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

You sound like a strong mother ❤

My child is fine and remembers me standing up for her, so she felt safe.

Unfortunately, for us, it wasn't little things but outright favouritism between grandchildren and belittling/scapegoating (I suspect my DH is their scapegoat and they also had to pick one of his kids to inherit that). Maybe that's why he didn't make the effort himself?

The toxic behaviour is not something the children will see or know about. They drink heavily but we stay in hotels and are gone before they are drunk, they constantly ask us for money which we can't afford so we don't give, they have little intrest in things that don't give them immediate satisfaction so actually the kids seeing then for short periods (5-6 hours) once a year or so they actually show an interest in the children which makes them feel loved.

I absolutely know what you mean but I'm very careful and watch them like a hawk! They have ice-cream, play games, eat cake and get to tell their stories. I never leave them alone and would leave probably never to return if there was any sign of problems. I absolutely agree with you though and I hope that your child isn't too affected by the experience.

This really isn't about whether people have "normal" relationships with their in-laws. Some do, some don't. FWIW, I absolutely bloody loved my MIL, who is sadly no longer with us.

The issue is more about people expecting the DIL to be the keeper of those relationships. She is apparently the one that is supposed to do all of the work to maintain family relationships because men are allegedly "useless" at that kind of thing. Despite apparently being competent to deal with far more complex issues in other areas of their lives.

It really isn't about whether you're happy to give your MIL a quick call to update her on the grandkids' latest endeavours, or whether you'd be happy to pick up a card for FIL when you pop to the shops. It's about not wanting to become the designated person with primary responsibility for maintaining the relationship between a grown man and his own parents. And it's about expecting men to step up in their domestic lives, and not only in the workplace, and to stop taking women's unpaid labour for granted.

If people really can't understand this that this has nothing to do with hating your MIL and everything to do with wanting a genuinely fair and equal relationship, I despair.

Sometimes it's not good for a GC to have any relationship with a toxic GP. My eldest remembers the time we were in touch with her GM and her memories are all negative and painful. Definitely good space was created for their sake.

I think you have to have a good relationship with them all if you want your IL child to make the effort. I always did (and was the only one making the effort) for over a decade. My MIL was awful, treated me as invisible, so I decided to be invisible and told DH it was now on him to do all the stuff I did to maintain their contact. And why was I the thread holding them together, while being treated as so unimportant? I reminded him the first year when things were coming up and he sent something. I didn't remind him after that and he sent nothing.

I regularly am in touch with my parents. If my family in law wanted to get in touch with me, I'd reply. If they were interested in me in the slightest, we'd have a relationship. I they hadn't been abusive, I would have at least stayed a passive participant. In our case, they have the relationship they deserve with me and the relationship (or lack of) their son makes the effort with.

I call my MIL at least once a fortnight since having our children (15 years) I sent her copies of the scans, updated her on first words and 1st steps and school success. My partner is incharge of gifts, cards etc but is not great at calls.

My MIL doesn't bother contacting us at all, we recieve birthday cards and gifts but she never visits and its always upto me to arrange the visits including staying in hotels as the FIL doesn't get on well with having too many in the house!

She is a toxic person but I want my children to know both sets of grandparents and I will do all I can to ensure that they have fond memories of their grandparents even if I don't feel the same about them. I never leave my children alone with them. We see them perhaps once a year as they moved to the other end of the country as soon as my partner was old enough to be self sufficient. They also left a disabled child with learning difficulties alone under the care of social services without ever visiting! As I say they are toxic but my children will have limited and controlled positive experiences with them.

Its hard for me to keep in contact like this and it is all for the children not for the inlaws benefit. I'm sure if you spoke to them they would have a very different story! But they are alcoholic, abusive, neglectful and very selfish.

Yep just what I was thinking . Don't any if you have " normal " relationships with your daughter/ son in laws?
My sons and daughters probably keep in touch more by phone bur their partners keep in touch and show interest too 🤷‍♀️.
As far as gifts go I have received gifts chosen by son or ddil ( as far as I'm aware they don't see it as a burden !!) .
If my son stopped calling I am sure I would still hear from dils and same from sil if I didn't hear from daughter .
I feel lucky with the family I have but surely that's more the norm than the exception . Thread after thread on here seems to be full of posters who seem to just want to say whatever it takes to disagree with OP 🤔

But it's never just about a birthday card or two, is it? It's all the other secretarial shite that women are always expected to do and men dodge, so we are now pushing back on lots of stuff. This is just the bit that's visible to the inlaws.
I hope my daughter never falls into the trap of family dogsbody. And if my son tries to dump stuff he's reponsible for on my future DIL, I'll be right in there backing her up.
OP - your DIL will love you forever if you call out your son on his shitty behaviour and make it clear to her you know its not her fault or problem.

I send updates to my in laws on the daily of their grandchild. I also update my MIL when my husband is sick. I also treat my in laws out for meals and cook all their meals when they stay over.

My husband regularly calls his parents even before me. So I think his relationship with his parents is key, and I like this aspect of him being family oriented hence we are together.

Depends on your relationship with your son really.

Things that might help you build better relationships with your grandkids.

1. Offer to babysit and allow your son/DIL go out for dinner etc. for a break if you can.
2. Cook a nice meal and drop over when the family is sick.
3. Start a family photo album (there is an app you can share amongst family).
4. Start a family group chat on the phone
5. Throw nice Christmas lunches
6. Bake things and drop over.

Do the little things to get into the fold. Never over impose.

I always trie hard to communicate and keep in touch with my MIL and made a real effort. A few years later when I couldn't keep in contact with my own family my husband followed my example - so I am glad I set an example to him.

That's just good manners. I don't know what my DH has planned for the weekend, or maybe he just wants a quiet one. Once, when I told my mother I'd check with DH, she sarcastically replied, "Why? Can't you decide for yourself?" Not impressed. There are two of us living in this household them coming for a full day affects.

This

A full and complete answer.

I buy cards and gifts for my in laws, because they buy for me, and I like them and want to gave a relationship with them where everyone is comfortable. We keep in touch but I expect visits to be discussed by DH..

Not always easy, but possible.

This. Work on your relationship with her and your grandchildren. Have a good chat with your dd too. Call out in his bs.

And to the perpetually angry poster who quoted me upthread, you didn't understand zilch from what I was saying. Meh... Don't have the energy for you sorry.. 🤷

Just musing here... If partners are in a same-sex relationship, is it still the responsibility of the partner rather than the son to organise birthday cards and keeping in touch? Or does this literally only apply when there is a woman who can be delegated to?

And for MILs who know that it is their DILs who organise birthday cards/presents rather than their sons, who do you thank?

I mean, when you ring up your sons, do you suspend reality sufficiently to say to your son, "Thank you, sweetheart, for the lovely present and card that you sent", even though you know he probably doesn't have a clue what was sent and the nice jumper or socks or whatever were almost certainly chosen, wrapped and posted by your DIL?

Or do you give credit where credit is due and say, "Please say thank you to Susan for sending a gift on your behalf - she has great taste and I really like the socks"?

In which case, why put everyone through this rigmarole? Why not just tell the DIL that you know your son doesn't care a jot about your birthday and why not just exchange gifts between the two of you (or agree not to exchange them)? And why give credit to a grown man who has done absolutely nothing? It's like sending a small child to school with a gift for his teacher, and while the teacher says, "Thank you Max", she knows that the gift is really from the parents.

Except men aren't small children. And letting them off the hook in this way and allowing them to take credit for other people's efforts does no one any favours. It harms women on a much broader level than just in family situations. There is a well-documented professional phenomenon of men disproportionately taking credit for women's work in the workplace. Why do they do so? My guess is because they feel entitled to have others (women) facilitate them and make them look good. It's an extension of these domestic attitudes.

If I knew it was my DIL organising all the gifts, I'd tell her to feel welcome to stop but, if she wanted to continue, please send the gifts in her own name only and I'd cherish them as being from her and reciprocate accordingly.

What I’ve noticed is that society in general is now more accepting of different personality types. Instead of getting offended because someone is an introvert or naturally taciturn, people who care about that person accept them for who they are.

This translates into familial relationships. Maybe DIL tends towards discomfort with strangers. That is why she happily arranges things with people she is most comfortable around. Maybe the OP’s personality and DIL’s personality don’t mesh. Neither of these scenarios are OP’s or DIL’s fault. It is still ultimately up to OP’s son to facilitate the relationship with his children and to communicate with his family.

While modern relationships with relatives overall tend to be more distant than in past generations, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Today’s children are protected from toxic relatives and kept out of family drama more than in the past.

When my parent, aunts and uncles were children, my grandfather was in the military and frequently deployed. Because of this, it fell to my grandmother to facilitate all relationships with his family. My parent still remembers how abusive and unkind some of his relatives were to my grandmother. She never told my grandfather because she had always been taught that it was her job to suck it up so the children could know his family. My grandfather, however, noticed some of the mistreatment when he came home. He immediately put a stop to it and no longer allowed them to have contact with my grandmother or their children unless he was there to supervise and make sure they treated her well.

But exactly “when are you free then? Give me some dates?”

then, when you don’t receive any, push for them with your son and ask wtf he isn’t giving you dates.

I think it just sounds like they don’t have a good relationship with OP and I would love to hear DIL side

YABU and what is worse is that you have facilitated the men in your live being useless at communication by justifying it as “because they are men” and by in your husbands instance doing it for him. Your DS has learnt this which is why he does not communicate with you.

I am not responsible for communicating with my DH’s family that is his responsibility e.g. buying cards and pressies etc., or letting them know what the children are getting up to. If I’m organising a party or gather of course I would communicate their invite.

The after we got married, I was stupid enough to take over the wifework and I started sending cards, gifts/flowers to DH's family. Well, he has a huge family and we started receiving pretty much daily cards and notifications about someone's fourth baby, someone else's christening, third cousin's graduation etc etc etc. I simply couldn't handle it and told DH that he will do his family as he deems fit, I will do mine.
DH continued like he had before marriage - meaning he did nothing. Which meant that MIL and SILs no longer sent me birthday cards. Fine, fair enough.

They all send cards to DH though, even though he never reciprocates. Lol.

This 100%

I see a generation of women continuing to chip away at the small, often invisible things that contribute to gender inequality. Surely that’s something to be applauded!

In many families, the DIL is not treated well by the MIL, and yet it's expected that she facilitate the relationship with the grandparents.

My DH takes our DD over regularly. Because he wants to. But, they never come to us. They refuse to. And regularly my MIL goes ape at one or other of us for no reason, which is not an atmosphere we want DD around. But she then accuses us of keeping her grandchild from her.

DH is the decision maker for everything here, and I input on how we handle their relationship with DD when MIL has gone off on one. But it's all done for his dad. The way MIL behaves towards him, I think DH would have cut contact a long time ago if not for his dad.

So, in response to OPs post that you replied to. It's not always through no fault of the MIL. It goes both ways. But ultimately, the relationship between the ILs and the family is down to the ILs actual child. Because that's the main one. If your son and DIL split, would you still be expecting her to facilitate the relationship with your grandchildren? Or would it be her fault you never saw them?

I had a nightmare MIL. Well not totally nightmare, but nightmare in regards to grandchildren.

She adored first born granddaughter of daughter. And I think lived for her. And claimed that she half-raised her.

She couldn't give a flying fig about much later born granddaughter of son.

She couldn't even remember to send birthday cards to second grandchild.

And yet I organised gift and flowers for her birthday every single year, without fail.

And did all the social organisation for family get togethers.

Personally I think it's just a mothers/daughters thing. And daughters twig how much hard work parents, especially mothers put in, when they have children.

Having had the experience of my child being "rejected" by her only in-law grandmother - that's a bit unfair, but they never had a close, or anything like it, relationship, I would tend to think it's a mother/daughter thing.

I honestly did my best to integrate PIL - but they were just too busy with daughter's family, who fair enough needed assistance.

Sometimes you have to take it on the chin. You can't have everything. I wouldn't begrudge niece for all the extra grandparent attention she got. Our daughter is doing just fine - and we're so proud.

I expect my husband to sort out birthday presents and cards for his mum and dad, but I will remind him when their birthdays are approaching and chat with him about what we will get for them. Christmas gifts are a bit different as I tend to get all the Christmas gifts for both my family and his, just because it’s easier for one person to be in charge of that. I also tend to buy the children’s presents for birthdays and Christmas though, although sometimes my husband will input and we chat about what their ‘’main gift’ will be (the other things that I choose by myself are a few small things like books, stationary, Lego etc).

Your son and DIL might think that you favour your daughter’s children because you spend so much time with them, and that might be why they put less effort in. It’s such a shame. My husbands parents favour their other sons children, but we still make an effort to see them and for the children to build a relationship with them as they certainly aren’t consciously picking favourites. It’s more that my husbands brother and his family are very needy of the grandparents time (for childminding and general help with things like cooking etc) - we have busier lives but are better at coping by ourselves.

People talk about leave it to the sons, then the sons have to ask the boss, their femsle partner, wife..whatever...and it doesn't happen.

That's just an excuse though by men who do not want to have to think about this stuff. They'd rather just pass that job on to their partners, who are likely carrying more than their share of the mental load already.