Does a spouse-rejecting parent have a right to see their grandchild?

In My Humble Opinion
41

While I do have sympathy for you, OP, I’m going to advise you to man up a bit here. Your mom can’t dis your wife unless you want to get a divorce. Seriously, your spouse is supposed to have your back against everybody - even their parents. ESPECIALLY their parents. Your mother should have no standing in your relationship with your wife. Her opinion should count for zip. Your wife, the mother of your children, needs to come first on the list, period.

That your mother would suggest otherwise is eye-rollingly obnoxious. My son is 1. One year old and even I know that eventually I’m going to be usurped as his favorite person. Maybe I won’t like who he chooses, but assuming that person is good to him and makes him happy then my job as a good mother at that point is to be kind, supportive, and friendly with the person and complain horribly to my girlfriends after the fact. The moment I start disrespecting that person to their face or to my son, I’ve officially become an asshole.

Sorry OP, your mom, as much as you love her, is the asshole in this situation and your job as a husband is to protect your wife from her toxicity. Ditto for your daughter. Should your mom get to meet her granddaughter? Probably, but for your daughter’s sake - not your mom’s. The moment the relationship quits being good for your daughter it ends, and your mom can get stuffed.

And seriously, if your mom acts like an asshole and tells you it’s because she’s Italian, tell her to quit being a racist.

42

The people we love are the way they are and not the way we want them to be. If your mother is incapable of having a respectful relationship with your wife there is nothing you can do about it. Conflict with ones mother in law is very common, as the good book says “No man can serve two masters”. But is it worth it to deny yourself a relationship with your mother and your daughter a relationship with her grandmother? My mother and grandmother did not always get along but a few moments of uncomfortableness was well worth having a relationship with my grandmother. Banishing people from your life if they do not act the way you want them to is a recipe for a lonely life.

43

I have both been your wife and your daughter at different times of my life.

When I was little, my parents seperated for a few months because of how my grandmother was treating my mother. My dad sided with her and my mom threw him out. Eventually, he manned up and told his mom to shove it and my mom took him back.

After that, my mother and grandmother tolerated each other and were just slightly more than civil in front of us kids. I gotta say, I didn’t figure out that there was anything off there until I was in my early teens.

Now, I am in my thirties and I know about most of the things that happened (and continue to happen) between them but they never talk about each other to me and I have a good relationship with both my mother and grandmother. My relationship with my grandma is on that I would truly miss. She tells me all about the family history and taught me how to make traditional meals.

Everytime I think about it, I am grateful for the sacrifices that each of them made so that we could see my grandmother.

So, as a grandchild in the situation, I would tell both you and your wife to come to some sort of compromise with your mother so your child can know her.

On the other hand, my mother in law despises me. She cried when my husband said we were getting married and kept trying to move the date. She didn’t want us to have kids. She consistently treats me like my husband’s first wife.

It makes me crazy. Mostly because when she is pulling her shit, I don’t feel like I can say anything since she is my husband’s mother. It should be his job to defend me and corral her.

So, I am trying to do what my mom did but I tell you what, it’s not as easy as she made it look. There are times when I just want to pick up the kids and leave.

But I suck it up (or have another glass of wine, it’s a good thing they live in a different city or I would be an alchololic). And she seems to be making some sort of effort since the kids came along to include me. She doesn’t say anything negative about me or our lives in front of them. When she says it out of kid earshot, my husband tells her she is out of line (which only developed now that he is a dad).

44

What dogzilla said. After 13 years, I’d be thin-skinned and have disproportional responses too. No, actually, I probably wouldn’t, because we’d be divorced.

As dangermom said earlier, the Bible also tells people quite specifically that they cleave to their new spouse, not their birth family when they get married.

45

So let me speak from the husband/son’s point of view. My mother and wife don’t get along. They constantly complain about each other and misinterpret each other’s statements. They both complain to me. They’re both stubborn and always sure that they’re right. There’s nothing I can say to either of them to change their minds.

These are two adults, neither of which has shown to be inclined to take my word, my counsel, my advice about each other. When it comes to each other, the both of them are out of their minds.

I’m stuck in the middle and constantly being pushed to choose one over the other with no one willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.

It’s my job to do what now? Frankly, I don’t think I should bear any further responsibility in this matter.

46

I think my wording was stronger than the approach that I meant.

First of all, you should never have to choose your wife or your mother. Your wife and your mother should make an effort to be civil if for no other reason than for your benefit.

However, if your mother said to you that you ‘didn’t care about your family’ because you were marrying ‘that girl,’ I don’t think it is out of line for you to defend your relationship with your spouse.

What should happen is that you and your wife work towards a mutually liveable solution to the problem. That’s what being married is.

My husband would like it if I pretend to like his mom. He knows I don’t but since he wants me to be nice, I am. His side of the deal is that when his mom starts digging in about me, he tells her nicely to lay off or that it is none of her affair and changes the topic. Voices do not get raised.

That may not be how you agree to deal with it with your wife but that is what is working for us.

47

I guess it depends on your relationships, but you picked your wife. I think she has the right to expect your to stick up for her.

Now, if both of them just bitch to you, but are civil to each other, ignore them both when they start in about that crap and tell them you’re not interested.

48

Of course you’re not abnormal for having mixed feelings. Unreasonable, hateful Asshole-and-Proud-Of-It though she appears to be, this is still your mother we’re talking about here, and some degree of emotional conflict is natural. I feel the same sort of conflict about not really having a relationship with my grandmother even though she is a joyless, judgmental drama queen who treats my mother badly. (This is my mom’s mom, btw.) One thing you should think very carefully about, though, is this: is the root of your conflict that you honestly want to have a relationship with the person your mother actually is, or that you want/feel like you ought to want to have a relationship with her because she’s your mom?

For me, it’s absolutely the second option, and I feel bad that I don’t feel worse about not wanting more of a relationship with Grandma. She loves me in her own way, and I love hear…or at least the version of her that I remember from my childhood when she taught me how to crochet and make peanut butter cookies and I was too little to notice the difference she made between my mom and my aunts and uncle. I regret very much not having a relationship with the Grandma that lives in my memory, but that Grandma is long gone and maybe she never truly existed anywhere but in my own mind. And either way, that doesn’t make me want a relationship with the reality of who and what she is now.

Is her reaction out of proportion, or is your sense of proportion, your idea of what is reasonable, skewed from decades of dealing with your mother? It happens in dysfunctional families, far more than people involved in the situations tend to see. Poor Amara_'s situation is more extreme than anything I’ve ever seen personally, but it’s a perfect illustration of what I’m talking about. To think anything short of “Kill it with fire!” is an overreaction to that sort of behavior is massively, majorly fucked in the head. To have even listened to that shit without reacting in utter outrage is in itself fucked in the head.

A good rule of thumb is to tell the story to an outside party like a coworker–if the response is “She said/did WHAT!?” your wife is not over-reacting.

49

I had a MiL who hated me and who tried to hurt me as often as she could. My late husband never took her side, but he would sometimes say that I was too sensitive or ask why I couldn’t ignore it like he did, and it was definitely something that came between us. When someone dislikes you, you aren’t being “thin skinned” if you don’t want to be besties with that person. You’re being a vulnerable human being.

50

Advice about family problems with dynamics like this is a place even angels fear to tread - it’s very complicated. But we Dopers are clearly a hearty bunch. My 2 cent advice is that she is more likely to accept her granddaughter’s mother than she was her son’s wife. If you let her meet the baby and see them together she may gain a new sense of acceptance, maybe even support for her because now she is the mother of her granddaughter.

The same bond that she says makes her your mother forever while a wife is just a wife, now exists between her granddaughter and your wife. It didn’t before. I wouldn’t write off any chances of a good, even if grudging, relationship between them until she had a chance to bounce her granddaughter on her knee with your wife there.

If that fails you’ll be back where you started but that is a big change in the dynamics of the situation that she has so far apparently not had a chance to see first hand.

51

My Dad’s mother passed away before I was old enough to see the signs that she disliked my mom. I only saw her when Dad would take me over for an afternoon visit or whatever and I never thought anything of it. There was always a plausible explanation for Mom to skip visiting. It was only as a teenager that it clicked for me - Mom never came with us for a visit because Grandma couldn’t stand her!

I think you should at least try once - if she badmouths your wife to your kid, then cut her off.

52

Nitpick: Do you mean a “hardy bunch”?

53

I think I did, although actually either works fine.

54

As the wife in the above situation, I can tell you that we had a difficult set of years, including the year when my mother died of cancer as we were starting to plan our wedding. When we were just living together in college, it was a problem I could mostly ignore*, but it got worse at some points, particularly when we were living closer to his parents. The year after my mom died was pretty bad, as she tried to both replace my mom and dictate by her behavior that my grieving was not important enough to attend either of two funerary services, all while harping on us about the fact that we weren’t getting married in a church or doing everything the way that it was done when she got married. That year, I learned that I could not win if I was the one fighting the battle and passed it off to Acid Lamp. It’s nowhere near as bad as the situation you’re in, but you’re enabling your mother to be an immature and cruel person to your wife.

*Well, not every time. There was a short stint where Acid Lamp was living out of the area, and the woman called me five times in a row during the week before finals week to get something completely non-major done. I wrote her a nasty email that made her cry of the “get off my back on this, as I’ll get it done when I have time; what you’re asking me to do is not as important as what I’m busy getting done, and if you call again, I will be ignoring your phone calls” variety, and I was made to apologize later on when he got wind of it.

I’m in agreement with Dogzilla on this one: if I were married to someone who couldn’t possibly bother to defend me appropriately from their mom, I would probably be divorced or not married in the first place. The fact that you’re still attempting a relationship with someone who’s cruel and manipulative enough to emotionally harm your wife every chance she gets speaks very badly on your character as a spouse. Sure, it hurts to have a parent not like the person you love, but the fact that you still haven’t decided that your wife is important enough to you to not drag her into your mother’s crazy prejudices shows that, IMO, you’re not being the good spouse you promised to be when you married your wife. I’m of a different culture and religious beliefs than my MIL, and it was really tough for a while for us to find a middle ground. Part of that was because she’d completely forgotten that not everyone does things the same way that she does or thinks the same way that she does, and part of that was because I was completely unaccustomed to her way of doing things and was baffled by what I was as bizarre and incongruous behavior. With a ton of help from Acid Lamp to mediate**, I can have a semi-normal relationship with my MIL these days.

**Guess what! When you chose your wife as a life partner, this is a role that you should have taken on. Every family is different, and being able to smooth ruffled feathers until everyone’s comfortable with each other is a big part of being a spouse with in-laws.

55

I don’t have children so maybe my opinion isn’t relevant, but until your Mom learns to behave, she shouldn’t get to see her granddaughter. If I did have kids and my husband was going to take them to see someone who was hateful to me - Oh Hell No! Your child is half yours; she is also half your wifes. If your Mom can’t be civil to your wife, what makes you think she’s going to be civil to your child? “Oh, she dropped her sippy cup - she must take after her mother’s side of the family”.

Actions have consequences. Your mothers actions have had none. It’s time they did. Man up and stand up for the mother of your child. If you want to see your mother without your wife and child, so be it. A child shouldn’t have to be exposed to that kind of hateful family drama at any age.

56

I agree with this. I don’t know that I would want to remain married to a man who chooses to take my child off to play “let’s pretend Mommy doesn’t exist” with a psychotic, infantile hag.

57

So what exactly would be a “rational” response to more than a decade of insults and nasty behavior?

I pity your wife.

58

I don’t think grandparents have the right or the privilege to see their grandchildren if they can’t behave in front of one of the parents

59

My mother really doesn’t like my sister-in-law. She is always polite to her, but it’s kind of obvious. She doesn’t criticize her in front of my nephew though.

My brother and my nephew see my parents regularly. Sister-in-law is usually ‘not feeling well’ and doesn’t come on those visits. It works fine. My mother never says a bad word about SIL, and her grandkid has a relationship with grandparents who adore him.

60

You mother sounds like quite a nasty festering wound of a person. I’d have nothing to do with her at all for any reason. For the kid’s sake, so she can say that she met the old bitch before the Devil called her home, have them meet at church where the crusty bag is probably going to pretend to be polite. Since she is Italian, have the devoutest male in the family along.