To let my niece stay when she refuses to see her mum?

[ShadowShapes]

My sister has 2 children, my niece is 20 and my nephew is only 10 months, so a huge age gap. They have different fathers.

My niece is at university and since my sister had the baby, my niece has refused to spend holidays at home, preferring to stay in her uni city with friends. My sister isn’t happy with this but has had to accept it. My niece has told her that she doesn’t want anything to do with her or the baby. She thinks her mum is mad for having another child. My sister and partner have been together for 5 years and he moved in when my niece was 17. My niece got on ok with him but didn’t like him living with them.

My niece planned to stay in her uni city for summer but asked if she can spend the summer with us a couple of weeks ago. I said she could but that she should tell her mum. She did and my sister said we shouldn’t let her stay with us and we will make things worse.

My niece came to us last week and my sister is angry. I said that I am being neutral but that I will speak to my niece about how she’s feeling and try to help them sort out their relationship. My sister thinks I should tell her that she can’t stay with us but I’ve said she will always be welcome here. My niece is such a nice person but she is adamant she wants nothing to do with her mum, her partner or the new baby.

I feel really in the middle but my niece is still really young and I wasn’t going to turn her away. I’ve tried to put myself in my sisters shoes but it’s difficult as I can’t imagine having another child now and how my children would feel about that.

I’m going to let her stay but going forward what would you do? I’ve suggested to my niece that her mum comes for a coffee or to meet for a walk with or without the baby to try to sort things out but my niece isn’t interested. She just seems to be getting on with her life and seems happy without her mum in it. She helps around the house, gets on well with my children who are also home from uni, goes out with friends and is working. It’s like she has just wiped her mum out of her life, They had a good relationship until her mums partner moved in. She says she feels her mum put him first and although her partner is ok, she didn’t like living with another person.

I agree it might look like an over reaction on the nieces part - but I do wonder what the relationship was like before this new partner. It's been described by the OP as good, but many people would have described my mum and mine relationship as good -when in reality I was her emotional support when she was single, ignored when she was in a new relationship, and back to looking after her when she sobbed in bed after the next break up. The fact her mum didn't want to spend any one-on-one time with her daughter when she had her new partner makes me very suspicious - did she ever value her daughter for herself or just as a support system. Given the daughter has had multiple rounds of therapy and has decided it's isn't forgivable I'd suspect there is more at play here than a new relationship being introduced to a healthy mother - daughter dynamic.

I don’t yhink thats true at all. Lots of families split the children or have multiple half or step relationships which the children don’t wish to pursue. Its quite common! Especially the children of a first family resenting or avoiding the children of the second. Just because they share a mother doesn’t mean the niece doesn’t see the baby as part of a second family to which she does not belong.

I bet your sister is wanting your niece home so she can have an on site nanny/childminder! I’d also be very concerned there was more to the disliking the partner too

Your H and you speaking to her like that was interfering, and not ‘being neutral’. It’d be much better to help her but not seek to influence her thoughts, feelings and actions regarding her mum.

This is ridiculous. There is no such thing as neutrality here as the girl’s mother has asked that her daughter be made homeless in order to bring her to heel. Under those circumstances the OP snd her H quite rightly and necessarily are concerned and compassionate towards their young niece. Why should they consider a topic “off limits” if niece wants to tslk anout it? Relatedly ehy should they obey the niece’s vindictive mother in presenting her side to niece or pushing for a reunion the niece has specifically said she doesn’t want?

Your sister moved her boyfriend in when your niece was 17. That was a conscious choice she made, her daughter then had a man living in her home. I wouldn’t have liked it at that age. Your sister made the choice, she has to accept that her daughter was unhappy with this and here we have the consequences to their relationship.

so TV trumps real life? 😂

what nonsense! What reason is there?

I think your niece is taking the piss tbh. Mum waited until she was 17 to move her partner in. Dad pays for university stuff but niece wants more off Mum?
I think you are meddling massively here. You could just shut her down when she tries to bring up her mum and let the two women sort it out themselves but no...you're staging talks?

We know she has a good dad, if she didnt want to go to her mums she could have gone there. But its about the optics and sending a message to her mum really isnt it.

I think she has gone massively ott with the "unforgivable" label. Id be very upset as her mum

So as far as your sister is concerned, niece didn't get a vote in whether a strange man moved into her home, where she was living full-time, but now sister gets to tell her adult daughter where she can stay in the holidays, and also gets to tell you who you can have in YOUR home? Yeah, no. If you're happy to help neice out, do it.

Sometimes I'd like to bang heads together.

Your sister is 43. She wanted a child with a man she loves. At 40 she couldnt afford to wait until her daughter was older and off to university. Yes she could have made more time for her existing child but a teenager growing up and going to uni moves on anyway.

You are enjoying being your niece's "saviour". Actually your niece is being a bit of a brat and you would, if you were really trying to help, be explaining why a 38 year old woman (your sister's age when the man started being part of her life) cant hang around if they want a child. You should also comment on how actually your niece would be naturally moving on anyway but that she doesnt need to leave her mum behind to do so and that her baby brother is an innocent in all this.

Not unreasonable to let your niece stay, very unreasonable not to make more attempt to see both sides.

its not up to you (or anyone) to judge what someone else might find unforgiveable.

To tell the OP she is 'enjoying being your niece's "saviour" really is a travesty of her motivation. It is clear from the OP's post that despite thinking her sister in the wrong she has tried to talk to her niece to help repair things but her niece is adamant, and that has to be respected as the niece is an adult. Also, that her need for support - as the most vulnerable person - outweighs any desire to support the OP's Dsis.

The niece doesn't sound like a brat at all and actually sounds very reasonable. The OP even said that the niece got on OK with her DM's new partner at first; that doesn't suggest she took an unreasonable dislike of him, but it would be natural for any teenage girl to not want a strange man moving into her home.

I thought that any responsible person contemplating having another child would think about the best interests of their existing children, before going ahead. Part of that would be looking at the family set up, including finances, the existing relationships and their existing child's life stage and needs. With a proper focus on the best interests of her DD the OP's sister may have concluded that another child wasn't meant to be. That's the conclusion I came to btw (for very different reasons), that my own DS would have no siblings - yes it was sad at the time but we fashion happiness out of what we have.

There is nothing in the OP's posts to suggest her sister's DP is not a decent man. But I have to say that I think that a thoroughly decent man - one who focused on the best interests of everyone involved and not just on getting his end away - would baulk at moving into a house with a teenage girl and know there would be potential for upsetting her or for things to be misconstrued. That he moved in regardless doesn't say much for him I'm afraid. Neither of the adults in this have prioritised this young girl in the slightest.

Very well said.

It's wonderful that you are providing a safe home for your niece when her mother would rather spitefully see her homeless to try to bring her to heel - as another poster put it rather well.

To recap - your niece responded normally to a strange man being forced into her life when she was a young teenager. Her response was standard, normal and could have absolutely been lessened or avoided if her mother had just waited.

But mother wanted it so mother did it.

She doesn't seem to even question why her daughter loathes this man. There could be very, very good reasons. He might be an absolute shit to her when OP is not around, he might have tried sexual advances, or it could just be that her mother ditched her daughter in his favour and he moved in far, far too fast and she reacted in a predictable way to feeling unloved and displaced in her own home by her own mother.

The daughter would have come round eventually if her mother wasn't trying to vindictively punish her into compliance, strip her daughter of a safe, reliable relative's care, and ram a baby she's not interested in down her gullet.

OPs sister's attempt to coerce and abuse her daughter into compliance, the fact that she'd be happy if she had nowhere else to go, instead of being grateful her sister is a safe haven and a point of contact tells us all we need to know.

The fixation on forcing a teenager to spend time with a baby draws a natural conclusion - mother was planning on free babysitting and is angry that this will not be happening.

Basically, the mother is a selfish fool who wants compliance, regardless of her daughter's feelings.

She cannot win a battle of power - because she's lost her power and she's headed the right way to lose her daughter forever.

Moving forward, her only hope is to stop attempting to coercively control her daughter and ask politely for updates from her sister. She should be very grateful her sister is looking after her child and offering a communication bride for the future.

The mother must not, of course, issue any further commands or attempt to shackle the niece to the baby or the partner.

OPs sister will just have to accept that there will be no relationship until OPs sister can repair some of the damage she has caused by forcing a strange man into her daughter's life and making her feel unloved, unwanted and displaced. But she sounds utterly lacking in any self awareness, so I guess this is the start of years of estrangement.

At least the niece has a safe haven with her aunt, it's vital she has somewhere safe to stay and go, she is still young and needs to know someone has got her back - even though her mother does not.

I would be very careful with judgements like that without knowing the other side of the story. And I am saying this as a divorced mum whose kids also have stepparents with whom they get on brilliantly. It required time and a lot of tact and compromise though. I know too many cases where former kids were very much pushed aside in favour of new partner and more children.

exactly. What bollocks. No late teen/early 20’s is going to do anything but freak out if their mother gets pregnant again. Even if it’s with their own dad. Apart from the obvious cringe that your parents actually have sex, there’s no way a normal young person will want their lives disrupted by a screaming, crying baby. I do think that women who go on to have more children when their first children/child is that much older are the selfish ones but hey 💁🏻 their choice, but it’s also the choice of the existing child whether or not they want that baby in their lives.

It may not be common to out and out refuse, but most siblings with a larger age gap like this would not go out of their way to see the baby unless out of politeness. And, if they didn't want to see the baby's mother it might just be totally impractical to organise. I'm sure that OP would happily let her niece meet her sister at her house if she wanted to do that, but I doubt the baby's mum would agree to that.

Women who have babies with new partners when their children are young are monsters because blending families is the worst thing in the world ever. Women who wait until the existing children are adults are also the worst thing ever cos adults can’t be expected to understand that other adults have sex. So if a relationship breaks down the mother is supposed to give up any idea of having a second child?! Bollocks. Women do not need to be slaves to their children.

@pikkumyy77 Have said OP helping DN by having her to stay is good OP’s niece didn’t raise the subject of her mother with OP and OP’’s H - they did, and encouraged her to think and do X, Y and Z as regards her mother. That was interfering.

I’m not saying they do, but if a mother makes decisions about her life that affects her young adult children detrimentally, like moving in a new bloke whilst teenager going through a levels and then having a new baby despite that existing child nit being happy, then the young adult child has a right to say nope, don’t want this in my life I’m off.
I’ve got two hound adult children and would never think about having another with such an age gap because if the affect on them and the disruption to their lives (plus I a done at 2).

It is nothing to do with being a slave to one's children. But once someone becomes a parent they are supposed to prioritise the needs of their children; it is no longer all just about what they or their new partners want.

Still this mother has gone ahead with her 'blended family' and her DD has been blended out of it. I don't know if that is the worst thing in the world but imo that is pretty poor.

This. It’s great that she has you and your family to rely on. I’d do the same as you.

Maybe in time things will change between your sister and your niece but for now you’re a safe place for her to stay.

You’re being a lovely Aunty to a young woman who feels pushed out. She’s old enough now to make her own decisions just like her mum has done.

There is nothing wrong about what you call “interfering”.” Some might call it mediating, or compassionate listening, or just caring.

no not slaves, but like everyone else, their choices have consequences. Make a choice, take the consequences.