Reply to MIL to 7 yr old daughter: I think about you every day...do you think about me?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It really depends on why MIL is like. Mine is borderline/narcissistic and she says things like this to try to make everyone prove their love and it drives my husband crazy. Also she says "I love you" to me on the phone every time we talk even after my husband asked her to stop because it makes me uncomfortable. It sounds sweet on the surface but she's really cruel at times. I'd rather she stopped with saying super emotional things about her overwhelming love for us all and just started showing it by not being evil... [/quote]

I have to agree with this suggestion that expressing emotion is fine until it becomes narcissism and emotional control. Most of what OP says the grandmother does is fine, but the guilt-tripping, emotional blackmail of "I think of you every day/ do you thing of me every day" goes over the line by putting the child in the place of filling the grandparent's emotional need for reciprocation. It is highly unlikely that any child thinks of any grandparent daily, and that is totally OK, but this grandmother has just planted in the child's head that she must think of grandmother every day ... if she doesn't, she will feel guilty.  Children at this age are extremely literal thinkers. OP's light touch instinct to counter that sentiment with "it's OK not to think of grandma every day" balances the potential for misunderstanding. It is nice that the little girl does think of grandma, but just in case her true thoughts inside her head were the opposite, she needed to hear that it was OK and normal.

Other than that, yes, it is a grandparent's job to fawn over grandchildren with pure love and no judgment. Accept it as the gift that it is.[/quote]

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