them .
Did you not expect him to ask at somepoint to see them? Or run into them

God that’s awful. No wonder you went NC. I get that you’re worried about DS seeing them because they sound like a terrible influence for him at his age. But I think if you forbid it outright, it will just increase the sneaking around and burden him with guilt.

I think the solution is an open and age appropriate conversation with him to let him know some of the more unsavoury details as to why you went NC, and maybe include the slur against his sister if you feel it appropriate. I would make it clear that you’re not forbidding him to see his GP, but that you feel he needs to know the absolute truth about them so he can make a more informed decision about whether he wants them in his life. If he wants to carry on with contact, hopefully it won’t be too long before he realises how awful they are and contact will drop off. Until that happens I would offer to facilitate contact - drop him off/pick him up etc, so that you have eyes on the situation.

Yes, you need to be more open with him about the history here. And I think it's also time for a discussion about the sort of motives adults who ask children to keep secrets might have. If they've gone from seeing him a couple of times a year to meeting up every couple of weeks, it's clear he's been recruited (i.e. groomed) into an arrangement that's purely designed to spite you and your wishes. He needs to think about how they approached him and how it made him feel to be 'chosen' by them, so he can identify any other kind of grooming and manipulation from other people in the future.

Definitely give your DS the full story, including what they said about his sister, and any unpleasant texts they sent. I’d also ask him to consider why they might be meeting up with him. Don’t accuse them of this, but suggest to him that one possibility is to undermine you and your DH, and ‘get one over’ on you. It looks very much like he’s being used.

Be clear to him that you can’t stop him, but ask him to calmly think about why you’re all NC and what the real motivation of his GPS might be.

When you have the conversation, I don't think I could bring myself to use that word, but I'd say that they used a vile disablist slur to refer to his sister. He can draw his own conclusions.

You need to let a 15-year-old make up his own mind. You are making a fatal error here, trying to intervene and stop contact. It would not be hard or unreasonable for them or him to paint you as autocratic and divisive yourselves. His experience of them will be very different to your experience of them and you need to accept that is the case. he will reach his own conclusion in time, that may or may not result in him going no contact with them. What you want him to avoid is him going NC with you.

I completely see your side, but in the interest of not alienating your son I think you need to accept this and just be ready with open arms should anything occur.

(he's aware of the NC and some of the general reasons why but no details).

I'd tell him the details for NC.

Separate to this punish him for lying - explain he could have choose to approach you about contact instead he gone behind your back and lost your trust and potentially lying about where and who he is with put himself in danger (not implying his GP are a threat to him just that behaviour in generally is very worrying).

How to move forward - well don't know probably have to allow contact as he is 15 and you need the lying and going behind your backs to stop.