Your money or your grandsons

Thank you for the support. I think I'll always find it a sad situation but I try to let it go. It shouldn't bother me more than it bothers my husband.

Oceanmama I did the same with my husband and he did the same for me and one day we sat and told each other all of it. His all of it was a lot more than mine as he had kept more back. We are both on board with each others estrangement now. My husband was removed from his mum as a child but I thought maybe it would be different after she left the man she was with.... Things got worse for that family, not better and he has been saved a lot of anguish.

I can understand your desire, as a wife and mother, wanting to fix the problems between your H and his family OceanMama.

You've done the right thing IMO asking your H if, as things stand, he wont have any regrets when his mother dies.

It's so sad to see families fractured in this way where no effort is made to try to improve the situation. All families have their 'bumps along the way', there are just some who are unable and/or unwilling to negotiate those bumps successfully.

Smileless2012

*Isn't hearing the perspective of another the way the people work things out and resolve things?* Yes it is OceanMama and unless 'both sides' are willing to do so there cannot be resolution and reconciliation.

I'm glad that you're at peace, knowing that you did all that you could to try and resolve the problems with your m.i.l.

I know I did more than what I needed to. I was very young and I do wish that someone had been there to tell me that the relationship between my husband, my children and his family is not my responsibility to fix. That's between my husband and his family.

Of course I should have some sort of relationship with my MIL (I did want one) but, in the end, my view has changed and I think that with their complete lack of effort on each side to even try to resolve anything (husband and MIL), that makes them as bad as each other in that regard.

I have washed my hands of it but I do care for my husband so have checked with him if he would be okay with how things stand if his mother were to die tomorrow with nothing changed. I at least wanted him to have thought about that rather than live with regrets.

My side of the family is on good terms and involved with each other even though we have had the odd bump along the way. We relate entirely differently and resolve them.

Isn't hearing the perspective of another the way the people work things out and resolve things? Yes it is OceanMama and unless 'both sides' are willing to do so there cannot be resolution and reconciliation.

I'm glad that you're at peace, knowing that you did all that you could to try and resolve the problems with your m.i.l.

OP and son are both..... autocorrect ?

This may have become a power play.

The son doesnt want to proceed further unless the property is given to him and the OP will keep him out of the will unless he talks to her.

OP are both are both on checkmate position - waiting for the other one to capitulate and make the first step.

Most definitely no. See a solicitor quickly. They would say the same. Anyone capable of what amounts to blackmail, even if it is your son, is able to make promises he has no intention of keeping. I would make sure he doesn't even get a brass farthing when anything happens to you. If you intend leaving your grandsons anything then make sure it is tied up so he cannot get his hands on it. Sorry to say this to you, but what a nasty piece of work he is. Does his wife/partner know what he has said to you? Sign nothing and don't be bullied into anything.

Iam64 - I would love to see MIL's perspective. Isn't hearing the perspective of another the way people work things out and resolve things? I invited her to share her perspective with me and, towards the end, even suggested family counselling if she was interested. However, as far as I can tell, my husband's family never talk about anything, so nothing gets resolved. I feel I did everything I could and made an effort beyond what was required, so I'm at peace with that.

It's a sad situation that I wish had been different. That ship has well sailed by now though.

Note that this situation comes complete with the invisible son/husband who bears no responsibility in his mother's eyes at all.

OceanMama, I found the way you told your own experience positive. You're right of course, we don't have your Mother in Law's perspective. I found your outline of events, the way in which the existing relationship between her and your children to be a convincing description of a gradual break down in a relationship that wasn't a positive or strong one, to be very believable and convincing.

Yes I agree OceamMama that GP's not having a relationship with their GC isn't necessarily a situation contrived by either 'side', it can just happen.

JGran, just to be clear, the previous two posts of mine are general chatter, not directed at you. For all I know you are 100% the innocent party here. I am on no side since I don't know anyone involved.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.