Dear MIMsters: Are My Reasons Valid For Wanting to Distance My Kids From their Grandmother?

I have been trying to distance my kids from their grandmother for reasons I consider valid. Do you agree with my reasons?

Since the beginning of the summer holidays, hubby and I have been going back and forth. I initially thought I was gaining the upper hand until he told me this morning that if I insisted on not taking our children to his mom’s before the week runs out, he will show me what he is capable of, and I do not want that but what do I do?

I do not want them to spend this holiday with their grandma and my reasons are genuine but my husband has refused to see what I am seeing. Shocking enough, my 3 children are also insisting on spending their holidays with their grandma. What do I do? How do I come out of this?

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This is my story!

My mom-in-law is one of the most accommodating MILs around. She doesn’t poke her nose into my home affairs. She rarely visits my home, she calls me very often and she is all shades of nice but too bitter, and traditional.

My husband is the last of her 5 children. The 1^st 3 live abroad. The 4^th child and my hubby are the only ones in the country though his elder sister- the 4^th child of the family lives in Jos.

My MIL was unfairly treated by her own MIL, SILs, BILs and my FIL was always against her too. He treated her very badly but she stayed on with him because of her children.

Thank God, all of them are successful and happily married with children.

My MILs 1^st 3 children who live abroad got married over there and they are raising their kids there, too. MIL has never met any of those grandkids of hers though they talk on the phone often. They have tried to make her visit them severally but it never worked out.

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MIL is very bitter because of all her husband did to her and because all her children are far away, and my hubby is never patient enough to sit and listen to his mom, my 3 girls are the ones MIL tells about all FIL and his people did to her.

Every time they spend with her, she pumps their heads with how FIL and most men are bad. She tells them about how FIL and his people physically abused her. I think she clings so much to my girls for the love she didn’t get in her marriage.

She was an only child of her parents who both died in a car accident when she was 5, she told us. She grew up with her aunt who maltreated her. She had thought she would get respite marrying FIL but it was worse. However, she chose to stay back and raise her children, and I must confess; she did a good job.

MIL is in her mid-70s now. She is very bitter and hard-hearted towards FIL and his people. She does not want to go to church because she grew up in the village where they worshiped idols and she still does.

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She is very nice to everyone except her husband and his family and she has successfully co-opted my children into despising those people, too. I’m not happy that she keeps pumping those sad woes, and planting her grief into my children who sadly think they must fight for their grandma. My girls want to spend all their holidays with her because they believe she loves them but I am tired of having to disabuse their minds of all the bitterness she has planted in them. My girls are 10, 9 and 6 years respectively.

And yes, I have tried to make hubby see reasons with me but he says I cannot keep his children away from his mother.

What do I do?