Grandchildren

[mama m]

My husband and I have three small children and another on the way.

My husband's mother is a high functioning BPD and his whole family is wrapped up in her disease.

We made the decision to not going NC but to make an emotional and physical distance (we just moved 3 hours away)

The problem is that his parents have completely magnetic and over the top love personalities towards our kids. Which is not in itself a bad thing, but we have seen how they can LOVE a person so much they can convince them that other people are evil and crazy. We are not perfect parents but we are loving, compassionate. We do not have that over the top love magnetic personalities as their grandparents. I can ALREADY see my children gravitating towards them and not us. EVEN with distance my children are constantly asking for them.

When my in-laws 'love' someone, they are over the top nice, generous(spoil), & kind towards them. When they don't like someone they alienate, see only flaws, isolate the person, withhold all affection etc.

I love my children and want them to have a relationship with their grandparents, but since we are the "blacksheep" of the family I'm very worried about loosing my kids to them.

WHAT DO I DO? How do I navigate this with my children? 

[clljhns]

 Hi mama m,

There is nothing more frightening than understanding how others can have influence over our children, especially ones who are not healthy and balanced.

 

The problem is that his parents have completely magnetic and over the top love personalities towards our kids. Which is not in itself a bad thing, but we have seen how they can LOVE a person so much they can convince them that other people are evil and crazy. We are not perfect parents but we are loving, compassionate. We do not have that over the top love magnetic personalities as their grandparents. I can ALREADY see my children gravitating towards them and not us. EVEN with distance my children are constantly asking for them.

Can you explain what the interactions look like between grandparents and grandkids. I am wondering if they shower them with gifts, lots of praise, or a combination of both.

It was my experience with my uBPDmom and UNPDdad that they didn't have the capacity to give love. They gave gifts and false compliments to create solidarity and obligation. They showered my daughter with gifts and would coo over her, but in the end, my daughter recognized that they never really loved her. Her words. She knew that she did not feel love from them.

My parents did the same thing about vilifying other people (including their other grandchildren) to my daughter. This don't not change her position on other family members and cousins.

Kudos to you and your husband for putting the physical distance between your children and grandparents.


Look forward to hearing more about this situation.

[mama m]

Thank you for responding!

My oldest is only 6. I don't believe he can see anything other then their 'love', but neither can adults in the family that are seen as all 'good'.

The give them a combination of praise and gifts. They treat them the same way they treat all those that are on their 'good side' but in a preschool-teacher tone.

My husband has 4 siblings that are seen as 'all good'. They are VERY blind to the detrimental effects the parents have on those who are NOT 'all good' and the family as a whole.  All they can see if how well they are treated and their parents 'loving' side.

I guess I have always seen the situation as like a politician who can win over a whole town as a wholesome, family loving christian... who secretly beats his wife... . but no one believes the wife... . so the wife is alienated because she must be lying/attention seeking.

How do you make sure you children see boths sides and not just the 'politician' version without bashing your kids grandparents & placing them in the middle? How do you make them immune? How do you protect your relationship with your kids?

[clljhns]

mama m,

How do you make sure you children see boths sides and not just the 'politician' version without bashing your kids grandparents & placing them in the middle? How do you make them immune? How do you protect your relationship with your kids?

Good questions! I don't know if I have the answers that will bring you the peace of mind that you need right now.

I will tell you that I empowered my daughter by telling her to trust herself and only give respect to those who earn it. I was raised to believe that you must respect your elders, no matter what. This did not sit well with me, and I did not practice this with other adults, only with my parents out of fear and obligation. Looking back, I don't think there was ever a time that I told my daughter to be cautious of my parents attentions. I do know that she heard me express to my parents that they shouldn't give her such expensive gifts and large sums of money. I do know that I talked with my daughter about how this did not mesh with my own values. Not that I didn't think she was worthy of abundance, but that it gave her a skewed perception of her self-worth. I encouraged her to work for the things she had. Just little steps at first. Taking care of what she had. Getting a job when she was older to make the connection between her efforts and the results of those efforts. Making goals and plans to achieve those goals. When she would ask my opinion about people, I would ask her what she thought. I wanted her to trust her instincts. Still to this day she asks my opinion (she is now 27) and I still ask her what she thinks about the situation. Sometimes she gets so frustrated with me and just wants me to give her an answer. I recognize, though, that she doesn't trust her own instincts, so I continue to tell her that she will make the right decision. Even if her decision doesn't result in the best outcome, it is okay to make those mistakes and learn from them.

When the time came that I went NC and discussed this with her, I told her that it would be her decision to continue contact with grandparents if that is what she wanted. No disappointment on my part. My experiences with my parents were not hers. She was actually relieved and expressed this to me stating that she never felt love from them. She understood that they were only trying to buy her love and affection for their own needs. Amazing! I didn't have to tell her this, she saw the truth herself.

I realize that your children are very young and are very worried about the effect contact with grandparents will have on them. I understand this fear. I also had this fear while my daughter was growing up and we had a LOT of contact with my parents. Every week in fact. I think on some level it helped my daughter to see my mother go off on one of her tantrums about someone. She also saw me tell my mother to leave my home if she couldn't get herself under control. Maybe that was something that helped. Sometimes I actually did set boundaries with my mother. Also, the lack of contact with my other siblings and their children really weighed heavily on my daughter. She wanted contact with her cousins. My parents ex-communicated these two siblings and we had no contact with them for years. When my daughter turned 17, she made the decision to contact her cousins. I supported this decision. The fall-out from my mother was EPIC! I overheard my mother questioning my daughter as to why she did this. My daughter told her that these were people she wanted to know, they were, after all, her cousins. My mother ranted at my daughter and my daughter yelled back at her that she didn't have the right to tell her what to do about the situation. I am editing this confrontation greatly, but when I stepped into the room when I heard the loud exchange, I saw my mother deflate when my daughter told her this. My mother never said another word to my daughter about it.

Sorry to have gone off on a long tangent, but I felt it was worth telling to illustrate the fact that no matter what my parents did, my daughter knew the truth.

I wonder if another question here might be do you want to put your children in this position? Do you really want them to experience the Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde syndrome? I truly get what you are saying about outward appearances of these grandparents fooling everyone and people might not believe you if you told them the truth. My parents were very different people in public and even at my home when there were guests there. Weird really. I mean how could they control themselves in front of my friends and daughters' friends, but had no filter or need to control their behaviors when it was just family?

I hope I gave you some sense of hope in my response. 

[P.F.Change]

Hi, mama m,

I think I can understand what your saying. I felt my parents smothered my children with gifts and attention. They (particularly my father) have always seemed to have a belief that saying "no" or buying less than every toy in the store is tantamount to telling the child he is bad or unloved, which will make him sad, which will mean they (my parents) are cruel people. My mother really struggled to see us set limits for our children. She thought we were terrible people for limiting the amount of dessert our children can eat in one day, for example, and once sobbed about it in front of them.

I did eventually ask that they limit gifts to only Christmas and the child having a birthday, and that there be only one gift of $50 or less value per child. I might as well have asked them to build a rocket to the moon, but they did try for a while even if they pouted about it. It wasn't long before the dolls were worth $150 and there would be 10 DVDs instead of 1. At that point I had decided I didn't really want to fight that battle because we weren't seeing them as often and I was about to ask for a break, so I let it go for the time.

I have tried to teach my children that they have a right to say no and ask for space, even from people they love or who love them. I could tell something my mother did often really bothered my son, and he told me as much later, so I practiced with him saying, "No, I don't want you to do that." And the next time she tried, he did it and walked away--I think he was only 3 or 4. It surprised her but you could see he felt really confident. If she had fought him I would have stepped in, but I was glad he learned he can have boundaries and say no. All the kids know they can say no to any touch they don't like, they don't have to accept gifts that make them feel uncomfortable, they don't have to be "nice" if it makes them feel icky. I've also tried to prepare them for some situations where it is best to tell someone to ask another grownup... . men looking for lost puppies, old ladies wanting to know what mommy says about her, etc. Within our family it is not unusual to hear someone say, "I really need some space right now, can you leave me alone for a while?"

Do you and your kids talk about their boundaries? Are you and your husband on the same page when it comes to his family?

Wishing you peace,

PF