Hello, I am sorry you are experiencing emotional and financial control from your daughter-in-law. Reaching out for help is the first step towards change and healing. You are not alone! Sounds like the daughter-in-law is a product of her childhood environment (family, culture, society). The disconnection between grandparents and their adult children is real and is an issue for many grandparents. As a Certified Family Life Educator, I hear from both grandparents and adult children. The first thing I share with both is it is not your fault. We learn to parent and grandparent from our observations as children. Our first relationship models are our parents and our grandparents. When we are born we learn everything about our world and how to behave by the modeling we get first primarily from our family and then the world that we enter into....essentially we all parent backward.
None of us had perfect childhoods because the world has been practicing CHILDISM and adults do not realize (myself included) that parenting has been very adult-centered rather than child-centered. You are not alone and there are counselors that can support you through this process of learning how to manage these difficult and uncomfortable conversations. Practice makes perfect we were told, right? Why not practice with a counselor or another professional who works with Family Dynamics and Communication?
Best, Mary Kay
Mary Kay Keller, MPA, PhD., CEIM, CFLE