My mum has finally discovered that my dcs call my dsm 'Grandma' and has hit the roof. Help me work out how to handle it, please.

[Olihan]

Sorry, this might be long but it's all relevant so bear with me......

My dad and dsm have been together since 1990. Dsm and her then-dh were friends of my parents, dad and dsm had an affair and set up home together and eventually married once both divorces were finalised.

Obviously my mum was devastated by the affair and my dad leaving but she met her dp in 1992 and they've been together ever since.

I was 13 at the time, my dsis was 12 and my mum said and did a lot of things (cried when dsis and I were supposed to be going over to dad's for the night, emotional blackmail stuff) to try and wreck my relationship with my dad. I didn't speak to him for nearly 2 years, didn't go to his wedding and had a very rocky relationship with him until I was 19, went to Uni and basically was able to realise what she was doing. Now I'm very close to both of them and they have a very good relationship with dh too.

Fast forward to 2003 when I was expecting ds1. Mum told me that her dp would be known to my dcs by his name. That was fine. It was her choice - we were happy to go along with what she wanted.

However, she also stated that she thought dsm should also be known by her name, not Grandma/Granny/Nanny, etc. Her reasoning for this was that my paternal grandad left my grandma for another woman shortly after my parent's wedding and my dsis and I called his new woman by name.

DH and I didn't agree with her, because dsm had been with dad and in my life for as long as she hadn't, iyswim. However, we didn't make an issue of it, dsm became Grandma, as that's what her son's dcs called her and that was that.

We never actually explicitly told her this, which was probably stupid, but we assumed that the dcs would have said it as she often asks them about what they've done with my dad (he lives in Singapore and we go over for a fortnight every year).

Jump on again to the present. My dsis' baby is being christened next month and both sets of parents will be in the same room for the first time. Dsis asked if mum knew about the dsm/Grandma situation and I said I didn't know. So she asked her and it turns out that she had no idea. I am genuinely surprised that she didn't know but there we go.

However, mum has gone slightly off the deep end about it. Not to me though, to my dad via email.

So how do I approach it with her? My instinct is to tell her it's actually none of her business, she made the decision about her and her dp's names, this one was down to us and she has to like it or lump it. It all happened 18 years ago, she's been with her new dp for 16 years, we've all moved on so she needs to get over it.

So I need some MN wisdom because I suspect that's not the best approach . What do I do or say? I'm ringing her in an hour or so to discuss it.

Help!

Of course, SM. I did say in my post that the OP hadn't actually done anything wrong. It's just that I empathise with her mum. As Dittany says, it's primal.

Olihan, it's very sad that your mum reacted the way she did at the time. But she would have been literally grieving and grief makes people behave irrationally.

I hope you can sort things out with her.

Oh and Fallen, I don't think it has anything to do with 'blood'. More who is entitled to the 'status' IYKWIM.

Dittany, I think you're taking this a bit personally. My dsm never once asked to be Grandma, in fact, she explicitly said that she would leave it up to us to choose what she would be known as as she didn;t want to cause any problems.

We originally chose a nickname for dsm that we thought the dcs would use but it was too contrived, we could never remember to use it and before they moved to Singapore ds1 would hear his (step) cousins calling her Grandma and it evolved from there.

TheFallenMadonna, I hadn't thought about the adoption side of things - it's not something I have any experience of in my family or friends - but blood ties really don;t matter do they? It's the realtionship you have with another person that counts and I suppose from that POV, titles don;t matter either. After all, it's just a name.

Yikes, my typing is going to pot. Thanks for all your thoughts, it's been very helpful. I'm off to ring her now......

I do see where some of you are coming from but isn't it time to move on 16 years after your husband left and you're in another relationship? Isn't it the children's decision what they call their dad/mum's new partner? If that person is your stepmother and you refer to her as such, why wouldn't your children call her grandma?

And like I said, I called the old lady who lived down the road Grandma X (her surname). It didn't mean she was my granny, I knew she wasn't.

Just seems a bit sad in this day and age where we're all (I hope) trying to acknowledge that whatever happens when relationships break down, the children shouldn't be made to take sides and every effort should be made for children to have a good relationship with the absent parent, however shoddily they may have behaved to you. And yet we think that it's a good idea to make children who weren't even born when relationships broke down aware that there is animosity lurking.

I think this is about status, and hurt - it's clearly got your mother on the raw. Probably brings back all those old feelings of pain when her husband ran off with her friend.

As for blood ties mattering, I think they do. This is not about adoption, it's about step-parenting and divorce and complicated families.

I just think Olihan's mum needs some reassurance.

I agree, Dittany. Esp. as she has her own GC.
Maybe having just lost my mum last month I'm a bit precious about this ATM.

I agree with Cappy actually.

I dont think you can factor in the whole "manipulation in my teens" thing here.

It seems your mum has gone past that now. I think your mum was trying to play fair with the name thing, and, understandably, expected the same in return. If you didnt want to do things that way, you ought to have said, out of courtesy.

An apology is due, if nothing else, for not realising her intentions of her dp not having a 'name', nad for not telling her you werent following it on elsewhere.

Let's get this straight.

OP's mother was abandoned by her husband, betrayed by her husband, has married a man who isn't interested in her children or grandchildren, and been lied to by her daughter. And the OP wonders why she is bitter and twisted? Poor OP's mum.

that should be "abandoned by her husband, betrayed by her friend" although he did betray her as well.

I do think you should say sorry for not having been clear about the names.

but to those with the hurt and betrayal, believe me, I understand the pain, but at the same time I know the weirdy limbo feeling when your parents have been apart for longer than together in your life.

Hmm. Blood ties mattering. Were my biological father to turn up and refer to himself as my children's grandad, I would be pissed off. They would be bemused. He isn't. My adoptive father is. Blood ties don't matter. Family relationships do.

It isn't straightforward at all though. My adoptive father is their grandad as far as my children and I are concerned. My stepfather they call by his name, but he is certainly a grandparent to them. How they see him is different to how I see him, and I have been put straight on that by ds.

We acknowledge it certainly. And I think that's the right thing. My ds was born when it was all fairly new, so we wouldn't have dreamed of doing anything else. I said in my first post that I didn't disagree with the gist of your argument, merely the use of 'blood relation'.

I'm also saying my children don't make the same distinctions. They don't require the label to have the relationship. Which is rather in support of not needing to use it for stepgrandparents if it causes conflict among the adults.

Corr and I thought it was difficult in my house.
Dh is adopted, and when I was pregnant (and house bound) with dd, my Mam, Mil, and the four great nanna's came to visit! which was nice (back story, we all lived in the same village) What happened next is bizzare, but MIL, put 6 female version of Gran in a hat and they 'picked' their names, they then did the same for the husbands. (try remembering that lot) that was a strange day, but heho they were all happy and thats what counts.
It worked okay, until, ds was born. He had some health issues, and dh decided that he should look for his bio mother. He found her ... but, she took great exception to MY NAN being called NAN as she had decided that she would be NAN . Mind you, bio mil is a nutter, who feels that MY kids only need her as a grandparent, because my parents and dh's adopted parents and the one great NAN that is still alive are either to old to count. She is a lovely woman and I am so glad we have found her ... rescue -me from this looney! she makes life fucking awful.

Well, I didn't get far. I said I was sorry that she didn't know, it wasn't an issue to us, she made her decision about her and her dp, we made ours about dad and dsm. She said that dsm wasn't their grandma so I told her that she was in every way apart from the genetic link and she changed the subject.

Meh, I tried. Not sure where to go now. Leave it I guess and carry on as we were.

Georgimama, I have never lied to her about what my dcs call my dsm, I was unwise not to have told her right at the beginning with her at the beginning but I have never, ever lied about it. Had one of the dc said something or if she had asked me outright I would have told her. For some strange reason it has just never come up.

It's easy to say 'oh poor thing' when you have the barest facts of a very complicated situation but like everything in life, there are far more issues involved than those I have mentioned here, on all sides. She was not blameless in it, nor was she the helpless victim although she plays the 'poor me' card very well.

As Stewie says, at some point you have to let go of the past otherwise you will wreck your present and I think almost 20 years is long enough for her to have licked her wounds and moved on.

Hmm, not sure what I did there. That second sentence should say

'Georgimama, I have never lied to her about what my dcs call my dsm, I was unwise not to have told her right at the beginning but I have never, ever lied about it. Had one of the dc said something or if she had asked me outright I would have told her. For some strange reason it has just never come up.'

Dittany, you seem to be becoming very emotionally involved in this. Is this something that is a little too close to home for you? Obviously that was a very brief synopsis of the conversation, I was apologetic, I tried to be understanding, I was not curt or harsh in my tone of voice. I just tried to explain my side of the things but she was not willing to talk about it. If she won't discuss it, what am I meant to do?

It's all hideously complicated and messy and this is just the tip of a huge number of issues with her. By all means, feel sorry for her but remember there are many facets to stories like this, lots of history and detail (that I do not want to share on a public forum) are missing and it is not just as simple as he left her, ergo he is a bastard and she is a victim. To simplify it that far is ridiculous, especially 18 years down the line.

Anyway, I need to go to bed.

I seem to have deleted half of that post.

It should also have said:

I was pg with ds1 when we had the conversation about titles, dh and I had made no decisions at the time, I accepted her decision and was non-commital about my dad and dsm. I don't think it is her place to dictate to me what my dcs call their other gps. We never actually made a decision about my dsm's name until ds1 was about 18mo. We couldn't come up with a name that marked her out as more than just dad's wife but wasn't grandma/nanny/etc. Everything we tried just didn't seem right or stick. DS1 started calling her Grandma after we spent a weekend with them while her other dgcs were there and he copied them. So it sort of evolved over time. rather than being a conscious decision.

Very complicated situation and its not going to be resolved now as too much silence/avoidance of subject in the past.

I agree with Cappucino and poster who said that your Dad's wife should really have said - no don't call me grandma call me xxxx. Thats just about being sensitive to another person's feelings isn't it especially when you know you've done something 'wrong' in the first place by having an affair with a friend's husband.

Totally accept that the affair is long in the past and you say your mum was also at fault but those feelings of hurt and betrayal do go very deep. And it seems that your Dad has a lovely life and you like him and his wife where as you clearly don't like your step-father and your mum must realise that.