my daughter misses nanny and grandpa :(

[Bellie]

The other night my daughter (9) confided in me that she missed grandpa. (Not so much nanny because she lied - her words). My heart broke when she talked about Grandpa (Enabler to my N Mum) and remembered all these things about him as if it was a lifetime ago. My N mum and her husband are missing out on soooo much! My wonderful loving children would give them the world but sadly they will never know this. Or do I allow my older daughter to reignite her relationship with them? They don't live in the same country so it would be over Skype so I could in essence, keep an eye on what's going on? I don't know? I am going through a time of guilt and sadness right now. Missing the mum I wish I had ... and so on. But now my daughter is missing them and I am completely out of my depth with this one????
Bellie

[treesgrowslowly]

I went NC with people who were in those roles.

If you can read up on this, it may help you to consider your options and decide what you want to do about this. There is some good information out there on narcissism and grandparents.

My understanding is that narcissists relate to children as 'supply'. Since a lot of their behaviours, mimic those of healthy, non-N people, they get away with a lot when it comes to grandparenting. They can 'spoil' the children with lots of 'affection', and gifts or compliments or attention etc... and it can look like the grand parenting that non-N grandparents are doing with their grandkids in the house next door, as it were.

The N's in my life, demonstrated no reliable ability to respect the emotions of others. This is where the problems came for me, as this was a deal breaker.

When the child spent time with the N's, the child was spending time with an adult who cannot recognize nor respect the emotions of the child. Since I had been raised by N's, I was all too familiar with this.

The child is 'supply' for the N. The non-N parent, has to do a lot of managing and supervision in recognition of this. I was too depleted emotionally myself, to add "supervise and clean up mess made by N family members" to my list of tasks while my child was under age 12 (after age 12 the child doesn't give up their 'supply' as easily as they do when they are 3, 4 , 5 years old, where their natural joy and happiness is twisted into being supply for the N).

So my decision when I was faced with your situation, was to not facilitate contact. For me, I just didn't have the energy to manage it. Some do, some don't. I came to terms with my decision, it was the right decision for me at the time, given the resources I had (and didn't have). If I can help here by describing how I came to my decision when faced with this, I'm glad to help since this is now in the past for us and we got through it. The N's in our family create constant drama, and I found parenting to be hard enough, without playing the manager role every time there was N-created drama.

[Juniperberry]

Oh, I feel this pain with you. 

Trees grow slowly, your post rings so true for me.  People are narcissistic supply to my parents, and my kids found this fun at younger ages, which allowed my parents to interact with them smoothly (and fooled me into thinking it was a healthy relationship between them) but when my kids got older and got opinions and such, they paid the price with my parents, and as soon as I saw it, I stepped in.  And my parents responded to this by blaming me for the all problems (surprise, surprise), and I am unwilling to accept that blame or pretend like nothing happened, which has resulted in no contact. 

There was an incident when my kids were babies that should have been enough to prevent me from allowing my parents large amounts of contact with my kids, but it didn't prevent me.  I regret that, but I did the best I could at the time.  My daughter (10) has outright said that she understands why I cut contact but it's so sad for her that she wishes I had never let them grow close.  I agree with her completely.  I am sad about the whole situation this has forced my kids into.  My eyes were open and vigilant, but I wish I had a crystal ball and just prevented the whole thing...

Given the choice, my daughter would go back to spending time with my parents, but she would also eat ice cream five times a day and never shower given the chance, so I understand that holding this boundary with my parents is part of my duty of being a good parent to my own children.  And that gives me some peace.

My best and very carefully considered parental judgment tells me that it is not healthy or safe to allow my kids contact with my parents at this time.  My heart hates this, but my brain is clear on it.  I live with it by reminding myself that I would be an irresponsible parent to allow my kids back in that relationship as it were.  I know better now so I'm doing better. 

I'm sorry you and your children are dealing with this, too.  It's so hard. 

[Yael924]

Similar issue here.

What we did was tell LO that her memories were true. Those things had happened, and there were many good times. And it's ok to be sad in a sad situation.
But there were times when Gpa hurt mommy too. All those things can be true at the same time. So everyone in the family is suffering.
However, our job as parents is to keep LO safe. (Lo really liked that part, which I found interesting)

So we told LO that I was out of the picture on the issue (way too triggering) . LO can write a letter to GPs and give it to the other parent. We will go from there.

As of yet, no letter.  Funny how kid's aren't industrious that way. 

[daughter]

There are lots of posts here, questions of "I'm NC, what about my kids?".  I believe that parents that are so toxic that their adult-child chooses to be NC, are likewise too toxic to have meaningful contact with the grandkids too.  Your daughter may miss grandpa, but grandpa has enabled and tolerated nanna's bad behavior for far too long, has sacrificed YOU (his daughter?) for far too long, so what lessons will be learned by your daughter as she engaged with your father while you're NC?  Lesson our oldest DS teen learned, by example, by repeated episodes of manipulation, gas-lighting, and bad-mouthing by my estranged parents, is it's okay to be mean to mom, to be disrespectful and cruel.  And in translation, because I've seen it in our oldest DS teen, your child learns it's also okay to accept disrespectful and cruel behavior from your peers, from your so-called friends.  That's a lesson I wish hadn't been forced upon my son.

[Bellie]

Thank you all!!
It really helps to hear from people in the same position and to know that I'm not alone! And that confusion is normal in this situation. I think my daughter misses the 'memorable moments' of closeness with grandpa but when the grandparents have called out of blue (this has happened a handful of times over the last year) she has been so reluctant to talk to them over the phone that she has just walked away and left the room. I miss the mother I wish I could have had, I think my daughter misses the grandparents she wishes they could be too. My N mum never really made an effort with the girls but grandpa on the other hand would make lots of time for them, reading to them and playing with them. My N mum only really played with the girls when she was able to impress someone. 
I just don't want my daughter to feel that she is being disloyal to me if she wants a relationship with them. So many times I have given up on closeness with people because my N mum made me feel that I was loving her less if I cared for someone else. I am finally able to have a close relationship with my husbands parents without feeling guilty that I am hurting my mum!!
I will re read all your posts. And thanks again!
Bellie

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi Bellie,

Every situation is different. I wanted to add something else to this discussion about N grandparents.

I went NC with most of the grandparents but the ones who are self absorbed I went LC.

Because I did spend some time with some of the N grandparents,  I realized that my experience with the self absorbed grandparents was different from my childs experience.
Eventually, the obvious dawned on me. My child has a non NPD parent. I never did.

My child has been hurt at times by the Narc grandparents and I had intense anxiety about this for a while. Then as time went by I saw what having a non NPD parent results in- a child who has an emotional attachment style I could only dream of as a child. The secure attachment to me, has given this child roots I never had, in themselves.

This doesn't mean I think children should be around Narc abuse, it is objectively damaging.
MOST importantly to me, managing the fall out when N grandpa is mean or abusive towards my child, took all my energy. I burned out trying to manage the circus that the N grandparents created every visit.

We parents who have NPD parents and are parents ourselves, we are breaking a cycle no one broke for us. As a result our children get nurtured, in ways we never did. My child will never experience the level of neglect I did and when a grandparent acts mean, my child comes to me for help. I never had that.

So my reason for VLC now is that I don't have the time and energy to manage the hurts caused by N grandparent drama. They used up all my good will and energy years ago and it's on them to seek therapy if they want more than VLC now. Which they will never seek.