Originally Posted by
littlefish 
You have made the wisest choice. The grandparents misguided loyalty is baffling!
Or maybe not so baffling: it's possible the mom is extremely active in influencing them. And that their views of you, your SD, and husband are provided to them by the alcoholic mom.
She may build up their hopes that she is recovering, convincing them that she is the only "true" mother, that blood is thicker than water and she must be in their lives. (and close to their wallets). Or she is working the pity angle and convincing them that her severe problems drive her to drink and she needs their support. And money too. She might be creating the image of herself as a the victim in their eyes, and once again, make them more malleable to supporting her economically.
Of course the mom is going to do everything in her power to stay close to an easy source of money. The mom could easily be the source of the remark that it is the SD who made her drink. Totally predictable, totally typical and not surprising behavior at all for someone in advanced, untreated addiction.
It's always been as though she's put blinkers on them, so that they don't 'see' their own son and granddaughter. Initially, when my husband left her, she made them promise not to abandon her and blackmailed them by saying they wouldn't see SD if they dropped her. My MIL maintained throughout that she was only 'staying friends' with her so as to keep an eye on SD. For a while, and because my husband had moved 20 miles away to live with me, we kind of accepted that, were pleased someone was indeed keeping an eye. But, as time went on it became clear that something was very very wrong. My MIL was our constant source of information, and it was never nice. She would go to great lengths to tell us how appallingly my SD was being treated by her mother. She would tell us the horrors she witnessed, first hand, some things would leave us practically retching. We would, of course, contact Social Services, but because our 'stories' were always third hand they didn't really believe us. They advised my MIL should contact them, as she was witness to these atrocities, but she always, always refused, and said 'I will not go against her mother'. It drove us crazy, but she was our only link to SD - for most of her life with her mother there was no way of contacting her as there was no home phone, and her mother never answered her mobile. We lived 20 miles away and my husband didn't drive then, so his mother was the only person to keep an eye on things. But, what kind of an 'eye' was it? It became more and more apparent that it wasn't a caring 'eye', because how could anyone sit back and not do anything about the way their own flesh and blood was being treated by an alcoholic? My MIL never tried to cover up for SD's mum in the sense that she was only too pleased to tell us what was going on. Warped or what? SD now knows all of this, and she resents her grandmother for not helping us get her out of there sooner.
Theirs is a very toxic relationship, it must be because they were all coercing together to protect her neglect and mistreatment of SD. We also think that one of the reasons why my MIL wouldn't help get SD out of there was because whilst SD was with her mum, within the same town, she could have control over her. She is a very domineering woman and likes to control people. She knew that if SD left to live with us she would lose that control, and maybe that was too much for her to bear.
It does give me some comfort to learn that we are not the only ones to have experienced this totally baffling misguided loyalty, and I am so sorry for anyone else that has had to endure this, because it's not nice, at all ....