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

Fuck me, rock bottom standards and blaming women for it. No wonder you’ve got a lazy son who can’t be bothered with you, it’s exactly how his two parents have taught him to behave. These men aren’t useless, they’re just not bothered about the relationship, hence you becoming convenient when he wants money he can suddenly find your contact details.

It is entirely 100% the responsibility of the child, of either gender, to maintain a relationship with their parents and wider family.

If an individual, of either gender, doesn't do so, then failure is entirely with that individual and not with their spouse.

Thousands of men manage to phone their mother and send her birthday cards.

Perhaps the real question to ask yourself is why your son is unable to do so, and why you haven't tackled it with him

I think you worded it perfectly in your opening post. It is a 'burden' having to arrange visits / presents for my partners parents and family. And not one which I need to add to my plate. So I don't. It has caused problems and my partner definitely should do more to communicate with his parents, but that's on him.

So true in some cases!
My DM can't understand how me and Dsis can make the effort to call and visit and remember birthday's etc, but DB hardly bothers.
In the beginning she blamed SIL assuming it was her responsibility and was really hurt by it.
I quite admire her determination to only take on the responsibility of her own extended family and leave DB to sort out ours. Why should men get away with the laziness of not bothering?
If they can remember football fixtures they can remember birthday's!

I'd never send my husbands side of the family cards or gifts, that's his job. I am in contact with his mum off both of our own backs as I do like her, I'll occasionally send pictures of the kids or have a quick text chat here and there, but I have my own mother to buy birthday/Christmas gifts and presents for. It's not my job to sort all of his too. He wouldn't ever think of doing that for my side of the family.

Does your son keep in touch with his in laws? Send his mother in law a birthday card so her own daughter doesn’t have to etc?

When DH and I moved in together I told him I wasn’t going to “do” the keeping in touch/cards/presents for his family and we agreed to each get presents for our own side so to speak. Mostly because I sometimes want to get something indulgent for my family! So yes OP maybe your DIL said the same. In terms of visits we help and facilitate each other to visit family and have family to stay, I even remind him to send presents/phone his dad etc but I don’t do it for him. Not only because it’s not my job but because I’m not their child - I’m sure they’d far rather hear from him than me 😁

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'.

I’m perplexed by women having such low expectations of adult men to whom they are married and have children with.

Why do you think babying and infantilising men is the answer?

You are asking women to take up the reigns for useless men. Why should they?!? Just because you chose to martyr yourself (and I did this too until I woke up and realised I was being taken for a mug). Have a word with your son if you don’t like it!

So you enabled your husband to be lazy and not care about his family by doing it for him.

Relationships are reciprocal.

DH, PIL and I all contact each other separately and together. MIL and I do things we like (ballet/theatre/spa/shopping) and FIL and I do DIY together. DH sees both his parents together, separately with and without me and the children.

ALL of us maintain and nurture the relationships. I’ve said before that I wouldn’t have a serious relationship with someone with parents I couldn’t have SOME sort of positive relationship with.

Who is suggesting this?

Again that's blaming women for men's uselessness.

Are you familiar with the concept of strategic incompetence?

Only if that’s the mantra that is instilled in them as they grow up.
My MIL always churned that saying out and treated boys in the family as less than and second class to the women because she believed it was true and so the boys weren’t worth the effort.
Shes made it come true for some and doesn’t see them at all, and screwed the others up.

I used to do all the present buying, organising events, invitations, nudges to call his parents etc for 8 years. They have always been bloody awful to me, and when my baby arrived and they were worse still I dropped the rope completely.

Don’t think they realised it was me doing it all these years and now they blame me that DH has withdrawn. He hasn’t, I have. He was never bloody bothered in the first place.

And if even if they were nice why should I have to organise everything? I also earn more money, work more hours and do FAR more housework and life admin than he.

His granny however is a peach so I do organise things for her because I like her as a person in her own right rather than just an inlaw.

You have a problem with your son, not his wife.

I have never once taken responsibility for cards or gifts for my in laws. I might help my husband choose a gift for his mum. For example, I know she wants a new handbag for her birthday so I’m helping him choose one.

I’m not a mother in law yet, but both my sons have girlfriends. It’s ludicrous to think there’d be any expectation for them to buy me gifts instead of my sons. My sons are kind and thoughtful and take time and effort to buy me gifts they know I’ll like. AND they write lovely stuff in cards.

You sound really old-fashioned, OP.

A lot of folk seeing family as a 'chore'.

We have largely done away with presents and cards. Instead we have a family WhatsApp group so anyone can wish anyone a happy birthday of their own volition.

This means, for example, that granny (83, perfectly capable of using a messaging service) gets birthday wishes from grandchildren, SILs, DILs, etc.

Anyone can invite anyone to tea. Or suggest a meet-up. Or share a photo or story. Everyone has autonomy.

A lot of the models mentioned here sound v old fashioned tbh and yes, quite a lot of work. So in response to your point OP, it's not always the 'current' way.

I don't know. Maybe we are an unusual family, but a lot of this binary 'his and hers' stuff sounds quite exhausting tbh. After all, the kids love both sets of grandparents equally, so it's not difficult to follow that lead tbh and facilitate those relationships.

Not in our case.
Our ds is brilliant at keeping in touch with us and dd’s dh loves his family very much and visits them often.

OP, why would it be better if it was your DS's laziness and not antipathy from DIL? It really isn't DIL's job to organise visits, contact etc with you. The arrangement between your DD with her PIL is exactly the same. Do you think she should be doing more to facilitate her PIL?
The problem is your DS, not your DiL.

A daughter is a daughter all her life. A son is a son until he finds a wife.

It is cold.

Put aside the gift buying but not to even know your mil’s birthday.
Or call in 10 years.

Thank God for my lovely dil who will randomly ring for a chat when on a dog walk.
And my ds rings us weekly and does our card and gift buying so dil is not having to do it she just actually likes us can you believe.

Harsh but fair tbh.

You have two DC, one of whom values the extended family and makes the effort to keep in touch and the other who doesn't.

Do you think their parents instilled different values in the boy than the girl?

Fair play to your daughter and DIL for not taking on this part of the load.

This is called ‘kin keeping’ and is one of the many thousands of ways women have historically been expected to mop up behind lazy, entitled men who can’t be arsed. Such expectations are sexist, and yes, many of us have decided that we will no longer be responsible for men’s bad behavior. Why on earth should women be responsible for their husbands’ relationships with their own parents?! It might have made sense back in the days when women all stayed home and kept house and managed the family correspondence whilst the men did all of the work outside the home, but these days most couples are both doing full time jobs and therefore need to split the home jobs more equally.

I agree with the PP who said you have a son problem, not a DIL problem. If you want a better relationship with your son’s family, I suggest you bring it up with your son. He is the one dropping the ball here, not your DIL.