I told my daughter that her father (my ex) shouldn't have anything to do with her baby. I want to have the main role. So why won't she speak to ME? BEL MOONEY gives her frank grandparenting advice
Dear Bel,
My daughter and her partner have a beautiful three-year-old, my grandson. Before he was born, my parents and I helped the young couple with their bills.
We never heard anything from my daughter’s partner’s family. But suddenly, near the end of the pregnancy, my ex-husband and his wife and my daughter’s partner’s mother came out of the woodwork.
I wasn’t expecting it. I assumed I would have the main role, just as my mother did when I had my children.
I was due to buy the pram as I thought the mother of the daughter generally did. But my daughter’s partner’s mother jumped in and bought the pram before me apparently to save me the expense. I was put out and spoke to other people who agreed that my daughter should’ve let me buy it.
I was not on good terms with my ex-husband who left when my son was six months and my daughter three. So I was amazed when suddenly he and his partner took a big interest in my grandson. It caused trouble at the beginning because I told my daughter I didn’t think her father should have anything to do with the baby as I couldn’t forgive him for all that happened in her childhood.
In response, my daughter stopped me seeing my grandson for 24 days, during which I felt almost suicidal. I had to accept my ex being grandfather.
Last year, I paid for my daughter, her partner and my grandson to go to Spain for a week. They had already planned to go with ‘mother-in-law’ to Spain that August. When I stepped in saying I’d pay for them to come with me and a friend, they accepted. I wanted my grandson’s first plane journey to be with me.
I knew it might cause a little friction with my daughter’s partner’s mother but a year on she’s not speaking to me.
I was unaware she felt this way till my grandson’s third birthday party. I insisted on doing the buffet – but despite being told, she still brought a lot of food along. Not once did she even look at me. It was very uncomfortable and upset me a lot.
I never anticipated my ex-husband or my daughter’s partner’s mother being heavily involved with my grandson, and now my daughter’s partner’s mother is not speaking to me. When I went to the party, I even thought about apologising if I’ve seemed a bit possessive.
I never dreamt that these people would come out of the woodwork. How do I accept it? Why didn’t she speak to me? It’s absolutely ridiculous. I don’t want this feud to go on, so what do I do?
PAMELA
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I’m glad you wrote and hope the act of writing your problem down may have given you a little bit of clarity. However, I must be honest and tell you that my sad but exasperated response (said aloud after reading your letter twice) was: ‘How can one woman get things so very wrong?’
What appears in this column today is a mere third of the original letter you sent. So I have plenty of information on which to base my judgment.
You will be thinking I am harsh. But I truly want to help you see what has gone wrong and give you the common sense and strength to put things right.
First of all, I must tell you, as one grandmother to another, that we do not have any claim to ‘ownership’ of our children’s children. They do not come into this world to make us feel better about any harm that has been done to us in the distant past. Nor are they little weapons we can use in future skirmishes with people we resent. Do you understand?
Your uncut letter explained that after your painful divorce your parents played a vital role in your children’s lives, and that was the grandparent role you expected. I understand that, but you have allowed that expectation, and the hatred (yes, it can be another way of hurting) you harbour for your ex, to inject poison into the family, where there should be tolerance and love. What basis do I have for that accusation? Your letter.
What kind of things ‘come out of the woodwork’? Nasty creepy crawlies we don’t want?
You use the unpleasant phrase twice for people your daughter has an essential relationship with – and you must never do it again. No matter what he did to you, your daughter’s father has every right to be a grandparent, just as you do. What matters is your daughter’s wishes – and she made those very clear, didn’t she?
Now to the pram and the holiday. There are no rules for who buys what. None. And it is jolly foolish and unhelpful of those ‘other people’ to feed your irrational jealousy. It was the same jealousy and possessiveness that led you quite deliberately to spoil the holiday the partner’s mother had arranged in Spain by getting in first, because you wanted the infant’s ‘first plane journey to be with me’. I’m speechless.
Couldn’t you have shared the food-provision at the birthday party? Wouldn’t that have been generous and wise? But no, you still think it is all your daughter’s mother-in-law’s fault.
Honestly, the only way this ‘feud’ of your own making will end is if you focus on your daughter’s happiness and her son’s development within a happy family – and not your own feelings. Time to make sure everybody knows how genuinely sorry you are.
Dear Bel,
I remarried in middle age with the same cautious hope I expect all second-timers feel. My husband had adult children from his first marriage. I entered his family determined to tread carefully, respect existing bonds, and not force my way in. Years on, I still feel like a visitor.
I have hosted Christmases, remembered birthdays, attended graduations, and kept my opinions to myself. I have never tried to replace their mother or demand affection.
Yet I remain politely peripheral. Decisions happen without me. Photos are taken without me. I’m introduced as ‘Dad’s wife’ and I never feel like family.
My husband tells me not to take it personally — this is how adult children and second marriages often are. But the pain of exclusion is real.
I feel foolish for caring, but hurt all the same. The more I try to accommodate, the clearer it becomes I’ll never truly belong. I wonder if I’m only hurting myself by continuing to try. I’d appreciate advice on balancing generosity with self-respect with this family that is determined to keep me at arm’s length.
CAROLINE
You don’t tell me how long ago this second marriage happened, saying ‘years’ but that could be five or 15.
Long enough, anyway, for those birthdays and Christmases to add up, leaving you disappointed each time, but perhaps not long enough for your husband’s family to come to terms with the fact that you are in his life to stay.
I know that sounds absurd because these are adult children we’re talking about. Yet divorce in a family can often feel much worse for adult offspring than for young children, who can get used to a new situation quickly. (Here, I’m speaking from experience.)
A key element in a situation like yours can be the circumstances of the divorce.
If, say, your husband instigated the split because of his behaviour/wishes, then his family is likely to resent whoever ‘replaces’ their mother. It makes no difference that she’s not trying to do that, what matters for them is their own perception – based on their sadness that the family life they knew was over.
If you played a role in that separation, so much more the complexity. The attitude of the ex-wife is also crucial.
If she harbours deep resentment (like ‘Pamela’, who wrote today’s main letter), then it will be all the more problematic for her successor to be accepted. Because the ex-wife is likely (in most cases) to be a negative voice.
I certainly don’t think you should stop trying, but nor do I think you should try too hard. This is the balance between ‘generosity and self-respect’ you seek.
The first thing you must remember – and note daily as if it were in neon lights – is that to be called ‘Dad’s wife’ is not an insult. It is a statement of fact – but more than that, it is your status.
If they say ‘This is Caroline’ the other person will be left wondering who you are and where you fit in. ‘Dad’s wife’ gets it exactly right, so throw your shoulders back, smile and accept that role.
No, you’re not ‘family’ (i.e. a blood relative) but you are the woman chosen by Dad and that’s that.
What exactly do you want? Them to be warmer to you?
But never in this letter do you complain that they are cold, so it seems to me that you might be demanding the impossible. Are you really ‘at arm’s length’? Or are you, as your husband suggests, just playing a normal role in a normal family in increasingly normal, if complicated, circumstances?
In your position, I would go on hosting family gatherings – and being a superstar at the task.
I would be cool, confident and collected.
And I would be sure to arrange the best of good times with the man I love, knowing that the adult children have their own lives but he needs you most of all.
AND FINALLY: Agony aunts going strong 335 years on!
Did you see Death In Paradise a week ago – the one where Mervin and the team investigate the murder of a local newspaper’s notorious agony aunt, poisoned the morning after her retirement party while reading her final advice column over breakfast?
The fatal dose was on the actual page. Yikes! Madame Hortense loved purple and had a little yappy dog, so it all felt a bit too close to home.
When gorgeous, intelligent Sergeant Naomi Thomas explains the identity of the victim to Detective Inspector Mervin Wilson, he scoffs: ‘Agony aunt? That’s a blast from the past.’
It reminded me of a rather irritating post on my ‘open’ Facebook page (it has the word ‘writer’ added to my name), in which someone wrote beneath my usual advertisement for this column: ‘Does anybody read this stuff any more?’
Honestly, I’ve met plenty of sneery blokes in my life, but that seemed so disrespectful to the people whose problems I’d featured on the page that day. What an ignoramus.
Just listen up, DI Mervin – what is said to be the first problem page was written – by a man – in 1691.
That was only 40 years after the Civil War, William and Mary were on the throne, masked highwaymen were still a menace to travellers, upper class men wore elaborate wigs… and people wrote to the personal advice column about sex, love, courtship and marriage. As they have done ever since.
People with troubles fret and grieve, desperate for answers. They lie awake at night, wondering what on earth to do.
The lucky ones can confide in a good friend or family member, but what if there isn’t one?
That’s the moment men and women alike might write to a total stranger, like me.
That’s what makes this column a perennial – meaning bang up to date!
