Nasty thread on Mumsnet about a Gransnet thread

I accept there are some GPs who have been cut off who did nothing wrong.
Just like some accused rapists did nothing wrong
And some accused of domestic violence did nothing wrong.

It's such a very small percentage though that it is not relevent or indeed appropriate in general conversation about abuse to say that there's two sides of the story.

Rhinestone and WendySue

We need your input here. I have read that it's not uncommon in the US for women to falsely claim domestic abuse when they split from their husbands. Something to do with making it difficult for dads to see their children. It was just an Internet article so may be an exaggeration or completely untrue. Any thoughts?

yogagirl on one hand you say you are assuming that your daughter is still on antidepressants, and then you say that your other daughter met with her and gleaned this information. I'm confused, which is it? Anti-depressants aren't addictive, nor do they leave you wandering in a fog for years. The initial settling in period can make you feel a bit 'spacey' but that passes in a couple of weeks. I'm saying this as I wouldn't like others who perhaps need to take this medication to be deterred. Your sil is def a drug user, I agree, but I query whether 'addict' is an appropriate term. There are probably hundreds of thousands of people who use dope and yes, cocaine, on a regular basis as a recreational drug, and who see no harm in smoking dope daily. It can be seen as no worse than a couple of glasses of wine in an evening. I'm not commenting on the legality or morality of this but it is much more common than you might think. You paint a picture of your daughter as being dazed by drugs, with no free will and dominated by a Svengali of a husband, yet she arranged to meet her sister? She was strong enough to do that. Your sil may not actually have had anything to do with any subsequent lack of contact with her sister.

Things may not be as you recall them from 3.5 years ago, there is nothing more certain than change.

hmmm yeah, there used to be a rhetoric about how women who claimed date rape were liar sluts who put it out and now want to pretend they didn't…. Luckily society has moved on a bit now from that generally. Because people realise that the stick you get if you try to expose abuse isn't a barrel of laughs!

Yes you're right, "the stick you (can) get if you try to expose abuse isn't a barrel of laughs" and take it from me, being beaten with a stick of false accusations by your own child isn't a barrel of laughs either.

I'm rubbish at posting links but if anyone is interested Google
Realworlddivorce.com and read the comments of a Havard Law professor

Apparently claiming Domestic Abuse is actively encouraged by some attorneys when their clients are seeking a divorce. A court order can often be granted against the husband without the wife ever filing charges of domestic abuse against him.

As mentioned above, these are the comments of a Havard Law Professor, not me and it applies to the USA

Seeing as the thread is getting very nitpicking I just thought I'd throw that into the mix before retiring....

Night all

I would be really interested to hear from posters whose children have gone NC with them. What reasons did those children offer, no matter how unreasonable or weird they sound? I'm just interested to know what they actually said to you about it, or what kinds of arguments you had in the days or weeks leading up to the split? Even if they are very minor things that perhaps don't seem worthy of NC or if their reasons seemed completely unreasonable to you. The most interesting thing to me would be if you could tell me the exact things they said to you - eg 'you have come into my house and tidied up our kitchen cupboards even though I didn't ask you to'.

Full disclosure: I am a MN poster who has read the thread there and found some useful stuff in it, though I have not yet posted on it. I am not NC with my parents but have very little contact with them as they live abroad and I do not wish to visit them as often as perhaps they would like. My mother is very very difficult to deal with and I am not at all fond of her (am definitely the scapegoat of the family) and my father is quite passive with respect to her frequently odd behaviour, which has been going on for at least four decades. I am 47 so old enough to have seen quite a lot of life in its various aspects but am not a grandmother. I have a nine year old.

And I am going to bed shortly so might not respond immediately but I would love to hear from people who feel able to share these kinds of things.

www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/libel

notgranyet I would reply but you are really not worth the effort. I'll leave it to GNHQ to deal with you.

I know my worth thanks

I haven't looked at the Mumsnet thread mentioned in the OP for a while, so it may have changed but it didn't strike me as particularly nasty. This thread started with what seemed to me some reasonable comments although I didn't always agree. While I fully appreciate that threads meander, this one now seems to have degenerated and become quite nasty itself.

" Do I chance contact again (on the increasingly unlikely off chance of no2) and put my kids at risk...?"

Absolutely not! Protecting the children is priority #1!

Well this seems to have morphed into a "nasty thread on Gransnet"
One to avoid from now on.

"So parents who decide their children will have a better life on the other side of the world and emigrate are bad parents too then FarNorth?"

No, that wouldn't make them bad parents as the children could still have a good relationship with their GPs.

There have been other threads on GN recently, where posters actively encourage someone to cut off contact from a toxic relationship, or tell a GP to alter their attitude and behaviour as it is causing family problems (based on the GP's own description of the situation).
GN is not full of people who feel entitled to grandchildren, but mainly people who are doing their best to get along with their relatives.

Just reading this thread, (and the one on MN) makes it easy to see how relationships become so fraught. Here is a perfect illustration of how difficult it can be to see the other side of the story.

Of course, people fall out, get hurt, think they are right, and unless you are in that situation, it's impossible to judge, particularly where families are concerned. And when did a stranger ever convince anyone that they were wrong?

Just respect each other's point of view and wish those affected well for the future. ?

Hmmm... Fairydoll, I've already given input in this thread. But I guess you mean specifically on the domestic abuse issue.

Fortunately, I don't have any personal experience with it. But I think the professor may be referring to a Restraining Order (RO). I've heard (read maybe?) that you can get one without proof - you have to give a reason, I think, but don't have to prove it cuz not all abuse leaves marks and so forth. Usually - I think - the RO would include the kids, too. So yes, I guess a woman could make a false claim and so keep dad from kids. Or it might just mean limited, supervised visitation - I'm not sure. (Sorry I'm not much help here.) But I hope false charges are few and far between.

But ladies, not all cases of EGPs are about "abuse" as many of us think of it. I've heard of ones that are "just" about repeated offenses, last straw situations and/or continual disrespect. If parents ask a GP, for example, not to give their kids sugar and the GP keeps doing it, and the parents remind them and explain, but they argue/brush it off and just keep doing it, after a while, the parents are likely to cut back visits or even stop them altogether. Then the GP might complain, "They cut me off just because I gave my GC a cookie!" But it really was cuz of a string of offenses, culminating in the cookie incident.

Or it might occur due to a zillion little things - some people call it "death by a thousand paper cuts!"

I'm NOT saying that any of this is the case with any EGPs here. Just saying that it's not always about abuse per se though in its own way, it may be just as understandable.

Notanan, I hear what you're saying about apologies. The best ones, IMO, are simple and followed up by change.

Yoga, do you know if ND defended you to estD or tried to change her mind about the CO? Cuz that may have just aggravated estD, and she may now be avoiding her as a result. Maybe not, it's just a thought. Strangely, that would be sort of good cuz it would mean sil wasn't controlling her so much.

FarNorth - Yes! Glad you said this! So true!

"There have been other threads on GN recently, where posters actively encourage someone to cut off contact from a toxic relationship, or tell a GP to alter their attitude and behaviour as it is causing family problems (based on the GP's own description of the situation).
GN is not full of people who feel entitled to grandchildren, but mainly people who are doing their best to get along with their relatives."

notanan
And finally, would you say "you have decided that whatever she does, there is no way she can change to your satisfaction" to someone who had enough of an abusive partner and finally left?

Yes, why wouldn't I, if that was the case and the person leaving had gained the strength to leave and their life improved as a result?
That stance however is not consistent with then in the same breath talking about renewing the relationship with a different dynamic as you did in your earlier posts.

Very well said Smileless & Fairydoll

Ionon I was told to "F* Off" by my nasty s.i.l, I have never been given a reason, but I know the reason; jealous, in a nut shell. My s.i.l is a Gypsie, from a huge Gypsie family, very tight-nit. I am a 61yr old women, living on my own, I received death threats, my little westie too, I was so afraid of what I would find when I got in from work. I had panic buttons put in every room and above my bed! My ND is still afraid for my life and is always urging me to move.

Katek If you read my post it said; my ND meet up with my estD [her sister] LAST year. So in the year following I can only assume. Saying anti-depressants are addictive is from many, many TV and news paper articles, also from friends & acquaintance, but yes in some cases they maybe needed with doctor supervision . But not in my D case were it is about her husband controlling her. I myself take St.John's Wort, which is a natural mood enhancer, I also take 'Kalms, one-a-night' to help me stay asleep.

St. John's Wort

obieone any special status due to soops kitchen is due to a general agreement by contributers. The "rules" are that we do not use it as a debating chamber for anything controversial. There are plenty of other threads for that.
It is a place to relax and chat, a sort of safe house for anyone wanting peace and quiet, some humour and sometimes for those wanting a bit of moral support.

Thanks.