my mum has gone nuts tonight :(

[kelell17]

hi ladies me again :(
been on here on another thread re my xboyf but I also have a very strange mum and as the advice was so helpful re men I thought u might have some useful words of wisdom....here goes....
ds lost his coat at school ( 4th one this yr) of no importance to him to find it as he says my mum will buy him a new one to stop me telling him off ( which she will....shes not into me or my 2 girls at all but dotes on him ) so anyway I told him this was not acceptable/ he needs to learn some personal responsibility etc ( hes 11 ) and that if he didnt find it today at school id confiscate his ipod for the night....
tonight no coat so no ipod simple as that until he said he needed it for his homework....I caved and said he could have it for an hour to do homework then needed to hand it back as didnt want him on games etc...he started being cheeky so told him to go to his room and come back when he could talk civily and I would give him it for his homework...this was all v.calm I wasnt shouting at all
what he actually did was go to his room text my mum ( on a phone she bought him which I objected to ) and say I was being mean/stopped him from doing his homework etc
she then drove over barrelled in my house all guns blazing in front of all 3 kids...screaming at me what type of mum was I stopping him doing his homework...I couldn't get a word in edgeways she was shouting so much both my little girls were crying as she was frightening them so I told my son to go to his room and her to get out sternly...touching the arm of her coat ( not even hard enough to touch her arm thru it as I said it ) she went nuts saying id attacked her n then swung her arm round and hit me round the chest...all the time my daughters r crying then she told my son to get in her car even tho I was telling him to go to his room....he did ( as she was on his side ) but she was screaming and shouting so much on my drive I had to lock her out as she was frightening my girls so much so couldnt go n reason with ds to come bk in and not go with his nan....she was being that loud I told her if she didnt leave id call the police but he was to stay here
they both left....ive text her saying pls drop him off before school...she hasnt replied, shes terrified my daughters and I'm sleeping with the key in the lock so she has to ring in the morning as I keep waking up to her in my house...
this isnt right is it????
any advice appreciated
sorry its so long!!! x

I cant leave my whole life is here

I'm afraid you have to leave if you want to keep your son.

It is a horrendous uphaeval but he is a child, he is very easily manipulated (what child wouldn't want to be given their own way all the time, at least on the surface?). It's a true nightmare of a situatoin, speciallly given her police work and her ability to manipulate.

You need to protect your son. He's very vulnerable to an exceptionally abusive woman.

Hello OP. The Protection from Harassment Act is for just this sort of thing. Read it, and the CPS Codes of Practice.

Back in a bit.

Wow she's a one woman Shit storm is your mother!

If you ever want to live in peace with all your kids it looks like you'll have to move. It might be a really scary thing to do, but she is controlling so much of your life and she's counting on you doing nothing about it

Hi op, in your shoes it would be a very good idea to create a paper trail, speak to the police (she has kidnapped your son, she does not have parental responcability), speak to womans aid, your gp, email the school (emails can be used as a legal document). Log all of the abuse.

Speak to a solicitor, free half an hour.

Log log log.

Change locks.

Send one email or text to your mum stating any further communication either direct or indirect with you or your dc will be deemed as harrasment and you will take further action. Take a screen shot of this and file it away. Block all contact from her, phone, email etc. change your dd's phone number and block her from his phone (check his phone regularly).

If she goes to ss and they contact you, you can show/tell them about paper trail and police ref numbers etc.

The only way to deal with her is to go no contact, any contact on her side you need to report and if needed get an injunction out on her.

Treat this as you would if she was an abusive ex partner.

You may find help on the 'stately homes thread' in relationships.

Boundaries is what you need to put in place.

Good luck and chin up

*ds not dd

do not talk directly to her you can not reason with an unreasonable person, let the appropriate agencies ie police speak with her.

keep yourself and your dc safe

She's undermining you with your DS and sounds truly toxic. Start to see her for what she really is. Clearly NC is not an option if you work together, but she doesn't have any formal rights to see your DS and I'm pretty sure you have enough examples of her toxicity that a court wouldn't take her seriously, but I don't know.

First things first, she has no right to enter your house, change the locks - she probably has copies of the existing key. Deny her access to your property and confiscate the phone. As a parent you have every right to deny your son a mobile phone and she needs to respect that. If he wants to call her tell him he can use the house phone if he asks first, this is not unreasonable. If she wants to see your son, and you want to go along with that, then let it be outside of your home on the basis that she does not undermine you or speak badly of you. I don't know if there are any lawyers out there, but I know that when you make legal custody arrangements with ex-partners you can add clauses like that to the arrangement. Is it possible to do something similar re access arrangements for grandparents?

There are no grandparents rights so she can waste her money taking you to court if she wants. She can also waste her time referring you to social services, we aren't stupid, if you aren't abusing them it will be obvious.
You need to get tough. Get her out of your lives.

Agreed, log everything. I seriously think you have to move away though. There are some desperately sad threads on here where women have lost their children to manipulative and destructive grandparents. So so sad, and the damage can't be undone. All that they can hope for is that one day the long-adult children will wake up and see what's happened.

windy the op's mum is toxic, why let her ds have any communication with her? The best action is no contact

As Windywinston said, even if she returns your key change the locks. She sounds demented so no knowing what she has schemed.

Have you informed the school that under no circumstances has she any rights to either take him out, collect him, discuss anything, permit anything at all or is he too old for that? Sorry if it's obvious, long time since my two were school age.

I'd consider moving far far away and getting this protection from harassment order.

She sounds too toxic to ever have a normal relationship with, and the damage will also be done to your girls, and their relationship with their brother.

But OP doesn't seem to want to go that far (though I agree she has plenty of reasons to). I also said to start seeing her for what she is, which I hope would lead OP to the conclusion that she is better off without this woman.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, but my advice was based on an assumption that if she's not going to go NC then that is what I think she must do at the very least.

Can't add much to the wisdom already given you, apart from reiterating that there is no such thing as grandparents rights.

She sounds seriously unhinged, but most of her "power" is in making you believe she has power. Get tough; you have to protect your children.

All those things you are afraid she can do to you: work, SS, grandparents rights. All bollocks.

She is not above the law. She thinks she is. But she is not.

Ultimately you will have to cut her off completely. There are only two obvious ways to me:

1. By moving far far away.
2. Some kind of non-molestation order against her so she has to stay away.

Given that you don't want to do 1, that leaves 2.

Does your phone record? Start recording as much as possible. There are DV apps that look innocuous like a news website while actually recording.

Keep a handwritten dated diary detailing her carry on (it is hard to fake one of these so it is taken v seriously by the authorities).

Could you talk to the DV team at your work about what you would need to have her legally kept away from you all? Or a solicitor?

Cheers windy for clarification

kel she can try to take you to court, that is why you need to create a paper trail with the appropriate agencies, police, woman aid etc. if you log things with these agencies you may be able to get help if she should ever try to take you to court. This is continued emotional abuse, my guessing would be that she has been like this with you historically.

You do not have to put up with it, there are no half measures though, if you let her be a part of your families life she will use any chink in your armour to prise her way in to create more abuse and manipulations.

Give an inch and she will take a mile.

You do have a choice here.

You need to safeguard all of your dc.

I think you need to stop the Thursday night activities. You can't partially cut someone off but keep them around for when it is convenient for you. Either she is toxic which outweighs any possible usefulness or you want her help in which case you will have to put up with some crap.

Why bother asking for the key back. just change the locks.

The instinct of the police may be to believe her but they will also want to be seen to be doing the right think to avoid any allegations of improper conduct. you should consider reporting any more serious incidents. She will probably not like her dirty laundry aired in public. presumably she has a professional image that she would prefer to retain at work. remember this and ignore any faux bravado. No one would like the embarrassment of something like this coming up at work - including her.

I would also invest in a little legal advice 're what she can and can't do with regard to taking your son and your rights to use reasonable force to remove her from your property.

And consider Nannycam. Don't let her or your son get away with this. You risk putting DS in a position to make you and your DDs quite vulnerable if he thinks he is a little emperor whose DM cannot or will not stand up to him or his DGM.

I'm at work....ive asked for my key back very politely infront of people said Im not feeling well and need to go home and cant find it....
she said I havent got it with me ( it was on her keyring ) I asked her again but she said no even infront of people....I can't tell landlord I've lost key/ change locks as he will just give me a spare :( x

Been there, done that got the tee-shirt

Very long backstory that one day I'll set down, but we had an interfering grandparent (MrsLHs mother) who subtly, but disastrously undermined our parenting and almost led to a complete family breakdown. It poisoned relationships with our DS so much that he had a breakdown, and had to leave home at 17.

You need to completely exclude this woman from your sons life. And if that means yours, then so be it.

Hopefully at 11 you can pull it back.

You don't mention if you have a DP or not. Part of the evil witches modus operandi was to badmouth me to DS whenever he stayed over, or had a holiday with. It started subtly, but led to DS having no respect for me - and by extension MrsLH (because she was with a loser like me).

You also haven't mentioned your backstory with your DM. Now MrsLH and I are in a quiet place (NC for a year now) MrsLH has started to realise there are signs from her childhood that her mother was a very controlling, conniving person. Every so often she recalls incidents where she was bullied or pressurised.

I hope everything works out for you.

I would strongly advise you to call the police (101) and ask to file a report for the incident. This is essential, as it will give you a defined line in the sand which can't be "re-imagined". Otherwise I can promise you your DM will try to persuade the world it didn't happen.

I know you have said that you both work for the police but you really need to speak to them about your mother.

You both know she has/is crossing all sorts boundaries/laws. The only to stop this now is go at her hard but not breaking the law yourself.

Change the locks and give your landlord a key, explaining the situation. You will not be in breach oftenancy for ddoing this AFAIK.

Ouch, LH. I hope things have improved now :/

Please, OP, listen to the warnings. It's so sad when you see things get to the irretrievable state. Can you not talk to your landlord? (though everything you say sounds more and more like you need to escape 200 miles away :s )

I really recommend looking into a camera or something. Do you have a good enough phone it does video even? Could you put it on the mantelpiece or somewhere if you think she's coming over?

What Lurco says. if necessary tell your LL that the key was with your address details so for security reasons you had to do it urgently. As a former LL this would have been fine.

You DO have to accept that if you want things to change with your DM , some of the things you have to do will be difficult or have consequences (eg a discussion with your LL). Reading your OP, most of us, I think, feel that those consequences would be worth it but perhaps they are actually not for you and you would prefer the status quo?

OP you're making excuses, you're scared to face up to your mother, understandable given what she's capable of, but please heed the warnings from people here who've been where you are.

You need to decide which relationship is more important to you, the one you have with your mother or the one you have with your son. She won't change, but she's trying to change him.