Nasty thread on Mumsnet about a Gransnet thread

Final post from me .... Whatever you think notanan please don't group the whole of GN posters in one box. We are a diverse group of opinionated, experienced, kind, sarcastic, knowledgable women that have lived long productive and very very different lives !

What one poster may experience and speak about is hugely unlikely to be what the next one experiences. We are not all the same thank god because it's what makes us differs helps us support each other whether you agree with their thoughts or not.

Support not condemnation .

I hope your estrangement has a happy ending sometime in the dim and distant future .

aww sounded exciting till I read the last sentance!

I must go to bed now.

I have two men coming in the morning. I'll never cope!!

(tradesmen, Notanan - I'm not a grandma hooker!) Please don't repost on MN!!

Of course I'm worried about the future. I have children and I want them to have a happy peaceful life!

And if there's someone out there wishing for otherwise like the Estranged thread posters.. yes, that's very worrying

Ha ha jingbellsfrocks - I came on here to miss the Queens party, but DH is watching. Poor old gal, I bet she just wants to get home and get her head down.
Reckon old Philip has made a few wry comments.

Got to admire the pair of them.

Oh, probably get vilified now for saying that...

Notanan You fail to see your C as their own souls, who have an absolute right to know the truth. When they become adults, they will seek out their family history and they will question you as to why they were deprived of their loving grandparents

There is a difference between imparting fact
And arguing "your side"

One is helpful to the recipient, the other is using them against your "opponent"

I'm sad that the GN posters are more interested in doing the latter than the former if//when they have contact again

You sound rather worried about the future notanan

Is this getting anyone anywhere

sadly not I don't think, I read the thread on here hoping for some light in the tunnel.. but was shocked at what I found on there. I'm glad that some posters have said that that thread is… a particular niche of estranged GPs and not as typical as it appears… maybe there is some… softening and hope… but reading that thread made me feel the total opposite.

Its depressing, especially since the thread posters who lurk on MN have little to say about the EC support threads except how boring they are.

I don't find the one on here boring, how could I! Whatever I found on there, good or bad, I'm at least trying to make sense of it all, not writing any other POV off as "boring"

Oh dear notanan you sound very, very embittered. Scouring the posts to see what you can pull out and dissect.

Get some rest now, you'll feel better in the morning and everything might turn out well for you. I do hope so.....

Your right Jinglebells I'm off to the Party

Notanan You fail to see your C as their own souls, who have an absolute right to know the truth. When they become adults, they will seek out their family history and they will question you as to why they were deprived of their loving grandparents.

Is this getting anyone anywhere. You're missing the Queen's party on ITV.

Unfortunately NannaandGrampy I made the mistake of giving too many second chances, and as a result my children witnessed some of the reasons for themselves before going NC. And one of them remembers and was traumatised by it.

I am very sorry to them that I didn't remove them from the situation sooner.

If they ask us about it, we explain as best we can, factually and unemotionally (if I'm feeling emotional about it I talk to my friends NOT my kids), we don't assign blame or try to get them "on side'. I explain that sometimes relationships make adults unhappy, and they chose to leave them. I don't say "WELLL, check out this email I've prined off and filed, they said X then I said Y and they're wrong and I'm right"

I had kinda hoped that if they asked the GPs would take the same approach. I'm less hopeful of that having read "the other side"

notanan I'm talking about when they are adults. Not bringing children into anything .

I take it you feel that having brought your children up at some stage they will be allowed to make their own decisions? And that might be finding out out why there is a family rift.

They MIGHT heal that rift you don't know.

You talk a fine talk about cooperative dynamic but somehow your words sound hollow. You see your side quite clearly but seem unable to even admit there is another side to any conflict.

You talk about going NC as your choice which clearly affects your children whether positively or negatively. And it affects your parents? Or parents in law?

So is it not possible , in the future , if your parents are still alive that your children might want the whole story, not coloured by your emotions ?

I know my sister clings to the hope she will meet her little grandson that she cherished again. Not to bad mouth his mother but to assure him that he is always in their thoughts . I really don't see how that can negatively impact anyone , let alone an adult.

They would all forgive their adult kids in an instant if they were to walk through the door.

Is that before or after they make the children tools used against the AC by presenting them with their files of "evidence" of "their side" of the arguement?

Well said Nana&Gramps good post. for your dear sister.

A memory box I have no problem with nannaandgrampy, if it's little collected trinkets and sort of a timecapsule so that the GCs can know who they are

That's not what what I'm refering to, I'm refering to "evidence" of old past arguments to show "their side" - why would that be a good thing for the children to see from either side?

They would all forgive their adult kids in an instant if they were to walk through the door.

Nana&Gramps hope I don't read about you in the papers next week lol.
I actually do mean I will never forgive my estD, but that does not mean I do not want to reconcile with her, because I do, more than anything in the world. It doesn't mean I don't want to love her again, like I did for 23yrs, because I do more than anything, but I can never forget or forgive what she has done to us all, the only ones that are happy is her husband and his mother. My daughter isn't happy, she is on anti-depressants!

don't think it is unfair to present both sides of a story to which he has only been privy to half of.

my children have not been privy to half of the sorry business, I went NC to SAVE them from witnessing any of it, what would be the point in that if then I spent their childhood putting them in the middle of it anyway with "my side"

I talk about "my side" to my friends and partner and MNers. I am saving the children from the damaging effects of adults bitching by going NC

Yet you think it would be okay for a GP to spend any future contact putting them right back in the middle of it by telling them "their side" - the arguement should not involve the kids, it should be between me and them! If they have anything to say about my decision they should say it to me and not drag the kids into it..

I would have liked to think that any future contact would be about moving forward and building a cooperative dynamic so that the children aren't part of any nastiness.. but the GN thread makes me think that hope is fruitless!

Yep, just try to show a little compassion and understanding notanan
You seem utterly determined to put a guilt trip on some of the grans who come together on that thread to give each other support.

But loves a funny old thing. It forgives

hmm, not a lot of that towards the adult children on the estranged thread though is there, just lots of chat about how they're gonna get "their side" of the arguement to the GCs, and how their AC will see how it feels in the future when their children can go NC with them (almost hopefully)

I disagree with you notanan .

For instance, my sisters son and his wife got an acrimonious divorce and solely to pay him back ( her own words) she cut our entire side of the family out of his life. His father was a complete muppet which we all agree on but all my sister and her husband wanted was to be part of that little boys life.

They haven't seen him now for 6 years, presents got returned so they stopped sending but they didn't stop loving him.

They keep a memory box for him in case he ever tries to find them when he is older. IF he asks why they didn't love him or see him what would you have them say?

Gloss over it and move on? Their hearts are broken and they understand they may never see him but if they do and he asks the question, they have copies of the begging letters they sent, the court visits the solicitor letters that they used to try and find a way to see him and support his mother.

I don't think it is unfair to present both sides of a story to which he has only been privy to half of. I don't think that's loving them less. Luckily for me , I love my children and they love me, but when I see my sisters tears and I KNOW they did NOTHING to bring about the estrangement I see there are two sides to every story.

Same happened to me Fairydoll My husband walked out on us, left us in a foreign country without money, our C were 3,6 & 9, left as he wanted to be a bachelor again!

Again Notanan your words not mine, I have never said; almost gleeful at the prospect that your own GCs may some day make the difficult decision to have to end a close family relationship with their own parents I have never said that!!