WWYD - my mother having sex

[Tokenjester]

Not sure how to handle this, so I need your advice. I just found out that my children have regularly seen & heard their grandmother & her partner have sex when they stay at her house.

I am so disgusted with my mother at the absolute disrespect she has shown my children. It is not like they see her often - surely she could keep her legs shut for a couple of days twice a year.

We don’t have a good relationship - very superficial- we are very different women - so this is potentially the final nail in the coffin .... how can I tell her I know in a measured way without opening Pandora’s box? I’m so pissed off that my then 8 yr old had sex explained to him by his sibling having seen his granny having sex.

My first reaction is to phone her up and bollock her & say she’s never seeing them again. For god’s sake they have said they prefer staying at her house rather than the partners because she shuts the door.... they have normalised this behaviour.

Vile- but what should I do- what would you do???

Fucking hell Slarty. Are you the grandmas partner? Or the grandma?

Having now read your later posts, this is far more disturbing than I thought. Your mother is aware the children know she is having sex and doesn’t care. That’s beyond disgusting. Your mother is completely untrustworthy.

What do you intend to do?

They stay with her twice a year?

I can't believe some people are saying this is nothing, or that you're over reacting.
It is absolutely disgusting and as an ADULT they both should go to great lengths they are not seen or heard! If not possible, don't bloody do it! Like you said it's a few days.
I would tell her you know, tell her you're disgusted and tbh.. that would be it for contact for me and my children.
Not just based on this incident but the fact that you don't have a good relationship anyway, she's hardly making a massive effort with your children to compensate for that.

Slarty - OP said 'keep her legs shut for a couple of days twice a year' so sounds like overnights are rare.

Just tell her to shut the door so the children can't see.

Whoever said it can be construed as non-contact child abuse is probably right. Children should not be exposed to this sort of thing, even between consenting adults in their own bedroom in their own house. Shut the fucking door, ffs! How hard IS it?

Wrong. Don't blame you for being upset.

That is disgusting behaviour from their grandma OP, I would not be letting them stay overnight again. Have a chat to your mum about it, and depending on her reaction either go no contact or only allow her to see the DC on days out where there will be no possibility of abuse. And it is abuse if she knows they have seen and heard and hasn't changed her behaviour.

I would say no overnights at least!

Do the kids still want to see her?

If not, easy decision.

Personally I’d just go round and tell her that she has made your children very uncomfortable by having sex where they could hear and see her and that they won’t be staying over again. She definitely needs this addressing. Absolutely bizarre behaviour.

I would definitely be getting the adults version of events before jumping to any conclusions and stopping contact tbh.

Surely what you do in these situations is pick the phone up and mention calmly that the kids have seen and heard stuff you would prefer they hadn’t?

Every other decision on how things progress from that point depends on your mothers response and how the conversation goes from there, and discussing abuse, no contact etc at this point is pretty pointless.

Two possible responses below

“Ah well. It’s my house and I like a shag and we never shut the door when they aren’t here so why should I bother when they are. They are old enough to know about the birds and the bees anyway”

“Oh my god how embarrassing. We didn’t realise and since we are normally the only ones in the house are not in the habit of shutting the door. It won’t happen again. Sorry”

Oh okay yeah, just tell her to shut the door - problem solved?!

FFS. I really hope some of you aren't parents.

No way you could trust her having your kids overnight after this. Once could be a mistake, absolutely. If your grandkids accidentally saw you having sex, surely the next day you'd be making damn sure the door was closed... or I don't know not having sex for those four days a year

This is just not normal / responsible behaviour. 1 in 20 kids are directly sexually abused. Do people really not understand how prolific this problem is, and how likely it is that the perpetrator will be someone they know, especially a family member? Why would you give the benefit of the doubt and assume this is nothing rather than take every step to protect your children?

token yes, that's the biggest lesson I've learned from all of this. Children even at that age are very aware of how much trouble being honest could cause, even if they don't fully understand what's happening to them, and this is usually prompted by the abuser. After the first time my father made many excuses: he was tired, he was drunk, he got into the wrong bed, I couldn't tell my mum as she would think it was something bad and would cry and I wouldn't be able to see him anymore. I completely bought into this narrative for years and even as an adult would say he'd made a mistake, it only happened because he was drunk, he wasn't really an abuser. It took me a lot of counselling to undo all that.

I'm stunned by some of the people here - most spouses of abusers have absolutely no idea what they're doing, so why do you think you'd know if your mum you barely see and / or their partner are a risk to your kids? Trust me, you wouldn't. She knows about this recurrent behaviour now, what's she supposed to do - just hope for the best? absolutely not.

I think the only thing I can do is speak frankly to her & not allow our relationship difficulties to overshadow how screwed up her behaviour has been. Thank you all for your posts, I do appreciate it.

There's a big difference between the kids opening a shut door and walking in on sex once (which happens to an awful lot of people and, as long as the adults don't make a massive big deal of it, does no harm) - and regularly seeing and hearing adults having sex. I would also be a bit concerned about whether the new partner is behind this - it might not necessarily mean that he is a nonce, it might be an indicator of his wish to control the mother and insist she puts him first - or a way of getting the overnights to stop because he doesn't want her doing so much childcare.

I can see both sides. Yes, people have sex, I'm sure parents have sex when their children are in the house (or they wouldn't have any siblings) but to have sex with the door open whilst your grandchildren are staying is just not on, how hard is I to close the door, keep the noise down or just go a night or 2 without it?

I wouldn't let them stay over again.

Ps I salute you Tammy

Oh okay yeah, just tell her to shut the door - problem solved?!

FFS. I really hope some of you aren't parents.

🙄

There has been no indication on this thread that the children have told their grandmother or that she has noticed.

As a first reaction, telling her to shit the door is right. Leaping straight to child abuse is ridiculous.

Further action would depend on how she reacts to being told to shut the door.

Speak to her and see what she says.

I'm amazed how some people are so willing to jump to the most innocent conclusions at all times and put protecting children at such low priority. Child abuse is not a 'one in a million' type occurrence. Sadly for personal and professional reasons, some of us know how prevalent it is and the damage done by it.

So tell her not us

Slarty wins the prize for the least helpful & stupidest post in MN history.

comes on a relationship discussion and advice forum
apparently fails to realise it's for discussion & advice.

Oh but apparently it's perfectly innocent for this to happen, bastardkitty - every single time they visit. Who gives a shit whether she's realised it or not - what kind of adult doesn't take precautions to stop this from happening in the first place?

I especially hated the post that said OP needs to get the adult version of events. So the children have been really hesitant to tell mum what had been happening and worried about causing upset, so the answer is find out what really happened from the adult. Grrr.

"Why on earth have you let her have the kids at all given your relationship? That makes no sense."

I've often wondered about that.

Seem to see it time & again on here.

My mother was a shit mother, but I don't want the kids to miss out on a relationship with their GM??!!

Sorry-no relationship with me, no relationship with my kids,

'Fraid I'm another one who's worried about the background of your Mum's partner (as well as your Mum's boundaries/sense) given the repeated incidence (?) of the door being left open and the sex being loud enough to be heard.

Reanimated - yes, to the control aspect - I guess a few days a year is too much - we live over an hour away & they go abroad a lot- she recently said she didn’t need to see kids at Christmas now they are older & they are going to partner’s relative....