should I pay for my mum to see my children?

[givemeaclue]

me and mother do not get on - long history - we had counselling but it made things worse. She is very good grandmother and loves my dcs - whilst me and my mother don't want to spend time together I am very supportive of their relationship with her. She lives at opposite end of UK to me. She sees the dcs regularly but the current arrangements are that I fly up (easyjet) to where she lives with them, then fly back same day leaving them there (this is on my day off from work - dcs are pre school). She has them for 2 nights then flies back with them and then flies home. I am happy for them to stay longer as it is a lot of hassle for a 2 night trip however she feels this is long enough. Her expectation is that:

-I pay for it (approx £250 per trip plus airport parking etc)
-I will do 50% of the travelling (so we both do 2 flights in a day - me to take them up and her to bring them back)
-I book the tickets (faff on easyjet as its not straight forward return journeys as one direction of travel for both of us is without kids)

She is prepared to pay one quarter of the costs over the course of a year i.e 1 trip out of 4. She feels I should pay the majority as I earn more (she is retired on a small pension). i suggested that she do the majority of the travel as she has more time on her hands being retired and 1 work 4 days a week - she hasn't responded to that.

she has just sent me a message reminding me that we had a trip planned for august - she wants me to pay for it, do the booking and 50% of the travelling (as above).
I have just done this in March. It is costing me over £800 per annum for her to see the kids.

AIBU in thinking most people who want to see their grandchildren pay for it, travel and make the arrangements themselves. Is she taking the piss? On the other hand, she doesn't have a lot of money and I don't want finances to be a factor that prohibits them from seeing her.

Due to the travel distances - driving is not an option and the train journey is sooo loooong it turns into journey from hell even on your own let alone iwht 2 pre-school dcs.

Any advice on what I say re her latest request? don't want to make a bad relationship worse but neither do I want to be a mug.

sorry so long - thanks for reading!

Agree with Lyssa take your time to reply and rant away on here instead. She speaks to you horribly.

The way she has spoken I would not confirm or organise anything any time soon. Take the time to think about her behaviour with her DGC. You have not said what it is but obviously dislike it. Take some time to think if this relationship is necessary for your DC. The older they get the more likely they are to be upset by you stopping contact once you feel her behaviour is not what you want them around. For now it may be fine, but it is unlikely to stay that way.

If your mother has the money to travel and doesn't, then she is not thinking of her grandchildren in any depth. If you have to pay 100s of pounds for the children to see, that is 100s of pounds that you do not have to spend on them. At best your mother sounds as though she is being quite high-maintenance to be honest.

Personally I would stop contacting her. Wouldn't help the situation for you at all and I know the children would miss out but you need to stop letting her dictate what happens. You've already said that the current arrangements no longer work for you so there's you're answer.

What will you do in future if she starts bullying your kids with this emotional blackmail? Or encourages them to treat you like she does?
Instead - you could avoid this situation by minimising contact and, imo, ensuring you are present
I now know someone whose gran, an evil old witch, has now managed to get her adult grandchild to cut contact with her mum. Knowing them all, I know the gm is toxic and manipulative, but young people are vulnerable to that
Sorry - not to scaremonger, but think v hard about what the point of this contact is. The email you showed us sounds v bullying and high pressured. I would delete and not even reply personally

I want the visit in august to be confirmed & organised as soon as possible.

Good god. Her and whose army? Her sense of entitlement for you to bend over backwards (whilst avoiding spinal injury - arf) to put your kids in front of her face is unbelievable.

To be honest, you gave her too many openings in the email you sent her - the mention of the trips to Spain and other things she can still do was just an opening for her to make it all about why going to Spain is different from .. er .. travelling to see you. You're letting her dictate the narrative. Completely understandable given how many years you've been living with this but it is a classic "detach, detach, detach" situation. You cannot win whilst you engage with her.

I would definitely agree with the others - do not respond or have any contact with her until you feel ready to do so. Email is not instant messenger.

I think it is very, very unlikely that she will be able to prevent this side of her personality from being evident to your children when they are older / more able to challenge her authority. I would tell her the August trip will not be possible and no other information. Do not explain why or make excuses or hedge the clarity of your words for the sake of politeness. Most of all, don't let this spoil your weekend. You cut your mother out of your life specifically to avoid feeling like this, I think.

Ignore, ignore , ignore. Give yourself time to clarify what you want before you respond. She is still bullying you - her email is full of I want, I expect. She wants you to dance to her tune.

Why is she talking about her rights to contact? She isn't a non resident parent, so does she even have contact rights?

If you do want to maintain contact between her and the children you need to find a way forward that is less draining on finances and time.

Hideous. I also recommend ignoring for now.

"I'm sorry you feel I haven't supported your contact with my children, I feel I have gone over and above what most people would - especially given the difficult relationship between us.

Thank you for providing information about your condition, it was very helpful, however I am still not convinced you will be able to provide adequate care for X and Y even though I know you want to see them, my priority as a parent is what's best for them, not what's best for you. As a side issue, my finances are some what stretched at the moment and therefore I can't justify spending money on flights for August I don't think it's likely will be used."

Dear over entitled witch, unfortunately I can no longer afford to spend either my little "free" time or annual leave travelling to drop the children nor can I financially afford to pay for the flights from now on. Of course I am happy to continue supporting your relationship with them should you wish to come and stay locally and take them on days out.

Please don't both though, yours I am now free from your bullying Giveusaclue

givemeaclue,

You need to ignore your mother's overbearing demands because she is only acting in her best interests here. She also has no automatic legal rights re seeing the grandchildren.

It is okay not to seek her approval any more because she will not ever give it to you.

I would recommend you read Toxic Parents written by Susan Forward as your mother is certainly within those pages.

It was a mistake to ever undergo joint counselling with her. Joint counselling with such an unreasonable toxic person such as your mother anyway was always going to be a non starter and would never work out at all well. Histrionic shouty stuff is all par for the course for such manipulative narcissistic people. Its not you, its her and she wants her way all the time. She does not give a toss for either you or your children. If you have any future counselling you need to have this without your mother being present.

You need to ignore and stop dancing to her tune because this is all that she is interested in. You and your children are but secondary supply to her.

Many adults who were children of such toxic parents have FOG in abundance; fear, obligation and guilt.

her email reads just like my DH's ex's did re child contact, she was a control freak who thought her demands were completely reasonable .
Agree with the others, ignore her for 1 week, then proceed. She is being outrageous.
She can apply to the court for contact - i know you aren't denying her that but she can still apply to try and get things the way she wants them . It would then be for the court to decide how much travelling each of you do and how the costs were divided. As she is retired it would be highly unlikely you'd be expected to do much travelling. And due to the distance involved it is very unlikely it would be very often as it is quite disruptive. Most Grandparents get very little.

I am a committed, caring, responsible, kind grandma & expect to be treated as such no matter what issues you may have about me.
I want the visit in august to be confirmed & organised as soon as possible

Oh do you?? Just Fuck Right Off.

She has absolutely no legal right to see them and if she spoke to me like that she would never see them.

I am so angry. She is a bully and has treat you so badly over the years that you actually think she's entitled to see them and will be different with them. I wish you could see that allowing her to see them is setting yourself up for so much grief in the future and for your kids to feel some of what you feel :( She will endeavour to turn them against you :(

giveme, she sounds exactly like my dad, who similarly postures about forcing my sister to bring her children to visit him when she's at our mother's. He is a deluded King Lear type. Having read your mother's email, I can tell you that is EXACTLY the sort of letter I've been getting from my father all my life. The only way to deal with it is to ignore it, trust me.

After a particularly horrible time, I set up a filter on my inbox to channel my father's email directly to archive. They arrived and went straight to archive and I never saw them. It was very liberating. That meant that when and if I felt up to receiving email from my father, I just needed to search for them. In the meantime, there were no nasty surprise howlers popping up in my inbox.

I'm sorry, but the others are right- she is a bully. You just need to wrest control back. By ignoring her until you want to deal with her.

Not trying to hijack your thread, just wanted to show the similarities. Ignoring for several months definitely worked!
Email from my father:

^You my sweet are just the bitchy and unpleasant version of the lovely {mymother}. As usual like her you are an habitual liar, you may recall when {sister2} was in trouble I asked you to find certain characters on the internet which patently you avoided doing. Had you done that the man who is bothering {sister2} would have been in no physical condition to pester her the way he does. In addition the mail is not insulting at all. I have re-read it and it is far from that. While I realise that you and {yourdh} have no concept of normal dialog between rational people I would have hoped that there would have some family solidarity to help those in trouble amongst us. I also do recall that when you were starting at {youruniversity} you gave me your word in the local Indian emporium that if it became impossible due to infirmity and lack of funds I could not pursue the education of your siblings, that you would help out. Something else that you avoided, apart of course for a couple of cheques for 25-smackers you lobbed gratuitously towards {sister3}.

Finally, and most important, neither you or your brother and sisters understand the Asian character, or even the problems of the poor in highly populated backward countries. {sister3} may seem to you to be OK doubtless she is for the moment ? but this will change. She is sitting far from protection in a live bomb which is set to explode when the detonator is primed. At that time she will find that even on a small close knit island community there will be many people who will be ready to eliminate the infidel, a lot of them people she has probably employed or befriended, and there will be no way of escape. You would do well to study the history of Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus to realise how quickly and bloodily these things can happen. Many ex-patriots paid for complacency with their lives in those colonies, which after all Thailand is, more or less.

With regard to the ?detonator? this is probably going to be the death of the King of Thailand, he is an old and very sick man and the moment he goes there will be mayhem. Do not forget that {sister3} and family live quite close to a very militant Moslem part of the border area between Thailand and Malaysia occupied by Siam in the early 20th C.

Finally, if I was such a very bad man, as you imply, do you think someone with the intellect of {wickedstepmother} would have endured 29-years in my company and that there would be the trust and confidence between us after such a time? You are still a very naive child who?s view of the World has been poisoned by the lies and half-truths of a very vicious Mother, who is alive today solely due to my having looked after and protected her for 30-years. There has been no return for this and I have asked for none despite the fact that I am very short of funds, your Mother had every penny I ever collected together, plus I left her the house which could have been sold for both our benefit. I have even forbore asking for additional help on the principle that the {countrywherehelives} authorities would hit all my children for a contribution on a monthly basis. My pension is precisely 310-Euros per month, I have nothing else, not a lot to live on is it?

Doubtless you will disregard this, but it really is time for you to reflect where we came from and how it was achieved despite the millstone that I carried around with me. A period of reflection would be a good thing probably with regard to your own optic on the way ahead as well, you have many problems to come and it is clear that rationality is not your strong subject.

Good luck, you are going to need it, I am always here, that is, if the increasing infirmity that is building up does not get me!

Try to be a little more thoughtful,^

Sorry, should clarify, this was the email that caused me to archive his future emails for several months. Even reading it now gives me a cold sweat.

I may be retired but I do have a very busy life & commitments here And?!

I want the visit in august to be confirmed and organised ..."

I have had to deal with something of this kind of attitude myself in the past - a kind of I'm the "king of the castle" mentality. In response, to be honest couldn't put it better that Chipping.

I agree about detaching. Don't bother getting into debates, or trying to reason, you will never win them. I would not even bother contacting her back, leave her to stew. Forget about August and do something nice with your kids instead with the money you would have saved from the air fare! If there's a next time - she will contact you again - just set out your terms, take them or leave them. She will quite possibly come round and do things your way eventually (at least in my experience), and if she doesn't well what are you going to lose? I agree with whoever said GP and GC contact are nice and all very well - but NOT at the expense of the well-being of the parent who has to deal with crap like that. You always come first in this.

Ignore her, for as long as possible.

then remember the well coined phrase.... "I want's DON'T get"

and if that fails, the other well coined phrase "Ff the Ff off and when you get there FF off some more"

giveme I shudder to think of the treatment you suffered at the hands of such a bully.

Cut the ties definitively, including your DC.

What an awful reply

I would spend some time thinking over your response based on what contact you want your DC to have with her into future not just August

In my last post I said it was a shame that your DCs might not have a relationship with her but it would be a casualty of the overall situation. I retract that now and think I would sever contact after reading others posters experiences and her latest email to you

Sadly for you, you're reaching a crunch point in your relationship with your mother. What you decide to do now is quite crucial. You can decide to be polite and civil and to give in to her at least to some extent and carry on as you have been all along - with her treating you like shit, you stressing out and with periodic falling-outs along the way. If you choose that path then your children are going to pick up on it in at least some small way and it is a shame for them. It might be worth maintaining the relationship with their GM but seriously I doubt it.

On the other hand you can recognise that your mother is using you and your children to fulfil a need in herself. She has no real concern about you, and while she no doubt loves her GCs she is willing to push you around at their expense, which shows that that love isn't really up to much. You can accept that she isn't ever going to be reasonable, that no matter what happens there will always be some lame excuse for her behaviour (spinal condition my fat arse!) and that you can make your life infinitely better right now by just giving this "relationship" up as a waste of time.

Realising your mother is shit is hard, and I wouldn't blame you for choosing the first option. But be aware that if you do things aren't going to get better.

The second option is a legitimate one, and one that will be better for you in the long run.

BTW she has no legal rights whatsoever. None.

I have pretty much severed ties with my parents and I can honestly say my dc would benefit from having a set of loving grandparents they don't think they are missing out anything, they don't ask about my parents on anything like that!

My parents send gifts/money for gifts I tell them who they are from, I will suggeset gifts for them to my parents if they ask, tell them what they enjoyed about the gifts etc If they was nasty via email like your mum is I wouldn't even have email contact with them.

So she lives a very full and busy life. It must be much fuller and busier than yours, after all you only have young children to raise AND a job AND a household to run, she has - holidays! When you had a bad back she did not lift a finger to help you. Now she has one it's a whole different story.

Maybe you should get yourself an allotment, then you'd have a perfect excuse never to leave home, ever.

I find people like this GM love the Title of the job, they tick the boxes, so that when OTHERS ask, do you see your GC much.. they can reply Oh yes, I have them every August etc etc.

My sis had her DD in NYC, my dad flew over for 3 days inc travelling. he spent less than 3 hours with her the entire trip, he went shopping all morning the first full day he was there and sloped off the afternoon of the second. all so when he told his pals that he had a GD and they asked him if he'd seen her, that he could answer, Oh yes I flew over to NYC to see her.

Hissy, you really did draw the short straw when parents were being handed out.

I'm beginning to realise that Annie! My sis too is just like them but even she was bewildered when he did that.

No wonder i ended up in abusive relationships.... I blame them all firmly for creating the circumstances, and knowingly abandoning me when I most needed a mere text to say Hi... Oh and telling me that they ignored me. Just to make sure that I knew it wasn't just an oversight, over and over. I'll never forgive them.

I don't belong to a family that would do that to one another. I am the odd one out.