Mil and step-grandchild

[SpanishFork]

My eldest daughter is nine and does not see her father or any members of his family. This is their choice.

I do not expect my in-laws in any way to make up for this but to treat her kindly and respectfully and the same as any other children when they are all present.

She has a condition which is not life threatening but is on occasion painful. Around 80% of children do not go on to suffer with this as adults. We have to go to hospital every three to six months so I have to take time off and an appointment with travel and waiting around takes most of the day.

I was absolutely delighted when an appointment came through on a Saturday. My husband was going to a game so rather than drag my five year old along she was left with my mother-in-law.

Well on Saturday everything went our way and we were in and out of the hospital in just under an hour.

We arrived at in-laws who were completely shocked that we were so early. They were having a full on party lunch with all of their actual grandchildren including a 20 year old who had come down from Durham for the occasion. They had had a photo session the lot.

I was eventually offered a tea and my eldest daughter stood by my youngest at the table. She was offered nothing. I took both of them home. They begged me to leave youngest so she could spend time with her cousins. Youngest started crying.

DH who was with his brother, cousin and friend was going to collect daughter after the match but I thought as I was so unexpectedly early I would do it and he could go for a drink.

God that’s long. Sorry!

The in-laws did this deliberately thinking my eldest would be out of the picture. I am absolutely upset. DH can’t see what my problem is.

@ScribblingPixie exactly

The awkwardness when you arrived wasn't great, it wouldn't have killed them to offer some hospitality, but I wonder if it was at least partly due to the difficult history and fear that you would react badly.

I don’t think that’s true at all. People who have experience of difficult blended families are simply more realistic than those who do not. Of course it would be ideal if the in-laws wanted to treat the elder child as ‘one of their own’. They don’t. OP’s choices in this situation: a) divorce; b) cut off the gp’s entirely from contact with both kids - which cause problems between her and DH and limit her younger daughter’s bond with her family, which she may come to resent; c) continue as things are and make it into a big issue, passing that insecurity and resentment on to DD, d) accept it is how things are and do the best to support DD to manage her reality.

You cannot change other people or make them have the same values as you. all you can do is withdraw or change your own behaviour and expectations. Obviously everyone hopes when they remarry that the new family will see any children as a part of the family equal to ‘blood relatives’. But they of course don’t and in reality bonds are more complex than that. The same way your mother in law doesn’t in most cases see you as on a par with her own daughter. It’s just not realistic to expect she would.

No doubt she likely will want to keep more of a distance from her in laws and this will impact their relationship with their Dgc. This is their choice / as it was her choice to remarry and her ex’s choice to leave the child. All choices have consequences.

In fairness, @SpanishFork, you do know what to think, you just don't like it.

They have made it plain from the start (call them by their first names etc) they they do not and will not see your child from a previous marriage as their grandchild. They have also, according to you, been nice to her and treat her well - much like any visiting child, I am sure.

They are happy to take subsets of granchildren out rather than the whole sibling group. Personally I think that's far better than the all-or-none approach! It allows them to build individual relationships with their grandhildren as well as being able to tailor activities to age groups. My eldest and youngest loved to be away from each other and get time with the grandparents.

But it clearly bothers you as you believe in the all-or-none approach, which is what your mum and aunt do. Just different family traditions. Neither is wrong.

Clashing family traditions, expectations and miscommunications can be very hurtful to all. I find it's usually best to assume everyone is trying to act with goodwill but from different starting positions, rather than looking for hurt and offence.

Thank you for this. It always boggles my mind how step families who mostly have no choice in anything are expected to stand in and make up for the mistakes of bio parents/families. It’s an unreasonable expectation.

It really isn’t unreasonable at all. And it’s nothing to do with making up for or standing in for bio family. You can have good bio family relations and good step family relations.

Those excusing the actions of the grandparents are just as horrid as they are.

Your DH sounds as if he's trying to steer a middle course and prevent it being 'an issue'. You say the grandparents already single out individual grandchildren in his wider family for special attention, but he has never indulged his parents wanting to see your eldest alone. However, he seems to have known what their attitude was going to be towards your eldest from the start ("call them by their first names") and that they're not going to change so he's playing it down with you in the hope you won't get too upset. Only really you can decide how to chart your course through this - it's going to take a lot of thought. But in your situation, they certainly wouldn't be my first choice for childminding any more.

Do you feel as strongly about my children as you do your own? If you met my children would you feel as strongly about them as you do your own? If I married into your family would you feel as strongly about my children as you do your own? Do you love ALL children as strongly as you do your own? At what point does it change?

Describing people as "horrid" for not treating all children with the love and inclusivity that they feel for their own grandchildren is, frankly, idiotic because by that token all children should be treated equally by all grandparents. OP's eldest DD arrived in their life one day, and may just as equally leave one day. Whilst she's in their lives they treat her just as well as they would any child in their lives.

She's not their son's child. She somebody else's son child. Just like all the other however-many billion children in the world.

No, of course I don’t. But if they were to become part of my family then I would treat them the same as any other niece, nephew, grandchild etc. I may not feel the same, and as I’ve said before in this thread, I get that, but I’d do my utmost to make sure that any child who became part of my family felt like they were part of my family and not some spare part.

It really does sound as if they have always been like this OP and yet you chose to marry and have a child with a man from that type of people.

Excluding enough to be just on the line of barely polite, but basically totally disinterested.

I don't know what you can do, your poor child is landed in this situation.

I think it is utterly heart breaking but not fixable.
This is who they are.

I would avoid them like the plague and I would 100% leave any relationship up to your husband and I certainly wouldn't be having any more children.

Therapy would be a great idea for your child to help her deal with the confusion and humiliation she feels about things that are completely beyond her control.

You do not want her upbringing to leave her vulnerable to anyone who will give her positive attention as is so often the case.

I wouldn't be going near your inlaws home anytime soon.

That's fair. And I think (hope!) how most people would feel and behave.

But there are always times in family life where the definition of "family" matters: would you donate a kidney? Would you split your estate equally? Will you help pay for university equally? Will you contribute an equal amount to a house deposit? Will you be given the "grandparent" seat at a wedding? etc etc.

It's all very easy when it's a question of going over for lunch, Christmas, babysitting. And nobody would be deliberately cruel to any child. But there's always a line, and observing that line isn't "horrid". It's reality. And sadly OP has put her eldest daughter in a position where she has to face this reality at a young age. If she didn't want that for her daughter, she should have married into a different family.

And nobody would be deliberately cruel to any child.

If only that were true.

Agreed. Everyone seems to be blaming the OP when really the step grandparents as well as the OP’s husband could act with far more sensitivity. towards a 9 year old child. And whilst seeming to blame the OP for this, don’t forget she married a man who obviously knew she came as part of a package and was more than happy to accept it. He has to step up here because if he doesn’t the marriage could quite easily go down the pan.

The op has not put her child in this situation! The OP and her daughter came as a package. The husband knew this and if he thought he or his family couldn’t handle it HE could have walked away.

In my family, like I said, I inherited from my step grandma. My son is in my IL’s will though he’s not ‘theirs’. My cousins who I mentioned earlier both recently inherited from their grandma (only one was bio). My son had my MIL as a grandparent at his wedding and had separate photos with each set of grandparents (as well as all of the the group ones) and MIL had her own photo with them. Then there was a memory area for loved ones who had died. FIL was included.

Uni isn’t relevant to us as he funded his own.

Yes he chose to marry her. His family did not. Just as my mil isn’t like a mum to me nor do I love or like her as I do my mother. I also sometimes host things when I know certain people are not around (don’t worry I don’t have step children, I wouldn’t ever be a step parent or give my children a step parent) because it’s easier when they are not there.

I don’t think they were deliberately cruel either they just made plans on their time when they were babysitting their grandchild. The op and her child were offered a drink and food.

You cannot force a bond where one isn’t. This is like when mils moan that their dil always takes baby to her mums while on mat leave and never to her. But forgets seemingly the dil never had a pop in for a coffee or let’s go shopping together relationship prior to the baby so why would it change after. Much the case here, her in-laws where not fazed nor fussed by her daughter why would her and her husband then having a joint child change how they feel about her oldest. It doesn’t and didn’t.

You can’t force a bond but there should be kindness to a child and perhaps some understanding of basic decency. What the grandparents don’t realise is that the OP could make it very difficult for them to see her other daughter especially if it causes tension in her household and upsets the balance.

His family can handle it. The DH can handle it. They seemingly don't have a problem with anything.

The OP is the one who can't handle a situation she has created. It was her choices that have landed her daughter here.

You really have to reach to get it so backwards!

Just as the husband could decide his child and her relationship and thus his too with his family is more important than his marriage to op if she tries to ban them seeing their joint child since it’s not solely a decision of hers.

The husband seems to believe his child should spend time with his family alone his just too lazy to do too much about it. So it would appear from that basis his ok with how his family treat his step child and daughter.

How are they horrid? They are nice to the stepchild when she is in their home. They arranged a gathering for their own grandchildren when as far as they knew stepchild would never know about it, because gc’s dad was to pick her up. They were shocked and embarrassed when OP arrived with Stepgc. They have done nothing wrong. The idea that everyone will or even should treat people unrelated to them the same as relatives is mad. You don’t treat your neice the same as your daughter. You don’t treat a brother in law the same as a brother. Of course you don’t treat stepchildren the same as bio children. This doesn’t equal ‘not the same is bad’, it equals ‘different relationships are different’

This is lovely to hear. It's delightful to hear of a family where everyone is happy with the life they're living.

This outcome doesn't make people who do things differently "horrid", though. I have a now-deceased aunt who refused to donate a kidney to her step-grandchild (she had children young, the new wife was a lot older than than the son) on the basis that she might need to save it for another grandchild one day. I can't fault that. I really can't.

You can't force them to have feelings that don't exist, but I would expect them to behave decently towards a child who is their grandchild's sibling.

Now that really would be unkind (to the youngest daughter) and extremely nasty. "I''ll only allow you to have a relationship with your granddaughter if you treat my other daughter the same way"?? And what about the DH in this?

And you speak of kindness?

Absolute rubbish. Why are you being so spiteful towards a 9 year old and her feelings? Are you being triggered in some way? You have no idea what her husband promised her in the beginning. It anyway it could all come back to them if the OP refuses contact.

But what could the husband have promised with regards to his family? He can’t speak for them? He might have accepted the package, his family are wholly separate.