It’s me again with the critical John Lewis obsessed parents who mean well

[TooStressyTooMessy]

Hi all,

I have posted about this before (pre-Covid) under a slightly different username.

I have two DDs, age 8 and 10. Married to DH and we have been together forever (to be clear he is the father of DDs).

I used to have a great (or so I thought) relationship with my parents until I had children. They mean well and absolutely adore our DDs. HOWEVER, I find being with them incredibly stressful. They live a few hours away so are not really involved in our day-to-day lives although we speak on the phone.

They very much want to be ‘fun’ grandparents and this is where the problems start. They think we are too strict, especially DH. They do not like any kind of discipline at all, eg if we told them to use a knife and fork at the table, not to rub off from the table, asked them to help us tidy their rooms, then my parents would view that as too strict. They do not like the children to cry or be sad when they visit or we visit them. I suppose they are Disney grandparents. That would be fine, that is the joy of being grandparents. Except if we tell the kids off for anything at all then my parents eye roll, tut, and often have to go and have a lie down because they get so upset to see a child upset. I really wish I was joking. We can never play a board game or anything like that with them as they become sad if DC lose and get upset.

I am absolutely not too strict and neither is DH although he is stricter than me. I have really struggled with discipline and did a parenting course when they were younger where I was told in no uncertain tones that I needed to be stricter. So I am by no means an ogre.

Basically they hate DH (loved him pre kids), think I am too strict and not capable of parenting, and think the children are growing up in a terrible environment. There is NO abuse. They really just do seem to think that setting boundaries and parenting, eg telling a child it is bedtime and asking them to turn off the telly, asking them not to run off in a busy street (ore-Covid) is cruel.

I got lots of advice on here and actually eventually stood up to them. Told them I was an adult, DH and I are the parents not them. We saw them one more time which was tense but ok and then Covid came.

Of course Covid itself has been truly horrific. But not having to see my parents has been wonderful .

They are coming up for a weekend in May when overnight stays are allowed. I am dreading it. I am already stressed and nagging DH to fix some stuff around the house which needs to be done before they come. I times my Dad one visit and it took him seconds to criticise something from walking in. So DH and I are arguing about it which is the usual way of things and makes me stressed before I have even seen them. He is also upset as it is obvious they do not like him.

They have already suggested us going to the nearest City for a John Lewis shopping trip. I have said no and my mum was surprised and disappointed. I have already said repeatedly that a busy town centre is not a relaxing environment when they will then want to take DDs in and be surprised they want to buy everything in sight. Let alone with the Covid situation - it is not a fun experience! They live not too far from London and can easily go to John Lewis there so I am not depriving them!

I realise this is an opportunity to move forward. It has been over a year since we saw them. I am desperate not to go back to feeling like a child desperate for their approval and them making it clear they think we are bad parents. They are not involved in my parenting usually so why do I feel on show so much when they do come?

TLDR: any tips on moving forward with a more adult relationship with my parents after the natural break of lockdown.

Every post is so insightful and I am resolved to phone my parents this weekend and tell them that they are too critical in visits.

Why should be modify his behaviour? I guess I really struggle to see why he shouldn’t. To be it’s a no brainier - he should modify it to avoid an argument with my parents or worse, to avoid the huge stress I am under and the dark dark clouds and fretful looks and tuts. Because you're too scared to stand up to them. He is doing what you should be doing, ignoring their batshit behaviour.

What actually makes me really annoyed is the tutting and looks don’t seem to bother him but I get more and more stressed. If keeping quiet and staying out of the way would improve the situation then why won’t he do it? Why should he? In his own home? Why should he kowtow to people who are criticising him at every turn?

I sort of feel as if he won’t do this one thing for me. He could say the same about you, why won't you do this one thing for him (stand up to your parents and support him as an equal partner)
He does feel really hurt and excluded and I suppose I view that as incredibly juvenile and annoying. We would all have a better time if he stayed at home but I can’t tell him that of course. So, his in laws are bitching about him non-stop and you are criticising him for not bowing down to them and you wonder why he's hurt that you might all go off without him?

The reason I think the DC would be upset is that they themselves ask to stay longer. They would happily stay for a week! of course they do, because there is no discipline whatsoever and they get to do what they want and have everyone fussing over them and ensuring they are having the best time ever AT ALL TIMES or woebetide.

Maybe they do enjoy being miserable! My mother was like this, it's like a hobby.

First they exchange looks. Both go silent and tut. My Mum looks as if she will cry. My Dad stops speaking. They both look concerned and keep exchanging concerned looks. I feel incredibly stressed and upset as I just want us to get along. Hugely passive aggressive and manipulative. Would you put up with this from ANYONE else?

At night they whisper in loud voices to say all of the above to each other again, also that DH is horrible and I am scared of him. This is where they are attempting to drive a wedge between you and DH.

@TooStressyTooMessy

Every post is so insightful and I am resolved to phone my parents this weekend and tell them that they are too critical in visits.

And that you don't feel an overnight visit is a good idea at the moment. And then talk to your DH about all this. You should be a team. Read Toxic Parents.

I don’t think my parents’ happiness is more important than my DH’s in normal life. What I think is for a couple of days every other month or so we could put their happiness first. Absolutely right they want DC to be having the BEST TIME EVER but I fall short every time on that. It seems impossible to make them happy. Have ordered the books.

I can relate completely to posters with similar issues.

You are deep in the FOG and seem to have no interest in getting out of it. Much easier for your husband to just get in line. If you are anything like me with my mother you will feel total blind panic. You will be desperate for your Dh to appease your parents because you know the only other way to is have some kind of confrontation with your parents and that scares the living shit out of you for reasons you can't really articulate. if he'd just play along, it would all be fine. Except of course it won't. They'll find something else to criticise.
Going down this road leads to your marriage going down the pan and your parents still criticising you (probably about how you're not coping as a single parent).
It's all about CONTROL.

What I think is for a couple of days every other month or so we could put their happiness first. Why can't they put your happinness first by respecting that you are an adult and it's not their business to interfere. You're still desperately trying to contort yourself to please them. Why? What do you feel when you think about displeasing them? Why is it so terrifying?

No, no, no crying or telling off while we are here, this is a happy time etc

To this I would say, ‘don’t you think this puts a lot of pressure on us to be happy, and actually makes our visit more stressful’

Maybe you could call them now and stress to them how much better things were getting pre COVID.

Also, if your relationship with your husband is otherwise good please, please back him up. If he wrote a thread we would be saying ‘you don’t have a pil problem, you have a dw problem’.

By choosing to not rock the boat and make life easier for yourself you are actually giving yourself a ridiculous amount of stress. If you acted more like your dh it’s really really difficult for a little while, but the benefits of standing up for yourself are so worth it.

Maybe you could even tell your parents that it was a relief not to see them in lockdown, I think this might help that see the seriousness of their actions.

I feel for you op.

My parents sound similar to yours and with my current partner we pull together for the family things. They’re a bit of a chore but we hang in there together and manage to make the best of it. With my ex, I had that feeling of having to keep it all together and keep everyone happy and ward off my parents from being too intrusive and it was so bloody draining. I mention this because until there was someone else there with me who was on my side, I don’t think I understood what a big difference that would make.

I’m not convinced by your logic that you’re too soft so your partner has to be strict. Sure a good couple will balance each other out and one parent can be too permissive but they way you repeat it like a mantra makes me think that your dh is doing something wrong (being too strict with the kids) but somehow it’s your fault because a parenting course said something similar years ago.

My mother is constantly telling me what is wrong with my children and myself. I find it helpful to flip my thinking from ‘my mother thinks I’m a bad parent/ I’m not good enough’ to ‘my mother has poor social skills/ my mother isn’t well educated’. It would make me sad when my children are grown up if my behaviour pushed them away from me. And so I manage to find a little sympathy for my parents. Also, (incase I’m sounding too nice here) I’m very blunt and politely respond with ‘I’m not going to be taking dc to the doctors because they have broader shoulders than last year’/ ‘even if it is summer dressing all the children in white isn’t something I’m going to do’ and just repeat my answer calmly and consistently until they move onto something else. (And then later I can react with dp when we’re alone and have a laugh or grumble about it).

Putting someone first means not indulging your own selfishness at their expense. Or giving them the best towels. Or not watching the show you want because you know they want to watch something else.

It doesn't mean putting up with being made miserable by behaviour that is not in any way mitigated or softened in order not to make you miserable.

I can see why you personally don't want to sour things with your parents, but for your dh to have to put up with people who actively hate him and for your parenting to be constantly criticised is more than putting your parents first - it's indulging their unpleasant behaviour in the full knowledge it will make other people you love unhappy.

@TooStressyTooMessy

Every post is so insightful and I am resolved to phone my parents this weekend and tell them that they are too critical in visits.

What do you expect to gain from this? How do you think they will react? Do you think they will change their behaviour as a result?

@Comtesse

I just bought this book “if you had controlling parents” by Dan Neuharth after seeing someone (Atilla?) recommend it.

Ffs your parents make a fuss when the kids cry about losing a board game. Their reactions are CRAZY. Who cares what they think about your parenting? Their judgement is massively, massively off.

You are so frightened of their judgement. This is not right or normal. Sorry OP

I recommend this one too - I’ve read it several times

I’ve also had counselling and seen therapists which have given me tools to deal with my controlling parents

Orangeblossom If you are anything like me with my mother you will feel total blind panic. You will be desperate for your Dh to appease your parents because you know the only other way to is have some kind of confrontation with your parents and that scares the living shit out of you for reasons you can't really articulate. if he'd just play along, it would all be fine. Except of course it won't. They'll find something else to criticise.. This. Exactly this. Total blind panic would be the best description. I feel so so sad that I have this kind of relationship with them and am terrified my own children will hate me in a similar way. Also I think they really have no idea how much stress they cause me. They think they are helping. Do I really just come out and say that the visits are too stressful and I feel criticised all the time. When I spoke to them pre-Covid I did say this and they denied that they were stressful, said they were not criticising and said they were only upset as they worried for the children. The conversation was incredible difficult and I think they took it as even more evidence that I couldn’t cope in life and thought DH had put me up to it. My Dad didn’t speak to me for 3 weeks afterwards then never mentioned the conversation.

What do I expect to gain from the conversation? Nothing. I suspect they will deny everyone and tell me it won’t be stressful and they are so looking forward to seeing us all. I think they will deny it, take it as further evidence that my normal life is full of stress and worry and not change in the slightest .

""Once you get going, most toxic parents will counterattack. After all, if they had the capacity to listen, to hear, to be reasonable, to respect your feelings, and to promote your independence, they wouldn't be toxic parents. They will probably perceive your words as treacherous personal assaults. They will tend to fall back on the same tactics and defences that they have always used, only more so.

Remember, the important thing is not their reaction but your response. If you can stand fast in the face of your parents' fury, accusations, threats and guilt-peddling, you will experience your finest hour."

From Toxic Parents by Susan Forward. I've copied and pasted it from the Stately Homes thread.

Thank you I am going to join the thread

@TooStressyTooMessy

Orangeblossom If you are anything like me with my mother you will feel total blind panic. You will be desperate for your Dh to appease your parents because you know the only other way to is have some kind of confrontation with your parents and that scares the living shit out of you for reasons you can't really articulate. if he'd just play along, it would all be fine. Except of course it won't. They'll find something else to criticise.. This. Exactly this. Total blind panic would be the best description. I feel so so sad that I have this kind of relationship with them and am terrified my own children will hate me in a similar way. Also I think they really have no idea how much stress they cause me. They think they are helping. Do I really just come out and say that the visits are too stressful and I feel criticised all the time. When I spoke to them pre-Covid I did say this and they denied that they were stressful, said they were not criticising and said they were only upset as they worried for the children. The conversation was incredible difficult and I think they took it as even more evidence that I couldn’t cope in life and thought DH had put me up to it. My Dad didn’t speak to me for 3 weeks afterwards then never mentioned the conversation.

I'm so sorry. It's so hard. My ending isn't really a happy one in that, eventually, I fell out terminally with my mother and I haven't seen or spoken to her in years. But I am so much happier and calmer and a better person. She would have criticised my children too as they got older and made them feel they didn't measure up too. I'm sure of that. I too was a very good child, because I'd been conditioned to always put my mother first and never criticise her. I read Toxic Parents and had a LOT of therapy sessions to unpick my low self worth and relationship with her. I lowered contact but she pushed and pushed and ultimately it all exploded and she emigrated. NC for years now. You don't have to end up with that, but you do need boundaries. the books recommended will help with that. Read them if you can before you speak to your parents again. Also, the taking to his bed and not speaking to you is HUGELY manipulative.

They think they are helping. No they don't. They aren't doing it to help. They are doing it to CONTROL. It's all about CONTROL and manipulation.

OP in your heart of hearts do you think your children need to be worried about?

If you do, fair enough. If not, that's a really cruel thing for a parent to say to their child and you should ask yourself what kind of manipulative person would say it. Will you say it to your kids when they're parents?

Well done for ordering the books, Toxic Parents changed my life and my parents are nowhere near as hard work as yours. This is hard stuff and it takes time to unpick your conditioning. At the moment you are fixated on a "solution" to the problem and annoyed at your husband and kids for not going along with it - but ultimately it's the wrong solution. I think you are starting to see this (you mentioned this in an earlier post) so I hope you will be able to keep moving in the right direction.

Two other things - firstly I totally agree that getting some therapy would help you to unpick these patterns and learn new ones. It might cost a bit of money (probably less than you think) but will be the best money you'll ever spend, I promise you. I'd send this thread to your therapist as it outlines things quite clearly and will give a good starting point. They will have seen this type of thing before, it's very common.

Secondly, please talk to your husband. Tell him you see there is a problem and you're working on it. Read the books together, talk about the problem, but stop asking him to change his behaviour. At the moment, where your parents are concerned, you're on opposing sides, and you need to get onto the same team. If I were in his shoes it would mean a lot to me if my partner was at least making an effort to move the dial on dealing with the issue.

Also I think they really have no idea how much stress they cause me. They think they are helping.

I think you are being very kind and charitable to them.

Do I really just come out and say that the visits are too stressful and I feel criticised all the time. When I spoke to them pre-Covid I did say this and they denied that they were stressful, said they were not criticising and said they were only upset as they worried for the children.

Ok, so you told them how you were feeling and they told you you’re wrong about how you feel.

That you need to adjust to them, not them to you. They’re not criticising you - they’re just worried, even though you’ve just told them you feel criticised.

They don’t give a shit about your feelings or how they can make you feel happy. It’s all about them.

So tell me again why you give a shit about keeping them happy?

@roseandlaurel

Well done for ordering the books, Toxic Parents changed my life and my parents are nowhere near as hard work as yours. This is hard stuff and it takes time to unpick your conditioning. At the moment you are fixated on a "solution" to the problem and annoyed at your husband and kids for not going along with it - but ultimately it's the wrong solution. I think you are starting to see this (you mentioned this in an earlier post) so I hope you will be able to keep moving in the right direction.

Two other things - firstly I totally agree that getting some therapy would help you to unpick these patterns and learn new ones. It might cost a bit of money (probably less than you think) but will be the best money you'll ever spend, I promise you. I'd send this thread to your therapist as it outlines things quite clearly and will give a good starting point. They will have seen this type of thing before, it's very common.

Secondly, please talk to your husband. Tell him you see there is a problem and you're working on it. Read the books together, talk about the problem, but stop asking him to change his behaviour. At the moment, where your parents are concerned, you're on opposing sides, and you need to get onto the same team. If I were in his shoes it would mean a lot to me if my partner was at least making an effort to move the dial on dealing with the issue.

Wholeheartedly agree with every word of this.

Your parents want a picture perfect family and visit.

They don't want a real relationship with real people.

It's about appearances. If it's all amazing then they can tell themselves how utterly wonderful they are.

They don't care about your DC genuine welfare.

Op please read the posts from Emma, Attila and orange blossom , they are all talking a lot of sense

You want your husband to modify his behaviour ? Why? It should be your parents modifying their behaviour but instead they are trying to split you apart and damage your marriage beyond repair. Your husband is protecting his marriage, wife and children from some very toxic people who do not have anyone's best interests to heart except their own.

I asked how far apart you live and given your answer of 125 miles I would still only do day visits, meet your parents half way ie 60 or 70 miles each and keep the day very short.

If I ignore them or roll my eyes, or challenge them then these are the likely outcomes:-

First they exchange looks. Both go silent and tut. My Mum looks as if she will cry. My Dad stops speaking. They both look concerned and keep exchanging concerned looks. I feel incredibly stressed and upset as I just want us to get along.

They say things like:-
They are so fragile at this age
They are so young (they are 8 and 10!!!)
You push them too much
You need to be careful of their little bodies

No, no, no crying or telling off while we are here, this is a happy time etc

We are only thinking of them dear. Don’t you think you should be more careful.

They ask the kids if they are tired or upset.

What is it about this that's so bad? Annoying, yes. But why is this so bad that you must avoid it at all costs? (Including, potentially, your marriage)

My Dad goes upstairs to lie down. My mum says he is very upset and any crying makes him feel unwell.

Later they phone or pull me aside to tell me they are worried about us and that I mustn’t forget how young the children are. At night they whisper in loud voices to say all of the above to each other again, also that DH is horrible and I am scared of him.

Again - why is this so bad?

The worst bit is they tell me I seem very stressed

I really fear they see me as this stressed, anxious mess as that is how I am when we are with them.

Again, why is this so bad?

What is it about all of this you are so afraid of? (I'm not belittling your fears, I'm really asking you the questions).

I think you would benefit from doing a thought experiment...
Imagine you stand up to them
Imagine what they do, really imagine it
What do you feel? Why is that so bad?
And, that thing that's so bad, why is it that that's so bad?
What's the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen?
And why is that so bad?

You would really really benefit from therapy I think, you are very aware of how you're feeling and you just need help to disconnect your fear from your behaviour and dare yourself to behave differently.

So they expect the kids to have no rules while they are there to facilitate their Disney grandparenting. Can you imagine how the kids would soon clock on to this and do/demand things when the GP are there as they know the answer will always be Yes. And they will then start to expect it when the GP are not there, and how horrible you are for saying no. And then the tantrums will start. Your parents expect a Disney visit where in reality parenting is 365 days of the year. You say how good you and your brother were. I suspect you was very early on learnt how to behave and didn't cross the line, ie when you said 'hassle'