schlumpy Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 My sister has a problem that is affecting her emotionally and I believe that the people on this forum may be able to offer suggestions that will be of use to her. Her problem is with the daughter-in-law. They don’t like each other. The daughter-in-law had a little boy about three years ago and she is making it difficult for my sister to be a grandma. She refuses to let her see him unless she needs a babysitter and she does overt things that cannot be taken any other way then open hostility. Some examples would be when the child was born my sister left work to be at the hospital. Her daughter-in-law would not let my sister hold the new baby, but every member of her family did. My sister left the hospital in tears. She won’t let my sister have the child unless it’s convenient. This year she went out with her family to celebrate her birthday and she asked my sister to babysit while she and her family celebrated. My sister was not invited to Thanksgiving dinner or for Christmas dinner this year, but they did use her when the daughter-in-law and her family went Christmas shopping. If she gets a gift it’s something off the rack and without a thought to it. This is really blatant in-your-face stuff. Her son is incredibly submissive and when my sister asks her son if she can do something with the child he says, “you will have to ask my wife.” I guess he’s taken the maxim “Happy Wife, Happy Life” to heart. The daughter-in-law runs a small childcare service from her home. The toys my sister bought her grandchild - end up being used in her business. Her daughter-in-law is poisoning the relationship between my sister and her son. She’s cries about this too. She just keeps repeating over and over about how she can’t understand why things have changed so much. She’s wearing me out guys. There is a lot more about her daughter-in-law I could relate here and probably tons of other things I know nothing about, but it’s not my purpose to defame or shame my nephew’s wife. I don’t think that good things are coming his way in the future but that will be up to kharma, not me. My advice was to back off and quit showing that she would put up with everything just to see her grandkid. I told her not to be available for babysitting duty unless it was at her convenience. I pointed out that unless she quit allowing her daughter-in-law to use the child against her she would be crying for a very long time. There’s really nothing she can do in my opinion since she can’t appeal to her daughter-in-law’s better angels and there are no recognized legal rights that a grandparent has that I’m aware of. She could not do anything I advised, so she tried for two years to eat the crap sandwich her daughter-in-law was making for her. Her daughter-in-law and son now have less respect for her then before and she’s back on my phone crying about how unfair it all is. I’m out of ideas. I live in Ohio and they live Florida. Can anyone see anything good here happening? Am I missing something? I have no children so I may not have the empathy to understand this situation. There is more duress to come in the future as her daughter-in-law is four months pregnant with a second child. Link to post Share on other sites
CautiouslyOptimistic Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 What was their relationship like before the child was born? Not allowing her to hold the baby in the hospital is cruel and extreme! Does your sister have any issues like alcoholism or mental illness? Does she smoke? Link to post Share on other sites
Author schlumpy Posted December 28, 2019 Author Share Posted December 28, 2019 26 minutes ago, CautiouslyOptimistic said: What was their relationship like before the child was born? Not allowing her to hold the baby in the hospital is cruel and extreme! Does your sister have any issues like alcoholism or mental illness? Does she smoke? I'd have too say that my sister is pretty average person. She does drink some wine if you consider that a bad habit but other then that I can't think of anything else. She's worked all her life, raised two kids, mostly while being single and has lived a low-key average life. I think there's always been a bit of bad blood between her and the daughter-in-law since they met. It's my impression that her daughter-in-law wants to bring her husband and children under the umbrella of her family and relegate my sister to the outskirts of obligated contact. Her family is Puerto Rican if that makes a difference to you. There could be some cultural minutia involved. I do know that my sister has tried to fit in and she is desperate. I'm afraid if I was in her situation, I would have bailed long ago. To have my son disrespect me the way her son is? That would not happen. I just don't have a good answer for her Cautious. Link to post Share on other sites
CautiouslyOptimistic Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 All of the PR families I know are very close-knit. It could be that the DIL decided from the get-go, it was going to be HER family, not his. And he isn't standing up for himself or his mom :(. Is the other child she has a daughter or a son? Any chance of grandkids from that child? Link to post Share on other sites
preraph Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 I'm sorry your sister is so distressed about this. But the problem is with her son, one way or another. He has some part in this. Now, I have no idea the history that would make the DIL dislike your sister, but it didn't happen in a vacuum. Something was going on or she wouldn't have turned on her. It's the son's place to be the leader here and take the heat for both his mother and his wife and set the tone. He's totally not doing that. My guess is why he's able to let his wife have all the control is because he's maybe used to that because his mother had all the control. I just don't see it happening in any other scenario. So I'm guessing your sister has been somewhat controlling in general and maybe crossed some boundaries. And now, she's again crossing boundaries by demanding to see her grandchild more. Listen, in my opinion, grandparents have no custody rights unless parents are unfit. If they haven't been able to get along with the parents, why should they get rights to see the child when they want? The kids are using her for childcare. So she's seeing the grandkids, just not when SHE wants to. So that means she IS trying to control something that's not under her control. You say she only lets her see the kids when it's convenient. Well, there's literally nothing wrong with that. Why would you be inconvenienced to let someone see the kids on their schedule instead of your own? Do all grandparents get to spend a lot of time with their grandkids? Heavens, no. Nor do most of them dwell on it. Lots of them don't even really want to babysit them. I never once spent the night over at either of my grandmoms' homes without my parents or any time at all without my parent present. I only saw them a couple times a year. I wonder if your sister is really this obsessed with the grandkids or if she is just pulling all the strings she can here to regain control. Now, of course, unless something heinous has gone down, both the son and the DIL should be polite when they're around her IF she's being polite. I know these aren't the thoughts you wanted to hear, and I'm sorry, but this didn't come out of nowhere, all this hostility. The DIL is letting her see the grandkids. She's just not letting her inconvenience her or control her or the grandkids. Undoubtedly, there is fault and strong personalities on both side of this equation since neither is yielding, but in the end, it's the DIL's child, not your sister's. And the son is choosing to hide in his bunker and not mediate this. Your sister raised him, so...it just keeps coming back to your sister one way or the other. Link to post Share on other sites
Author schlumpy Posted December 28, 2019 Author Share Posted December 28, 2019 1 hour ago, CautiouslyOptimistic said: All of the PR families I know are very close-knit. It could be that the DIL decided from the get-go, it was going to be HER family, not his. And he isn't standing up for himself or his mom :(. Is the other child she has a daughter or a son? Any chance of grandkids from that child? Her other child is a woman but she's in her 40's now and has taken an oath to never have children. No relief in that direction. My sister paid for her son's college and I told her not to. To make him work for at least some of it. Now she brings it up as if he is supposed to be grateful. Some kids are and some kids ain't. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
Author schlumpy Posted December 28, 2019 Author Share Posted December 28, 2019 1 hour ago, preraph said: Undoubtedly, there is fault and strong personalities on both side of this equation since neither is yielding, but in the end, it's the DIL's child, not your sister's. And the son is choosing to hide in his bunker and not mediate this. Your sister raised him, so...it just keeps coming back to your sister one way or the other. I can't disagree with this. I'm not down there and I don't know all the nuances that created the situation. I definitely see my Nephew as the key to the situation. I should have put in more background but I wanted to outline the problem clearly so I kept it between the main parties. The daughter-in-laws parents have unrestricted access to the child as well as her sister. Her parents have a room set up just for him at their house. Don't know if that makes any difference in your calculation but I thought you might like to know that. It could be my sister. She can be a bit pushy at times but it's always with good intention. I'm a great believer in everyone having a secret life so perhaps there is an untold story here that would bring it all into focus. In my mind it comes down to respect and these two do not, for whatever reason, respect my sister. If it was me they'd never see me. I'd solve the problem for them. But I have no children so maybe I'm talking out of my hat. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
CautiouslyOptimistic Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 Has your sister had a heart-to-heart with your nephew about this? Link to post Share on other sites
Author schlumpy Posted December 28, 2019 Author Share Posted December 28, 2019 Yes, she talks to him all the time but as preraph guessed he has his head in the sand. Doesn't want the flak at home. That's why I think this is a lost cause and that my sister should retreat and retain her dignity. His wife must be something else. I've only met her once. She loves taking pictures of herself and posting them to facebook. Then her group of friends tell her how great she looks. I find it all rather amusing. BTW, they are mid30s. Link to post Share on other sites
CautiouslyOptimistic Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 2 minutes ago, schlumpy said: She loves taking pictures of herself and posting them to facebook. Then her group of friends tell her how great she looks. I find it all rather amusing. BTW, they are mid30s. Ugh. That kind. I'll make a broad generalization here and say that people who do this are very self absorbed and self absorbed people often don't care about how others are feeling. If your sister wants to keep seeing her grandchild(ren) she's probably going to have to accept her role as babysitter. And maybe when the second child arrives she will be asked more often and will get to see her grandson more. The relationship will change over the years, and maybe her DIL will mature, become less selfish, etc. Many families go through things like this and sometimes they eventually work out the kinks and sometimes they don't. Many years ago when I had young kids, my ex-h's brother/wife always showed up at my former in-laws' every Sunday afternoon around 3 or 4, without fail, to "visit" and would not leave until my MIL felt so guilty she prepared dinner for them and her three grands. She got super tired of it and would complain to me about it, but she really loved her grandkids and of course wanted to see them, so she sucked it up. On the other side of my family, my sister's husband refuses to let his kids see his family at all now, despite them being very involved for many years, and decided my mom and me were only allowed to see them supervised by my sister (until he moved them all across the country to get away from us 2 years ago so now we hardly see them at all). The reason? He became and atheist and we are Christians. If your sis has friends who get to see their grandkids all the time, I'm sure this is even extra hard on her :(. WIsh there was an answer. Link to post Share on other sites
Author schlumpy Posted December 28, 2019 Author Share Posted December 28, 2019 Well thanks for trying. I know that the DIL thinks she has the upper hand right now but I suspect that my Nephew is building a pool of resentment that year after year will grow larger until it overcomes his reluctance to confront her. I will watch with interest since there is little else I can do. It's not like Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. 2 Link to post Share on other sites
preraph Posted December 28, 2019 Share Posted December 28, 2019 (edited) About the DIL's family having access, I mean, it is clear this is a beef with your mom. Something happened sometime and you're only hearing one side of the story. If you have any rapport with the nephew, you could privately (without letting your sister even know you got involved) see what his story is about it. But you're probably as well off staying out of it. It will all probably come to light eventually since families tend to talk amongst themselves. A lot of mothers are very possessive about their sons and can't stand another woman in the picture unless they feel they still are No. 1. So for all we know, it could just all stem from that. Yes, I am with you on what you said about if it were you, you'd solve the problem by taking a walk. It makes you wonder if she really believes what they're doing is really that heinous since she's still babysitting sometimes. I think she is trying to be more involved and is stirring things up for her own reasons. And yes, she's certainly being pushy or else she wouldn't be pushing others like you into this and would just accept that it's not her call. Try to just stay neutral because even if you asked the nephew, it would probably just start a whole new round of drama. Let them handle it. Having just now read that her family is Puerto Rican, it's entirely possible she has fought to raise their child to that culture and doesn't want much influence otherwise. You can google it, but like many Latin cultures, it's common for three generations of their family to be living close or with each other and caring for the child. I can't imagine she EVER needs your sister to babysit at all, so maybe she's only doing that to appease your sister. Hard to say. Edited December 28, 2019 by preraph 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Ellener Posted December 29, 2019 Share Posted December 29, 2019 7 hours ago, schlumpy said: In my mind it comes down to respect and these two do not, for whatever reason, respect my sister. They may not respect your sister; but they seem to be treating her with respect? I have several people in my life like that, also I am very close to my only son- so I expect to have to stay out of his marriage/parenting etc one day. It would be unhealthy for his marriage if I was number one... Link to post Share on other sites
Author schlumpy Posted December 29, 2019 Author Share Posted December 29, 2019 (edited) Ellener I don't have any way to gauge if what my sister is telling me is the complete story. I assume it isn't. If things don't make sense it's because there is a missing part of the puzzle. To find out what the truth is I would have to be a part of their daily life and that's not going to happen since I live in Ohio and they hail from the sunshine state. The resources I do have which is facebook, conversations with other family members, and knowledge over time as to what my nephew is doing, the truth does seem to lean my sisters way. I understand wanting to be separate from your parents. I left home at 18. It's possible that my sister tries to meddle but her DIL's life is similar to the movie relationships in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." She spends an inordinate amount of time with her parents and her sister but keeps my sister(her MIL) at arms length. My sister has gone much further then I would have in placating the DIL. My personal perspective is my sister is bringing this on herself. When I realize that people don't want me around, I find other things to occupy my time. I don't chase after people with the hope they will learn to like me. I'm not a father and perhaps that's why I can't empathize with my sisters angst over this. Edited December 29, 2019 by schlumpy Link to post Share on other sites
Ellener Posted December 29, 2019 Share Posted December 29, 2019 3 hours ago, schlumpy said: When I realize that people don't want me around, I find other things to occupy my time. I don't chase after people with the hope they will learn to like me. Yes, that's a good idea schlumpy, people are signalling something if they don't want us there all the time and sometimes it's them, sometimes us, but forcing the issue doesn't make anyone feel closer, the opposite more likely. The fact you know all these negative details about your nephew's wife even though you live so far from them, and your sister's wearing you out with it, I imgine that is part of why her son keeps her at arm's length. She's interpreting things very negatively instead of just enjoying the time with her grandchild. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts