Nightmare DIL

I can't imagine any one necking a couple of bottles of wine, whilst being solely responsible for young children and thinking that it's "fine"! The mental images it conjures up are staggering.

What a thick-skinned, stubborn, selfish granny the OP must be - if indeed she actually exists. I think it must be a wind-up. Nobody could be that stupid, could they?

Dear Granincharge have you learnt nothing from the responses here? You say " If she gets all her way, doesn't that make her selfish". What about if you get all your way doesn't that make you selfish too! "she is possessive and won't stray from anything she wants to do" Likewise you can be seen as possessive because you won't stray from what you want to do. "I cam here for advice on how I can get her to see things my way a bit more" The advice given is how to see things her way a bit more. Have you hear of the C word it is called compromise, you should give it a try. May be it is time to stop this thread now as we are losing patience with you.

It is unfair to pay for one childs wedding and not the other ,surely you could have at least offered part of the cost if you knew you were paying all your daughters wedding.Its outdated now to ppay for a daughters wedding,most couples pay for their own and make all the decisions and in my opinion thats how it should be .I've worked in the wedding industry for over 50 years and it good to see couples having the weddings THEY want not dictated to by parents

Somebody must be very bored - or inventive!

I thought it was a wind up as soon as i read OP.

A bottle each. Well of course they don’t leave the kids with you that would be neglectful.

Anyway I’m sure I hear trip trap trip trap.

Agree with above posts no one can be that insensitivity
It’s must be a wind up granincharge ask your question on Mumsnet see how long you last
???

Wind the grannies up
Wind the grannies up
Pull, pull, clap clap clap

Wind them back again
Wind them back again
Post, post, ???

Of course it’s a windup. I’m not going to bother getting exercised about how bad this MiL is, because she’s not for real.

This post is obviously a wind up. DIL has a MIL problem.?

Dear Granincharge, I could echo everything you have said, in relation to our family. Believe me, the situation you have found yourself in is not unusual nowadays.

Like you, we had a large, sociable extended family and we all spent lots of time together especially at Christmas and birthdays. I had the same expectations as you when my sons had their families. I thought we would be spending lots of fairly unstructured family time together just bowling along as before.

One Christmas, some years ago now, one of my sons took me on one side and told me what you have been told on here. He was blunt, so you can imagine, I was distraught to find I'd been getting things so wrong.

It did make me re evaluate how I would need to be in relation to my DSs and their families.

Now, ten years on, we get on well. I don't see as much of them as I would like, but hey ho, we still see them (Covid permitting!) and still message and facetime each other fairly regularly.

So my strong advice would be to listen to what you've been told on here. It's sound advice. Take what time your DS and his lovely family give you, value your time with them and above all, COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS.

Believe me, it will get better and you will be a happier Gran. Your friend was right to advise you to ask on Gransnet.

Also,
Your daughter likely knows how much you drink. I doubt that she will leave any future children with you to babysit either, she would be an irresponsible parent if she did. If you want to work on meaningful relationships, cut back on the booze

BlueBelle -- Message to son and DiL -- "MOVE preferable to a different country and one as far away as possible NZ is a good suggestion."

Yes. Grandparents don't have "rights" there.

Granincharge -- You have been given solid advice here. Of course your friends 'agree' with you. I'm sure to "not agree" has consequences they would rather avoid OR they are also like minded abusers/enablers.

You should also consider re-posting this on the Estrangement forum. Not because you are estranged, but because your attitude will lead you to be soon, so perhaps you should get acquainted with the idea of 'No Contact' because that's where your life train is headed...

A bottle of wine each? What would have happened if one of the kids suddenly needed a trip to the hospital? Neither of you could drive. You couldn't put up the alcohol for a single day? You're lucky you still see the grandkids at all. If my in-laws ever did that, they would never watch them again. Luckily my in-laws are amazing people. It sounds like you may have an alcohol problem. Please seek help and leave them to make their own traditions.

I have no further advice for you granincharge as you have no intention of seeing any faults in being a drunken overbearing, excessively possessive mother in law however I do have a message for your son and daughter in law ....
MOVE preferable to a different country and one as far away as possible NZ is a good suggestion
If you are real Granincharge and not a wind up (I really hope it is for once) you sound a nightmare and of course your friends will agree with you as they will be the same kind of people

I think lolo has it right you need some mental health help

I don't think anyone here has an agenda against you. You asked for opinions and got them...honest and heartfelt based on personal experiences. My only concern was the emphasis on drinking. I doubt the concern came out of the blue.

So assuming this is actually for real, can I please suggest to OP that you seek some mental health intervention? Your post seems slightly out of touch with reality and if these are genuine issues which you think need to be addressed I doubt that a forum on the internet will be enough to make you realise that what you expect is delusional. Additionally if a bottle of wine does not make you tipsy then maybe assess how much alcohol you consume as it might be affecting how you behave.
I seriously seriously hope this is someone at the wind up!!

No words
?
Interesting bedtime reading

"2 bottles of wine between myself and my husband which is not excessive"

You are so lucky they still want to talk to you.

The fact that you dont think 2 bottles of wine are excessive is problem by itself.

Your son and dil were so wrong to let you babysit knowing how irresponsible you and your dh are.
They hold some weight in this situation as well.

A bottle of wine has about 6 alcoholic drinks. That's about what a woman should be consuming in a WEEK. Going through that much in a night, especially when you're in charge of children, is irresponsible in the extreme.

If I found out that someone had drunk that much while caring for my children, they wouldn't be seeing my child again.

I'm usually the last to suspect something is a wind up but I wonder about this. You've hit on just about every trigger point in the bad MIL play book.

Just in case: Nothing you have said is your DIL being out of line. It's all reasonable on her end. No-one who drank anything while in charge of my kids would be babysitting them either.

Wow.

I adored my late MIL and made a mammoth effort to maintain that relationship after her son and I split up. We lived 5 minutes away at the other end of the village (and half an hour from my mother), saw each mother once every week or so. There was no whining, clinging, pushing for 'more, more, more' from either mother. Sometimes we went to them for Sunday lunch, there is NO way any of us would have considered holidays together. We attended 'big' birthday celebrations at MIL's house, with her many friends and my ex-DH's aunts, uncles, cousins and step-siblings, all jolly good fun - but for the afternoon and evening, not staying there for a week! MIL had had her time parenting her own children as she wished, she didn't tell us how we should parent ours, neither did my mother.

On the odd occasion that MIL babysat she did NOT drink. AT ALL. Perhaps that's why she didn't babysit a lot ( ! ), but had she opened a bottle of wine (or more) it would have been the last time she looked after them. That's disgraceful on your part, shame on you.

Children should wake in their own house on Christmas morning, not your house, unless they have always had a tradition of going to a grandparent's house for a few days. That could be the case if the grandparents lived many hours away, not as close as you are. And kids shouldn't have to spend Christmas Day in the car for hours either. Can't they see you and the other grandparents Christmas Eve or Boxing Day? Your kids did, surely, or did you always go away for Christmas with them? What does your son remember about Christmas with you when he was little? Maybe his wife had happier times and they're trying to replicate that? Whatever, they're grown up and their decisions for their family aren't yours to criticise, whine or grumble about.

OP did you have to do everything your in-laws expected when your children were growing up? I can't imagine why you would expect to interfere so much, unless you had to tolerate it yourself. What is your son's memory of the part your in-laws played in his life?

Let them be. You sound a real nightmare MIL and honestly I'm surprised you are able to see your grandchildren as much as you do. I don't think you can grasp that this is all about YOU. Why do you think they can't build a rich tapestry of happy memories that aren't centred around you?

In answer to how much we drank whilst babysitting - 2 bottles of wine between myself and my husband which is not excessive. I am not reliant on alcohol as some of you are making out.

This is someone who is bored and having a laugh at our expense surely. At least I hope it is or the poor daughter-in-law is a saint.

Granincharge now you’ve just confirmed for us that your post is a wind up. 2 bottles of wine between you while babysitting??

Put the drink away and get to your bed. And in the extremely unlikely event that your original post was genuine... your son and dil are way too lenient with you and your husband