How often does your DIL visit/you visit your in laws?

But you are back again with another thread whereby you are stating you want to see even more of your son and would like them to come over once a week.

This simply is not realistic or what they want to do. Out of interest how many times a week are you now messaging and phoning your son as you say you have reduced this amount?

Like someone else posted, my MIL was a primary school teacher in a small village. She was home by 4 every day and had a lot of time off throughout the year. She had absolutely no comprehension of the fact that most people do not have that sort of time off, and most people work much longer hours. I cannot even begin to imagine having time for a family dinner once a week. We both work full time in busy jobs, we have a child, we both need to exercise, we want to spend time together as a family with our child.
OP expecting a family dinner once a week is incredibly demanding and unrealistic. There goes at least a quarter of the weekend for DS and DIL. And that's before they can do their life admin and maybe see other family and friends!

Thing is even fixing one thing like the timing of the calls doesn’t remove all the small annoying things you’ve done.

Also let’s just pause. You’ve changed your calling habit. Yay! But now you want dinner once a week that’s not exactly going to make them jump for joy is it? A 15 minute phone call swapped for an hours drive plus the actual time taken up by the meal and that’s without if they need to pick you up or drop you off if it’s an out out meal.

You swap one demand on their time for another demand on their time.

I dare you op. Don’t contact them either of them for one whole month, unless it’s something like their birthday or other congrats news for them. Let them contact you on their time around their schedule. See how much contact is their happy place. You won’t like it, they will.

OP - if you are the same OP - then I'm unsure what new advice this site can offer you. You want people here to agree that your DiL is a terrible person which, whilst it may be very gratifying to your ego, is unlikely to be of any real help to you or anyone else. You're already had pages of advice around a clear theme: focus on your relationship with your son and stop looking to fix the blame on your DiL. She will know what your attitude is toward her: the fact that she has completely distanced herself should be telling you as much. Yet another few months down the line, you're posting another thread with 'DiL' in the title. To the impartial bystander you are coming across as fixated on the woman.

The best thing you can possibly do in this situation is to let her go. She has set down her boundaries and they couldn't be any clearer. There is, bluntly, no advice MN can give you as to what you 'do' about this as you have not been given the choice. Your only option is to respect her wishes and hope that, in doing so, they will eventually come back.

She may or she may not. In any sense, your relationship with your son is your primary concern, or should be. If you don't want to push him away then you need to make this relationship your focus and stop harping on his wife. Do otherwise and this won't end well for you.

It's up to you.

It's so sad when the older generations try to set the rules. My MIL was so zen. She played golf most mornings, bridge twice a week. Her golf and bridge partners were formidable women who'd got through a world war without men and married post war, mid thirties before they had first baby .

We didn't see them routinely at weekends. I refused to Cook a Sunday roast thus mucking up the whole day . Nor did MIL.

If my DIL didn't like me I'd just back away, give her space.

It does sound like you might be the issue not her, you say she “hates you” but want to have a good relationship with her. If that’s possible then she can’t hate you. I’m guessing you look for people to reassure you constantly and maybe she doesn’t notice or is irritated by it, many people are.

I’m sure you’re not doing this deliberately but maybe try and see the glass half full, she came to see you for Christmas isn’t that lovely. Also before she has your grandchildren I wouldn’t expect a DIL to visit at all unless it was a special occasion. So it sounds about right really 🤷🏻‍♀️

So you would like one weekly dinner with you (and more when the children come).

let‘s say an additional dinner with her mother.

Are you divorced? Or are her parents? That would be a third „weekly dinner“.

they may want to visit friends, other family members like siblings etc., which would lead to a 4th weekly dinner.

add to that personal needs like exercise, family time etc. and they’re already completely booked.

as PPs have already said: you need to lower these expectations drastically or you’ll be disappointed (again).

it sounds like she works rather long hours from their shared home. Her not wanting to you to visit whilst she’s still working is therefore completely understandable…

Do you make it comfortable for her when she does visit? Or do you make her feel unwelcome or awkward? If she has only visited once in a year and it is only a 30 minutes drive that is not a good sign, but she also may not traveling far? I am not keen on travel and get anxiety from it so avoid it when I can.

It is absolutely not just the money thing. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Everything else must be considered together, not in isolation.

Times change. People are time poor. We're a gang of 14. All try to get together for birthdays. Last big one in February, husband. I organised it with DILs. From 5 to 74 years trying to accommodate all is a juggling act.

Sunday, father, son, three grandchildren walked with the dogs in the hills, no women required 🤣.

It isn't usual for the future mil to be invited along to wedding dress shopping. That's generally regarded as a special moment between the mother of the bride, and her daughter. Some women have the kind of relationship with their future mil where it feels entirely natural for them also to be included, but that is the exception, and you have to have the relationship first.

If I'm being charitable, it sounds like you have/are trying to accelerate to an intimate relationship with your dil where you are loved and respected as a second mother, and she's either not ready for that, or not even open to it. Just because she married your son, does not mean she owes you her time or affection. That's earned. And I suppose, again being charitable, you could feel that you have no opportunity to do this, because she doesn't give you any time. That doesn't mean she hates you. It just means she doesn't want another mum, and that's fine. It's harsh for you as you clearly have in your mind's eye what Family (capital F) looks like, and it's different to hers, but them's the breaks.

So you offered money for the wedding, they then found a venue that they could not afford because you were not clear about sums. You then expected someone planning a wedding to take you to buy your dress? Is this all correct? Perhaps you have done over other things over the years to irk her. She is not your actual daughter, just focus on your son. He must feel
so stuck in the middle. Why does your son have to book the restaurant? Is there a reason why when he says yes that you cannot? Because it just adds to his mental load when you are capable of doing it yourself

Cool. Have you followed even one piece of advice from any of the other threads?

But you haven’t taken on board any of the solid advice you were given on those previous threads.

Here you are again wanting them to come to yours for a meal every week. You really aren’t listening at all and just keep on pressing your own agenda.

Your son is now in a serious relationship with his wife and whilst I realise this is sad for you as prior to this he did a lot of caring duties whilst living with you, things have now changed.

You ring your son constantly. You already see him a lot. He’s told you it’s too much pressure and you have other children as well. Your DIL has backed off due to the pressure but you simply won’t listen to any of the clues you are being given.

@AnotherSadMIL

Why do you want a weekly dinner with just this child and spouse? Why not all together? And why weekly?

Why not do a monthly or quarterly big family meal? Or host the big occasions?

For us, we both work. We only have weekends together and to get things done. So if we were expected to spend every Sunday somewhere, that halves our time together and for jobs. Which makes life in general more stressful.

And now we have DD it would halve our time as a family.

DH drops into PILs most weekends for a couple hours, sometimes he leaves DD there for a bit so we can have a bit of a "date day" or get things done (or sometimes, just veg in front of the TV). Sometimes I go too if we have a quiet weekend and nothing needs doing. Sometimes none of us go.

My parents live further away, we see them around fortnightly, sometimes a bit longer between. They often come here for an afternoon, sometimes we go there for a couple of days (DD likes it better that way) but that does take up a whole weekend and sometimes annual leave and can then result in a lot of "catching up" in regular life.

They have a life of their own. It can't revolve around what you want. You have to fit into it however you can, and it will need to be on their terms or they won't be there when you actually need them.

I very seldom visited my ILs when DH did. Not because I hated them or even disliked them but because I didn't want to spend time with them as much as he did. That seemed reasonable to me as a newly wed 40 years ago and still seems reasonable to me now. I simply enjoyed having time on my own at home or pursuing other interests more than I enjoyed visiting them. I was happy to just see them at family events or larger social gatherings.

It seems a big leap to assume that her not making regular social calls on you equals hating you.

If you want to have a relationship with her (and any subsequent Grandchildren) you could always go to her. I do. We'll have a catch-up over coffee or a bit of food. I take an interest in her life and send messages. Your post comes across as a bit 'entitled', which is probably unintentional. Relationships are a two-way street.

Well I disagree, you have a particular style that is easily recognisable...I've seen at least 2 others and on all of these you've been told to back off. Yet here you are again

OP, you're good at using Mumsnet so I think you'd be able to look up restaurants online (or in the phone book if you prefer) and book something yourself. Why would you ask your son to do it for you?

From your previous threads I remember he did a huge amount for you (taking you to many appointments etc.)

I think you had other children who already have their own families and they were all happy for everything to fall on your youngest son. There's something really wrong with the dynamic and I feel very sorry for your youngest son.

Please try to stop putting so much on to him (I know that's probably hard to hear). He really sounds like a good guy, please please try to really genuinely support him and don't be sneaky, be the victim about it.

Ask them what would work for them, meeting on a week day after work, something over a weekend (maybe a brunch or just a coffee some morning). Don't make any comments that are back-handed insults, please just try to genuinely try to be flexible and be positive and have a good time.

I think you have nailed it. A lot of older people expect visitors to sit down and talk. Very few people have time for this these days. What a waste of time.

I wondered this too

“it be nice for us to have a weekly dinner at my house.”

OP, I think you are being very unrealistic - why on earth would your DS and DIL want to come and see you every single week? These days when everyone works, weekends are precious and are for seeing friends/going out/chilling. You live half an hour away, so that’s an hour round trip before they have spent any time at your house. You also complain that your DIL didn’t take you shopping before her wedding - seriously, why would she? She must have had a load of other things to do - weddings are stressful enough without your future MIL having a moment because you can’t fit her in to go clothes shopping. You are not her mother, and you don’t seem to understand that, unless you are extraordinarily lucky, for most women, you are close to your own DM and put up with your MIL. Don’t be surprised when your DS and DIL move further away just because they’ve had enough of your frankly unreasonable expectations.