AEC thread. Feel free to chat or add helpful resources here.

Best moment at a 'family' dinner... One of the older grand-children connecting dots... "IF grandma and grandpa are both your 'parents', doesn't that make You brother and sister? You shouldn't have kids together..."

Kids logic is great!

rosecarmel -- We all call 'it' mutual respect...

And the OF knew, if there started to be favoritism with the "grand-children" (biological or adopted) that We and their 'grand-children' would be gone.

Best moment at a 'family' dinner... One of the older grand-children connecting dots... "IF grandma and grandpa are both your 'parents', doesn't that make You brother and sister? You shouldn't have kids together..."

Open lines of communication and consideration-

rosecarmel -- I think that's what worked with Our OM and family. There were no habits to break. What's interesting is when the OF would do things that would trigger husband and I, they actually would take a moment and question whether they were crossing a line. Sometimes the answer was "yes" and they grew as a family from having Us in it.

And sometimes they had to remind Us that something, once in a while, is not abuse and if 'it' comes from a place of acceptance... Plus Our kids gained a pretty awesome set of Grands...

People with tragic pasts can go on to have surrogate type relationships with others- It happens often, I'm sure- Clean slate and all that, no old familial cycles to navigate-

It's very uplifting to know that people can come through some very traumatic experiences and not allow that to tarnish the rest of their lives and future relationships.

It was Smileless Particularly lovely as the neighbour had suffered a truly awful childhood, had survived it, grown, created a happy life for herself with her little family ...and that included lovely surrogate grandparents. ?

How lovely Madgran

My partners Aunt and Uncle became surrogate Grandparents to their neighbours children and surrogate parents to the neighbours. They had no children of their own and the neighbours were estranged from the living "real" grandparents for many reasons. Watching that relationship develop and grow across the generations was lovely and was special for all of them. When they died, the neighbours were very much there as family. When it works it works, and is great to see.

rosecarmel -- Husband and I would like to call her a Saint but she'd be purposely condescending and say, "Hush now kids... This is what parenting looks like..." And then Our 'siblings' would laugh with Us because We know they ain't perfect...

HolyHannah

rosecarmel -- We were on the lucky end... Our adopted family was all 'shine'... They had multiple children of their own (none estranged), multiple grands before Our children and took Him in first and then Me when We married...

They have remained great parent figures and the type of grand-parents We had hoped for... Grandma knows how to deal with the type of person my MiL is. Due to community connections, she sometimes has to interact with my MiL who did NOT like the idea that "this woman" called Our children her grand-children when technically THEY are MiL's grands...

OM told MiL something along the lines of, "I wouldn't be their 'grandma' if you'd 'parent up'..."

And that ^ is the difference between sitting in an empty seat and playing house ?

rosecarmel -- We were on the lucky end... Our adopted family was all 'shine'... They had multiple children of their own (none estranged), multiple grands before Our children and took Him in first and then Me when We married...

They have remained great parent figures and the type of grand-parents We had hoped for... Grandma knows how to deal with the type of person my MiL is. Due to community connections, she sometimes has to interact with my MiL who did NOT like the idea that "this woman" called Our children her grand-children when technically THEY are MiL's grands...

OM told MiL something along the lines of, "I wouldn't be their 'grandma' if you'd 'parent up'..."

HolyHannah

Starblaze -- My MiL did try to interfere with the "grandparents" but thankfully Our OM (Other Mother) knew how to handle the situation. She was 100% on Our 'side' and protected Us and her grand-children from the insanity. I'm given to understand my MiL was displeased at being shut down.

The jealousy of someone else calling Our children 'their grand-children' definitely lead to a renewed hostility.

This I'm somewhat familiar with- I say somewhat because circumstances and dynamics were different and handled differently-

It happened years ago when my husband was alive- He was like did you notice, and before he finished his sentence I said uh huh-

Both parties saw something shiny, it took about a year for the shine to wear away and another to be gone-

We just sat back and observed, neither supportive or against, no wagers, no monkeys- The OGM would tell us the kids called her GM, and we'd be like oh, yeah? And listen to her talk- Her husband didn't play, he just chatted up about other stuff- Despite the game we witnessed being played, we liked them anyway-

In the end, it simply reinforced the existence of patterns-

And that was kind of that-

Yes it is very sad especially as I thought we were close too. She even said how she'd wished I'd been her mum!!!

Smileless It sounds like your DILs jealousy of your relationship with your son prevented her from having a friendship with you and possibly drove her to drive a wedge between you and your son. How very sad.

Before they married our ES's wife admitted to me that she was jealous of the relationship I had with my son MamaBear. She said she was over it but it turned out not to be the case.

Oh yes, my MIL most definitely suffered from a green eyed monster. Jealousy seemed to be a driving force behind many of her actions. She often made comments revealing her jealousy of my mother (my relationship with my mother and my kids relationship with my mother), and she was also jealous of her daughter’s inlaws and their weekly family dinners. When someone had something she didn’t, she expressed jealousy rather than being happy for them. Jealousy brought out some ugly behaviors, and prevented her from having friendships with those she was jealous of. Very sad really.

An article discribing the impact of narcissistic abuse specifically

blogs.psychcentral.com/recovering-narcissist/2017/08/11-signs-youre-the-victim-of-narcissistic-abuse/

Starblaze -- My MiL did try to interfere with the "grandparents" but thankfully Our OM (Other Mother) knew how to handle the situation. She was 100% on Our 'side' and protected Us and her grand-children from the insanity. I'm given to understand my MiL was displeased at being shut down.

The jealousy of someone else calling Our children 'their grand-children' definitely lead to a renewed hostility.

Yes they certainly are Starblaze jealous of just about anything and everyone that doesn't put them first.

Narcissist are literal green eyed monsters.

I'm so lucky my children have grandparent substitutes too in the form of the family members that raised my husband when he was removed from his mum as a child

Madgran said, "That is an interesting phrase! Do we ever share another person who is a person in their own right? To share wouldnt we have to own, and we dont own anyone do we."

And that is where part of my extreme discomfort occurred with the statement from Pantglas2. Add also, from an abused child's perspective, it can also be, "You have a minor child (potential abuse victim) all to yourself! Shouldn't you 'share'?" which unfortunately does happen in families with inter-generational abuse...

As for the "more love the better"? Yes. Yes. And YES. Children can never receive too much love. On that We can all agree. Love and perspective from different generations is also very important to growing children. I believe grand-parents/older generations are very important to a young person's development.

This is why many EAC find grand-parent surrogates for their children. We did and are SO lucky to have people who cherish the 'job' of being a grand-parent enough to treat Ours as equal to their own biological grands...

I think you're right Summerlove the relationship between a m.i.l. and d.i.l. could be helped by the son/husband trying to make things a little easier for the women in his life.

So many relationships are ruined by jealousy.

I’ve seen it many times from parents and their adult children. Mothers and daughters tend to work through it better because you can be honest with your own mother, but mother-in-law’s and daughter-in-law’s struggle because it’s hard to have that open honest communication with people you don’t know as well. Often the husbands decide it’s “a female problem” and step back all together. If husbands would just step up, things would be much easier.

Relationships would be so much stronger if that were the case Pantglas "Surely the more people who love your loved ones the better".

That would get rid of the jealousy that happens in families. The mother whose jealous of her d.i.l. or s.i.l.; the parent whose jealous of their child; the d.i.l. or s.i.l. who is jealous of their partners parents.

Jealousy plays a big part in many estrangements.