I KNOW people will judge me for cutting my child’s grandparents out of her life, but unless you have been in my shoes you have no idea.
I first met my husband’s family in 2002 when I was 27, a few months after we got together.
At first, they were really happy and smiley — possibly a bit over-the-top friendly.
But David seemed tense.
After one of our early meetings, he asked if I liked them, then said: “They’re not as nice as they make out, you know.”
Over time, I found out exactly what he meant and after more than a decade of increasingly toxic behaviour, I told David he had to choose — me or them.
Thankfully, he chose me and eight years ago severed ties completely. I’ve never been happier.
One in five UK families cut off family members, with ten per cent severing contact with their mums and 20 per cent cutting out dads.
For me, alarm bells first started to ring about a year into our relationship.
David’s mum would often be late — once by two hours when we hosted Christmas dinner — or would suddenly change plans.
I would call it being awkward for awkward’s sake.
Before our wedding in April 2008, my mum offered us £1,000 out of the blue.
In contrast, my in-laws said they had spent enough on their son all his life and didn’t want to do it any more.
But I thought it was strange, as I’d been brought up in a generous household.
When we had our daughter in 2012, their odd behaviour went into overdrive.
They wanted to see their granddaughter whenever they liked and would get angry if we said no — even if a visit clashed with her bedtime routine.
They started accusing us of keeping their granddaughter from them, which was so far from the truth.
In the end, I became so paranoid that I’d text them every Monday morning, detailing what I was doing that week to tell them when I was free.
It made me feel very on edge and they would often just reply with: “No, not this week, thanks.”
That night we came across narcissistic personality disorder on Google. It was a light bulb moment.
Amanda
One day they said they wanted to open a bank account for our daughter, but David didn’t trust their motives as his mum once spent all his childhood savings on herself.
And when his grandad left him £250, his parents said they would invest it. He never saw it again.
During my second pregnancy in 2013, I had a missed miscarriage (when the baby has died but the mother experiences no symptoms of this). Afterwards we asked if we could stay at their caravan on the coast, but they said no.
David’s dad then stopped liking my posts on Facebook, even photos of his granddaughter. They also made digs about my weight, comparing me to an obese friend when I’m not even overweight.
In 2015, at our daughter’s third birthday party, a friend commented on my mother-in-law’s behaviour. She had watched her gushing over every child there apart from her own granddaughter.
That night we came across narcissistic personality disorder on Google. It was a light bulb moment.
David read a book called You’re Not Crazy — It’s Your Mother by Danu Morrigan and checked off every point on a list of narcissistic traits.
The straw that broke the camel’s back came during Christmas 2015, when my daughter brought home a toy torch she had been playing with at their house — after they had said she couldn’t.
Furious, they made her apologise and said we must return it immediately. They moaned about it so much, I ended up posting it.
In January 2016, we finally sent a recorded letter telling them how we felt.
We said we’d had enough and explained how frustrated we were feeling with the relationship.
They emailed us, saying they were very angry and accused us of being cruel. But when we met them in person, they didn’t say anything to our faces.
Feeling they were losing us, my father-in-law said his wife was getting poorly, never specifying how, and that David should call her. We knew it wasn’t true.
We were at the end of our tether. I told my husband I didn’t want to be a part of their lives any more and, in despair, said: “It’s either them or me.”
Luckily he chose me and, in October 2016, he phoned his dad and told him to stop calling.
On reflection, I know I did the right thing giving David an ultimatum. It was the push he needed to end this dysfunctional relationship that was dragging our family down.
You’d think Christmas and birthdays might be hard, but these occasions make us thankful they are not in our lives.
Amanda
I can’t imagine what life would be like if we were still in touch with them. Something had to give.
They still send birthday cards for my husband and daughter, but we throw them in the bin.
You’d think Christmas and birthdays might be hard, but these occasions make us thankful they are not in our lives. They always made an occasion stressful.
David is happier to be free of them than I am and our daughter does not ask about them.
A year ago my father-in-law got in touch saying he had listened to a podcast about a man who had left his family after joining a cult. He asked if that is what happened to us.
This sums up how insane it is to be in a relationship with them — we are so lucky to be out of the madness.
DAVID SAYS: “I’ve never regretted making the decision, ever. It is hard sometimes because I’ve lost my parents and my daughter has lost her grandparents, but they are not the loving people they like to portray to the outside world.
“Behind closed doors, they are monsters.”
Psychotherapist and parenting expert Nicola Saunders explains why it's important to think carefully before issuing a partner with a family ultimatum and when to avoid it:
"I would suggest that nobody ever offer an ultimatum in a relationship because that's controlling in itself.
It's basically one person saying, if you don't do this, I'm going to do this. So it's a bit of a bribe, and that's not healthy for any relationship.
"That's not to say you have to be in a relationship with your partner's parents. You have the power to choose what you want. But again, trying to work alongside a partner, helping them to understand why it's not good for you to be in a relationship with his parents is really important so that you can support each other.
"The reality is that we can't control anybody. The only people we can control is ourselves and this is why we mustn't provide ultimatums to people because it does just breed resentment and it disrupts the level of respect within a relationship.
"If you feel that your in-laws are a risk to your children in any way then of course you have the right to protect your children but if you don't want your children to have a relationship with your in-laws because you just don't like them, that's not a good reason.
"And what we don't want to see is that your children then resent you for keeping them away from their grandparents. Also, grandparents aren't nearly as powerful on grandchildren as they are on their children so you can manage the amount of time that your children are exposed to their grandparents.
"If you don't approve with some of the ways in which they think or how they feel about things, you can mitigate that really with your children.
"But again, think really with caution if you're going to stop your children having a relationship with their grandparents completely."
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