My place or your place?

Well, I appreciate all your support and advice, I really do. Unfortunately things have gone too far. This son was always extremely selfish, but it is the kind of things that one always thinks that your child will outgrow, even as they leave their teenage years and go into adulthood. But I now realise that he will never change as it is not anything circumstantial. He just is someone who is selfish to the point of hurtful. And I am in no position to be hurt. I had a rotten childhood and a tough life which I tried to make the most of and have tried to make it so much easier for my children together with my husband, who is my best friend of many decades. I hope my boy will be happy with his new family and he is very hard-working and dedicated to his career, but obviously he thinks he no longer needs us and so he has sort of dispensed with us. Difficult to face, but it is what it is. Cannot do anything about it other than protect my heart (and the heart of my husband, literally).

JenniferEccles

Why have one or two posters picked up on Mariana’s expression ‘the child’?
Why bother to point it out?
Does it matter that Mariana said that rather than ‘my grandchild’?

This is what I meant about some unsympathetic comments.

Yes, if the OP had said 'my grandchild' she would have been told that he or she was 'their baby', and not to centre herself in the situation.

There is no winning sometimes.

My wife and I live just a couple of miles from our 4 Gchilden and most of the time they visit us, at the Gchildrens insistence, have a big garden with lots of trees to climb and old fashioned den to play in. But I do agree go by the parents rules

My first grandchild is also 6 months. He has never visited my home. They're comfortable with him at their home and that’s fine with me. It’s not something to get worked up about. I am careful to follow their “rules” and not ruffle any feathers. Time will likely take care of the issue.

Mariana72, your last post sounds like you are planning to walk away from the relationship with your son altogether. Be careful making that decision as there may be no coming back from it.

There's been a few mothers walking away in these forums recently.

While the child is so young ,and were it myself in this position, be inclined to be the one to travel. G C too young at present to know you lived near the ocean.

Hold your own council. I think this situation will right itself - apart from, as been mentioned before, cabin fever, the child itself will start to realise that Grandma’s house is really exciting with a garden and the ocean near by. Keep relations very sweet and bide your time. Giving your opinion to them will get you nowhere.

I wonder what the pattern of visiting was before the baby came along? I find it strange that if there was a pattern of maybe son and DiL coming over for an afternoon or lunch or to stay for the weekend every month or so the idea hasn't been just to resume this when the baby is old enough and settled enough for it not to be difficult. I feel if you just sit tight an don't say anything there must come a time when the attractions of your home and the countryside will mean that they want to visit.

Mandrake

Mariana72, your last post sounds like you are planning to walk away from the relationship with your son altogether. Be careful making that decision as there may be no coming back from it.

There's been a few mothers walking away in these forums recently.

I am not exactly planning to do anything. None of this was my intention anyway. I was just stunned at how incredibly unyielding and uncompromising he was. Visits from now on at their house and that is that. Not much room for any plans other than 'it's my way or the highway'. I will just go on with my life and if he wants to contat and talk about this with a cool head, great, if not, great too. I am calm. Maybe unlike many other mothers I personally know, my position from the notion that I have done absolutely everything in my power to make my family a happy, safe and caring one, sometimes even at the cost of sheer exhaustion and burnout. I have a clear conscience and that gives me a lot of tranquillity. You know, when you have given your best and it still goes wrong, I mean, what can you do?

All this ‘don’t break their rules or ruffle any feathers’ is all well and good but we can’t live in constant fear of upsetting our AC. I agree we should do our best to keep the peace by not interfering unnecessarily in their lives but we shouldn’t be terrified of offering an opinion on odd occasions. We should also feel able to ask a question about their ‘rules’ or feel confident passing on a snippet of our wisdom without worrying that we will upset them & that this will lead to estrangement. I’m sure most AC don’t really expect us to be tiptoeing around on egg shells all of the time and are also quite capable of telling us if they think we have spoken out of turn without WW3 breaking out, we should just enjoy time with our families and not worry too much.

"I personally know, my position from the notion that I have done absolutely everything in my power to make my family a happy, safe and caring one, sometimes even at the cost of sheer exhaustion and burnout."

I am glad your son is not going the martyr route, to make everybody happy

PernillaVanilla

I wonder what the pattern of visiting was before the baby came along? I find it strange that if there was a pattern of maybe son and DiL coming over for an afternoon or lunch or to stay for the weekend every month or so the idea hasn't been just to resume this when the baby is old enough and settled enough for it not to be difficult. I feel if you just sit tight an don't say anything there must come a time when the attractions of your home and the countryside will mean that they want to visit.

Mostly their house (because they both work), and maybe once every three months, ours. That always worked great and all was fine. Or so it seemed.

SachaMac, what you wrote is something that I will actually copy and paste somewhere where I have easy access to it. It is what I feel, word by word. Sometimes you give in and just keep giving in to keep the peace and not upset anybody and it just does not work and only makes matters worse. Thank you for being able to express this so much better than I was. M.

Hmm.... This is a little tinkle rather than an alarm bell! Gf is asserting her will and your DS has absolutely no say in the matter. Mine started similarly and I've now not seen my gorgeous 3 GKs for nigh on 5 years- at ALL . Make your mind up to be compliant , obey instructions and bite.your.tongue.! Hopefully all will be well but do not underestimate how cruel and selfish the partners of sons can be. Good luck!

Gabrielle56 wow! why? what makes you say such a thing? I have known her for 7 years since she was 24 years old. I have absolutely zero indication that she is a scheming little thing. Actually don't take offence, but I take your comment to be a bit patriarchal. I know my boy and for him to have "no say" in any matter it would take a real force of nature . I am not saying it isn't so, it might be, but I'd be very surprised.

Sachamac I often tiptoe on eggshells.
Gabrielle may be wrong in this case but partners can cause problems. I've personal experience. Two GDs I sadly never got a chance to be close to.

I'm wondering if there isn't something else going on here... Has he been told off at work for overusing the business car for personal reasons? Perhaps he wouldn't want to tell you that because he's embarrassed his employment isn't quite as flashy as he would want you to think?

If it weren't for the month where its him alone with baby refusing to visit i would wonder if perhaps the baby's mother had a birth injury that meant she wanted to stay close to her clean clothing etc and could discretely change? She may not want you to know she's struggling with something like that. Perhaps your son is doubling down on our being his decision etc to protect his partner?

There is an awful lot of second guessing going on on this thread. It is always dangerous to make assumptions about people's motives.

The OP's son has asked that visits should be at his house for now. That is all we know - anything else is speculation. It is up to the OP whether to go along with this and continue to visit, or not to see her grandchild. Who knows whether this will change as the grandchild gets older, or whether the OP will have burnt her boats if she opts out now. For the sake of a 25 mile drive, I know what I would be doing.

I'll give you credit for not putting all the blame on your son's partner for the situation.

I tend to agree that there may be something going on that you aren't aware of. They may not wish to share it.

Regardless of the reason, you should set your own boundaries. If they want you to visit, 'I'm sorry, with no cooling in the car it's too difficult for your father to travel, so we'll have to wait for a cooler day.' Or something like, 'I'd like to have a weekend at home, so can't do this weekend. However, you are welcome to stop by if you can, I'd love to see you all.'

Maybe that will mean you see less of each other, but at least then no-one feels they are making sacrifices they don't want to make.

Mandrake I totally agree and seeing (a lot) less of each other is probably what is going to happen eventually when the storm is over. We used to be at each other's house at least once every other week before the baby was born, we would sometime take them and siblings on weekends somewhere or take them out for dinner or something and there was never a problem. Maybe they tried to keep that up after the baby was born and they found it was a bit of an effort, who knows. The problem is one of communication with my son. He is extremely difficult to communicate with and always has been.
I will back off until they find themselves in a calmer spot and if it doesn't improve then it doesn't. Like I said, I have a clear conscience, I am good with whatever comes our way.

Hope all works out for you all Mariana72 I think you’re taking the right road by backing off a little.

@Mariana72 Do you smokes? Oh have pets (dogs really)? Or is your house maybe not ‘baby proofed’? Just trying to think of reasons that they might not want to take a child their. We don’t visit my in-laws in their home with DC until they’re a few years old as FIL is a chain smoker and they have a huge, untrained dog. But that has been clearly explained to them.

Otherwise I don’t get it, I prefer to visit other people so we can lead whenever, rather than having to sit there waiting for them to leave when they start annoying me

Newmom101 Hi and thank you for your message and congrats on being a new mom . I appreciate the input of a mom a lot as you can see things us grannies maybe are not seeing clearly. My husband smokes but not a lot. That wouldn't be an issue as they themselves sometime smoke. When we visit, my husband goes out on the varanda to smoke. No dogs, no pets. Used to have a labrador retriever that we absolutely adored by after he died a few years back we decided we were not willing to go through heartbreak like that again with another one. Incidentally, if there were other problems they could clearly say so and we would try to accommodate them. My son is a tough cookie and not always easy to get along with. DIL a lot easier, at least for my personality. She is a lot easier to read for me than my own boy. He is in between jobs now and starting a very high paying but very demanding job soon, so I guess he is very nervous and hence the bad attitude and all the snappiness. This is why we have decided to give him (or them) all the space they need.

Sorry, just to check, if he's between jobs does that mean he does not in fact have a company car and paid-for gas?

Hithere

OP

That mentality can get you in a lot of trouble

Even family has boundaries that make positive relationships happen

But not everyone has the same view on family, they’ve just created their own nuclear family… so their priority is just the 3 of them.

If they both work, they won’t want to be travelling with any free time they have and frankly they shouldn’t have to. You don’t like the drive, so why would they? It’s also not recommended for babies to spend long times in car seats when they are little as it can affect their spines as they grow.

The baby will have so much stuff needed at this age too, just let it go and enjoy the time you do get to see him rather than focusing on your dislike for the visiting.

You can video call, those portal things are marvellous! You don’t have to just have in person visits.