I've been lurking and commenting here for a few months, but never posted for myself. Mostly because by the time I found this board, I had already handled my crazy family. For the sake of keeping this as short as possible, I wont include too much BG.
My issues are not with inlaws. They live out of state so I'm good there. My issues are with FOO. Actually, just my MOO and SOO. Both of them have been on TO/CO since May, and LC for about a year and a half before that. I have had a rocky relationship with MOO my entire life. She is an habitual liar, boundary stomping, disrespecting bully. Not just with me. With anyone who will let her. She is the type to get caught in a lie, and still deny it. She doesn't respect me as a woman or mother, always thinking she has the right to tell me what I'm doing wrong. Mind you, I'm an educated military veteran, and my DD is very well taken care of. In my MOO's eyes, I'm a bad parent because I baptized my DD in a religion she doesn't agree with. So my BOO can live in her house, smoke weed, and drive around with his kids in the car, but I am the bad seed because I tell her when she's wrong and choose my own religion. After years of trying to be the better person for the sake of keeping a relationship with her, I finally dropped the rope when a dna test proved that she had been lying about my bio father. This was about 2 years ago. When confronted, she still denied it. I just couldn't take it anymore after that and put her on LC until I could get my head together. My SOO tried to be a FM and unicorn at a time when I just needed her to be there for me. So I put her on LC too. Then in may, my SOO made a huge drama stink about something stupid on fb, and of course my MOO was all caught up in the drama, so I CO both of them. Not a word since. Whew, that was longer than I thought it would be!
So the issue at hand...through all of the crap with MOO and SOO, I still tried to be a good person and allow them a relationship with DD. I know, stupid. But I didn't want to see DD hurt over something that had nothing to do with her. She adores my MOO. After CO in May, I explained to DD that we would not be talking to them or seeing them for awhile, and it was because they did some hurtful things and we needed our space from each other. She cried, but said she understood and has tried to be good about it. She's 8, so she's too old for me to try and sneak around and make excuses for not talking to grandma anymore. But she has her moments. Yesterday was grandparents day and she had a hard time because other kids in our family got to see their grandparents and she couldn't. I was so close to just letting her call, but I was able to talk her down and we spent some mother-daughter time together. But how do I keep from giving in when my poor baby is hurt?? For those that have had to CO grandparents, how do you help your little ones through it when they are old enough to see what is going on?? She doesn't cry for SOO at all btw. Sorry this ended up being longer than expected. Thanks in advance DWILers.
My issues are not with inlaws. They live out of state so I'm good there. My issues are with FOO. Actually, just my MOO and SOO. Both of them have been on TO/CO since May, and LC for about a year and a half before that. I have had a rocky relationship with MOO my entire life. She is an habitual liar, boundary stomping, disrespecting bully. Not just with me. With anyone who will let her. She is the type to get caught in a lie, and still deny it. She doesn't respect me as a woman or mother, always thinking she has the right to tell me what I'm doing wrong. Mind you, I'm an educated military veteran, and my DD is very well taken care of. In my MOO's eyes, I'm a bad parent because I baptized my DD in a religion she doesn't agree with. So my BOO can live in her house, smoke weed, and drive around with his kids in the car, but I am the bad seed because I tell her when she's wrong and choose my own religion. After years of trying to be the better person for the sake of keeping a relationship with her, I finally dropped the rope when a dna test proved that she had been lying about my bio father. This was about 2 years ago. When confronted, she still denied it. I just couldn't take it anymore after that and put her on LC until I could get my head together. My SOO tried to be a FM and unicorn at a time when I just needed her to be there for me. So I put her on LC too. Then in may, my SOO made a huge drama stink about something stupid on fb, and of course my MOO was all caught up in the drama, so I CO both of them. Not a word since. Whew, that was longer than I thought it would be!
So the issue at hand...through all of the crap with MOO and SOO, I still tried to be a good person and allow them a relationship with DD. I know, stupid. But I didn't want to see DD hurt over something that had nothing to do with her. She adores my MOO. After CO in May, I explained to DD that we would not be talking to them or seeing them for awhile, and it was because they did some hurtful things and we needed our space from each other. She cried, but said she understood and has tried to be good about it. She's 8, so she's too old for me to try and sneak around and make excuses for not talking to grandma anymore. But she has her moments. Yesterday was grandparents day and she had a hard time because other kids in our family got to see their grandparents and she couldn't. I was so close to just letting her call, but I was able to talk her down and we spent some mother-daughter time together. But how do I keep from giving in when my poor baby is hurt?? For those that have had to CO grandparents, how do you help your little ones through it when they are old enough to see what is going on?? She doesn't cry for SOO at all btw. Sorry this ended up being longer than expected. Thanks in advance DWILers.