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Leah, it's got to be hard to deal with dil's mom. When you say she doesn't respect your privacy, what do you mean? Does she go into your bedroom? Has she stollen anything? Look through the medicine cabinet? Make comments about your house? You? Would you be worried if dil's mom visted with her at a time you weren't there? It kinda sounds like dil's mom is jealous and lashed out at you on facebook. You responded in hurt and anger, very understandable and I know I would have also, but now that you have time to think about it, what would be best for your son, dil and gs?

Quote from: Love Me Love Me Not on November 17, 2013, 04:18:28 PM
I understand what you are saying Dixie Darlin', but the influence of this woman and the great need she has or makes him think she has, seem to override everything else in his life. We brought him up well. If anything we gave him too much. He was taught to do chores, however, from the time he was young. He worked summers in school when he was old enough. If he broke the rules as all teenagers do, he was disciplined fairly. We had a lot of fun together. We took him on some great vacations. We loved him. We rewarded good behavior. We even taught him how to cook and clean, etc. He was never the best student in school. He was just more mechanically talented rather than academically interested. He was so smart, he could learn almost anything very fast. We recognized early on that his talents and the work he enjoyed lay elsewhere than a life behind a desk. We accepted that and taught him to live up to his responsibilities whether they were his favorite things to do or not, meet the requirements that he needed to and do the work that suited him. He has a great job. We tried to talk to him many times, but he simply hung up the phone. All mail, calls,texts, etc. are now intercepted and or monitored by her. It became clear to us that she monitors everything that he does. In the interest of the children and him, we do not want to make things more difficult with our needs. I' :)ve read about people just like her and how they manipulate others who are unsuspecting for a long time. it often takes years for a person to figure out what is going on, but they must figure it out for themselves. If a person contributes to a position where their child feels he has to choose between his spouse and his parents, he will always choose his spouse I believe, unless he is already discovering the depth of her problems.

I have a similar situation too with my son and dil. It wasn't until my son started to realized that the way he was living with her unreasonable demands that things began to change. It took me telling him to do what he felt was right, and that I loved him and wanted him to have a good, loving life with his family and I didn't want to cause him any trouble before he started coming to see us again and making sure we saw the grandchildren. It took time, maybe 6 months or so and then every couple of months of seeing them. But you are so right, backing off, waiting, accepting that maybe we would never really see them and letting them come to me was the only thing that it was possible to do. Jumping through hoops, turning myself inside out, worrying myself sick, didn't help at all.  I hope you can find peace with the way things are, knowing that you tried.