Grandparents have dumped my son in favour of new grandchild

[CL240]

Hi all,

First ever post here so go easy on me!! Apologies if I have posted in wrong area. I'll try not to make this an essay. Just wanted some advice on next course of action.

So my husband & I have been together 15 years & we have a 3 yr old boy. We moved to the same town as PIL's to be nearer when we started a family. Up til December, they have been very involved in DS's life & had him every Monday & then he went to nursery the other 4 days as we both work. They were more than happy to do it & we did not force the issue as we never wanted him to be a burden.

Anyhow, they have a daughter who is 2 yrs younger than OH. She became pregnant & was due end of Jan. She has always been a bit of a Mummy's girl & they are close but no issue with that at all as I get mums and daughters often have a special bond & I am the DIL. I hasten to add I have always involved her & treated her like my own Mum.

Anyway she said in January, she didn't want to commit to having our son on Mondays as she wanted to be available for the daughter if needed.
We just swallowed it & said fine fair enough no problem. This then carried on into Feb way after the baby had been born & every Monday she kept letting us down at the last minute with varying excuses. She actually went completely NC with us & DS for 7 weeks in this time & didn't so much as pop over for a cuppa. Just nothing.

More often than not, the nursery couldn't take him at last minute meaning OH & I have been using a lot of annual leave to cover. Her main excuse is that she is paranoid that our son might have germs & she doesn't want to get sick if she is seeing the other baby girl. Utterly bizarre.

Anyway, we decided enough was enough & got our son booked in full time wef June. There was no point doing it earlier as we are on hol in May & with bank holidays there would only be 1 Monday in May to cover.

We said we don't want DS to be a burden (in a nice way) so we have now arranged full time nursery. Could you please however do 2 more Mondays - 29 Apr & 20 May that's it. She said she would.

My OH then gets a text today saying sorry I can't have DS on Monday. No reason given. Nursery can't have him so I've got to take another day off. At this point, I am raging (!) but call the nursery & ensure 20 May booked in with them as she will inevitably let us down again for that one.

So as at now, she is not having him any more. Me & OH both agree this for the best as MIL being so flaky. However, when I text her to say we have made alternative arrangements for 20 MAy as we can tell you dont want to have him any more, she replied with a thumbs up!!

No apology, no sorry to mess you about for 4 months continually nothing.

If she had just said pre new baby, I can't commit to having him any more, fine, but she hasn't she's just let us down at every opportunity.

In addition to that, she is keeping our DS away from his new cousin as she doesn't want him near her. I find this quite unnerving TBH & when I met the baby for the first time last week, she insisted on having our son. This is the only time she has insisted on it as she is clearly desperate to keep him away from her. I've no idea if this is some kind of germ thing or what, but her behaviour is getting increasingly erratic & I'm about to blow my lid.

On top of all that, she had secretly decided to sell the house & move to the town where the daughter lives (65 miles away). Not only did the daughter & SIL know, his parents knew & his mother let the cat out of the bag at the baby shower. MIL then gestured her to sssshhh as she hadn't told us at that point. At the time, I thought the conversation was very odd.

They then told us 3 weeks after it had gone on the market they were selling up to be near the daughter. To say I'm gutted is an understatement & I've shed a lot of tears over this. They've completely abandoned both us & DS & I never, ever expected this from them.

Anyone experienced this & what advice can you give? Seriously considering going NC now. Just to reiterate, I dont care about the Mondays, we can afford FT childcare it was more about them being part of DS's life. They've just dropped him, almost like a switch has been flicked & I am disgusted, angry, bitter, upset & all those things.

IF YOU GOT TO THE END WELL DONE :)

@diddl
I find it so weird they didn't mention house move. Of course they don't need to 'consult' but most normal people do mention it to their children when they're planning to move several miles away from them!

I do wonder why some mothers treat their sons like second class citizens when they marry and favour their daughters.

Anyway she said in January, she didn't want to commit to having our son on Mondays as she wanted to be available for the daughter if needed.

So she told you this at the beginning of the year, yet you still expected her to look after him every week?

What a horrible situation, I'm not surprised you feel like you are grieving - the extended family you thought you had has suddenly disappeared and your day to day life has changed thanks to you MiL's strange antics. The whole selling their house without telling you despite you moving there to be closer to them is utterly bizarre. She sounds a bit deranged, and I wonder how your SiL really feels about the move!

She sounds mentally ill to be honest. My MIL has never acted like that! It’s very bizarre but to be honest, some women don’t invest in DIL or DS relationships in preference to DD. It’s future proofing. She’s more likely to get help/consideration/looked after by her DD and granddaughter than she is by you or your DH. There’s that saying something like “a daughter is yours for life, a sin is yours until he gets a wife” there’s no benefit to investing time/effort in sons/grandson but there is in a daughter/granddaughter. Sorry but that’s the truth of how a lot of people feel and I’ve seen my MIL dumped by one of her own sons in favour of the DILs mother so I think there’s probably some truth in it. Her daughter will always come before you so she gets the preferential treatment. There’s no downside (to her) of dumping you. It’s very very sad but I’m guessing that’s why she’s done it.

I would say it is jealousy of the other grandmother. She is probably paranoid about the ILs getting more time with the baby. My DM lost her marbles a bit after I had DS, their first grandchild, because she was paranoid that we were favouring MIL in letting her see DS first after he was born and other things. It was utterly insane how she behaved - came to visit after the birth and had an absolute meltdown because her congratulations card was upstairs in my room while MIL’s was ‘displayed proudly’ as she put it in the living room. Honestly nothing to it at all, I was in a sleep deprived haze but she literally cried about it!

To this day I have to be careful about mentioning the ILs to her. The crazy thing is that when DS was born we lived in the same country as the ILs whereas DM was a 2 hour flight away but this didn’t compute with her at all. It was nuts. I honestly think some women go a little bit loopy about baby gc. Once the gc are older or there are more of them maybe it’ll calm down a bit. I hope she sees sense soon. In the meantime try to focus on other issues and keep it in perspective. At least your DS isn’t upset about it so far.

Xmas for example, she told us not to contact or attempt to visit the daughter as she needs to relax.

This is quite revealing I think. Especially in addition to her insisting she had your son when you visited the baby so that she could keep him away. It’s like she has set herself up as the gatekeeper between your DH and his sister, between her baby and your son, between you and the baby. Basically, she wants to be in control of everybody’s interactions with each other. If it were me, I'd deal with this by just shutting her down. When she says "you mustn't contact SIL" I'd breezily say "honestly MIL, you are a worrier. We're all adults. We'll make our own arrangements directly with her and she will tell us herself if she doesn't feel up to getting together". And then immediately and pointedly change the subject. If she brings it up again say "MIL, we've already said we will deal with it ourselves". No further explanation and change subject. Just don't discuss with her.

The biggest problem you've got really is that your DH "won't hear a bad word" and thinks there's no issue. You have to tread the line between supporting him and not forcing a change in his family, but also protecting yourself and your son. Very tricky. My personal tactic would be just step back, stop hosting and let it develop into an extremely low contact situation which is where it seems to be headed without you driving things.

How much did you see of her/them outside of the Mon childcare & who usually instigated it?

GreenFingers - I will clarify. She gave us 3 Monday dates she couldn't do but said she wanted to continue having him again after baby was born. We made alternative arrangements for those dates as she gave us plenty of notice.

Once those dates were done & baby born, she's made excuses ever since & let us down at the 11th hour despite saying she would have him.

Let your OH deal with his parents from now on and let them do the running. I wouldn't be hosting them at Christmas again.

I feel like I'm missing something. MIL told you in Jan she didn't want to commit to having your DS yet instead of making alternative arrangements from Jan, you've continued to ask her to watch him . . .I don't think she has messed you about. I think she told you in Jan and you either ignored or misinterpreted what 'I can't commit to watching DS' means.
As for dropping DS for the new baby, that may wear off. The new baby is still tiny. But I do understand why that hurts.
Your OP does read as though you're fixated on childcare rather than having a relationship with your PILs. Perhaps it seems like that to them too.

Another hug from me too OP.

My mother sold her house and told everyone about the move except me.

Sure I knew she wanted to move, on the market, exchanged and all that but not that she’d found somewhere. She actively avoided telling me that that they’d offered, it was accepted and they were just doing the paperwork

I only found out by overhearing someone ask her about it at a family gathering.

Nothing ever hurt me like that before or since. We’re NC now, a big reason is because of this.

When the truth hits home with your dh, he’s going to need a lot of support. Thank god he has you.

Small silver lining? If you never see her again, it won’t hurt your ds. He won’t remember any of this.

Ah thank you.

Not fair to promise childcare then constantly let you down. Shame, but maybe she was finding him more difficult to look after as an active toddler rather than a tiny baby.

But the rest of it sounds batshit bonkers.

Ratatatouille - you are bang on the money there. That's what I feel about her being the gatekeeper & controlling everything.

Is funny as you would never have thought it before. She's usually fairly placid & was generally a very kind & thoughtful MIL. That's why I think she might be a bit unwell.

Diddl - we see a fair bit of them actually outside of the Monday or we used to. Not every weekend, but 1-2 times a month at least. Often had them for dinner, had BBQ's would make a big effort on birthdays mothers days etc. Always used to text & send her pics 3-4 times a week. Was often in more contact with MIL than my own Mum. That's what is so perplexing. We would do anything for them.

I'd look on the bright side - you're well rid of her. SIL on the other hand is going to soon be having to deal with two gets of GPs fighting over the baby. I can't imagine it's going to be fun for her if they should both want to be the primary source of child care/baby sitting when her DD is not with the childminder.

I feel like I'm missing something. MIL told you in Jan she didn't want to commit to having your DS yet instead of making alternative arrangements from Jan, you've continued to ask her to watch him . . .I don't think she has messed you about. I think she told you in Jan and you either ignored or misinterpreted what 'I can't commit to watching DS' means.

I feel like people are being quite obtuse about this. OP has clarified that MIL said it about January in particular, not in general. Since it was before the due date presumably the concern was that she didn't want to have him in case her DD went into labour (personally I think this is a bit over the top in itself, but whatever). She never said it as a 'I can't do it now, or indeed ever again' thing.

I just don't get this kind of PIL behaviour at all.

I just can't wait to have DGC and I hope both of my boys will have children. If anything I'm worried about being excluded as the mother of sons but I'm just keeping my fingers crossed.

I don't want to be the children's nanny but visiting, being visited and helping out would just be great. And why would you choose to prioritise one child's DC over another'? I just don't get it.

Of course your children are different from each other but that's the joy of it. They both surprise you as they're their own people.

So sorry for this OP. But as a scapegoated child of narcissistic parents I'm not surprised. It's lovely that you boost up your DH. Being around his mother bugging up his sister and her DC will probably do him no good. I doubt if he's really laid back about it but really has chosen to be in denial to protect himself.

The girls are all favoured in my big family. Out of all the cousins that have children I have the only boy. He is totally left out, he is not the oldest or the youngest. No one asks for photos of him at Easter they they do for the girls or asks after his football, like they ask about the girls ballet or dancing. I guess it's a girl thing.

My thought is that maybe your DS was getting too lively for your MIL and she's used this as an excuse. They aren't babies anymore at 3 years old, they are all go.

My MIL did visit weekly when I had DS, but now comes about once every 3 weeks now he's 3. There are no other babies in the picture here.

What Ratatatouille wrote earlier.

I would stay well away from his mother altogether going forward; she has shown you by both word and deed that she clearly cannot be at all relied upon here. She is showing you who she really is.

I also think that her behaviour is part of a very long standing familial dynamic that she herself created re gatekeeping behaviour. Her daughter and therefore her child remain more favoured with her son i.e. your H being less favoured.

This is what happens in narcissistic family structures. Therefore you all get scapegoated by her as a result. Your man has been conditioned really not to say anything derogatory here because he is far more afraid of his mother than he ever is or would be of you. He cannot or equally therefore will not deal with her. He seems mired in his own fear, obligation and guilt re his mother.

You do not mention FIL by name in all this, where is he?.

This is very odd. I wonder if there’s something your not being told about your husband’s and your SIL childhood.
Your husband struggled mentally when your son was born I think you said and now this I not sure what’s going on but it’s almost like she wants to keep the two children apart.
Sorry if I’m not making sense but it’s all I can think of.

I feel like I'm missing something. MIL told you in Jan she didn't want to commit to having your DS yet instead of making alternative arrangements from Jan, you've continued to ask her to watch him . . .I don't think she has messed you about. I think she told you in Jan and you either ignored or misinterpreted what 'I can't commit to watching DS' means.

I agree, that was my thought too.

I wonder if perhaps you’ve been too close OP, and combined with your DH’s nervous breakdown - it was a bit overwhelming for them. You said you treated them like your own parents, but maybe they didn’t want to be.

Doesn’t explain the weirdness over SIL’s baby but it would explain the move.

Thank you Lisa

I wish people wouldn't fixate on the childcare. I don't care if he is FT at nursery I really don't but she is making no effort to see him or even ask after him now. She's just dropped him like a stone with no real explanation. Mondays was great as it was their quality time together & they used to have a great time. It's just so very very sad how this has come about & will take a while to get over it.

But I guess I have to be strong & not fall out with OH. I think removing myself from it all is best option.... will just see what transpires & if she finally decides she wants a relationship with him again.

She never said it as a 'I can't do it now, or indeed ever again' thing.

No but that’s what she was getting at, and it sounds like the cues were missed.

phonehomephone

re your comment:-

"The girls are all favoured in my big family. Out of all the cousins that have children I have the only boy. He is totally left out, he is not the oldest or the youngest. No one asks for photos of him at Easter they they do for the girls or asks after his football, like they ask about the girls ballet or dancing. I guess it's a girl thing"

Do not excuse this as merely a girl thing. It's a behaviour that narcissists do as part of their dysfunctional family set up; if you are the scapegoat in your family of origin your whole family becomes scapegoated as well. My advice to you is to stay away from all these people who use you as the scapegoat for all their inherent ills.

What a very upsetting and strange thing to happen, like other posts have said at least your son is young not to notice the difference. Hmm I do wonder what would happen if you had a second child, would she then insist on being back in your lives?

It is sad for all of you but best to keep a distance and at least child care is 100% sorted now with nursery.