'She seemed like the perfect daughter-in-law. Then she sent me a cruel text.'

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For most of Simon*'s childhood, it was just him and his mum against the world.

Ellie* had given birth at 19 and spent years navigating single motherhood with a son who struggled with ADHD. Their teenage years were turbulent — Simon got into trouble, they butted heads, and eventually he moved out to live with friends.

But rather than driving them apart, the distance actually strengthened their bond. By the time Ellie moved interstate with her now-husband, their relationship had never been better. Regular phone calls, daily updates. The closeness she'd always hoped for.

Then Simon met Jas*.

At first, she seemed perfect — sweet, loving, everything Ellie had wanted for her son.

But by the time Jas showed her true colours, it was too late. What followed was a decade of manipulation and control — with Ellie caught in the crossfire as her daughter-in-law weaponised access to her grandchildren.

"I did think that it was me, that I was going mad," Ellie told Mamamia.

It's only now she can look back and see the situation for what it really was.

Watch: Relationship red flags. Post continues below.

Simon moved in with Jas and her mother, and for the first few years, things seemed fine. But everything changed after they welcomed a little girl.

During one visit, Ellie went to grab lunch with Simon and the baby — a simple outing that lasted less than 45 minutes. When they returned, Ellie found furious text messages waiting for her.

"Why don't you answer your phone? How dare you have my daughter and not answer my calls," Ellie recalled.

"I was really shocked because she knew where we were. We just went to get lunch."

When they got home, Jas was hiding in the bedroom, refusing to come out and talk.

It was the first time something struck Ellie as truly "odd". But it definitely wouldn't be the last.

A cycle of manipulation.

What followed was a confusing cycle of blame and control. Jas would send frantic messages painting Simon as unreliable, then flip the script entirely, turning on Ellie with abusive texts demanding she stay away from the grandchildren.

"If I even made a small comment or sort of stuck up for Simon sometimes she would send these most horrific, long texts that went on and on," Ellie recalled.

Any criticism, no matter how minor, was met with the ultimate punishment: losing access to her grandchildren.

Plans would be made, then cancelled at the last minute.

"We had Christmas organised and we'd all be getting ready… and a few days before she'd say, 'I'm cancelling Christmas because Simon has done this'," Ellie said. "Then the day before she'd be like 'It's back on now.'"

Family holidays were booked and paid for, only to be cancelled with made-up excuses about illness. Simon couldn't even spend 30 minutes helping his grandfather without being called back.

Ellie's once chatty son became quiet and withdrawn. She reached a state where she felt she couldn't say anything right.

"I would just hold my tongue and say nothing for the sake of, you know, otherwise I wouldn't get to see Simon," Ellie said.

It went on like this for years.

It wasn't until they separated that Ellie learned the true extent of Jas's behaviour.

Jas had an affair but returned months later. When Simon discovered she was still in contact with the other man, he finally said enough.

"That was the final straw for him. He rang her, and he said, 'Come and get your stuff'," Ellie said.

Jas's response was cruel.

"She laughed at him. She mocked him. Then left him with the children because she said she didn't want them."

For years during the relationship, Simon had been distant and uncommunicative. He rarely answered Ellie's phone calls, and when she confronted him about Jas's abusive messages, he seemed powerless to act.

"I'd never had anxiety in my life before and I started having it because of this," Ellie said. "I would confront him and say, 'Why don't you do anything? Why don't you talk to her? Do you think this is okay?' And he would just be like, 'That's just the way she is, Mum. I can't do anything about it.'"

But the day they broke up for good, everything changed.

"I was on a trip and he was calling me every day. We were talking for like one to two hours. I couldn't believe it," Ellie said.

"It was like I got my child back because he was just telling me what was happening and what had happened."

What Simon revealed was a pattern of manipulation and control that extended far beyond what Ellie had witnessed. Both Jas and her mother had been systematically isolating and manipulating him.

"He was in that for so long he just couldn't even think for himself," Ellie said.

"She would play tricks on him, like she stole his car 'as a joke' just to tease him. I think it was coercive control."

Moving forward.

Today, Ellie is grateful she finally got the most important thing back: her son.

Simon is in a new relationship and back to himself.

"He's a completely different person," Ellie said.

"He's got his own business now. He's very happy. They've got a happy house."

His relationship with Jas, meanwhile, remains strained. One of their children lives with Jas's mother, and Simon struggles to maintain that relationship.

Ellie has no contact with her former daughter-in-law — and she's happy for it to stay that way. But the emotional scars still linger.

"You're second-guessing everything that you're doing. Like, did I do something wrong that I don't know I did? But that's not the case."

She lives with anxiety and PTSD from the decade-long ordeal — something she's working through each day.

Her message to other parents?

"Surround yourself with people that know who you are and support you," she said.

Most importantly: "Fight for your child. Don't ever give up with them as well, because if I had have just walked away and said, 'You know what, Simon, I'm not going to deal with you' and never left it and not contact him, that would have destroyed me, but it would have destroyed our relationship for the future.

"I was willing to keep this going because he said he would not leave her until the children were older. And I was like, well, the kids are under 10. Um, this is going to go on for years, but we have to just try and support him and be there. That's all you can do as a mum is be there."

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

Feature image: Getty. (Stock image for illustrative purposes only).