TW Suicide
I am sorry about the length of what I am about to write. I need to provide a lot of background information in order to make sense of why my partner and I are in this difficult position.
My partner's grandparents (whom I will refer to as Rose and Robert) are the great-grandparents of my child. They are approximately in their mid to late eighties. Rose and Robert have a very unhealthy, volatile relationship that has existed for a long time. As a result of the toxic relationship dynamics between them, they frequently argue with each other and use manipulative tactics to get what they want from others. Additionally, when confronted regarding their behaviour, they often behave like victims and tend to blame others for their problems. These behaviours have created long standing resentment among the rest of the family members, especially among Rose and Robert's adult children from a previous marriage.
Although Rose and Robert have had a toxic relationship for many years, they have been involved in our child's life. Prior to our child entering preschool, they cared for them on a weekly basis by picking them up from nursery and having them for the rest of the afternoon. Following the start of preschool, Rose and Robert began picking our child up on one day a week, taking him home for dinner and then dropping him off afterward.
Rose and Robert have disregarded our expressed boundaries regarding how our child should be treated for an extended period of time including giving our child too many treats and junk food in spite of our repeated requests to stop even going so far as to downplay or conceal the fact that they did so, frequently lying to our faces about it.
They also permit our child to engage in unsafe behaviour (i.e., jumping on furniture, pulling over Robert) without correcting the behaviour and minimizing the behaviour when confronted.
We have told them to stop multiple times, and despite our attempts, they continue to ignore us, conceal or minimize.
Recently, things came to a head. One of Robert's adult children had a significant family fight with Rose over resentments spanning years which were nothing to do with us. The two were engaged in a heated argument when they arrived at my child's birthday party. Robert was emotionally unresponsive during the entire celebration.
The next day, we were informed that Robert had been rushed to the hospital after attempting to take his own life. He had ingested a large amount of paracetamol, drove to a secluded wooded area that was tied to a significant event in his life, left a "goodbye" message, wrote a note, and passed out in his car. Fortunately, due to the fact that a family member was familiar with the location of the wooded area, Robert was located before it was too late.
While Robert was hospitalised mental health professionals asked him if he would do something like this again, he said "yes", provided the situation does not change, which is a huge concern.
Rose was very disconnected from the events surrounding her husband and redirected all discussions of her husband's condition to her own feelings of discomfort, going so far as to demand to know why no one was considering her feelings.
After the incident, both Rose and Robert have continued to insist that everything is fine and that they are completely able to take care of my child alone. Additionally, Robert has claimed that he is medically cleared to drive.
Due to the nature of the incident and the behaviour of Rose and Robert, my partner and I felt uneasy about returning to unsupervised childcare for my child.
After careful and lengthy discussions between My wife and I, we decided on a middle ground solution of no unsupervised visits to their house for now and no car rides with Robert as the driver. To facilitate supervised visits, my partner's mother (who normally provides our primary childcare support) will be present.
We explained the decision to Rose and Robert in a calm and rational manner. They responded negatively. Rose stated that we were ripping our child away from her. Robert stated that he would refuse to attend supervised visits with my partner's mother.
Emotions were running high, however, we remained firm in our stance and reiterated that these were boundaries, not punishment.
Since then, we have worked to find ways to allow Rose and Robert to maintain contact with our child, by permitting them to spend time with our child at our home while I am working from home.
However, even though Rose and Robert agreed to respect our established boundaries, they consistently try to undermine those boundaries by consistently pushing for unsupervised visits, every single conversation we have, this topic is broached. They're downplaying and minimizing the severity of the suicide attempt and refusing to seek any counselling/therapy claiming that he's "perfectly fine and medically cleared"
They're utilising guilt, emotional pressure, and extended family as leverage to gain control of situations
In addition to the above examples, most recently they refused to forward Christmas gifts to extended family unless our child accompanied the gifts, stating that they would not go to see them unless they can drive our child to them, going so far as to storm.out of our house when we told them we're not putting our child at risk.
We believe we are acting in the best interest of our child (and Robert and Rose to an extent with their ages) to protect them while still providing access to them. Unfortunately, we continue to be made to feel that we are heartless, unreasonable and/or selfish for not returning to unsupervised care of our child.
AIBU for establishing and maintaining these boundaries after a suicide attempt and unsafe behaviour by Robert, and despite the continued emotional pressures to abandon these boundaries from them both.
TL/DR: Grandfather attempts suicide, is unstable, and we establish boundaries of supervised contact and no driving. Grandparents continually try to circumvent boundaries, and make guilt trips to get us to go back to unsupervised care. AIBU for trying to protect our child?