Maternal grandparents feeling less valued/sidelined

Whoops ! I just looked at the date not the year.

This thread is over two years old. Wonder if Op had any resolution?

I can sympathise too. We lived very close to our son and DIL. We’d see them less than when they lived a three hour car ride away.
DIL used to visit us but sat on the edge of the sofa waiting to go always refused a drink, and was very quiet. Our son was always on edge, he did visit on his own but we knew he wasn’t happy.
For the sake of our DGS we never said anything, just tried to keep things friendly and enjoyed the time we had with him.
I’m pleased to say after 20 years they’re now divorced and he’s like a different person, enjoying life again with a new partner. We see lots of them all again now.

I wish I hadn’t wasted 20 years worrying about my family, the sleepless nights and all that fretting has taken its toll.
You cant help feeling as you do it’s only natural. I hope things have improved and you’re feeling better.

Oooohhhh I hear ya! I can literally see my DIL clock watching for when it's time to leave. I'm told in advance of the start/stop time of every visit, no such restrictions for DIL family.

Not sure you'll ever see this comment but I just joined so I could thank you for you're comment and wise words. They resonated deeply with me and I really needed to hear them whilst having similar feelings to the OP.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202307/medium-264171-screenshot-20230724-125656-facebook.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202307/medium-509296-screenshot-20230724-125706-facebook.jpg

Good morning everyone x
I think this is sooooo true to a lot of us, I saw it on FB and had to share it.

Blueshell2 - I came on here today to write a post about feeling completely miserable. My DS and DGS are abroad on holiday at present for 2 weeks with his in-laws (paid for by FIL). According to his FILs Facebook they are having a fabulous time!! It just breaks me - I know it shouldn’t and I wouldn’t admit it to anyone other than on here but there we are I’ve admitted it to gransnet!! I look after my DGS one day a week while DS and DIL work and I have a fabulous bond with DGS. So I do know I should be extremely grateful as I do get to spend a lot of time with him but it just hurts so much to see they are having such a great time and then I feel guilty as I am so happy they are enjoying themselves.

I am married so not on my own but I feel so envious of the relationship they all have as DS and DIL can’t wait to leave whenever they come to see me and my husband or our extended family.

So in a nutshell I know exactly where you are coming from in your post my lovely. It hurts.

I understand how you feel, I’m in 🇬🇧 I have a son in Canada with his now wife and all her family live nearby to them. I do see pictures and hear what they sometimes do as a family. My son has been there almost 3-4 yrs, no children yet, that will be another issue when it comes. I did go through the jealousy stage of not having the same as ‘them’, his in-laws. But since I went to the wedding last year in Canada and I have since been back for a week to spend time with just son and dghtr in law, I’ve been able to get through my thoughts and jealously. I think my son is aware of how I feel. Being jealous long term won’t do me any good. So I’ve told myself that when they do visit here or us to them we do make up for lost time, in one way or another. I realise that when children do arrive I will be a lost distance grandma, but with social media will help me. Can make up on visits either way. It’s hard but please don’t torture yourself, remember it’s their choice. If I’m surprised that most daughters seem to be more involved and live near to maternal mothers?
I have another son who lives nearby but is very busy and a now steady girlfriend, expecting a baby. All her family are very close and have alot of involvement with each other. Very slowly I can see my son more involved with her family than mine. Sometimes that’s the way it goes. I am really hoping for some grandparent duties and nice times, but I don’t know how much of a look in I will get because of the others.
Try and make the most of what you do have or allowed to have, on the bright side, you haven’t got to travel from 🇬🇧 to 🇨🇦 to see them.

I agree with you. My great grandchildren see far more of the maternal side, but hey, that's how it goes, I live a long way away.

Skydancer says it all in my opinion. I love my children unconditionally. But I too live over an hour each way. I must do the daftest school run in England but I do because I want to stay within lots of contact. I recently asked to combine my 2 days so I could stay overnight to stop the interminable driving. I was told (by SIL) that the other Gran would probably agree to it but it wouldn’t be good for her to swop (though she lives 5 minutes away). I am not in brilliant health but DD does whatever SIL says as he’s attached to his family. I haven’t spent Xmas day with DD since 2005 (they go to SIL parents) but we do ‘get’ Boxing Day. I keep going as don’t want to lose my DD but it’s hard. She was always easily led in younger years and seems to have this thing about being accepted. It must be in her DNA. I keep going though as upset does no useful purpose and the enjoyment I get from GC is the reward.

blueshell2

Thank you all for your tips, advice, comments and sympathy. This is the first time on this forum for me and I have been overwhelmed with the responses. I won't answer all individually but I will say I do have another AC who has no children yet but also due to job requirements lives about 2 hours away, that's fine ,it's a daytrip. I don't have other GC's as yet.
I do have lots of friends, hobbies and interests so I don't lead a lonely life by any means.
I just miss the closeness I had with DD and would love a chance to have that back sometimes.
However, I do keep these feelings to myself and intend to do so always as I never want to make her feel guilty or responsible for my happiness.
However, it has been comforting to hear from many of you. Thank you for your kind understanding.

I’ve always been quite a solitary person and never really had girl friends but my daughter was like my best friend until she left for uni and never moved back home. I think I’ll always struggle with the gap that left. We never stopped talking and used to go to concerts etc together. We still have the same taste in music but she’s currently at a music festival with her friends and her father and I’m house/dog/child sitting. I wish I could have those years back. Because we were such good friends I thought it would continue but life isn’t like that.

I don't understand why so many of you seem to expect your adult children to live somewhere reasonably close. When we were young most young people left home to go to uni or college or else to leave home and work in a city.

The chances are that your child will meet someone who has moved from a different part of the country. Once they decide to have children they may chose to move again, perhaps further out, or for schooling but they need access to employment.

Human beings are, deep down, selfish creatures and have to think of their own needs and those of their spouse and children first.

When we first lived in Suffolk a lady bought a house in our village. She moved from Kent because her daughter had. A few years later daughter and family moved back to Kent. The lady sold up a few months later and also moved back to Kent.

I think that some of you are forgetting how important good friends are. one of my friends in Suffolk was taken ill and needed hospital treatment. Three of her adult children lived in the county but were all at work in different places and it was a neighbour who took to the hospital and who waited with her. This lady had several GCs living in Suffolk and they loved visiting her when they were they were young. Once they became teenagers and were able to hang out with their friends in the nearby town the visits reduced drastically. When she asked one of them when he was next going to visit his response was to ask would she cook a roast joint. By this time she was a widow on a low income and couldn't afford it.

Finally I would ask how often you visited your GPs and whether they were miserable if your visits were rare.

Thank you all for your tips, advice, comments and sympathy. This is the first time on this forum for me and I have been overwhelmed with the responses. I won't answer all individually but I will say I do have another AC who has no children yet but also due to job requirements lives about 2 hours away, that's fine ,it's a daytrip. I don't have other GC's as yet.
I do have lots of friends, hobbies and interests so I don't lead a lonely life by any means.
I just miss the closeness I had with DD and would love a chance to have that back sometimes.
However, I do keep these feelings to myself and intend to do so always as I never want to make her feel guilty or responsible for my happiness.
However, it has been comforting to hear from many of you. Thank you for your kind understanding.

I sympathise entirely, because I have more or less the same situation with my daughter. She has a 2-year old and lives in London, while I am on Merseyside, so I have to travel to visit them. SIL's large family are all in the Home Counties, so they see his parents very regularly, and are always having family gatherings. They also go away on holiday with the in-laws (all paid for). SIL's parents are very well off, and actually contributed a lot towards the deposit for my daughter's London house, which makes me think that they feel they have sort of 'bought' the right to spend more time with the grandchild. My home is tiny (downsized when widowed) and they have never actually been to stay with me here as a family (daughter has visited alone). I do go through phases of feeling hurt and left out, but I wouldn't dream of saying anything. I'm hoping I will get to spend more time with my grandchild when he's old enough to come to stay with me on his own. (I do go down to London every few months to stay for a couple of days, but it always seems to tie in with times when the nursery is shut and they need a childminder!) On the plus side, I'm glad my GS has a wide and loving family, and that he gets to spend quality time with his grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc, as I did myself when I was a child.

My advice would be to keep quiet. If my mother brought up a subject like this, I would be very annoyed.

blueshell2 - your daughter has chosen to live further away from you but you don't say exactly why - was it because it is a much nicer place to live, or because she and your SIL wanted to be closer to his family/extended family? And if they did want to be closer to a family network is that because you have no other children to help form your daughter's own extended family? It's a good idea to really find out their motives. It's also a good idea to tell your daughter that you're feeling a bit marginalised but not to bring up the issue of her fil's birthday meal because then you're introducing blame and questions of who's valued more. You should kerb your jealousy otherwise she may not be honest with you. Your feelings of marginalisation are as much to do with your inability to get to them over the last month as theirs to get to you and honestly, if they're making a 3 hour trip once a month so you can help one day with childcare when they have a ready-made set of childminders virtually on their doorstep, they've made the decision that they do want to involve you in their child's life. You are lucky. Many sets of grandparents don't have that. I know you say that you can't move because it's a more expensive part of the country but if ill health is creeping in why not consider downsizing and maybe you could move and become more involved with the other grandparents. This is the key to fostering a large extended family that you will be part of, and by implication, less jealous of. And if you can't get exactly in the area move two thirds of the way towards them. Your gc is young and there may well be others meaning you have a good decade+ ahead of you when you will feel jealous and sidelined if you don't make a change. You live too far away for things to be 'equal' and you need to either reach a place of acceptance where your jealousy subsides or take steps to be closer but you should definitely talk to your daughter. She may have a solution.

Harris27

I’m the paternal side and have felt second best with both sons gc I just have to keep it to myself and plod on.

Same here without a doubt.

Harris27, same here without a doubt.

You’re certainly not alone. We have these kind of problems from time to time and I sympathise with you. I talk to other grandparents too who have similar problems.
I often feel like I’m just a childminder for my step DIL. She’ll send a message or occasionally phone asking how we all are, then there is always a but, could yo help me out in the holidays with childcare for her 9 year old daughter. They live in the same village as us, but DIL never comes round or asks me to go round for a coffee. Her own mother has recently moved into the village and I accept that they have a close relationship and do lots of things together, go out for coffee, lunches etc…..
I have started saying no to certain things such as last year, the weekend of my birthday she asked if we’d be able to collect GD from school one Friday (don’t usually have GD on a Friday) as she was going to a concert and needed to be there early. I said no as it was my birthday weekend and we were going out with my own son and family for a meal. She’d to find alternative childcare and although the concert was cancelled she still went shopping with her mum. I’m learning I’ve a life beyond them and tough if they so don’t like it when I say no.

I don’t think we can help how we feel - we all react differently with different coping mechanisms so it’s unreasonable to expect you to suddenly ditch the understandable angst you feel . We have to learn to cope with stuff that our adult children throw at us . Often it’s the paternal grandparents that are out on a limb and on mumsnets it’s the wife’s mother in-law that is the subject of many posts ! Is she happy to have all this interaction with his family ?
I haven’t read everything but probably your communication with your daughter needs to be assessed and restructured .. meaning find the right way to tell her how you feel - don’t sugar coat it but don’t go into too much detail . Adult children are often thoughtless and selfish and busy getting on with their lives regardless so in a way you also have to do the same .

This i understand wholeheartedly and I am sorry this situation is as it is for you.

There is no solution to this situation, it is as it is BUT its very sad indeed if its going to consume your life, maybe the word consume is too strong but what I mean is don't let this situation spoil the very fact that they are here in the same country, only 3 hrs away, that in itself is to be cherished, its understandable that they will do more with their other GP considering they're closer but as I say try not to allow this to bubble over x.

Its very hard I know from my own situation but I cherish the time I have with my GD's who live in another country, I send them homemade sewing, parcels of excitement, letters , gifts and I look upon it as it is what it is and nothing can be done in me moving near them and yet a LOT can be done in ways of keeping our relationship alive, exciting, fulfilling.... a lot can be done.... and it turns the negative into a positive and that is what you need here.

💐

My DIL is very close to her family and they socialise a lot. My husband left us a long time ago but our children seem to socialise more with him and his partner more than me. But I seem to be the one who does the childminding, house sitting, dog sitting, sometimes at short notice. It’s actually happening at the moment and I did have a bit of a melt down about it the other day

We live 2.5 hours drive away from my eldest daughter - I have a 6 year old grandson with another baby on the way. She lives in Yorkshire after going to Uni in Leeds and meeting her now partner whilst she was in Leeds (not at Uni but he lives in Huddersfield).

Her partner's family all live very close by and they see them probably every day. Yes, I am a bit sad that I only get to see them once a month/every six weeks (I try to make it more often but we are all really busy- I still have 2 children living at home - a 20 year old who is going into 3rd year at uni and a 17 year old - so life is busy for us and my eldest daughter is busy with grandson's activities and general socialising and she also obviously wants to see her dad (who I am divorced from), so there is lots to fit in.

Therefore, once a month/six weeks works out OK, sometimes it's more eg the other month when I was picking up my son from Uni (in Leeds!) we stayed at theirs and then were up there again the following week when my youngest daughter was at a concert in Manchester.

I take a more positive view that I am so happy that she is so accepted by her partner's family and that she has a fantastic support network around her - I can't be there so am very pleased that someone is. I help out very occasionally with childcare if holiday/teacher training days don't work out very well- they are both teachers so can't easily get time off if my grandson's school has different holiday dates.

We are planning to move closer to them in 5 years time when my husband will do the school run for the youngest grandchild (still inside the womb!) but eventually they may move somewhere else, possibly abroad, but we want to move away from where we are anyway, so moving closer to them as we get a bit older, even if it's only for a few years, suits us anyway.

Sorry, have been rambling on a bit but, to summarise, although having a different relationship with grandson (and new GC) from the paternal grandmother (she is on her own) can be a bit sad for me, I focus on the love and support that they get from the family that live so much closer and that makes me very happy.

I think you need to accept that your family are bound to have a different relationship with long distance parents, than parents who live close by.
Most of us live within a few miles, my daughter and her partner and children are in and out all the time. They all have keys, and it’s not unusual to get home and find someone here.
Whereas, with my other daughter, it’s always an event, when the children were little, they would be completely hyper. We would have meal’s out or arrange barbecues, it was just different.
I think she has always feels envious of her siblings, but it was her choice to stay in her university city and make a life. We were neither surprised or disappointed, but it does change things.

I can sympathise as my son and his family live in another city, a 2 hr plane trip from me. I used to feel envious hearing about the family celebrations and holidays that they had with my DIL's family as I only get to see my GS a couple of times a year, less since Covid, and feel that I have missed out on so much of their childhood. However, I have now reached the point where I accept that it is what it is and am so happy that my son is part of such a very close knit and loving family.