I haven’t let my mom be alone with my kids in over 3 months. Before that, it had been almost a year for the same reason: her manipulation & refusal to respect our parental authority. She had juuuust started to earn back a little of my trust, & then she sabotaged everything with a huge betrayal, dishonesty, & gaslighting.
About a month ago, my 6yo asked when he could stay at her house again. I told him I understood that he misses her, & vaguely said we’d make plans to see her soon. He wanted to know why he couldn’t go to her house. He’s too smart for BS, so I said I didn’t think that would be happening anytime soon bc she isn’t able to follow our rules for keeping him & his brother safe. He understood immediately, without much more explanation. That freaked me out a little bit.
Tonight he brought up to his dad wanting to sleep over at her house, which he hasn’t done in a year & a half. He followed up with, “but I know why Mom doesn’t want me to.” Then he told his dad that she used to yell at him when he was at her house, “sometimes because I wasn’t listening but sometimes when I just did something that was an accident.”
My heart is broken. I feel so guilty that I didn’t do a better job protecting him. She used to scream at my brothers & me as kids all the time, but I had convinced myself it was different now that she was a grandma. And all that time, she was yelling at my babies when I wasn’t there to stop her.
Narcissists & abusive people don’t change. Don’t let someone who treats you like sh*t convince you they still deserve to be around your children. They don’t. They’re not entitled to anything, least of all access to innocent babies just because they happen to share the same blood. Trust your instincts. I’m so glad I’m finally trusting mine.