Problems with DIL

I can’t believe you’re calling your DIL selfish for not wanting you to take her kids away from her. No you don’t see them but if you try to take them away from their mother, it’s you that is the selfish one. They’re not your children. I understand your DS is the father but he did not grow these children inside him, he did not feel depleted of energy for 9 months to give these children the nutrients they needed and he did not put his life on the line to bring them into the world.
Is it an unfortunate situation? Yes. But you need to keep out of it, stop offering unsolicited advice and leave your DS to organise things with his partner.
If you behave like this now and her visa does eventually get granted, I expect your access would be restricted no matter where your grandchildren live because no DIL wants a grandparent to act overbearing and entitled. Please remember you are talking about HER children.

This is horrible, i can’t imagine expecting my DIL to send her children (yes my grandchildren but first and foremost her children) across seas to me when their father won’t even be able to be their primary carer, I love my grandchildren but they need their mother, this is not about you and she has half a mind to stop contacting you herself, your son needs to support his wife and put you in your place!

GagaJo that is at least good to hear.
Maybe the father will go back to his family in Germany.

But that doesn’t matter the children do NOT need to be with their grandmother in a country foreign to them but I think it’s a wind up no one can be that ridiculous

A tour of duty for a US serviceman can be 4 years. They can remain in place for many years. It's called homesteading.

My ex was a US serviceman. He spent all bar 3 years of his 20 years service in the UK. It's quite possible to spend a prolonged period in one location.

A tennis racket has less holes than this thread lol

A tour of duty is usually 24 months, but could be 36 months now, so meeting a local German girl, getting married, having 2+ children, one of whom is ready to start school, all in 36 months is pretty good going!

How could your DS enrol a child in a local school in the USA when the child is not living there?
Surely they have to be resident in the catchment area of the school?

My lids are always going missing along with the teaspoons and half the socks

*looks sideways at MIL

Lids!
Sorry, made my day

And of course no mum would be willing to even fly over for a short visit and definitely not send the lids kids for one.

Ĝrandma has their whole future life planned out, including moving in with her son to become their fulltime parent and school places...

DIL is a Saint for even doing Skype

Adopting a living being is not the solution here - the OP, assuming this is real, needs to stop living in a fantasy land

A puppy deserves better than this

I'm hoping it's a joke - really I am. No mother in her right mind would contemplate sending her kids abroad, surely? To be looked after by a mad woman?

I’m pretty sure the OP posted hoping to get a rise out of gransnet, but on the off chance that it’s real…

OP, it may be helpful for you to go adopt a puppy or join a craft group or something. This fantasy you have about playing mummy with your DIL’s children is creepy to say the least. Your son has a wife and your grandchildren have a mother. You are a replacement for neither of those roles, and angling to be is quite disturbing. If your DIL doesn’t join her husband in the US, surely the reason beyond the visa issue is that your insistence on separating young children from their mother is as repulsive as MIL behavior gets. For your own sake, find a way to live a fulfilling life that is much healthier than your desire to traumatize your grandchildren for your own pleasure.

Does your daughter even want to leave Germany for the US?

Yes, she married an American, presumably because she was in love with him, but do you positively know that the marriage is happy?

Covid has been over for a longish time, so she could presumably have got visas for herself and the children if she had wanted to.

Please leave your son to talk to HIS WIFE about where they go from here.

She might after all prefer to remain in Germany so as not to move her children to a far inferior education system than the one they are in and only come for holidays.

It doesn't sound to me as if you know what is going on, only what you want to see happen.

What does your son say about this?
Have you asked him frankly if his marriage is over?

This must be an attention seeking post !! Surely not genuine. If it is genuine your DIL needs to keep her and her children well away from you.
Bizzare!!!!

I'm struggling to believe it too Iam but if it is genuine, I feel for the d.i.l., son and children who are separated.

I still struggle to accept this is genuine but - if it is, the indication is the parents relationship is done for.

Only a mother and father know what a child,s need is. Not a gran thousands of miles away. Your DIL is bound to want to look after her children isn't that what you are doing with your son?

The central issue here is what is best for the children! Everything else should take second place. Your son and DIL must decide for themselves as to what is best for THEIR children. Leave them alone to do that

Your title problems with DIL should really read Problems with MIL

You really are something else so much so that I think this might be a wind up no one surely can think a mum should give her children up send them to a strange country to entertain a mother in law she probably doesn’t even know

Super scary! I would be running a mile with my kids and stay in Germany with my own family rather than travel 4 thousand miles to be 'controlled' in a second language by my mother in law with hubby out the way 12 hours a day. Yikes!

Sadly, the military doesn't provide much help for foreign spouses

This is truly awful! I honestly thought it wasn't true. How can they not have a "fast track" for military spouses and families. I hope our military aren't doing the same thing.
What a terrible situation (for many I would think).

I would definitely urge your son to try for a transfer back to Germany where he can be with his little family.
SO sad.

Uh, have you considered how freaking traumatic it would be for the children to be separate from their mother like that? And for what? Their father would barely see them, working 12 hours a day, so you’re literally pushing to take over her role as parent, with absolute nobody benefitting but you.

Sadly, the military doesn't provide much help for foreign spouses and they have to apply for visas like every one else.

This echoes GagaJo's friend's experience.
And she's been waiting even longer ☹️