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 am 100% Team Niece. Good on her for holding her boundaries. And well done you for having her to stay and maintaining your and your chilldren's relationship with her.
I am fully of the mindset that a parent's priorities should be to the children they already have. Anything over seven years is, imo, a ridiculous age gap as the siblings are at vastly different stages of life. Niece was probably looking forward to doing nice adult trips with her mum, and now the baby has put a stop to that. I HATE half-sibling crap anyway. It is usually not beneficial to the older child/ren, ime.

I would provide my niece with a safe and comfortable place to stop and I would tell my sister that it was really important that the niece was supported if there is any hope of putting this relationship back on track. That being said, I can see why your niece would feel very hurt. Replaced at home by a new man, limited time from mum and no financial support. It would be fairly obvious that the new child will get support at Uni, but not her. I would be putting distance in place if I were your niece.

I'm with niece on this. How many times do we see on here women putting a new man above their children and been told it's wrong? t's fine to have a new relationship but there's a way to do that without alienating your kids.
How dare she tell you not to have your niece staying that is so out of order.

I am in a similar situation to you @ShadowShapes. The situation is very toxic and my older niece is NC with her mother.

Two siblings involved, big age differences, different fathers, the younger one wants contact the older one doesn’t.

I support my older niece, I listen to my sister but I make my own decision. I have a close relationship with my sister but will not let her tell me how to deal with my niece. I have had to stand up for myself on this and my sister and I have fallen out, but my sister holds our relationship too highly and has apologised and accepted my position.

I didn’t cause their issues, my sister can’t/won’t take responsibility for her role in all of this and my niece was a child/young person when her mother made the decisions to live her life in the way she did which has caused such a catastrophic situation. Choice of men and lifestyle choices were involved.

There is now a grandchild involved, my older nieces daughter, my sister has no contact with. It is really complicated but I now am mediating another generation that is victim to this NC, between the my youngest niece and her niece, the grandchild - they are both children. My older niece did not want them to have a relationship because of her NC with her mother….. and that is another chapter.

Also, for my older nieces MH, I stopped trying to mend their relationship. My younger niece and my great niece are both deeply effected by all of this. I do what I can to protect them and facilitate a relationship between them on neutral ground.

I really do feel for you OP, but you are a kind person, look after your niece, be clear with your sister that you won’t get involved in the dynamics of the why’s, the when’s and the drama.

Being an aunt in these situations is such an important and special relationship. Our sisters have created the relationships they have with their daughters, not always necessarily out of malevolence, but they are what they are.

You have a relationship with you niece that you have to nurture and support. Good luck!

Team niece here too.

It is nuanced because no doubt the mother should be allowed to live her own life but she should have tried to have some insight into her daughter’s experience.

The mother sounds spiteful, self serving and unsupportive and they really are not traits that are going to serve her relationships well.

I don't think the OP has said that the niece is breaking off all contact forever.

This sounds to me like a hurt young woman who is taking some time away to process her feelings and build her life, in the knowledge that she is sadly unlikely to be her mum's priority again. Frankly I think that's better than the niece being at home and arguing with her mum and her mum's partner in front of the new baby.

Hopefully when the dust has all settled a bit their relationship will improve but I don't think anything that the niece is doing is destructive or self-centred - it's just a sad situation all round.

It doesn't really matter why your DN won't speak to her mother.
You are happy for her to stay with you and her relationship with you is good. Carry on...she needs family that care about her and has done nothing to warrant you shunning her.
Her mother should be happy she knows where she is.

Team niece here too. And team OP.

I think its great you have let her stay, hopefully that will give a foundation for her to reconcile with her mum at some point, but if not, it at least maintains her family connection, makes her feel supported at a time when she feels she isn't a priority for her mum.

Encourage your sister to pop round, but don't force your niece to leave

It amazes me that on what’s essentially a parenting forum, people are always so ready to leap to the defence of shit parents who are reaping the consequences of their selfishness.

When a child, who’s helpless to determine what happens in their life, has been unwillingly housed with a strange man, forced to accept new siblings (or, worse, ‘blended’ with someone else’s family), and been consistently shown that they’re not a priority and their feelings don’t really count, you can hardly blame them for exerting a measure of control over their lives and relationships as soon as they’re able.

It doesn’t sound much like a ‘spoilt’ childhood, does it? And it’s on the mother to build bridges and repair the damage she’s done.

Team niece here too. Her mum clearly prioritised her new man over her DD. I don't understand how she cannot see how wrong she was.

The mother moved the new bloke in within weeks! Her behaviour was selfish.

Team niece here!

What a brat
What teen decides to ignore her sibling because she didnt like her mothers partner moving in
What a brat and a selfish one...yip all good behaviour until it becomes familair..she needs to grow up

It's incredibly sad, it really is. At least your niece has a safe roof over her head with you and your sister shouldn't be angry that you're looking out for her, she actually should be pleased because it's the best outcome in a bad situation. By refusing, it sounds like your niece would move on elsewhere and not back to her mums anyway. You can also give your sister updates as how she is doing and hopefully comfort that she's still within the family rather than goodness knows where.

Your niece is an adult and she is allowed to make the choices she wants to regarding a relationship with her mum. Family estrangement isn't uncommon, it's just very sad and painful for those involved. I think all you can hope to do is try and keep everyone calm and hope that one day soon they start afresh.

Wow, to come to the conclusion that the niece is a brat. That is harsh.

My niece in exactly the same situation, will not have a relationship with her much younger sibling. I support but do not agree with my nieces decision, it is not about me, which comes from a place of trauma, and not from your superficial diagnosis of OPs niece being a selfish brat.

your niece is an adult and a relative. Its between the two of you what you do. I am thinking that regardless of what your answer would have been, it wouldn't have affected how your niece views her mother and if you had said something like "no because your mother won't like it" it might have affected your relationship with your niece. I think if your sister is thinking that your refusal might put pressure on your niece to make it up with her mother, that's plain despicable.
I think that if your sister thinks that what she did was fine (and I am not judging) then she has no reason to be embarassed about what your niece does or what other members of the family think about it.

My mum got a partner very quickly and he moved in. And I luckily was going to uni. I am 46 now and never stayed at her house since. She put him before me all the time. I don’t blame your niece.

I don’t think she sounds at all spoilt. She’s polite and working and gets along with everyone. She’s decided she doesn’t want to live with her Mother’s new bloke and their newborn baby and I respect that.

You can’t move in a new bloke, have a child with him, creating a twenty year age gap between them and your existing child and not expect it all to have a profound affect on your older child.

I don't think it's helpful to be "team" either one. It is seldom a binary and even if it is, the aim should be for your niece to be in touch with her mum and sibling for her own sake.

Unless the new partner has done something unforgivable there is no reason for her to have no contact with her mum and every reason to be in touch wth her because she is her mum. The sibling hasn't done anything to her at all so she is short sighted in not making a relationship with them. Young people are short sighted though and no doubt she will realise that herself at some point.

That time will likely come sooner if she is living with you than if she isn't.

As the sibling is 10 months old I daresay they don’t care. It sounds like you’ve probably done the same to your children.

The end of your rant didn’t really make much sense?

I think any kind of update to the sister and vice versa should only be with permission and agreement from the person concerned.

I agree with this. Op you sound just as opinionated. I hope you're not shit talking your sister in front of your niece. Your niece refusing to meet her own sibling is ridiculous and immature. How's that going to going in a few years explaing to the new baby, your sister doesn't want to meet you as she has to share the attention and doesn't like it.

I don't see why dna should make an adult want a relationship with a baby?

But you’re not "being neutral". I completely understand how it looks to your sister as though you’re siding with your niece.
Perhaps your sister could have dealt better with the situation of moving her partner into her home, when her daughter was used to it just being the two of them, but assuming the partner is not a dodgy character your sister has done nothing to deserve being cut off completely. But you are supporting her daughter in her hurtful and immature behaviour.
I appreciate that you wanted to support your niece, but how are you also supporting your sister in her awful situation? Couldn't you, for instance, have made letting your niece stay with you be conditional on her meeting her mother (and brother) regularly at your house?

Your sister sounds totally dismissive and ignorant of the situation. She's not taking any responsibility for her situation -at all-. She's totally invalidated her daughters feelings, from the start. She's pandered to her partner and kicked her daughter to the curb. I wouldn't be able to tolerate such ignorance!

Everyone saying the daughter is acting spoiled - This girl is doing everything she can to stand on her own two feet. I wouldn't call that spoiled. She has set boundaries and good on her for doing so. Having a child doesn't automatically make you a good parent or entitled to being one.

I'm glad you're supporting your niece. You sound like a lovely aunty. If your sister has had a child late in life, who will care for that child when she is too elderly to do so? What will happen when their school friends realise Nanna is actually Mummy. Queue the bullying! Alas, it's too late now.

Sadly, my friends parents did the same thing and she technically ended up 'orphaned' at the age of 30. She has 0 other family, it was just them. Now she lives a very bitter and lonely life with very many issues. I also speak from a place of a girl who at the age of 13, I also ended up with a step-dad. You suddenly have a strange man invading your space when you're not used to men and your mother is smitten, blinded to her child's needs, and said child (me) spent a majority of her time with my neighbours (thankfully I had grown up with them).

Even now I keep my mother and her partner at an arms length, because they are so toxic.

I don't think my two daughters would appreciate me moving a man into their house. Why women inflict this upon their daughters, I don't know.

We talk about safe spaces for women. Your home should be your safe space, especially if you are a female child.

I'm not surprised she is pissed off. Her mum is trying to deprive her of the comfort of your company. if she genuinely prioritised her daugthter, she would wish her to have access to a family member.

How can this Your responsibility is to her, not her adult mum, who has demonstrated that she is perfectly able to look after number one.