Should I let my children see their grandmother? | Mariella Frostrup

A woman debates swallowing her pride to encourage a relationship between her kids and her rude mother-in-law. Mariella Frostrup recommends accepting her help

The dilemmaMy mother-in-law is rude and offensive. My husband and I have been together over 10 years, and I have coped by biting my tongue and tolerating her attacks because he says if we call her out, she will stop calling, visiting etc. Recently she said something about my family that I couldn’t ignore. My husband asked her to apologise, which she did, but she blamed me for being too sensitive. Now she is, in essence, sulking. My problem is that she sees very little of our children as it is. They adore her, and she adores them, so I don’t want this relationship to suffer. What do I do? I can’t tolerate insults any longer, yet my children deserve a close relationship with their grandmother.

Mariella replies That’s very wise and also sensible of you. You won’t be the first or last daughter-in-law to suffer the sharp end of a mother-in-law’s tongue. That said, it’s all too easy to slip into a siege state with such inherited relationships and display more vulnerability than you would in other situations.