Dealing with a pushy family member

[Birdsintrees123]

I’ve got a situation I’m dealing with right now, with a family member who has become pushy about contact with my children. DH and I have, for various and good reasons, decided to minimize our children’s contact with this family member. However, the family member is getting pushy about contact. They moved to our locality in fact, to be closer to us and have been disappointed with the lack of contact. I unfortunately bump into them semi regularly, and last time, they turned to my kids and directly said to them that they can come and visit her. How do I deal with this situation where as a parent I’ve made a decision with DH to limit contact, but this family member is trying to circumvent this by whatever means possible, including laying guilt or obligation on my kids to get visits. It makes me so cross - they’re mine and DHs kids and it’s our decision how we raise our children. Saying things like this to my children is inappropriate and pushy, especially where they’ve been outright told that we will visit when we want to and to leave us be. Just so awkward and uncomfortable. How best to deal with a pushy person?! Or any personal experiences?

I think you need to maybe step back from this and think realistically about what contact - if any- you are prepared to facilitate and then I would ring her and say I know you're really keen to meet up and this is what I can accommodate but nothing outside of that. And then stick to it so she knows what's available and what isn't and you know you have established that boundary rather than having to keep it vague and look for excuses when you bump into each other.

I would also just say that if she triggers a fight or flight response in you just by seeing her, then op that sounds like a trauma response and I have to question whether this is someone you should be accommodating at all if you as an adult don't feel safe around them? If this is going back to historic issues is it worth doing some counselling for yourself to unpick what's happened and to maybe help you process your feelings around this move and to get the confidence you need to really enforce the boundaries that work for you? And I only say that because very rarely are people all bad, which can make tricky family members all the harder to deal with plus the guilt that comes with "but they're family".

It doesn't sound like you owe this person anything-certainly not access to your children.

This is really dysfunctional and horrible. It’s like she sees her relationship to my children as totally detached from me and that I have no say or role in that. But the reality is that I’m their mum so it has everything to do with me. They are in my care and it’s mine and DH’s decision as to who our children spend time with. Not hers. It feels like she’s undermining my parental role here and essentially telling me (through her actions) that she does not respect my decision to keep contact minimal.