Touchy subject about Grandma and toddler...(supporT only please, sorry so long) - Page 5

[Kelly Jene]

I don't know you or your situation (other then what has been posted). I only can say to continue listening to your intuition. Your child's pic is so sweet and beautiful. He has you to protect him and that's what is most important. Some children don't have that. God bless!

[Mosaic]

I have read some (though not all) of this thread, and I agree with most posters: trust your gut. If your gut is telling you (and has for decades!) that something is "off", listen to it, and don't feel the least bit doubtful or guilty for doing so.

And if your gut tells you that this will not be an issue when your child is older, I'd listen to that, too. I'm suprised so many people are saying listen now but don't listen later. Your instincts are not going to turn off, and I hope that you always have the strength, courage, and conviction to listen to them no matter what they tell you.

[gabysmom617]

Ugh!

I'm sorry to rant some more, but

Dad AND Mom!!!!!!

You don't call me and TELL ME WHEN and what time you're going to come and pick up my child!!! He's not yours!!

YOU ASK ME! AND, ONCE AGAIN, THE ANSWER IS NO!! NOT. WITHOUT. ME. Newsflash: We are a family with our own schedules and our own prearranged plans! You don't swoop in and take the grandchild whenever you feel like it!

Do all grandparents feel so entitled!!?? IS THIS NORMAL??????

[gabysmom617]

Of course, I call the husband, and after ALL. OF. THIS. CRAP---

---he thinks I should just let them keep him.

:::

[alegna]

No. It is not normal.



-Angela

[gabysmom617]

This is seriously bringing out the issues and dysfunction in both my family AND my marriage.

I want to run away from everybody and never come back. I can't keep dealing with this #$%^ alone all by myself. I'm starting to feel like I"m seriously going crazy.

I'm trying to keep a handle on my sanity. I'm pregnant and trying to make it without my medication. The walls of the ridiculous people in my life are caving in on me. And I don't know what to do.

I mean, it's hard enough to have to fight with my family, but it's even harder to have to fight with them AND fight with my husband every time I'm fighting with them too.

Maybe it is just me. I can't do this anymore.

[pokeyrin]

Originally Posted by gabysmom617

This is seriously bringing out the issues and dysfunction in both my family AND my marriage.

I want to run away from everybody and never come back. I can't keep dealing with this #$%^ alone all by myself. I'm starting to feel like I"m seriously going crazy.

I'm trying to keep a handle on my sanity. I'm pregnant and trying to make it without my medication. The walls of the ridiculous people in my life are caving in on me. And I don't know what to do.

I mean, it's hard enough to have to fight with my family, but it's even harder to have to fight with them AND fight with my husband every time I'm fighting with them too.

Maybe it is just me. I can't do this anymore.

Megahugs to you mama

I’ve been following your thread and my heart really goes out to you. I may not know what it’s like to be in your particular situation, but I do know what it’s like to deal with toxic family members who consistently overstep boundaries.

Please don’t think it’s you and that you are doing this to yourself. It’s not you, it’s the selfish people around you who are discounting your needs and placing their own before yours. It doesn’t sound like they respect your wishes and boundaries and that’s wrong because your feelings deserve to be heard and validated.

You sound like a very kind person who doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings and you’re also in a vulnerable state of mind. Having this kind of stress is definitely not healthy for you, baby and your little boy. Your first priority is to protect yourself, your baby and your little boy and you should feel entitled to take whatever measures you need to do that. Everyone and their feelings is secondary when it comes to your own mental well being. Remember no one is going to protect you, you’re going to have to do it yourself.

Drawing boundaries with family, especially your own parents is probably one of the toughest and hardest things a person can ever do. No matter how right you may be, there is always a nagging guilt and you end up feeling like the bad one. I will be honest and tell you from personal experience that it is never easy to draw the boundaries and you will upset people and sometimes look like the bad guy. But sometimes that’s just what it takes to set those boundaries and have them respected.

With your parents it sounds like you need to be very firm in order to draw your boundaries. It will probably upset them, hurt their feelings and maybe even piss them off. But they will get over it sooner or later. Trust me it’s better to deal with a bit of hurt feelings and drama that will pass rather than having to constantly deal with a stressful situation that’s never addressed.

I just imagine that every time you have to talk or see them you probably feel a sense of dread and just want to completely avoid the situation and wish they would go away so you wouldn’t have to deal with the stress of thinking about what you have to do in order to deal with them. Living in that state is extremely exhausting and just zaps the life out of you.

It’s hard, but don’t be afraid to draw those boundaries and don’t feel like you have to explain yourself. We can’t control how we feel about things and sometimes it’s just the way it is and you have a right to draw those boundary lines and have them respected. Anyone who oversteps and disrespects those boundary lines automatically gets limited access to you until they learn. Believe me if you don’t follow through on that, they’ll never get it.

I know it’s a delicate situation with your Mom and you can’t just say outright what’s bothering you. But you don’t have to single her out, but just tell her that you don’t want anyone (not just her) but you and your hubby to potty train/change diapers for your child and that’s the end of discussion. Tell her it’s not just off limits to her, but everyone and if she can’t respect that then you’ll just have to take a step back until she can respect that. If she protests and makes an issue of it, then turn it around on her and ask her why it’s such a big deal to her to do the very things that you just don’t want anyone else but you and your hubby to do.

It doesn’t matter how she answers, because there is no reasonable thing she can come up with that will validate her need to participate in the things that you don’t want her to do especially when you are clearly available to handle it. You just need to keep reiterating to her that you’re his parent and that you feel that only you and your hubby should do the parenting. Grandparents should not be parenting their grandchildren, it’s the parent’s job otherwise it can send your child mixed signals and undermine your authority.

Right now it sounds like everything is very heightened and you’re feeling very cornered and harassed. If you don’t want to make it about your parents, make it about yourself and don’t feel bad. Just tell them with your pregnancy you’re feeling stressed and disconnected from your hubby and son. Don’t feel the need to explain yourself, because remember pregnant women feel all kinds of things for whatever reason

Tell them that you just need space to recoup and that you can reconnect with your own family and that means no visits and no unannounced visits. Reassure them that it won’t last forever, just that you really need this time to be left alone and would appreciate if they would respect that. If they don’t respect it, then feel free to shut them out until they do.

Best wishes to you mama, I’m sending out positive thoughts to you.

[Mama2Bug]

It isn't just you. I know it feels that way sometimes, but it isn't.

I know how crazy-making weird/toxic family members can be, especially parents. My own family of origin is a fine example of Standard American Dysfunction. DH's parents put the "fun" in the word personally. Crazy parents were one of the things that we had in common. It blows when you can't have the "normal" family relationships that you think everyone else gets to enjoy. I know all about it.

I am lucky, in that my family lives several states away and we don't spend a lot of time with them, so babysitting has never been an issue. DH's folks, on the other hand, live fairly close and are always offering. We've taken them up on it exactly three times- the last in an emergency. Each time, something "off" has happened. So now we turn them down, politely, every time. They grizzle about it to other family members (and we hear about the complaints 2nd and 3rd hand) but they have yet to ask why directly. I don't feel that we need to explain ourselves. Our child, our wishes. There is no room for debate. She isn't community property and we aren't taking a vote. We just politely decline and ask after the bean dip.

It sucks to have nobody you trust to babysit your child. I'm right there with ya.

The good news is that you KNOW it can't just be you. You have a whole bulletin board of people who think you're doing the right thing and we're not even there personally!

YOU HAVE THE SUPPORT OF THE INTERNET!!!

[gabysmom617]

I talked to my husband more last night, and he said he thought I was ASKING him if we should let him go or not...Which, I cleary WAS NOT. I was just relaying what my dad had just called and said. (And how is whether or not I was asking relevant to his answer? If that's what he thought, he should have said something along the lines, "I thought we'd agreed to what we were going to do..." istead of being like, "Duhhh, I dunno, I guess we could let him...: " Anyhow, I digress.)

So i asked him the following questions:

1) Whether or not it mattered to him WHY we were trying to not do unsupervised visits; i.e., did he think we had a valid reason; That is to say, whether or not he thinks this is all in my mind, or what?
-----He is adamant that it's not all in my mind. He says that he's felt these creepy weird feelings about my mom changing diapers before I said anything to him and was trying to push them away.

2) If, due to those feelings, he thought it was a good idea, or, was he in agreement with the whole no-unsupervised-visits-for-now thing, or if he thought it was too harsh.
-----He sais he think it's reasonable to not have unsupervised visits

He kept asking what we were going to say to them when they ask why not?
I told him I'd tell them the truth; that we are trying to potty train G right now, and I think it best that we just work on that ourselves until he gets it. And that they can gripe and grumble and complain all they want, that's just the way it is.

So then he keeps making some kind of vague comment about how he still thinks we should let "somebody" know what's going on, to talk about it, and see if we are "right" in our suspicions before doing anything like cutting them out.

I told him that he's looking for some one's authority to exercise his right as a parent. I told him we're not looking to convict anyone, or accuse my mom of anything sinister. If we TOGETHER as parents have an icky feeling about something regarding our kid, we have a right and a duty to act on it. We don't need to ask some one if it's right or not, if we should, or whatever. We don't need some outside "authority" to validate us. We have a right as parents to act on feelings we have to guard and protect our kids. Even if those feelings are vague and nonspecific, and maybe later turn out to be wrong, we have an obligation to our child to listen to those feelings.

So he was ok---------------------------------------------------------for now.


See the thing is, I don't really "trust" my husband.
Not that he'd lie to me in a bad way. (Well....that's for another thread.)

But I never know if he really REALLY agrees with me and is going to shoulder some of the burden of parenting with me, or whether or not he's just being a swayer.

He allows me to sway him too much. If I'm not swaying him my way, somebody else is swaying him their way. He has few solid firm convictions. And when the rain comes, in the midst of the confrontation, the showdown, or the point of action, I can never trust whether he is going to solidly have my back or not, even if he said at the time he would. But I won't go into too much on that, all of that belongs down i parents as partners, I guess.

But anyhow, thanks so much for the encouragement....i'm still a bit down and a bit untrusting as to whether i'm going to have to keep getting crap from my husband, (this is strikingly familiar to his behavior when cutting his mother out of his life, but I chalked it up to the fact that that was, his mother. I'm not even trying to "cut" my parents out of our lives as of now, and they are not his parents, but his behavior is the same.) But I'll keep trying, and I'll lay the boundary down with them.

[IdahoMom]

I just wanted to jump in and tell you about a situation I had.

A family member had done something inappropriate to my daughter. When I was told about it, it was even framed in a way that put my daughter (who was barely 4) at fault. It was all very sly. This happened in a place and in the care of a person that I actually DID trust, without question.

I spent months, even years, questioning my feelings. I knew it was wrong, but I found all kinds of ways in my mind to think of it as "just nothing" or even normal. But when in came down to it, in my GUT, I KNEW it was wrong. I knew my daughter had been victimized, and I knew that the people saying otherwise were lying and hiding things to protect their own interests.

So I'll tell you what I did. I reframed my thoughts. This happened with a cousin. So, what if it had been a neighbor? A boy at church? It made my totally re-think things! Had it not been a cousin, in the care of an aunt I trusted, I honestly might have called the police. But past relationships and issues clouded things.

So please ask yourself, what if this was not your mother, but a neighbor? Even further, what if it was not a female neighbor, but a man? Does her being a woman, a grandmother, make her behavior more appropriate somehow?

For awhile in my mind I had made the decision to never see this section of my family again. But I knew that would tear my kids, and our extended family, in shreds. . . even more than it already is. The compromise we've made is that, if we ever see these people again, it will be in a wide-open, public place, like a park. And we'll be on top of everyone at all times. Frankly, I'd rather never see them again, but in the wide scope, this is a better decision. And we will be in control of things AT ALL TIMES. No one will ever have the power to tell us what we should do with our children or where, and no one will have the opportunity to act in ways we don't approve of.

I hope that made sense. My heart really goes out to you. I know that for me, this has been probably the most painful thing I've had to work through. Definitely as a mother.

But in the end, the ONLY ONE I'll have to answer to is my child. In the end, did I do enough to protect her?

Please ask yourself the same.

[MilkTrance]

ITA with the above poster.

Remove your EMOTION from the situation and replace the word "mother" with "babysitter" -- if a babysitter were doing all of these things you mention, and was giving you all these feelings you talk about having, you would fire the babysitter.

I know it's hard but you really really have to protect your son. I know you know that, but you may even have to do it with making your husband angry. For the time being.

[A&A]

Originally Posted by MilkTrance

Remove your EMOTION from the situation and replace the word "mother" with "babysitter" -- if a babysitter were doing all of these things you mention, and was giving you all these feelings you talk about having, you would fire the babysitter.

Exactly. You don't say, "well, maybe I'll give this babysitter another chance after my child is potty-trained."

[gabysmom617]

I appreciate all the wonderful support that I received from this thread and all the helpful suggestions.

As I've said before moving on to more recent happennings and happennings in the immediate future, I"ve made my decision to keep the no unsupervised visits stance until I feel comfortable enough to remove it. That may be never. That may after potty training, who knows? It stays in effect for right now, while my intuitive feelings of being uncomfortable are through the roof. That is the most important part.

That in itself is hard enough to do and implement, as people who are actually paying attention by now can see in my more recent posts. My intention of this thread was not for decisions that I may or may not make in the distant future to be criticised, but to help get over the whole difficulty of putting this new rule regarding grandma into effect "now", since now is the time that it really bothers me. I expect that once that rule is in place and everyone has gotten used to it, it would be easy for me to just leave that rule there in the future should I feel the need to. Therefore, the expiration date of that rule was not something that I felt the need to discuss, neither did I wish to, nor was it the purpose of this thread.

The whole initiation process of this new boundary was what is most difficult to me at the moment, what with trying to figure out if I'm justified in my suspicions or not, and just how to go about starting the process of protecting my child from those suspicions.

I never really meant for this thread to spiral out into cries of what an unfit mother I am because I may or may not feel these rules necessary in the future when my child is independant in potty and bathing practices.

The bottom line is, no one here "knows" my mother. I do. I've learned here from wonderful people and from wonderful book suggestions that I've "known" what I need to know about her all along. And I know what I know, and I know what to do with those realizations now.

I think I've pretty much received what I was looking for in this thread; that is to say, clues that my suspicions are valid or not.

I'm going to ask the moderators to close this thread now so that it won't get too much out of hand, as it seems to be headed that way.

Thanks again everyone for the wonderful support that I knew I could count on MDC for. And for those who suggested it, I think I'll take the suggestion that if I have more difficulty with this situation in the near future, I intend to deal with it in some kind of counseling or therapy. Thanks so much again.