Your money or your grandsons

..JGran certainly does come across as being in full possession of her faculties as you say tickingbird.

For me, this thread is about a P being abused by her son and her GC being abused by their father in his desire to use them in order to emotionally blackmail his mother into giving him what he wants.

The parental abuse that is evident here is not from the OP toward her son, but her son using his children.

tickingbird -- "The OP sounds in possession of her faculties and has asked for advice not interrogation and the usual invented scenarios. Accept what she’s saying and advise accordingly or move on." -- To "advise accordingly" it is best to look at the sequence of events.

I have never said OP is abusive/an abuser in any way. When there are family relationship issues, as in OP's case, I keep the 4 following scenarios in mind:

1 -- No one is abusive in the relationship and the family is suffering from unhealthy communication styles... In other words, "normal" family 'stuff'.

2 -- Total 'draw' -- Both parties are abusive.

3/4 -- Parent is being abused 100%/'Child' is being abused 100%

In order to mend broken relationships everyone has to see all those possibilities EXIST and accept the "other sides" perspective even if it is counter to THEIR belief/perspective. Is one party lashing out/purposefully hurting the 'other party' or is the person being accused of "acting out" really just REacting to something? Without both 'sides' keeping that 'on the table' then there's no "middle ground" to be found.

That's why I tend to ask "a lot of questions". I don't want to give advice based on ambiguous details/lack of clarity or assumptions of the "whole picture". Unfortunately when you only have one party 'talking to you' it becomes more important to understand their thinking/beliefs because it can help to clarify which of the 4 scenarios/possibilities is potentially the correct one.

My advice varies depending on which subset I think is going on. In OP's case I don't know... That's why I ask questions.

Good post Hannah. As you say, many family problems arise from poor communication or from an inability to see another perspective on the situation. It is easy to become locked into negative thought patterns, that can be difficult to break, which is where therapy can be helpful.

PetitFromage -- Thank you. "It is easy to become locked into negative thought patterns, that can be difficult to break, which is where therapy can be helpful." -- I totally agree.

HolyHannah

Sometimes it’s just as described. No need for therapy. Some people are just selfish, greedy and/or manipulative. The son is probably just that and the OP would have liked advice. No more, no less.

It's important to ask questions. The more information that's given by a poster, the easier it is for others to give advice and that more often than not together with support, is what those who post about a relationship are looking for.

Support isn't just about agreement, encouraging someone to consider where they have and are doing something wrong is also supportive.

Projecting ones own experiences onto the answers is neither helpful or supportive, nor is the judgement and condemnation of some posters that we see all too often, especially on the estrangement threads.

Well said tickingbird.

The estrangement threads are places where it's all too easy to respond to posters from the position of one's own experiences. Sometimes that can be helpful in validating
someone's feelings in response to an experience
Smileless is right to say it isn't helpful or supportive to judge and condemn others. Unfortunately, this seems to happen too often on the estrangement threads.
tickingbird, it's good to see you posting here. I don't disagree with you put simply, some people are selfish or greedy. I believe therapy can help in those situations, even selfish and greedy people can change but they have to want to and make a real commitment to do so. Therapy can definitely help the people hurt by abusive individuals/parents. It has be therapy offered by an experienced, well trained, well supervised therapist. There are some people calling themselves therapists who are non of those things.

I agree that it is important to ask questions. How they are asked is the key to getting helpful information!

I agree with you HolyHannah. There is a poster or two who always seem to default to it being the AC's fault (or vice versa) and pats on the back doesn't help to heal anything. I never assume fault as it could be either or both. For the most part, unless there is something glaringly obvious, we are unlikely to really know the real truth behind most posts where there is a relationship problem.

What might seem to be projecting is really just people offering something from their own experience as food for thought. I have always stated explicitly when I am doing that since I'm offering the perspective from my experience. I assume posters are intelligent enough to discard it if it doesn't apply to them. Likewise, I am happy for posters to offer me their experiences as it might relate to mine (or not). I can consider it and assign it the appropriate place in terms of personal relevance.

I have no doubt my MIL could come here and post something that would make everyone very sympathetic to her. Pats on the back wouldn't help. If there was any hope of healing the situation and having her involved with our family and the grandchildren, she needs to consider that maybe there are things she needs to change. Only then might she get the outcome she is hoping for. The only place she is likely to get that kind of feedback is from an outsider who can take a fresh look at a situation they are not emotionally involved in. Wouldn't healing that be the ideal outcome rather than her sitting there, disconnected, but feeling affirmed in her rightness?

Be strong and refuse . I can see even if you did this then what's the guarantee you would see them anyway if your son is prepared to do this .Does his wife know / understand? Your grandsons obviously will grow up then you have every right to contact them . You need your home and I can't understand why a son could try to do this . Think about an hour of legal advice?

And he’s your son? I have three and wouldn’t hold up to that by any of them don’t do it. Get some advice legal I mean.

Agree Holyhannah and OceanMama.

Sometimes sharing experiences is a way of showing empathy and understanding, that it is understood what it feels like when relationships are strained/estrangement happens..

I'm not calling anyone anything or insinuating anything by adding to a conversation in a general way. If I am talking to someone or about someone I would highlight their name, the same as anyone else and even then what I say isn't accusing them off anything... If it was I would state that.

All of this negativity against EAC lately is really not helpful to anyone at all.

All of this negativity against EAC lately is really not helpful to anyone at all I completely agree with you Starblaze, negativity towards any one focused group is unhelpful in any situation but JGran isn't an EAC, she's a grandparent, who is being held to ransom by her adult son.

Chewbacca

^All of this negativity against EAC lately is really not helpful to anyone at all^ I completely agree with you Starblaze, negativity towards any one focused group is unhelpful in any situation but JGran isn't an EAC, she's a grandparent, who is being held to ransom by her adult son.

The thing is, we can never be sure what the other side of that is. From information given there is a real possibility that there has been a genuine misunderstanding of a business arrangement that was never formalised with expectations in a contract.

No question that JGran gets to do whatever she wants with her properties and the son has no right to ask for them. That doesn't mean he didn't have an understanding (let's assume incorrectly) that part of the arrangement was that he would get that property. How sad if this is just a huge and tragic miscommunication regarding the business arrangement.

If the son feels betrayed by this (even if he's wrong), I can understand why he would have distanced himself.

Well put Chewbacca, as you say this thread is about a mother who has been estranged by her son and as a consequence has also been estranged from her GC, and from what I have read it's the negativity that JGran has received that has been questioned.

Oceanmama I did ask a couple of questions because I wasn't clear on which thing happened first.

This could be a very solvable situation where each party sees events differently.

Although of course if the situation is the same for both, Jgran needs some professional support.

Yes, maybe talking about it through a mediator or with legal advice is the way to untangle all this? I hope JGran and her son can work it out.

I can understand why he may have distanced himself too OceanMama and previously suggested it could have been his inability to cope with his mother's illness, together with his fears of Alzheimer's because of his GF and now his father's diagnosis.

Distancing oneself from their parent and estranging them a year however, is a different thing entirely to telling that parent that unless they do what they want, in this case sign over a house, they'll never seen their GC again.

I don't see that that has anything whatsoever to do with "a huge and tragic miscommunication regarding a business arrangement". His children aren't pawns to be used in a business transaction.

JGran did post that her son refused mediation which is a shame.

Smileless, yes, though if the son genuinely believed the house was included in the agreement of what he would get as part of the business arrangement (rightly or wrongly), I can imagine that he could insist that his mother honour what he believes she agreed to. I can imagine being angry enough to stay away if he perceives such a betrayal. I had forgotten that the son has refused mediation. In that case, it may be possible to have it clarified by lawyers.

As far as the grandchildren, the 17 year old is old enough to make up his own mind about ongoing contact. If not now, then within the next year certainly. The five year old comes under 'if you don't have a relationship with the parents, you don't with the children.' Maybe when he is older he will seek his grandmother out on his own. I wouldn't go out of my way to facilitate a relationship between my parents and my minor children if they weren't involved with me.

If it is to do with an inability to deal with his parents being sick, that seems selfish to me, but I'd still hear him out if he wanted to explain that. It would seem an unusual thing to withhold grandchildren because of though. His coping skills not being up to that doesn't seem to connect with a demand for a house.

Insisting that his mother honour what he believes JGran agreed too, by threatening her with never seeing her GC again!!

The 17 year old lives at home with his parents so although yes, he's old enough to make his own decisions he isn't independent enough to go against his father's wishes.

If his father is prepared to use emotional blackmail to get what he wants from his mother, there's no way of knowing to what extent he could emotionally blackmail his son, in order to get him to do what he wants.

I wouldn't either OceanMama nor would I go out of my way to deny my children, whatever their age, their relationship with their GP.

To be honest, I don't want to be culpable in the destruction of a relationship by not looking at all the angles/possibilities in an effort to save it if there is a chance that there has been mismatched expectations/misunderstanding that has led to this end result.

I think if you don't have a relationship with the parents, you naturally don't have a relationship with the minor children. I don't think it involves any going out of the way on anyone's part, it just happens as a natural consequence.

Alternatively, if part of the reason that the GPs aren't seeing their GC is because they are a negative force in their lives, then facilitating a relationship might seem undesirable.

My MIL played definite favourites with my children and that dynamic, including the way she scapegoated one of my children, was a good reason to not facilitate such a relationship. I would have been wrong of me to force those relationships. Of course, she would deny it if told this perspective.

The test is that my children are now mostly grown and my older children have not forgotten their grandmother and, as a result of their memories, want nothing to do with her. They are not shy about sharing their memories with the younger ones either. At this stage they are all making their own choices. Yet anyone who heard it from my MIL would think I was the evil, alienating DIL. Not that I ever made any decisions about any of this. It was just how it naturally unfolded and MIL cut us off, not the other way around. I guess I was really awful that she felt she had to do that. Or, that action says a lot in another direction.