Self centered Grandparents and other inlaws, should I cut them off?

Question

I know that people don't have to spend time with their grandchildren, but when it's the first birthday and the child finally got discharged from the Hospital, and they are not coming? They are very local and live only 20 mins away. They don't care about our children and think that material things make love. It's not the real grandmother, so it's my husband's step mom. I wrote an email to my sister in law and it's been two weeks and no reply or call. They get into petty fights with my husband for no reason. This is coming from a father who put his son's name on a business and his son is now paying his father's back taxes. This grandfather lied about having cancer. He has a 12 yr old living in another state who misses him and he rather pay child support, because his wife would probably leave him if the girl came to live. Also, his dad was a suspect in his mom's murder. Is this serious enough for them not to see the children anymore? They are snobs Please help!

My husband is the one who wants to cut them off.

Answer 1

Definately - I am sitting in the same situation with my in laws!! They are not interested in our children - never phone for birthdays or over Christmas! They are my husbands parents and we are contantly fighting so I made the decision that they will no longer be a part of my childrens lives and I have stuck by that decision. My children and I do not go to there house for anything and they live +- 10min form us. My children do not need their kind in their lives let alone all the conflict!!! From your story I would say the further you keep you children from them the better!!!!

Answer 2

If your hubby is good with cutting them off and you are good with it then do it. Send back any cards,gifts letter or whatever that are sent to your kids and let them know that you have no desire for you kids to grow up knowing the style of life that they lead. If the grandparents won't abide by the rules get a restraining order or no contact order against them (I am sure you can come up with at least one reason for it such as by the time you need it harrassment from them). Sorry about this situation, I wish I could see my family more but they are far away (13+hr).

Answer 3

It's not right to completely cut them off. I would leave them on the Christmas/Holiday Greetings list, but otherwise, not bother to call them -- let them be the ones to be in touch.

Maybe the easiest way is to just let your husband handle all the contacts with his side of the family. If he lets them slide, well, so be it.

If your family is better, by all means take advantage of loving family relationships to teach your child what real family means!

Your husband may need counseling, and may not completely understand what it means to have a normal family. Make sure you keep the lines of communication open with him.

It's a very sad affair, but some families are simply like that. Break the cycle!

Answer 4

Cut them off I went threw the same thing as a child. My one set of grand parents were more interested in my cuz then me. Now that I'm the only one around they want to know how I'm doing. They wont know what they have till they are gone. Do what is best for the kids. If the grand parents don't make an effort for the kids then stop inviting them. Good luck to you.

Answer 5

If it's your husband's family and he wants to cut them off, I say let him. I'd be pretty happy if my husband wanted to sever ties with most of his family, and they don't sound nearly as bad as your in-laws.

*edit to add: it's best to cut them off now while your child is too young to realize and wonder what happened to them. Better he/she never knows them at all.

Answer 6

Good Grief! Maybe you should just move to another state and start over with a new family because this one sounds screwed up.

Answer 7

I can top that!My husbands father abandoned him and his four siblings while his mother was in the hospital dying of cancer.He left her before she died for one of the nursesAccepted his new girlfriends adopted boys as his own children and didn't want anything to do with his own.So his grandfather and grandmother took them in,get this his grandmother was his mothers best friend in high school who stold his grandfather from his biological grandmother when she was 17.After that happened his real grandmother became a bag lady and lived on the streets.Well after his grand father who wasn't really his biological grandfather took them in he brutally abused my husband who was only 8 at the time and his brother.To give you an idea of how bad it was he couldn't drink anything past 4pm,was beaten with a metal spatula after heating it up on the stove on a regular basis and hung upside down from the rafters in the garage in the dark all by himself.I'll spare you all the other gory details.His aunts on his fathers side are all psychotic I know I met them all.Upon meeting one of them she asked him while rubbing on his thigh if he would go to the beach alone with her and said what I didn't know wouldn't hurt.One of his other aunts made passes at me and I was 5 months pregnant at the time and because I was obviously disgusted by her romantic gestures she instead began to hate me and was a real bi**h towards me.They even tried killing my son by feeding him prescription pill and almost broke his leg in the recliner on purpose.The craziest aunt told me she put some toys in a drawyer he was always opening so it was ok for him to play in it.Out of curoisity I opened the drawyer to see what kind of toys were in it and instead found about 20 different knives!That was it,we left and never went back to any of them.The last time we heard from them was after they found out where we lived and called C.P.S on us saying we were starving our son and beating him.The social worker showed up at 2am with police to examine our 2 year old and after finding nothing wrong with him said sorry for wasting our time and left.So we had to move to prevent anymore drama from them.If you feel your better off not knowing these people your related to take my advice and cut them off.You don't have to torment yourself just because they call themselves family.Love is supposed to feel good not hurt and if it only hurts then it isn't love.I gave you an example of what we went through before leaving all of them behind so you'd understand that if there is nothing in the relationship worth saving and all you have is to gain by leaving then leave them and don't go back.We hung in there as long as we could trying to be a family because his family is all we had,I don't have any of my own.But it just wasn't worth it.If you feel as I do about them then by all means don't feel bad about telling them to please stay away from you and don't even call anymore.Just think,are they going to hurt your children in the future?If their doing this now what will they do later?Think about it.Good luck and best of wishes.

Answer 8

You didn't mention if hubby is on board with you cutting them off. If he is, then go for it. If not, then just don't initiate any interaction with them, and if they come to you, then let them see the kids. It sounds like that won't happen too often.

Answer 9

Cut them off??? It sounds like you are begging for thier attention and they arent responding - if you dont want to talk to them anymore dont - it doenst sound like will even notice or care!

Answer 10

I have no idea why you would even want these people in your life. They are only going to bring misery...cut them out and surround yourself with God and Zen!