Ask Amy: Her obsession with our grandson is taking over our life

[lemonsharks]

Dear Amy: My wife and I married a little later in life and only had one child, a daughter.

Our wish for a grandchild came true when our daughter had a baby boy a little over a year ago.

We are very excited and love spending as much time with him as we can, and fortunately for us, we see him often.

They will also occasionally ask us to babysit, and we always say yes.

I’m good with that. However, over the past six to nine months, my wife has become increasingly irritated when she doesn’t see our grandson as much as she would like.

She wants pictures/videos of him sent to her on a daily basis. She wants to go to their house two to three times a week (unannounced), and then wants them to come to our house at least once during the week and at least once on the weekends.

I tried to explain that they have their own lives to lead, but she says I obviously don’t understand or love our grandson the way she does.

I know she is hurting, but I’m not sure how to make her understand that this baby isn’t our son and that the kids aren’t trying to withhold him from us. They just want to live their lives and raise their son the same way we were allowed to raise our daughter.

What do you make of this?

Proud Grampa


( oh my hot diggity dang that is a lot of days per week to see your parents  )

Three tales of estrangement from Annie and Amy

[conuly]

1. Dear Amy: My sister-in-law told me that she was molested as a teenager. She told her mother after the abuse happened, to which her mother replied: "Everyone loses their virginity somehow.”

Not surprisingly, my sister-in-law has a difficult relationship with her mother, and my mother-in-law is not happy about it.

My husband does not have any idea that this occurred and blames his sister for the poor relationship with their mother.

His mother often questions me, asking if l know anything about why my sister-in-law is distant from her.

Should l tell my husband or mother-in-law the truth or just take this information to my grave?

I know my sister-in-law holds all her emotions in and will not talk to her mom about it. I feel caught in the middle.

– Very Concerned

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2. Dear Annie: My daughter-in-law could probably have written the letter about the person trying too hard to please their disapproving mother-in-law.

The reality is that there are always two sides to every story. Mine is that at some point, I did or said something to hurt my daughter-in-law. But I am not allowed to know what that was. So, any apology seems empty, although I have tried.

She now treats our entire family with complete apathy. We try. We send cards and acknowledge birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, despite having received no reciprocation for years. We offer to visit cross-country but are told it is a bad time. We offer to video chat but are often rejected. Our son does contact us with the grandchildren on occasion.

We would love to be a part of our grandkids' lives, but rejection gets harder and harder with time. We are blocked from Facebook posts and are not allowed to know our granddaughter's cell number. It is all very sad indeed.

Our daughter-in-law is loved and cared for, but her perception is that she is not. Please encourage others to forgive and reconcile. Life is too short to allow bitterness to fester and relationships to be destroyed.

A bright note is that our son's in-laws treat us with love and respect, and they are thankful that they have us in their lives. -- Two Sides to Every Story

( This has a bonus comment I'll also quote )

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3. Dear Amy: My adult sons are so estranged from my ex-husband that neither invited him to their weddings.

While I still have difficult feelings toward my ex, I try to have some level of civil interaction with him.

He often asks for updates as to what our sons are up to and how they are doing.

He is their father, and it seems to me that he has a right to know at least a bit about what is going on in their lives.

Is it inappropriate for me to share general information, such as buying a house or changing jobs or is that something that only they should share?

Since they want no contact with him, without some information from me he would have virtually no knowledge of them.

While I do hope that at some point my sons' feelings toward their father will soften, I have never pushed them to have more interactions with him.

Still, it does seem sad to me that he should not be able to have any knowledge of what is going on in their lives.

He rarely tries to contact them, although I know he has reached out in the past.

I don't pass along anything I would think of as a confidence. But sharing some basics doesn't seem wrong to me.

Am I off base?

– Unsure

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