Kept from grands I need advice

Smileless,

But that's what they did. They limited her time to once a week and she lost her mind and started talking about her rights.

Also, what do you consider a threat on life?

In 20 minutes in my sight but out of my earshot, my MIL sowed the seeds of an eating disorder in my 3 year old's head.

It took weeks of gentle conversation before she stopped worrying about if she was eating too much.

We have not seen her since except for a few Skype visits. And my husband has to be present the entire time.

My point Nezumi is that feeling exasperated with a close family member and feeling unable to deal with them, isn't IMO justification for cutting them out.

Limit time spent with them but don't cut them out all together.

I expect there are many parents who have been totally exasperated by their children as teenagers and adults, and felt they couldn't deal with them anymore. It's their good fortune that their parents didn't see cutting out as the only option

Not sure what your point is. Think it’s somewhat different for parent-child, esp while they’re under 18. Having said that some parents do of course cut their children out if they cause great distress (not necessarily life threatening).

momof3 you are yet another poster who writes with common sense, yet I fear it will fall on deaf ears.

The OP is totally unable to see that she is at fault as so many of us have told her, but I imagine is drawing comfort from those other posters on here who are also suffering, although I would imagine from completely different scenarios.

I think she would find more comfort or whatever she might need to hear on the Estrangement thread, some words on there might just resonate with her and get her to look at it from another POV. It hasn’t happened so far though.

I also wanted to add that if you persist in going for GPR’s- those aren't handed out like candy and usually you have to prove a relationship (which you cant) and that it would be detrimental to separate grandparent from grandchildren. Since you've only met one of the children, and that was 4+ years ago, you cant prove a relationship. Plus you've already been served with a cease and desist which you have ignored, and they have proof in the forms of crazy sounding cards and bible verses.
So don’t assume that if you go down that road it will end well for you.

Oh my goodness with this thread.
OP- if you read this- you are completely in the wrong and i hope your DIL and your son are granted a RO in the near future. You sound like a complete nightmare, but luckily your DIL sounds like she has a titanium spine.
You do realize that you cannot force your way in. The more you push the more your son and his wife will dig in their heels. Doing what you are doing is obviously not working but you still insist on doing it, yet you claim your DIL is the one with mental illness. You do know that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
I repeat- you cannot force your way in. Continuing to stalk, harass, and slander them will only lead you to a well deserved RO. Then knowing you, you will ignore the RO and end up in jail, still insisting you did nothing wrong.
The only hope you have is to completely withdraw. No more bible verses (seriously? Did you forget the one where man is supposed to cleave to his wife?), no more gifts. No more cards. Lots of therapy for yourself. Then in a year or so reach out with a serious apology with zero motive.
I feel sorry for what youve done to your son.

"You (don't) just have to deplete the resources of the person you are annoying to the point they can't deal with you anymore" to be cut out either Nezumi.

I expect there are many parents who have been totally exasperated by their children as teenagers and adults, and felt they couldn't deal with them anymore. It's their good fortune that their parents didn't see cutting out as the only option.

She is inconvenient and annoying, not a danger to life

You don’t have to be a danger to life to be cut out. You just have to deplete the resources of the person you are annoying to the point they can’t deal with you anymore.

lindamenge "So now what?" You have to try and move on. I don't say that lightly, I know how painful and hard it is to do as we've been estranged from our son and only GC for 5.5 years.

I also know and understand the utter frustration of knowing that your AC is being controlled and manipulated by their partner. I wouldn't be at all surprised if our son's wife made the same threat to him over their children.

There's nothing you can do I'm sorry to say but get on with your life, find happiness in the people who want to be a part of your life. You can do this while you wait to see if your son contacts you in the future, and at least you wont be putting your life on hold.

So you see HelloSweety those of us who know that the blame for our estrangement does not lie at our door are not deluded. I don't know where you got the 4% statistic from but I'm sure if you looked into the whole issue of estrangement more closely you'd find it is a far higher percentage.

Perhaps you included parents whose AC or unwilling or unable to stand up to their controlling and manipulative partners when you said "whatever". In cases like these it isn't a "sudden extreme change", it's subtle until the eventual cutting out, so subtle that you don't see it coming until it's too late.

I don't think this thread is "limping along" Situpstraight. The OP posted a few days ago that she was taking a step back but was still reading. I hope she is as there are some posters who sympathise with her situation and are trying to be supportive.

This thread has also provided a place for Lindamenge to share her story and hopefully receive some compassion and support.

Alexa, it seems that the OP has long gone , however she clearly states on the 9 th April that she told her DIL that she is mentally ill. That plus all the other problems shows everyone why she is being CO.

I really don’t know why this thread is still limping along.

HelloSweety, all you say is correct. However all those dire faults of the original poster are not sufficient reason for relatives to disown her. She is inconvenient and annoying, not a danger to life. There may be more that the original poster has not told us about her social ineptness. Whatever is was, the children would learn a better lesson from parents who laugh it all off and regard Granny as silly and unthinking, but not( for Heaven's sake !)as evil.

If the original poster were to be seriously annoying in the ways so well described she did not deserve cold hate for their response . And cold hate is a bad lesson to teach the children.

Sweet flaming cheese! Ok let me break this down for anyone that can't seem to figure it out for themselves for whatever reason.
CO doesn't just mysteriously happen. Ever. You can delude yourself that your a special case, but honestly? No your not. You just haven't figured out why it happened yet. And in those cases? 96% of the time you are the source of the problem. (Yes in about 4% it's an abusive relationship/sudden extreme changes/cult/whatever)

Next up Gummybears is 100% correct that if you bring a legal case against the parents you are never going to have a relationship with your AC or there children ever again unless it is court ordered or the kids turn 18 and they choose to see you. It's a nuclear option for a relationship.

Oh and Gummybears is also correct in saying that the kids will know, even if the parents never directly say one word to them about the situation. Seriously kids over the age of 4 will figure it out on there own. There not stupid, and they have ears, and heaven knows if your having to deal with lawyers daytime phone calls will be necessary to deal with it. And I don't know a single parent that can have even one uninterrupted phone call if there child is conscious.

Also OP if you seriously can't understand how you caused this CO by now I just have nothing more for you. Seriously, you did this to yourself by not respecting VERY reasonable boundaries, and then going even further.

Honestly I'm extatic that we live at least a two day drive from all of our blood related family. We don't have to deal with people popping by, and demanding our time which is limited and precious. Seriously have any of you stopped to consider how little time the average family has together these days? A few times a month is more than I get to visit with ANY of my friends unless it's for a play date and a BBQ or something that fall within a given month. My small family usually gets one day a week for family time. That's maybe 12 hours of everyone awake per week uninterrupted. You have to rank very very high to get any of our limited downtime spent on you.

My parents and grandmother see us maybe once a year if we can afford the airfare and time off. That's if we're lucky. We have the phone, Facebook, pictures, and Skype to keep in contact. My child has a very close relationship with all of them. My MIL never calls, or returns calls, and she only sees what I put on Facebook if she looks. My child was shocked to learn her Dad had a mom. But she knows her Uncles who call and message regularly.

Relationships are what you make of them. They aren't a right that you are owed. They are a lot of work.

'Even if that meant that you'd never see her again, ever Violetfloss?'

Yeah. I think I'd owe her that much.
If I was doing things repeatidly that upset her which caused her hurt and upset, AND I knew it, I sure as hell wouldn't carry on.

I have a similar situation. I have not seen my dil and son and two grands 8 and 4, for 4 years. No response at all to calls, letters, gifts, so stopped sending gifts and cards. Text son once in a while asking for communication and reason for silence to no avail. Dil was raised in church, but denounced and is anti Christ now. She calls her mother stupid, says she only uses her dad to get presents, manipulated my ex into buying them a $35k car, got a house out of him. They lived with me for a while before children. She cursed me, yelled at me while drunk, called me a fucking bitch, used the F word liberally when I had guests over. Son tried to leave her, she threatened that he would never see his kids again. Brother has talked to him, he says it's my Dils problem. Dil says he has the problem and I am stuck hanging. She is very angry and controlling. He enables her. So now what?

Even if that meant that you'd never see her again, ever Violetfloss?

:I assume that all of the posters on this thread who are so critical of the OP, having done all of the aforementioned, would accept without a word of complaint being CO of their AC and GC's lives. Take full responsibility for having to live the rest of your lives in the knowledge that in all probability, you will never see your AC and GC again:

Yes. If my daughter sat down repeatedly and told my my behaviour was making her upset and I carried on with it, kept ignoring every word that was coming out of her mouth and not listening to how I was making her feel regarding my behaviour it would be my own damn fault she didn't want to see me.

"In their happiness together it was the privilege and duty of all her relatives to help her and to go on helping her until she saw the light of reason, no matter if that took years to do" That's lovely Alexa.

Turning up unannounced and uninvited, voicing your personal opinion whether or not it's wanted, sending Bible verses to you AC who has previously asked you to pray for him and his family and finding out where your AC has moved too because you weren't given their new address.

I assume that all of the posters on this thread who are so critical of the OP, having done all of the aforementioned, would accept without a word of complaint being CO of their AC and GC's lives. Take full responsibility for having to live the rest of your lives in the knowledge that in all probability, you will never see your AC and GC again.

Don't assume that because the OP's ex husband and his family do see her son and GC that that demonstrates without question that this estrangement is all her fault.

Some family continue to see the estranging AC and their C even though they are more than happy to tell the EP's whose hearts are broken that what their AC has done is appalling. Some are prepared to overlook their behaviour if it means they can continue to have a relationship with them.

Alexa we re all guessing here but surely that’s the whole problem
if she’d known she was doing wrong she would not have done it its pattently obvious this hasn’t happened over night (4 years) and as she is the only one in the family to be pushed away she has obviously been told many times what they don’t want her doing but because she doesn’t see it as wrong she carries on doing it
It has been pointed out by many different posters on here even
Do not preach do not send bible texts when asked not to do not turn up when not invited, do not stalk, Immagamma doesn’t think any of these things are out of order We don’t know how many times she’s been asked, told, cajoled but she doesn’t get it, she didn’t get it when people told her on this thread
She WONT change if she sees her actions as correct and others in the wrong
Now if she lived by her Bible and showed some humility and said I think I ve overstepped the mark unwittingly how can I put it right she might have a chance but even here she’s saying I don’t know what I ve done wrong when it’s so obvious it could be a message flying from an areaplane

Callkiki, Immagamma was desperate because the whole basis for her world had tumbled down.

If she had known she was doing the wrong thing she would not have done it.

In their happy togetherness it was the privilege and duty of all her relatives to help her and to go on helping her until she saw the light of reason, no matter if that took years to do.

Yogagirl.

Sad day, to read your post Alexa if that's how the world has become, to me, family is everything, and that's every member!

Synonymous good post.

callkiki none so blind as they that don't see! and I'm not talking about OP.

I just wanted to point out that she did not back off when asked by her son and DIL. She went to other relatives to secretly get photos and information when she was told no contact, they had enough.

No matter what they asked her to do, she refused to comply and if this was an ex husband doing these things everyone would see it for the stalking and controlling behavior it is.

No matter what contact she originally had she blew it by refusing to follow the parents wishes. She knows better and feels entitled to tell them how to raise their children and entitled to show up anytime she wants.

On top of this she has clearly made the DIL the bad guy and gone to great lengths to play the victim with other relatives and crying to anyone who would listen that she doesn't know how they can be so cruel to her when she had done nothing wrong.

Narcissists rarely recognize themselves as being responsible for family breakdowns. OP has clearly made it all about how she is the wronged one here when the list of things she has done would make anyone want to keep her crazy away from their children until they know she can be trusted to respect their parenting decisions.

I suspect telling all the extended family how the DIL has mental health issues because she refused to be bullied by MIL hasn't gone down with the family that are allowed to visit.

They even moved and tried to hide their address from them and OP is proud she managed to track them down again even after being told no contact.

Personally, I'd be scared of having someone so blind to her actions around my family.

As to the religion, American from Texas here with a church on every corner and I'd be upset with all the bible versus pointing out my un Christian behavior and how I disappoint God with hand chosen bible passages designed to make me feel guilty.

In addition to being asked no contact she went to great lengths to hunt them down and send cards, gifts and packages as a constant reminder that she can get to them anytime she wants no matter what they say.

We only know a small bit of her side and it's clear that she was determined to make them parent the way she said was the right way or her way. I can only imagine her being one being cut off after repeatedly Grandparenting in a style that they felt was so far from theirs that they had no choice but to set boundries that she clearly refused to follow.

Personally I hope OP backs completely off, takes a good look at what brought her to this point and perhaps in time when they don't feel under constant onslaught of unwanted communications, they might be willing to take steps to build a relationship once she can prove she can be trusted again.

Alexa x

That's an interesting point Daddima "Does she want contact with the children at any cost, or does she want to have contact, but still be allowed to be me"?

It got me thinking. We were never told prior to being CO what the 'issues' were. We were never given a list of do's and dont's to be followed or we'd have lost our son and only GC.

That said, if we had been I'd have said 'no I don't think so. We've been loving, caring and nurturing parents to you for 27 years. You were more than happy with us being who we are so I'm not going to change now just because you've decided to change the 'rules'.

Losing your child through estrangement is painful beyond words but for me losing myself and my integrity would have been a price too high to pay.

It's often the way minesaprosecco that the OP doesn't return and the thread they started takes on a life of it's own. The OP may still be reading even though she's no longer contributing.

Since the OP hasn't been back on this thread for a good few days, isn't it time to call it a day? She's had all the advice she could possibly cope with!