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Blended Families
Nineoceans
member
Anyone else have this issue?
Nineoceans
member
Dh and BM were very young when they had SS. They relied on both their sets of parents to help with a lot of childcare and odds and ends because they were so young. Fast forward 8 years and BM and Dh are NOT young parents any more. My ILs thrive on drama so we finally cut them out and Dh and BM's relationship improved 100%. Now we are dealing with BM's parents who are controlling and manipulative. BM is very laid back and NOT controlling but she also gets sick of getting yelled at by her mom (she still relies on her mom for all her childcare and SS spends probably 75% of her time with her mom-we are 50/50) so she tends to go with what her mom wants. Examples BM's mom preordered all SS's school supplies after we said we were excited to take him back to school shopping, she took him to an amusement park the night before we told her we were going, she DEMANDS time, etc. Anyone else have drama with grandparents who think they're parents? If it were up to BM we would probably have custody and she would get to visit whenever she wanted but again her mom got so involved in our court case that that wasn't possible.
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Re: Anyone else have this issue?
When XH and I separated the kids and I moved in with her for about year while I was getting things sorted and I relied on her alot for child care. Her involvement created a lot of issues with DS which we manage to correct by cutting her out of our lives for a while. We have since last Christmas started involving her more in our lives and have let her have the kids for a couple days. However lately she has started to act like she was before.
So I really don't have any advice for how to deal with BM's mom. Really there's nothing much you can do. BM has to stand up for herself and SS. I would stop telling her your plans for what you are doing with SS since Gma seems to always steal your thunder. Best of luck.
You can't control grandma - you can only control yourself.
I would not talk to grandma and disclose any information to her. You can only blame yourself for talking about the amusement park so that she took the opportunity to one-up you. Ditto the school supplies - - why did you share that with her, and is it REALLY that important who buys his notebooks? After school starts, your SS will probably need additional items - - buy those for him.
If she DEMANDS time - let her demand time on BMs days. Tell her she'll have to arrange that with her daughter, since you will be taking the time for SS to spend with his father / your H's family. "No" is a complete answer.
If BM complains about her mom, tell her "SS is your son. Until you start saying "no" to your mom, she'll never change."
+1
+2
DH and BMs parents all suck.
BMs mother makes no secret out of the fact that she thinks our custody arrangement is unfair to BM. When she says something we remind her (as does BM) that BM and DH came up with this arrangement together in mediation and they are both okay with it. She still asks to have SD on my DHs time all.the.time. In the past I have tried to encourage DH to be flexible and allow her time when we aren't busy, but she is so rude and disrespectful, will refuse to return her on time, etc... that now if he says no, I don't push.
My MIL will tell anyone who will listen how lazy, worthless, and bad BM is. (BMs way is not always my cup of tea, but she's not a bad mom). We've kept MIL from seeing SD in the past because she can't control her mouth. She also doesn't agree with the way we choose to parent (we give chores, she finds them unnecessary, we impose consequences for bad behavior, she calls us mean, etc...) My DH needs to be better about standing up to her for this kind of thing.
For me it's really come down to accepting that I cannot change the way they act. All I can do is try to stay calm and remind my kids that everybody loves them, we just don't all agree on the best ways of doing things. But that we will absolutely figure it out, and they shouldn't worry. Not gonna lie, it's never easy. But it is best. And that is all I can do is my best.
we have a BM that is that way in our case. She one ups everything we do. We bought a new swingset last summer, she bought one tripled in price and size as ours 2 weeks later.
I tell SD i'm going to take her to the american girl doll store for her birthday, 2 weeks later her mom takes her and spends $200 if not more and has taken her back again already.
I told SD we would go to my friends salon for a "feather" to be put in her hair and next time she came back (2 days later) she already had one.
We tell SS we will buy him the new toy he wants, days later picking them up, he has it in his hands exclaiming his mom got it for him already.
We do something, she does it twice as spectacular. after a few times of these games we finally said, who cares. the kids are way too young to see a difference in how things are done and how much money is spent. you can only buy a kids love so far until they don't care about that and only care about the time and consideration with the individuals.(SD brings that expensive doll over with a bag of accessories and this past weekend she threw it in her closet and it never moved the whole time) As they get older they will see the games others play and figure out how people are. whether its their mother, father, grandparent, whoever. Hopefully some people can just get over themselves though and not try to be in control of it all.
oh and also, just don't tell anybody your plans anymore!!!!
i figured that one out too. Plus my response when one of the children tell us their mother did it already or did it so much better, i say well good then that saves us the money! and we just make a little joke of it so the kids giggle too and completely forget about it and they don't see our feelings of anger or sadness over the situation.
+3
Aside from Gma being incredibly controlling and essentially needy, I think it's also worth recogizing that it's great that she wants to do so much with SS. It's annoying that she one ups you and your husband, but at least she cares about SS and wants to do things for and with him. She just really needs to tone it down a bit.
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Actually, other than coordinating the school supplies, the communications you are doing are not necessary.
When it is YOUR visitation time, you do not need to tell her what you are doing days in advance. Hell you dont even need to tell her that day unless you are crossing state lines.
I mean, you are responsible grown-ups right? You dont tell YOUR mommy when you go to an amusement park, in case of emergency right? If something, god forbid, should happen to BOTH OF YOU at the same time, there are emergency responses all ready in place at hospitals, in police forces, and even at amusement parks (that whole sue happy nation thing).
So stop. Or stop kvetching. You know what is going to happen, but you continue to do it and then complain about it.