We are hesitant to have our daughters visit MIL? Any ideas?

I agree with Cwillie. Your daughters are full grown adults and can choose to not visit someone who treated them poorly. And I agree you should step out of the middle of the conversation. When your husband moans to you about them not visiting his historically nasty mother, just tell him, "Please tell them yourself, don't tell me. They're adults and I don't control them and I can't control them and neither should you." Then walk away. Say this every time he brings it up. Eventually he'll stop. This is what she sewed with her granddaughters and now she is reaping the harvest.

I would reccomend that you listen to your heart. Your first responsiblity is to your daughters. With her hurtful comments, your MIL forfeited her right to a relationship with her granddaughters. They are now adults and it is their decision whether or not they wish to visit. As a mother, I would not put any pressure on them to visit. You are absolutely correct - their mental health should come first.

Your daughters are adults and as such can decide for themselves whether or not to visit their grandmother.

You may want to point out to your husband that he is exhibiting the same sort of behaviours as his mother in expecting them to put themselves in harms way.

I absolutely get your concern. My daughter also suffers with mental health issues, and I'm usually the parent that has to help her work through the "meltdowns". She has been under a psychiatrist's care since her sophomore year in HS. And I know from first-hand experience that something very innocuous can send her scurrying down that rabbit hole, so I can see you wanting to keep your girls away from any situation that might do the same thing,

I think you're using the wrong terminology. You can't "protect" them from these situations. As others here have said, they are 22 and 24 and have the right to decide if/when/under which circumstances they visit grandma. I will offer you advice to change your terminology from "protect" to "support", especially when you are discussing this issue with your husband. "Protect" has connotations that MIL is the enemy, and likely puts your husband in the frame of mind that makes him feel as if he is being forced to choose his daughters or his mom. "Support" their decision to visit/not visit puts all you (yourself, husband, daughters) on the same "team", so to speak, without forcing your husband into a corner about his mom. It also puts your daughters on alert that, while their decision to NOT visit grandma might be the absolutely right one as far as their mental health is concerned, there might be an uncomfortable conversation they will need to have with dad, if he's not on board, because his feelings are valid and should be acknowledged by your daughters, too. We don't all have to agree with someone's decisions in order to offer them support, as long as those decisions aren't destructive.

Good luck.

Have your daughter's speak to their father themselves; it's between them and their father as to whether they go visit grandma and you shouldn't be getting in the middle of it! They're adults and have their own voices with which to speak.

My mother also has dementia and has treated my 28 y/o daughter with disdain for her whole life. She's been 'too fat' and too this and too that and blah blah, so she's hurt my daughter's feelings for YEARS now. So my DD decides if and when she visits my mother and whether she wants to call her, not me or anyone else. My DD has a large heart and is an RN so she does visit and call her sometimes, purely out of the goodness of her heart, which I give her credit for. But again, it's up to HER how she handles her own life, nobody else. I was able to protect her as a small child and yanked her OUT of my mother's presence, but not as a grown woman nowadays.

Nobody has to make your husband understand anything; your daughters are entitled to do as they wish and if your husband doesn't agree with their choices, he should take it up with THEM!

Your daughters are no longer children who need to be protected by their mom, they are young women who can make their own decisions and it sounds as though neither has any desire to visit their grandmother. IMO the problem isn't with your MIL it's with your husband, who seemingly has never acknowledged the pain his own mother has caused - perhaps because that kind of dysfunction was normalized in his family. My advice to you is to bow out of the middle of this drama - tell daughters and husband to talk to each other not go through you, and bluntly change the subject if they begin discussing it in a "he said/she said" way.

Can you simply explain to your husband what you have told us? There is no reason your daughters should be pressured to visit MIL - they are adults and it is entirely their choice. Has he understood that his mother created this situation by HER abuse of her grandkids? Seems some men do not really get it about this kind of emotional abuse. Since it is not directed at them, they tend to hide from the reality. Has anyone ever called your mother the abuser she is?

You should let your ADULT children decide for themselves if and when they want to visit their grandmother. They are old enough to understand that grandma hasn't changed her behavior. They also understand that she is older and doesn't have a long life span ahead of her. Your husband can ask the girls to visit but he really can't make them. It is their decision.

FYI - I cut off relationships with my own grandparents who were toxic and critical when I was a young mother. I could not allow them to hurt another generation. I did go visit them before each of them passed away. My children did not miss them and were better off without their influence.

Do your daughters understand that their grandmother has untreated mental health issues?

Does their father "get" that?

If your girls are seeing mental health providers, it's a good issue to bring up in therapy.

These are not children, they are adults. Remind your husband of that and as a result a visit to see grandma is theirs and theirs alone. Stay out of it!

Do you know if you try to control this situation to keep MIL isolated from people she loves could wind up with charges against you for elder abuse?

Just knock it off and STOP trying to control others.t

And do not discourage daughters from visiting either. Reminding you that this is their decision!

Daughter's mental health problems could at least partially be cause by someone, you, trying to control them. Think about that and just let them grow up.