Rich In Laws

Still

soapso I've had a quick look to check if you have a grandson or granddaughter, as I couldn't remember. I wasn't able to find that piece of info among the many things you have said in your lengthy posts.
I think that gives a clue that you are focusing on the wrong things.

Give up trying to sort out your DD's relationship with her DH and in-laws, and even her relationship with you as you seem to be getting nowhere with that.

Concentrate on having as good and loving a relationship as you can with your grandchild.

Alea, Elegran, Venus, Ana, Jinglebellfrocks, suzied and sherish: I thought about your comments and you're right, of course, except that it's probably the situation that I've happily and trustingly accepted for eighteen years without realising that it's having a negative impact on me, what I thought was true and could expect and rely on emotionally, honesty and reciprocity and what was actually happening. Apologies for the bad creative writing.

The truth is really that trying to have a relationship with them is very hard there is 'one way' to live as far as they're concerned and they really demand and expect a lot in return, to the point that there really is no space left for the kind of normal relationship on a week to week or even month to month basis. Actually I feel the more I go over and be a granny the more I become a functionary of what his family have rolled out as the way they live work, eat socialise. I am in that but not allowed to participate, don't want to participate now as I think they feel so much pressure form them that all relationships are reduced to powerful feelings of duty and obligation.

I was really, really fed up about it: I am always wrong unless I do what I'm told to do.

Well I think my life's been worth more than that: the squeaky neediness you see is from someone who has given unequivocally for years and years and who has realised that I have to stand up for myself and what I feel and think. That is important: to be consistent about what I feel and see and experience and back off.

I don't want to see intelligence and effort and energy poured into someone else's life project who really sees me as an irrelevance and not part of the plan. I've tried for yonks to get with the programme, accept their terms and know that I can't take any more of smoothing their pathway through life which may be wrong headed. so I'm really not a needy worm type nor do I think for one second that I'm superior to anyone else but I won't take crap from them and I don't think I should be put down because I put my honest feelings (it was a coincidence that it seemed like a soap: years ago when I first started commenting online (I work in marketing i used to comment on a blog called Bent Society which was set up by some criminologists at Nottingham Trent to talk about the madness that we see around us. As I was interested in architecture and was studying a fantastically interesting architect, self made man, John Soane and I thought of all blogging as having a 'soapy' kind of feel I called myself Soapsoane (like a builder in the virtual world).

What I want is what all mothers want, grans want to be able to grow thorughout their lives and not be cut down by ageism, sexism, class, race etc. So I hope you won't think too harshly of me grans.

Definitely an inferiority complex and a very needy person. She should be happy her daughter is in a marriage that is happy and she is well 'set up'. Would she feel happier if her daughter was married to an out of work drifter with a poor family? Maybe then she would be the superior Granny.

I don't understand this thread either. Sounds like someone who has taken a bad creative writing course, or maybe has some inferiority complex. Sorry if that's sounds harsh and it's all genuine stream of consciousness. Maybe a psychoanalyst could make sense of it.

Nope, it was back on with Venus's post today at 18.56. So not guilty this time. ?

It might have dropped off actives if you hadn't posted again Alea.

It doesn't sound as though the OP's daughter is a worm who might turn - she seems to be perfectly happy in her marriage.

Venus must be the only one who does .......

tigger it is entirely possible.

Oh dear, I thought this had dropped off the page

I know a bit about what you are experiencing, Soap, and my advice is to let them get on with it, and you will find, in time, that the worm will turn, and your daughter will turn to you more. It's a waiting game, but just be patient. You'll see!

Convoluted indeed, product of a fertile imagination?

I am sorry, but it is all too complicated for me. I can't see the plot for the soapsuds.

Wrong "first" - March not April!!

Have we all been "had"?

Sorry, I tried to read your posts soapsoanelive but realised that I wasn't breathing, so had to stop.

Good luck with whatever it is

You certainly like talking about yourself, soapsoanelive...

annsixty,aggie, cornergran, ffnnochio, Iam64, I think my physical health is good: I don't drink or smoke and get plenty of exercise, eat well etc. but it is/has been hard: I have worked long hours for a number of years and then on my day off travel a couple of hours to see my grandchild: I think that it's been an acclerated time: and I think I've taken everything literally: I AM a seeker and yes like most people, complicated.

I'm not out of anyone's league (annsixty) and I am interested in the things people think and say here. I think I am a nerd and a bit aspergic probably; a kind of artist type probably who really does have a lot of common sense as I have to do ordinary and common or garden jobs and live in the real world most of the time. I also, from time to time burst out of the ordinariness and try and do a campaign or a project just to change things a bit. Anyway thanks for the interest in this and good thoughts and kind hearts.

I'm with Elegran on this one and with others who have pointed to the soap like description of life in this confusing family situation.

Here's a little tip soap - you don't have to join any club. Get busy rounding off your shoulders and adjust your expectations.
Wishing you all the best.

Soaps reading through this thread I found myself being very sad for the situation but also with some 'wonders'. I wonder if you are someone who spends a lot of time thinking, sometimes when we do this things go round and round in our heads and become distorted while they also grow and become overwhelming. Forgive me if I am wrong, but if this is the case I would agree with previous posters who have suggested counselling. Having a neutral space to unpick your reactions with someone detached from the situation who won't give advice, as our well meaning friends do including those on GN, might really help. A good counsellor would support you to find your own solutions and move towards more peace of mind. It may also help re-build your sense of self which seems to have taken a bit of a knock.

I also wonder about your physical health and agree with others that a physical health checkup is very appropriate, there can be all sorts of things going on that we can't see that can impact on our ability to cope with the world. I can't imagine trying to be part of a family where there is so much financial and perhaps world view disparity. All families have their own systems and ways of approaching life and it does seem that your son in law's family system is very different to yours and of course the one your daughter grew up in. I often need to remind myself that different isn't necessarily good or bad, its just different.

it sounds as if you are overwhelmed at the moment and I do hope you can find a peaceful way through that wont damage you or important relationships.

If you are really intelligent you can read situations and reign in your resentment , let your Daughter go , she is a separate person . If my Mum had started criticizing my In Laws as you do I would have given her short shift ! actually one of my Mums sayings was " intelligence is a funny thing " and " Common sense will get you places better than smartness " was another

I see that ,soapso has taken her profile photographs down.
On reading her profile she is a highly Intelligent and complex person and one I would never relate to as I think she is out of my league.
I wish her all the very best on sorting out her family situation.

Alea, Aggie, Far North, elena, jinglbellsfrocks, sherish, Maxgran, RadicalNan, Tegan, Obieone, ginny, Tegan: of course I count my blessings, I think I know what love is and I am someone who really does bound out of bed with enthusiasm: I am grateful to be alive though I wonder how we all got here. It is about competing values, Tegan's right and because I was a single parent (worked up till the day my daughter was born and went back to work ten days later, both she and I have a strong awareness of really fighting to know what my values were and to live by them being resourceful and having a rich life. So I suppose I've been given a wake up call: my cosy little view of people and the world doesn't fit reality. I'll get over it and I will change: it's about entitlements I think: as a parent and grandparent you join a club but what I've noticed is that then there's also the millionaire's parent/grandparent club where there are different rules and where the people look like you and me and talk about society and social things but they don't really need to get involved and do their sorting out inside a completely different system? That's what I think and maybe over the eighteen years that I've been involved in this maybe really I have been stretched out on a learning curve that has meant I am the one who is changing because I need to change: probably to wise up: yet it does make me cross to be told how to live and how to behave (by them) when I've been doing it anyway. I think it's that they represent authority to me: so I feel kind of infantilised by them.