'Dad's side of the family'...is it really a thing?

My DH was (and still sort of is) a little rubbish and I used to tell him that he needed to call his mother / buy her flowers for her birthday etc. I resented the fact that I had to do this, but I did it because I felt sorry for his mother.

HOWEVER, the fact that you did the same for your PILS probably told your son (subconsciously) “that’s not my job. That’s wife work”. It’s not your fault as you probably weren’t particularly conscious of it - it’s a hard cycle to break.

I do not want my son to see keeping up with family as “wife work” and have had many conversations with DH about it and he agrees. But his own father did nothing, so these subliminal messages have embedded in him, too.

Because of this, I have started refusing to do anything at all that’s his family stuff. His mum does WhatsApp us both to remind him to do something so - presumably - I’ll nag him to do it. I won’t and it annoys me. I am sick of carrying all the mental load because I’m a woman.

DH is getting better, we’ve talked about it and the things we want our son to grow up and see.

Anyway, your DIL might be refusing to take the entire mental load and good for her.

But you’re not powerless here even though it might feel sad. Get in touch with your son more - start calling him up weekly for chats, make it a habit, invite them both to things, offer to have the children regularly (if you want that anyway). Make yourself part of their lives more. Be kind to the DIL.

Do you actually have a good relationship with your son?

You have a deeply ingrained misogynist mindset.
You say that men are ‘useless’ at contacting their own parents but somehow that is the woman’s fault?
Utter rubbish. Men are perfectly capable of contacting their own family. Some just choose not to.
Women are not ‘deliberately’ letting those relationships go. They are simply treating their husbands as grown ups who can run their own lives.
If MILs miss out then they should speak to their sons about it.

Yes, its just your son’s laziness, sorry! You have to be more proactive yourself!

im the same. My plate is so full, I don’t have mental capacity to manage my husband’s relationship with his side. I do a little but it pisses me off that it is automatically a woman’s job. The f*ing thank you cards too 🤦‍♀️ my side doesn’t do this nonsense, so I really resent that im saddled with them for his side.

I am really close to my family and was really surprised that my husband barely speaks to his parents.

I therefore made a real effort organising cards, presents etc, inviting them to visit.

However over time it’s become very obvious that they just… don’t care. They give so little of a shit about us that I’ve stopped bothering because it’s so one sided. We told them I was pregnant (after several losses) they said all the right things about wanting to come down, so happy blah blah blah and then I didn’t hear from them for nearly 2 months.

Whereas my parents ask us both how we are, offer help and support, my dad texts my husband more regularly than he texts me! They are kind and welcoming and involved in our lives in a mutual way.

You get what you give.

Her fault was not raising her son to do his own life admin.

To not encourage him to want to have a relationship with his family.

Why is it a DILs job to finish raising your son for you?

I have stopped arranging things including birthday cards and presents for my husbands side of the family about 2 years ago. He had left all xmas presents, cards, birthdays to me for the last 15 years and I've had enough.

My husband always did cards, presents, keeping in touch before he knew me...

I have been married over 40 years. My husband has always taken responsibility for communicating with his family etc. I get on with them but have never taken responsibility for buying them presents or cards, remembering when it's their birthdays or keeping in touch because they are his family and it's his role not mine

Why are you blaming a woman for a man’s behaviour?

I have never gotten involved in my husband’s relationship with his family. He gets in touch with them to arrange visits and vice versa. He knew them for decades before I came along so why on earth would I be the point of contact? I have no idea what he buys them for Christmas or if he sends birthday cards. If he doesn’t I think that’s shameful but it is nothing to do with me.

Well, I'm absolutely useless at that sort of stuff too. I sort of keep up with it with my family, but there was no way in hell I was going to take it on with his family! So, his/our relationship with his family was up to him to facilitate.

I remind my husband to do his family admin.

If my kids ask me to invite his parents to something, I do it as the children have asked. If MIL texts asking for something I always respond. I will occasionally te t her as well about things.

Visiting them at their house almost always goes through my husband

ETA: we keep very similar routines to my family as well

So if your daughter couldn't be bothered to contact you, would you expect your son in law to pick up the slack? You're acting like men are incapable of sending pictures or calling their own parents. Lots of men maintain a relationship. Women are right to not do all this for feckless husbands. I think you would be better off having a chat with your son about how he is disappointing you with his carelessness.

To the women saying they get on with PIL hence they do it, because DH is "useless at this". Please understand you are literally enabling them to do nothing, you are also providing a sad future if you have sons looking at you reiterate it is "women's work".

How on earth are these men managing to get and keep jobs? Are they all in some sort of supported employment?

Nothing in expecting their own child to lead in communication and presence and presents detracts from your relationship and your communication etc. It isn't either or, it simply is to acknowledge it isn't fair or appropriate to expect your Childs partner to be responsible for your happiness.

You said it was harsh when someone said you'd raised your son. And maybe it was. But you seem to have the expectation that it is a woman's role to deal with all of this. Well, your son was raised to believe that family isn't his responsibility. By you.

IME boys like this are raised by parents who give a sexist script to them. Maybe DIL was raised by feminists who told her not to do all the work in a relationship. You could have raised your boy that way too. I know lots of men who call their parents and arrange things.

I used to push my husband to phone his parents. I have stopped now since it is one sided and they don’t even phone him, or their granddaughter on their birthdays. We now put in the same effort that they do. So, we don’t see them very much.

I do fear though that my older three learned the importance of family looking after each other, my younger two are not getting the same lessons.
I sometimes feel we can't win, stick up for ourselves and teach them how to be strong young women, take all the responsibility and show them your a doormat or let them see what caring relationships look like.
That doesn't make sense when I write it down but in my head I'm all confused as to which approach is correct

knowing that their men are absolutely useless at this sort of thing

Men are only absolutely useless at this sort of thing because they are allowed to be - they aren't useless at remembering information or chores or jobs when it's important to them. Or when they know they are responsible for something with consequences - flights to holidays, their best friend's stag night location, their boss's preference for anything, etc

It's not nature - it's definitely nurture. And that's not all down to their Mums - Dads need to be setting a better example too.

It's sad that you are missing out through no fault of your own. It's no fault of DiL either.

It's a societal expectation that women oil all the relationships in addition to their other responsibilities. Women have stopped doing it.

It's your son's fault and it's him you need to talk to.

I wonder though if the overbearing MiL trope is the result of mothers having to be very assertive with their sons to avoid being left out. So make sure it's your son you are assertive with and be respectful of your DiL.

My son, on the other hand, literally only gets in touch when he wants something -usually money

Oh dear.

Has it only been like that since he has been married?

For the first 14 years of my marriage I took care of both sides of the family, visiting, calling, gift buying and keeping grandparents up to date with everything the kids did.
I didn't get any thanks from in-laws or DH so I've slowly let things slide. I still do gifts because that's something I love doing, I still do majority of cooking and baking for Eid and stuff but I don't do the calls and the visits.
The younger two see alot less of paternal grandparents as a result.
My brother on the other hand is very hands on, his kids see both sets of grandparents more or less equally and very frequently. Sil takes care of her side but makes sure there's always an opportunity for her husband to bring the kids to see my parents. My parents visit all of us often as do we them.
I don't think it's poor upbringing as such but it definitely is laziness on my husband's part or the feeling that I should continue taking care of everything as I used to.
I do feel guilty sometimes but mentally it's just too much and physically I would never get a moment to myself if I didn't hand over some responsibility to him.

I'm just perplexed that women, knowing that their men are absolutely useless at this sort of thing, would deliberately let relationships suffer for the sake of 'it's not my responsibility'.

But it's not their responsibility.

Men can (and do) maintain relationships with their family. Those that don't just obviously aren't bothered.

The comment about you should have raised your son better is harsh, but based in truth. A lot of mothers put themselves last in the family, they do all the work and don't even expect a birthday card in return. So, naturally, children learn that 1. certain jobs are women's responsibility, and 2. mum doesn't matter. This is just reinforced when they have a father who also treats their mother this way.

For men, this translates to "It's not my job to do this, but it doesn't matter anyway because it's just mum."
For women, it's just more work for them. But thankfully they're starting to wise up and say no to it.

Nasty remark.

Where I'm from, phones and people can both send and receive texts and calls.

I looked after comms with my DH family for many years, in fact I like them a lot. Many of them live a long way away overseas.

But then came kids and self employment and a doer-upper of a house. I set up a family chat for my DH's whole family, of which I'm part, but mainly I leave them to it.

In more angry times I may have mentioned to my DH that I am not his personal comms manager. In general they don't communicate as much as I'd like, and I do involve myself sometimes. But they all communicate as much as they like now, and that's the main thing surely?