Man won't let in-laws see grandchild, they track him down and demand the baby.
'AITA For Not Allowing My In-Laws To See Their Grandchild'
It’s kind of a long back story. I have had problems with them for years. They accused me of being a sex trafficker because me and my wife were going to Japan after meeting for the first time. We had known each other for 5 years prior from being gaming friends, and she was 21 at the time (I was 24).
She asked her mom if it was okay to go, and her mom said yes. Booked the ticket, and then two days later said no. They then locked up her passport to prevent her from going. We ended up married 18 months later after going to Canada to see her myself.
A bunch of other fights happened for the next 6 years around them disagreeing with what we were doing with our lives, where we moved to, what school she went to, where I was working, etc.
I ended up cutting off contact with them 4 years ago because of all of that, though my wife kept talking to them. We ended up talking it out with her parents when we had our child two years ago. Trying to let bygones be bygones and not have awkwardness around the kid.
For our 5th year anniversary, we decided to go to Japan to celebrate, and have my mother watch the child while we were gone for a week and half.
Then, when my wife’s parents found out, they got upset and said they don’t trust my mom watching our kid because she was a drunk (they have only met my mother twice, and the one time was at my wedding where she got drunk during it).
They kept insisting that my wife’s mother was the one who should watch her. We said no, and then they demanded to have my wife’s mother at least come up to help watch my child for a day while we were gone.
My wife’s father then said he was also going to come up with her too. This set off some flags because my wife’s parents have been bitterly divorced for 8 years, and hated being around each other but have to because they wanted to co-parent their younger children. They have also never came up together before.
I have a feeling they were planning to take my kid away from whomever we decided we wanted to watch our kid while we gone. We cut off all contact with them and told them they can’t see our kid again.
It feels weird typing this out because of how fake it all sounds. These people are crazy to a level that 7 years ago I didn’t think existed.
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
NTA. They think it's okay to essentially kidnap a 21 YO by taking away their passport I can imagine they would have no problems kidnapping a child on the basis that they feel the caretaker is allegedly a drunk.
They sound genuinely unhinged. Stick to your guns OP.
Ironically, withholding a person's passport to get any labor or service from them can legally constitute human trafficking in the state I live in.
The OP responded here:
That is always what gets me too. Them doing the same thing that they feared what I would do. It gets crazier too because my wife’s sister started dating a person from Columbia a few years ago. She was going to go and visit his family with him.
They were also not happy about that, and tried to forbid her from going. They said that it was a dangerous place and she was going to get kidnapped there. They told her this by waiting for her to get done with work at 11:30 pm and ordering her to get into the car with them.
They also brought her mom’s new husband and her dad’s girlfriend to pressure her into backing out on the trip.
I always joke that for all of their fear of their adult kids getting kidnapped, they are oddly good at doing it themselves.
NTA. You're better off cancelling the trip IMHO. They are going to show up at your mom's place while you are out of the country and will likely involve the police somehow. So if your mom is not capable of handling that kind of a crisis, then you would be better off rescheduling.
The OP then responded again:
We ended up going because they didn’t start telling us that they should be the ones to watch our kid until 3 days before we went. We thought about canceling, but we were unable to get a refund on the hotel and most of the flight. My mom already booked time off and travelled down to our place to watch our kid.
But yeah, involving police or just trying to strong arm my mom into having them take our kid was our biggest fear. I can’t think of any other reason for my in-laws to come up together considering their strained relationship with each other.
We were already uncomfortable with travelling that far away from our kid in the first place, and they added to that anxiety quite a bit. Luckily nothing happened, but now they are getting my wife’s siblings and grandparents to tell her that she shouldn’t cut her parents out of their grandchild’s life.