To not want to play nice with my mother’s affair partner?

[fairygardening]

Very very long story but the short version is that my mother has recently started trying to push her boyfriend into the family.

She had been married for 15+ years to her second husband (not my dad). They split up around a year ago and then it came out not long after that she had left him for a man she met at work and had been “getting to know” for a few months.

my grandparents have long suspected some kind of affair due to her behaviour over the last few years so weren’t surprised but were very shocked and upset by it all.

They always host Christmas at their house and have said that the new boyfriend isn’t welcome as they don’t condone her behaviour and aren’t willing to play happy families with this guy.

My mother has majorly kicked off saying she is an adult and it is her life and that we need to stay out of it and not judge her.

She is expecting me to go to her house with her new boyfriend rather than to my grandparents as usual as I should apparently “be on her side” and shouldn’t care what she does or who with.

I don’t really want to be involved at all to be honest, nor do I want to pick a side as such. However, I agree with my grandparents that what she did was wrong and to be honest I’d rather spend time with them at Christmas.

AIBU to refuse my mother’s request and stick to going to my grandparents?

There’s over two months to go until Christmas so you could easily meet your mum’s new partner and start to get to know him before then. If you met him and liked him, your opinion could positively influence your grandparents.
I suppose it depends on whether you wish to retain a close relationship with your mum going forward.

Life is complicated OP. I obviously wish I had done some things differently but we don’t have time machines so the ongoing moral punishments don’t really help or solve anything. I’m accepting that everyone seems to already decided my partner is awful even though he’s an amazing partner to me, we love each other and I left a marriage where I was very unhappy and sad. While I wish I had done things differently no one died and life does move on and it’s me who has to live with the consequences. I try to detach from it and not take it too deeply, I love my DC and hope they come around in time and see I’m happy. But the biggest problem you can find is that you drive the couple closer together as they create an ‘us against them’ dynamic where you can only feel like you have each other as everyone else is against you and that’s not healthy. I don’t think she’s asking you to play happy families but it’s October you could meet him now. I would ask what you think you will achieve from avoiding him it’s unlikely she will break up with him because you won’t meet him but I don’t think it’s validation to her to agree to meet him to make your own mind up, but not giving her/him a chance at all is not actually solving any issues. If you don’t agree with her just tell her what you think and have your say then let it go? You can be honest with someone but not keep punishing them over it, I’m sure she knows what she did isn’t what you would do but it’s whether you want her in your life if you don’t trust her, then better to let the relationship go rather than punish her forever?

Your mum sounds very immature and like a spoilt whiney child moaning that things aren't fair.

She shouldn't be emotionally blackmailing you to spend Christmas with her and her new boyfriend.

I appreciate what you are saying but I don’t see why it should be on my shoulders to set up a meeting with this person. If she asked me to meet him then I would agree and go along with an open mind, but I feel that’s on her to offer.

I also don’t really feel as though it is my responsibility to encourage my grandparents to change their minds. It’s their home and they are hosting, it’s surely up to them who they invite. If they change their mind then fine but that’s their decision.

I’m just wanting to go to my normal Christmas dinner as usual, it’s my mum who is choosing not to come ultimately

Technically here, the mother’s elderly parents have said she’s not welcome at Christmas because she left her marriage to a man that wasn’t their son as she now can’t bring her partner who she would want to spend it with too

So OP’s mother has asked her own daughter to spend it with her.

Technically the grandparents are pretty much making everyone choose because of a moral high ground.

There are other ways to look at this

Do you not wonder why some people hide things from their parents when this is the type of reaction they get?

They've been together over a year, it's not a random person, it's a relationship. That she was married when they met isn't great, but given that you haven't met him and aren't close to your mother I would assume there's possibly context that you aren't aware of.

I suppose I would speak to your DGPs and say that you can entirely understand not wanting to host DM and her DP as a couple, but suggest that your mum hosts or offer to host yourself instead. It saves them having to treat him like family. Who knows, you might all get on fine with him.

I wouldn't meet someone for the first time at Christmas, nor so soon in in case it all goes wrong.

I would just go where seems nicest at Christmas, and if that's your grandparents, fine, and pop in to see your Mum if you want to.

I definitely don’t expect her to break up with him, I truly think it’s her life and she can live it how she chooses. I am an adult now, she shouldn’t live her life revolving around me and she absolutely should be happy.

I also don’t think that I should be expected to convince my grandparents of something other than what they think, that’s up to them.

I just don’t really have an interest in having a fake or superficial interaction with someone on Christmas Day, family time

Your grandparents have less time left than your Mum and I’d rather be with them in those last remaining years. Leave your mother to it! Reap what you sow and all that..

I did actually offer to host but my home isn’t accessible for them so wouldn’t work really. I know that if she hosted and the boyfriend was there then they wouldn’t go, so it doesn’t really resolve the issue

I think grandparents inheritance is more likely if they are pissed off with her mum 🤣

I can say with 100% certainty that if she left the marriage and then started the relationship then the reaction would be entirely different and a thousand times more accepting. It’s the affair, and then lying about the details of it, that have caused the issue.

In fact, I think even if she’d said “this is what happened, I realise it’s not great but it is what it is” then it would be different, but she instead made up lots and lots of unnecessary lies. She often tells me or my grandparents different lies and is then annoyed that we have spoken to each other when caught out. It’s all very tiring and I don’t blame them for not wanting to be part of it

Oh, I'm not suggesting you pressure your grandparents into changing their minds -- issuing an invitation to their house is up to them, and no one else. Your decision can only be whether you attend or not.

But it might help ease the situation all round if you said 'Look, Mum, I don't think it's a good idea meeting for the first time at Christmas anyway, regardless of whose house it's at -- what about a low-key lunch/a coffee in November?'

I don’t think you should pressure them either, but honestly this is none of their business is it? Your mum is an adult, so all this lying about this and that is crazy, what does this really matter to adults who is sleeping with who and when.

Unless their is a massive drip feed they have lent her money, I can honestly say I just don’t talk to my parents about my romantic life in any detail for there to be any need for this so I don’t understand it. Which suggests that she’s been possibly people pleasing with them as she knew they would react badly to her being honest. Not saying it’s right but I have one family member who has made me feel like this and I really can’t be honest with them as they are so judgmental so I find myself being very vague as to not set them off

Go to your Grandparents OP. Tell your DM you’re not discussing it any more.

Sounds like your Grandparents have been better to you anyways, have your best interests at heart and you’re closer.

What has happened to her exDH? Has he lost everyone too?

They haven’t lent her money recently, though they have in the past and it was never repaid, but that’s by the by.

they are genuinely so lovely and supportive, they have done so much for me during my life. I can honestly, hand on heart, say that they have never once reacted poorly to anything that I have told them when I have been truly honest. They just truly cannot abide lying.

My mum put an awful lot on them in other ways. She expected them to communicate with her husband as she didn’t want to, for them to go to the house and get her things etc etc. they had her dog for a while as she said she had nowhere to take him. Only for it to come out that she didn’t want to see husband due to him finding out about the affair and that she couldn’t take the dog as she was with the affair partner and he didn’t know she had a dog and doesn’t like them.

I’d also say there is a difference between being vague and not saying much, and telling intricate and outright lies. She tells us all an enormous amount of detail about her life, even when I explicitly ask her not to, and I often find out some time later that half of the story wasn’t true. I didn’t ask in the first place, and would genuinely prefer not to know, so why bother lying?

We’re in a bit of contact with him, but understandably feel a bit in the middle with being too friendly due to what’s happened. He does have his own kids and parents etc so not completely alone but obviously a big shock and change to lose half a family after such a long time.

My mum is very annoyed that we speak to him and says we should all cut him off and block him on the basis that we should be on her side. Obviously we don’t agree and haven’t, but it all very much feels as though “her way or the highway”

I will take this back to a different perspective and I know I am biased as I’m on the other side of it

So my marriage was breaking down and people were interested in it so I would tell them what was going on. They were sympathetic and supportive. I met someone else at the worst time of this and got involved with him.

But from the sounds of it from how you describe your mum with bad decisions, there is a longstanding judgment on me from my sister that I have spent my whole life making bad decisions and she is somehow appointed as moral judge on this kind of thing. She would say she just cared about me

So she would ask me a lot of questions and I would avoid being fully honest as I knew her reaction and judgment of my decision making. Then I would be more honest with my own mum, and my sister would get this info from my mum and use it against me. They then contacted my DC to try to piece together bits of the timeline and would confront me and all concluded I was awful.

So I stopped telling any of them anything at all.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who is right or wrong - your grandparents do not want the man at their house on Christmas Day. Your mother just needs to deal with that.

I'm not saying she shouldn't follow the money, but this guy is unlikely to have any loyalty to OP. Blood is thicker ...as they say.

If your mum has lied about other things then it’s not about this man it’s that she’s not treating people nicely. He may be a nice man. The issue is with your mum and how she imparts information to you. Be honest with her and all of you stay out of the mess, if she’s creating mess then no one needs to be involved but don’t make it about him, make it clear it’s her own behaviour.

I'd do whatever I'd wanna do, go to grandparents

Your mum is expecting you to choose her over your grandparents by breaking tradition, but she is choosing to spend time with her new man over her family.

Spin the choice back around on her. Say you won't be involved in her games, you will be going to your grandparents as you always do, if she wants to spend time with you at Xmas then she has a choice to make. Surely she can be apart from him for a section of the day

@Superfancy you wrote "its me who has to live with the consequences ", but do you really not see that its everyone else who has to live with the consequences of your decisions to cheat, too?

Go to your grandparents like you normally do. Point out to your mum that she's invited so it's her choice if she attends or not.