Reply to How to handle--better boundaries or do I just need to let go?

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "How to handle--better boundaries or do I just need to let go?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]New poster here. My step-mom is much like your 'faux MIL'. She has very specific time limits and very much limits her interactions with all children, not just my dad's grandkids. Unlike you, I know why: children (including her own) just exhaust and stress her. In our case, she truly loves all the kids, but just can't be around them very much w/o falling apart. So, my dad visits solo. We visit and stay elsewhere. We invite them to our home/hotel so they can leave whenever they want. And if there's an all day activity (say, a pool day), grandparents come separately so she can leave when it's good for her.

I don't think she's crazy. I love my stepmom, and while she won't be a grandmother to my young children, I feel that once my kids are college-age, she will be. So I stopped making her into a GM and we all spend time with her that works for her. [/quote]

OP again.  Thank you for this helpful reply.  I think one of the things that makes it so hard to deal with GF is that there is no direct conversation.  If at some time in the past decade she or FIL had said, "hosting this many people/kids is a lot for me/us, can we suggest you stay in a hotel?" it would have been FINE!  Instead, when I suggested to DH that we stay in a hotel I hear about how much this limits FIL's time with grandkids.  [b]And FIL's response is very much the same--"I love having the grandkids in the house" in reply to "we can stay in a hotel" or a disappointed "we'll need you to stay in a hotel" during visits when they're hosting GF's kids and don't have space for us.  Even GF herself seems to brush off the suggestion and will say things about how much she appreciates having us there (after a visit during which she has made it clear at several moments before and during that she is incredibly inconvenienced by it).  [/b]

I have suggested to DH and also SIL, with whom I am close, that maybe we need to adopt a model more similar to what you describe.  Over the past 1-2 years BIL and DH will call each other just to complain about GF and it makes me feel badly that she gets trashed in these conversations but then all of the same behaviors continue, by all parties.  [/quote]

I think this provides some insights.  It sounds like FIL and GF are not on the same page as a couple as to how to structure these visits, and maybe GF does not want to disappoint FIL.  Maybe the visits are more of a fantasy type thing for FIL, with children running to "grandparents" and everyone gathering and grandparenting it up.  GF just can't take that (and that's just her personality, my parents can't take that either).  Wherever you stay, build breaks into your day. [b] And I don't recommend having everyone (both sets of grandkids, BIL's kids too) descend on them.  It's just too much.
[/b]
[/quote]

Totally agreed.  Perhaps if FIL were more help with the entertaining but it doesn't sound like that is his thing so it is all falling on the GF.  It clearly isn't her thing and pushing her to do more of it isn't going to help.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics