Father in law doing the opposite of what we said

[Peonyyyy]

Sorry this is a long one!

Our son is 3 and yesterday we were at my husbands parents house yesterday.

my husbands father can be kind, clever and caring but also has an extremely selfish streak. We think he is possibly autistic. He is retired and has become quite obsessed with the news, he also has always been quite into planes. He almost always brings up political news or disasters/wars (of which there are a lot right now!) and he has very different political views to us. He seems to bring things up he knows we will disagree with on purpose and seems to want to provoke us. It always ends up with me shouting and then I feel that I look like the bad one. My husband also will say his view and will tell him not to talk about it because we don’t agree, but I have always been the more fiery one as I just find it so frustrating that he brings it up to cause trouble. As our son is getting older we are trying to minimise these discussions as much as possible (we have always tried to minimise them, but it’s now getting especially important) as our son can hear and understand it all.

this may sound ridiculous but when we MIL has told him to stop bringing up politics etc but he doesn’t listen and still does it. We all try to ignore him but eventually we will snap.

Mostly nowadays MIL will visit us alone, and we don’t go to visit them both much. Our son absolutely adores him and follows him around as he gives him little toy cars often.

yesterday my husband told him to not to mention the recent Air India plane crash as we didn’t want our son to hear and be frightened/worried. There’s just no need for a child of his age to know about all the awful things going on in the world. He agreed not to.

at the end of the day we went home and we were having dinner when our son declared ‘do you know, a plane crashed?!’ And we said oh did it and he said ‘yeah, it went up and down a bit and then crashed on the ground’ we said who told you this and he said grandpa. We asked him when and he said when they were outside together. While we were at their house they did go into the garden together and it was just the two of them for a little while.

I was absolutely furious. After our son had gone to bed I asked my husband to call him and ask him why he had done it. My husband was fuming too and really upset because he’d specifically told him not to, and who says things like this to a three year old anyway?! my husband finds this all quite traumatising, growing up his dad would always do things like this which upset his mum and made her angry, and tjeu would argue a lot. He said it’s made him always want to avoid conflict. He is such a good, kind man and he does stand up to him for us, it’s not like he’s complicit at all, but it is hard for him.

when he called he spoke with his mum first, then his dad came on and made excuses and then sort of apologised half heartedly , but didn't explain why he did it especially when we said not to. I was furious and got involved in the conversation asking why he did it as he wouldn’t explain and was trying to make excuses and minimise it. He then f’d off to bed (it was 8pm) while we were still on the phone and definitely not finished. My husband advised that from now on if we visit we will have to supervise all the time and they can’t be alone together. MIL made excuses for him ‘oh you know what he’s like, he wouldn’t have done it maliciously, I tell him all the time not to say these things but he still does it…’ she then went to speak to him in the bedroom and he said he didn’t say anything about a crash, he just said ‘we’re going up and down like a plane’ when they were on a swing bench in the garden. This is completely untrue, our son told us in great detail how the planet crashed and he was obviously thinking about it enough to bring it up at dinner.

it’s hard to explain but he has a problem I’ve never come across before. He has a compulsion to do the opposite of what people tell him to do like a kind of rebellion. It’s clear to see from our point of view that he purposely told our son because we had told him not to, and made sure he did it when they were alone. He regularly does this kind of thing and tries to get out of it by lying. For example recently my husband messaged MIL to say we were thinking of taking our son to the airport the next day and did there want to meet us there. On the day, MIL messaged and said FIL had already gone out ‘but mustn’t have gone to the airport because he knows I wanted to go’. When we got there he was already there, and when my husband confronted him about leaving MIL at home he said she hadn’t explained herself very well and he thought she didn’t want to come. Which is utterly ridiculous, he knows she would always want to see her grandson and son whenever she can. But somehow the story got Changed and she thought maybe she didn’t explain herself very well and he got away with it. He gaslights and lies to get away with things. He seemed to want to go early to beat the traffic and couldn’t be bothered to wait for her to get ready. He lies like a Child would and even if he gets found out he just continues the lie.

not that it’s an excuse but he had a cruel father who would hit him and his siblings and we think he must’ve had to lie a lot to get out of trouble, but also rebelled against it by being naughty on purpose. It was so bad that his sister actually ran away.

im fuming because I feel like he’s going to get away with this again. MIL seems to believe his version. We don’t trust him, but it’s hard because they are our only family around, our son adores him and we need them for childcare. He has never stayed over at their house and now we don’t think we can ever allow it. Usually MIL comes to us when we need childcare.

this is crazy isn’t it? Does anyone else have this kind of situation? I feel so frustrated and trapped, I don’t think he will ever change and will probably get worse as he gets older.

Sorry it’s a cute little airport with a cafe near us - children and enthusiasts like to go to watch the small planes take off and land. Not like a major airport 😊

I think as another poster said, grey rock the political stuff. Just don't engage, talk about anything else and move away if needed. He can't start a fire without any fuel, so don't give him any.

As for the other stuff re the plane crash, I think your approach not to let him be unsupervised with your dc is a good one. That was you can intervene if he starts to say anything inappropriate.

It sounds like he has some issues but unless he is willing to do some self reflection and try and address why he does what he does, he won't change and so you and your dh will have to put measures in place to manage things. It's a pain, but if they're your only family and you want to maintain contact, then it's what you'll need to do.

This can be an ASD trait. You'd have been better off not saying anything and assuming it wouldn't have come up

It's like saying don't think of pink elephants. You've put it front and centre of his brain with the instruction not to talk about it, and he can't process that.

Assuming he is ASD, it's not deliberate

This is not just someone expressing their views in their own home as some seem to think. This is someone who is repetitive and disinhibited in his statements and not able to temper them in the presence of a child for the sake of that child. There is nothing normal about this and I would be keeping my child away from these interactions as much as possible.

There is a huge difference between adults tolerating his nonsense and trying to let it wash by them and him making statements that could be frightening to a child and which he has specifically been asked not to bring up in front of the child. No normal person behaves like this. I would question his mental health or whether there is some structural problem in his brain that is causing this disinhibition.

Certainly do not shout at him - let it wash by you - just ignore him. But keep your child away from him.

This is very well put.

@Mischance THANK YOU this is it exactly.

If it seems he does this as a type of rebellion, do you think he'd have mentioned the plane crash if you and your husband hadn't mentioned it in the first place?

You won't be able to change his behaviour at this point, so you either continue visiting but ignore his commentary and don't mention anything remotely controversial so he can't get a handhold on to the topic. If he does start, you need a firm and to the point sentence to reply with. I'd you still feel uncomfortable, you leave.

Or you don't see him, and your MIL comes to you or you meet outside of the home.

He is an idiot. This can’t be fixed.

I’m guessing it’s less about him being autistic and more about him not having developed fully cognitively and emotionally due to his own abusive father and traumatic upbringing. There will be so many issues going on inside his head which at this stage will be impossible to reverse.

My own father has a bit of this but not to this extent, and was also brought up by an angry and emotionally unavailable father post war & probably suffering with PTSD. I understand how antagonising it can be. And my mother also tries to downplay it with ‘you know what he’s like’.

As others have said, no unsupervised contact. And I would avoid going to visit him at their home. Just MIL to you. Don’t feel obliged just because that’s what people do with their parents. They have to earn contact with their children and family by behaving in a normal rational way. Your husband can visit when he wants if he still wants contact. In what way does your son worship him?

You don't need to psychoanalyse the man. No one is a racist, homophobic goader because of daddy issues or undiagnosed disability. He does it because he enjoys it.

You choice is whether to continue inflicting the man on your free time and your child, or just enjoy life and your husband can see them if he feels obligated.

Agree with this, and baffled by people saying you are the abusive one here. What normal person tries to upset a three year old by telling them about a mass tragedy which doesn’t affect them in any way, simply to get a rise out of the three year old’s parents?

He’s goading you about the Maga/homophobic and racist stuff to get a rise out of you as well. Probably doesn’t even believe it himself. Some people simply can’t stand not being the centre of attention, even if it is negative attention.

He also talks about how much he hates ‘gays and blacks’.

Erm, why is nobody else mentioning this? OP, why the hell are you taking your child around someone who is loudly and repetitively racist and homophobic?

You and your DH have brought all this on yourselves. My FIL was exactly the same. We didn’t interact or argue, just sat there and said ‘hmmkay’, ‘right then’ etc. By arguing you are giving him the soapbox and audience he craves. If you don’t do this they get bored and give up as they are getting nowhere and have no soapbox. But you/DH have played it for high drama instead🙄.

When our kids were little we just told them that their grandfather was old, and sometimes when people get old their brain goes funny and makes them say silly things that are not true. Poor grandfather. That solved that problem as you can never change people. Instead, you have given him a challenge!

When our kids got older they came to realise grandfather didn’t have an old brain that made him say silly things, but that he was a mean racist arsehole prick. We let them come to that conclusion themselves. Job done.

Everyone can have on opinion and tbh it sounds like if the differ from yours there obviously wrong
you get all combative and shouty
as adults we come across many views just agree to disagree move on and shut down the discussion

I get it OP. He knows exactly what he's doing. He likes the drama and confrontation and actively encourages it. He's just a tosser and a bully to be avoided. A shame for your grandson but I'd just avoid him and let him know why. It's not you It's him.

I have worked with people with acquired brain injury and this sort of disinhibition can happen.

There are several physiological possibilities: brain tumour, TIAs, early dementia etc.

Has he always been like this? This is not normal behavior.

I agree with pps that he's deliberately goading you, and I imagine he probably gets a kick out of making you lose control in the form of shouting.

It's sad that he had an abusive upbringing but so do many other people - most of them would surely want to work on themselves rather than inflict it on their family especially a small child, and especially when it's been pointed out to them that it's harmful.

At the moment he's getting what he appears to want ie defying your reasonable requests and making you lose your cool, which will give him a feeling of power.
You need to find a way to take back control ie by stating firmly "We've asked you before not to talk about this in front of DC" 2nd time take DC to the park or shop, third time say it's time we were going, put your coats on and go. Discuss with DH and ensure he will back you up beforehand. This hands control to you rather than FIL.

I would also look back into your own upbringing to find out why you feel the need to shout to be heard ie perhaps you were never listened to, sibling grabbed all the attention etc. Unpacking that will lead to a better understanding of your own reactions, which hopefully will lead to you changing your reactions to being calm and in control.

While this man was alone with his 3 year old grandson in the garden, he told the little boy about a plane crash, when the parents had specifically asked him not to. That is an extremely abnormal and unpleasant thing to do. The OP not wanting him to do that isn't dictating what people talk about in their own home.

Yes I definitely have my own issues with shouting. I had a bit of therapy during covid and it was the first time I realised that as a child my older sibling was the golden child and always believed over me. Up until then I’d always felt I had a happy childhood, and I did in lots of ways. But I do remember getting very angry and frustrated because I felt no one believed me or empathised with my feelings when I was upset as a child.

Thank you! It’s bizarre to me that some people think this is ok.

I think he has. I distinctly remember feeling extremely uncomfortable the first time I had dinner round there house when he started talking like this and that was about 10 years ago! I think he’s always been like this from what I gather about my husbands upbringing but retirement and covid has made it worse.

But the OP says.her son adores Grandad. He may think GF has abandoned him if you separate them. He'll miss his grandad.
I see why you get angry but is the impact of his stories as great as you think? 3 year olds don't realise the reality of of disasters. He won't take it all in.
You won't be able to control what he hears for much longer anyway - once he starts mixing with large numbers of children at nursery or school he'll hear all kinds of things.

You need to stop leaving your son alone with this cruel man who has absolutely no boundaries. In your shoes, I'd stop seeing him altogether. What he's doing is perverse and unacceptable.

Start buying your child matchbox cars yourselves. That will reduce the appeal of gramps.

Yanbu- he should not be telling your ds about the plane crash to suit his own agenda that’s sick.

He will get away with it unless you put a stop to it.

I think from what you are saying you need to look at the pattern of FIL’s behaviour and make a decision about your future with him for you your ds and dh.

FIL's problem is probably that people haven't shouted at him enough or challenged his ridiculous views all his life. It would be hard not to shout at someone with pro-Trump views. I had blazing rows with my dad over Brexit or when he came out with xenophobic Daily Mail style nonsense.

He would have never said anything to directly upset DDs though and was actually lovely with them, as he was with me what I was little. Most of the time I'd just agree to disagree.

I would reduce visits if he can't behave himself or see MIL on his own. He sounds like a massive toddler himself. You can absolutely say what someone should and shouldn't talk about in front of young children!