I've posted before about DM and DF and their alcohol issues which are a bit of an elephant in the room we don't discuss.
I see them anywhere between 2-4 times a month with my DCs, DP is NC with them, I don't leave my DCs unsupervised with them and don't ask them to babysit. Up until now my sister has been living with them and enduring quite a bit of hell for quite a long time before telling me how bad the drinking is/was. She's now moving out and considering going LC she's quite detached and pessimistic about them now and doesn't really like talking about them/the drinking so I never really ask anymore.
My worry is that they are very, and I mean very good at sounding completely rational and convincing you of their side , second guessing yourself and literally having no counter argument as for some reason when you are there in front of them what they are saying just kind of makes sense. I don't see them often enough to know if / how much they still drink and they usually make sure everything's good when I visit so in the past I definitely didn't get the full picture. I'm worried they will keep on asking to babysit or take my DCs on days out on their own and that it will start causing fallouts and issues as I have no way of knowing what their real situation is and they will tell me they are on the straight and narrow and there's literally no way for me to know.
From there it's super easy for the fallout to happen as it would be seen as me withholding DCs for no good reason and I will be feeling the pressure.
I get lulled into this sense of normality with them and I'm seriously questioning my judgement.
I was chatting to my sister a few days ago and we were having a bit of a joke about babysitting and so on - she doesn't want kids, I asked her if she had them would she leave them with DM and DF to be babysat and she said she wouldn't even leave her dog with them. This really threw me and sounded really harsh but then I remembered that she has lived with them far longer than me and if this is her honest feeling then I must still be seeing things very much with rose coloured specs.
So how do I stand firm and not let them get to my head and convince me everything's fine and great? I can really easily see myself down that slippery slope and I really want to avoid that.