How can I feel more in control with my Mother?

[saltnpepa]

My Mother is due to visit in a few weeks time and I'm already feeling anxious and upset about her coming. She was abusive when I was little, emotional abuse and some physical and a definitive general emotional neglect. Part of me wants her out of my life and another part of me wants to keep on supporting her relationship with my children, I suppose because I want to do the right thing.

So she is coming to visit and I'm dreading it. She rolls her eyes and sucks her teeth when we are out with the kids because she has a deep sense of social shame which is triggered if the kids talk loudly or muck about while we're out (normal stuff, they're good kids). She makes underhand comments about how I am stroppy and difficult because I have called her on her abuse and told her what behavior I expect around my kids and the consequences if she steps out of line, she is inappropriate in her comments around the kids sometimes and I have to keep pulling her up which results in the face and sulks, she kicked my brothers wife last year so i know she still has the capacity for violence. So I have set the boundaries and am wise to her nonsense and know why I am having her here but still part of me feels that she will somehow cause destruction even though I have put lots of measures in place to protect me and my family.

I don't mean this to sound unkind but I wonder why you place importance on this woman having any relationship with your DCs? It is not obligatory to let a grandmother see her grandchildren - especially someone you know to be manipulative even violent.

"Part of me wants her out of my life and another part of me wants to keep on supporting her relationship with my children, I suppose because I want to do the right thing".

Societal convention is a powerful force but some grandparents really should not have any access to their grandchildren. Your mother is a case in point.

Many adult children of toxic parents feel torn between their parents’ (and society’s) expectation that grandparents will have access to their grandkids, and their own unfortunate firsthand knowledge that their parents are emotionally/physically/sexually abusive, or just plain too difficult to have any kind of healthy relationship with.

The children’s parents may allow the grandparents to begin a relationship with their children, hoping that things will be different this time, that their parents have really changed, and that their children will be emotionally and physically safer than they themselves were.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the case, because most abusive people have mental disorders of one kind or another, and many of these disorders are lifelong and not highly treatable. (Others are lifelong and treatable; however, many people never seek the necessary help.)

The well-intentioned parent ends up feeling mortified for having done more harm than good by hoping things would somehow be different — instead of having a child who simply never knew their grandparents and who was never mistreated, they have an abused child who is now also being torn apart by the grief involved in having to sever a lifelong relationship with the unhealthy people they are very attached to.

The thing to do here would be to cancel her visit now and in future keep your mother well away from your most precious resource; your children. She was not a good parent to you and is not a good grandparent either to your children.

If she is too toxic for you to deal with, she is far too toxic for both your vulnerable and defenceless children.

People like your mother rail against boundaries and she could well ignore any boundary you care to set her.

I sympathise if you have little or no family close by. I don't have my parents any more and in-laws are scattered, perhaps you are in the same boat and feel a need to have at least one blood relative in your DCs' lives even if she's difficult. NC is a big step but policing her when she is visiting isn't much fun.

We probably rely on friends to fill the gaps. Your family can be who you make them, they're not always genetic.

Honestly op I think completely cutting her out wouldn't be a bad idea. You don't have to feel keeping her abusive, vile ways around is the right thing. I can't see how your kids will ever benefit from having a relationship with her.

I think you may want to rethink your definition of the 'right thing'.

I'm wondering why this visit is happening too. It doesn't sound a happy or joyous occasion for either you or your DCs.

The best measure to protect you and your family is to cancel the visit and stop her coming into your lives to abuse you and them again. If she kicked your SIL just ladt year, what could she end up doing to you or your kids?

I generally think some form of physical act is far more powerful than simply saying something. People can twist past conversations or simply pretend to forget them. Therefore I would either sit your Mother down when she arrives and hand her a piece of paper (or send her an email or text before she arrives) with the "ground rules" for this visit and all future visits. This piece of paper makes your rules tangible and unequivocal. I would then walk through each rule, so that you both know exactly what the rule means and the consequence of failure to adhere to the rule. Finally she has to clearly state that she will abide by rules and that she understands the consequences if she does not.