My mother in law's favorite grandchild is my step daughter, my son means nothing to her.
Step daughter six came here to stay with us every other week. In general I think she is a great kid although she does have her aweful moments. We get along really well and we have no issues with each other.
My problem is my mother in law.
I have a 3 year old son with my husband, and obviously, this is HIS biological child. Ever since he was born, my mother in law refused to acknowledge him. My step daughter received $500 gift certificate from different stores on her fifth birthday and my son received a card on his.
This old woman has on several different occasions hinted to me that she prefers my step daughter over my son because she has helped raising step daughter since she was born.
I don't know what the issues are and her constantly playing favoritism took an emotional toll on my marriage. My husband sees nothing wrong with it and he told me, "He is a boy, being neglected like this will build his characters." What kind of lame excuse is that?!
Friday night, in-laws paid us a visit and mother in law and stepdaughter spent over 2 hours in her bedroom doing God knows what, they even had the door locked. I am sure she was giving her all these "gifts" behind my back. My son begged and cried outside the door, neither one of them bothered to open the door and let him in.
I confronted this old hag and the only lame excuse she had for me is that "I haven't seen my grand daughter for so long and I want to spend some alone time with her." So what about my son?
My husband is equally angry and told her this type of behavior needs to stop, otherwise, she is not welcomed to visit our house. MIL gave him a major guilt trip and told him she would never like my son as much as she liked my step daughter.
All my life, I am under the impression that grandparents love their grandchildren equally. I hate to see my son growing up without this kind of love, I am furious and really need to vent about this.
What am I suppose to do with this woman? What cause this kind of behavior? My son is only three years old, everybody says he is an angelic little boy who is well behaved and very adorable. I know I am WRONG for thinking this way, please do not nail me to the cross. But I really started resending my step daughter. I hate it when she showed my son the gifts she got from grandma, and my little boy started to cry. I hate it when she hugged my mother in law and pushed my son away, my mother in law did nothing to correct her behavior.
What should I do about this? Thank you
Thank you so much for these
Thank you so much for these great advices.
I know. Thank you.
I know. Thank you.
I think what dtzyblnd had to
I think what dtzyblnd had to say about this is the best advice anyone could give. Unfortunately you cannot force her to love him as much. She is seriously messed up though. Last Christmas, my skids' BM got SS a bike and SD absolutely nothing. Even gifted the bike right in front of SD. BM lived across the street from MIL in one of her rental apartments and saw DH leave and go across the street to see his mom, about 10 minutes later DH got a call from BM saying that she had lost SD's present and had just found it and wanted to know if she could walk over to give it to her. DH told her absolutely not, but I will bring her back by just long enough to pick it up when we leave. After doing that SD got even more quiet and was starting to cry so DH started talking to her about what she got. She would not answer so he told her to show him. BM had gone into SD's toy box at her house and thrown a bunch of her old junk into a clothing box and that was her gift. DH realized it was just a desperate scheme to weasle her way over to MIL's house to be with him and the skids on Christmas because I was not there. We talked to our family counselor about it and she suggested exactly what dtzyblnd suggested. And she also said that when SS rubbed it into SD's face that his mom was playing favoritism, then we were to go get just her something or take her to do something to show him how it felt. He got corner time instead though.
The nasty secret is that
The nasty secret is that parents and grandparents do have favorites. If you have another child so will you. Not that they'll know of course, you'll see that it doesn't happen. Or will you. Children are very acute in noticing such things.
But this is an extreme case and it's more than just not telling Grandma she can't come to your home. The girl is likely to bring something over, maybe a cell phone some day as an example and mention that it came from Grandma.
When this happens I would not try and hedge the truth with the boy. While at first you can get away with "She's older" eventually he'll reach the same age and he'll notice. Don't make excuses - just say you don't know why Grandma would act that way and that its OK for him to ask Grandma if he wishes and they have contact.
Grandma is a horrible person to do this.
what a stupid cow!! How does
what a stupid cow!! How does she dare to do that?? sorry, those things annoy me!!
I have the exact same
I have the exact same problem.. my conclusion is.. I do not have to subject my BD 20 months to that kind of favortism. My MIL has not see my daughter in 4 months and last time she saw her was a total of 30 mins. No I do not feel bad from keeping my daughter away.. I would rather do that then subject her to crying because MIL prefers SD due to the fact MIL helped raised her.
I have the exact same
I have the exact same problem.. my conclusion is.. I do not have to subject my BD 20 months to that kind of favortism. My MIL has not see my daughter in 4 months and last time she saw her was a total of 30 mins. No I do not feel bad from keeping my daughter away.. I would rather do that then subject her to crying because MIL prefers SD due to the fact MIL helped raised her.
I am so thankful I found this
I am so thankful I found this post. I am living the same exact nightmare with both my inlaws. I too have a six year old SD who my inlaws favor to no end. My husband and I have two BS ages 2 and 1 and I am pregnant with BS number three. When I married my DH all my inlaws could say was how much they love their grandaughter and they would just die if they could not see her every week. Fast foward and when our kids were born, they would only come around if it was my DH week to have his daughter. Eventually I spoke to my husband about the fact they are favoring my SD over our boys and if this continued his parents would not be allowed near our children. He spoke to his parents and it seemed that they didn't care about seeing our boys. Its been 10 months since they have seen our boys. I don't even know if they know I am pregnant or not. I use to have a good relationship with my SD before all this but now I have grown to resent her so much that I don't want her around me. When she comes over I lock myself in my room for the weekend. I try to avoid her at all cost. This has truly taken a toll on me. I feel horrible for feeling this way. I have been a teacher and have dealt with kids for years and never have I felt like this about any child. I know it is not her fault but I can't help how I feel. I absolutely feel like the worst person on earth. I finally had a conversation with my DH and told him how I felt. He says I just need to get over it and that his daughter has no fault. He is right but it seems impossible to "just get over it". I am to the point I am contemplating divorcing my husband even though I love him to no end.