To send MIL a passive aggressive text

[Ruperta]

Ok so bit of a back story and posted a few times previously. PILS are very involved in SIL family, essentially amazing GPs, provide childcare 2 days a week, often have them over night and take their son swimming every Saturday. They live 30 mins drive away which obviously is a reason for them being closer but there is a loooooonnnggg history of obvious favouritism to SIL family and children. SIL is lovely by the way and fair play I would gratefully take all help offered in the same way as she does.

In comparison we live further away (london) 2hrs on train, 4 hrs drive and we have a two children (1&3), the youngest the same age as SIL youngest. There has been lots of little episodes of things that have gradually grated me & my DH re:favouritism and lack of effort from MIL, many many many which are too petty to go into but last episode left a bit of a frosty atmosphere.

E.g they visited us twice last year, the second time we asked as a favour as we needed someone to look after children as I was a bridesmaid at the wedding. It was the first time me and DH had been out and DS2 was 10 months. They came down and basically used our house as a base, went out to meet old friends, arranged for family to come round on the day we were out at the wedding - I put my foot down and said that they agreed to look after children and they weren't to have friends round (they didn't ask us by the way, we found out the day before that 4 additional adults were coming round). Mil went sulky and didn't speak to me in my own house all weekend. So obviously things are quite frosty anyway. I was just annoyed as I thought they may want to spend a bit if time with GC.

Anyhoo so Xmas comes along, it was our 'turn' to spend Xmas with them (which I was slightly dreading) but when we asked them what their plans were they said 'we are going to SILs, what are you doing?' Absolutely no thought of spending time with us. Eventually a couple of weeks later SIL invited us but by then I arranged for my family to come round and there wouldn't 't have been any room at SILs for us anyway and we all seemed quite happy with plan.

Anyway (I hope your still with me) on Xmas day we facetime'd SIL (PILL had forgotten their ipad) and chatted to everyone but MIL didn't come to screen and say hello, benefit of the doubt she was probably busy I know. Then we tried face timing again over the next few days, they never rang us back. Eventually facetime'd again on Sunday but MIL had been out the night before and was unable to speak to us. So we haven't even spoken to her over Xmas.

I am so tempted to send her a passive aggressive text with pictures of the children over Xmas saying 'hope she had a lovely Xmas, we had a great time, it's a shame we weren't able to catch up properly over the Xmas period but thank you so much for the toys the children loved them. Hope you have a great new year'.

I just really want to highlight it to her and make it clear it's not really acceptable. They are such wonderful GPs to SILS children (they are having them overnight tonight) but she can't even be arsed to say merry Xmas to my kids. Relations are quite strained anyway, maybe I'll regret it but I'm really at the stage of thinking it is her loss if she can't be bothered to put the effort in.

FIL is lovely by the way but (as with the whole of the ILs family) he does exactly what she demands to get the easy life - I think that is why she doesn't get on so well with us as we don't do this and my DH (her son) apparently never has.

Sorry very long.

I know Pictish. My PIL have seen our DC once in the last twelve years. They live 15 minutes away.

The idea that they were completely disinterested in my children was immensely hurtful, especially when we needed support when DS2 was diagnosed.
But the very last thing that would have helped was my finding ways to make it worse. The idea that getting your own back is something everyone should do if they feel aggrieved is not helpful.

My 21 year old son is finding ways to manage his relationship with his grandparents now without my having over layered my point scoring and ratcheting up every drama into a fight.

I can understand why you feel upset and that your dc deserve love and attention from their GPs.

You want a relationship that isn't possible. My DPS just aren't interested in my DC and I've just had to learn to live with it. I tried to be specific about what I wanted and arranging opportunities for them to get together. It was all a bit meh and they were lukewarm at best.

My ds is an easy going, minecraft playing, chatty boy. It is difficult that he thinks my parents are dead. In his head, I think its the only reason why they send a fiver at Xmas and his bday and that they never ring or Skype. I've tried calling them but they just ask to speak to one of the grown ups.

I would leave it to your dh but would be open to suggestions to get together. I'm very straight forward and would try to sort it out. You don't have to like each other but you should be civil for the same of your dh and DC.

However, I would be livid if someone was ignoring me, especially if they were in my house. My DH's family do this to each other, often for weeks whilst living in the same house and it gives my the rage. I'd have tried to be civil and if that didn't work I'd have asked them to leave and made other arrangements. I've had a minor fall put with an in law and they got grumpy (fine). I made it clear what a big deal nit speaking for weeks would be and that I may not want to reconcile when they decided they were ready to. It's just how they deal with conflict and we could be civil until things calmed down. I won't visit if the ILS are giving each other the cold shoulder. They seem to calm down and then ignore the thing they were arguing about. DH did it once when we first moved in together 20 years ago. The longer it went on the more upset I became. I told him I would leave if it ever happened again and I would.

..that's not aimed at you btw Pictish I'm responding to the tone of the op in most of that.

Op you have had a roasting on here for the 'babysitting' issue. I'd be quite surprised if my parents invited their friends around to be honest ....although I'd probably not say anything as I'd be so grateful and shocked that they were helping out!!

The text isn't that bad as I said before I'd personally not bother.

I can kind of see where you are coming from.

Certainly don't think you are being overly 'precious' with your dc and compared to some of the mil texts you see in here your proposed one is actually quite pleasant!!

You were rude to her when they came down so yabu there. your text reads like a normal happy Xmas text. you sound v jealous tbh .

Why do people assume that the MIL invited people without telling OP or her husband? How could she tell MIL to uninvited them if she wasn't aware they were coming?

Rather than ignoring, I expect the mil was mortified and embarrassed that her dil had "put her foot down" and banned her husband's family from visiting, because of her offence at the lack of an explicit request.

And seriously, are people really so precious as to demand/expect that grandparents have to spend 100% of their visiting time "focusing" on the kids? Wow, how self-absorbed!

Mind you, my friend's FIL's idea if interacting with his grandkids was to tell them to shove off out of the way of the telly when he was trying to watch the footie! Not advocating that either.

Even if the OP was being rude about the visiting family, and the MIL was punishing her for that re. Christmas FaceTime - the MiL is punishing the children too by ignoring them as well. Regardless of your feelings for your DIL, why lump the children into the general ignoring? I would find that upsetting.

Good point, icimoi. Maybe the mil didn't word it according to the OP's standards.

The OP is perpetuating the potential loss to her children of a good relationship with their grandparents by even considering sending an arsey text to her husband's mother, along with being so rude to her last time she visited.

"they didn't ask us by the way, we found out the day before"

From the op re ILs inviting family.

That's still a bit unclear, though, diddl. It could have been that the mil said something along the lines of "Pam & John are passing by tomorrow, so thought they'd pop in to say hello," which isn't technically asking permission and could well, given the OP's sensitivities, have caused offence.

We all seem to be concentrating on the lack of permission here, but actually, this was just mentioned as an aside by the OP originally. Her main gripe appeared to be the fact that the visitors meant that the PILs weren't solely concentrating on interacting with the GCs. She was also narked about them using the place as a base for going to visit other people as well as them, hardly crimes of the century.

No wonder families fall out when people feel the need to confront and score points like this! My brother's wife and I were prone to rub each other up the wrong way at first (20+ years ago), but we both made great efforts to avoid conflict, understand each other etc. Now we're like best friends and spend loads of time together, often without my brother!

"Even if the OP was being rude about the visiting family, and the MIL was punishing her for that re. Christmas FaceTime - the MiL is punishing the children too by ignoring them as well. Regardless of your feelings for your DIL, why lump the children into the general ignoring? I would find that upsetting."

Agree. That is exactly what I was trying to say.

I read it that the ILs came for a couple of days of which one day was babysitting .

I was the person saying that I might not feel it was safe , mostly because my ds at10 month old would possibly have screamed the place down with four strangers meanwhile the toddler might have for up to alsorts . If the grandparents hasn't seen them for a bit I think I would have expected them to be fully occupied with two under three.

I cannot imagine ever visiting my ILs and inviting my family to visit , it would be spectacularly rude and my ILs ( who are lovely) would be horrified . They would expect us to be visiting them not effectively saying that we are using your house as a hotel and you are so boring we have had to invite others over .

I don't suppose she's deliberately punishing anyone. Worst-case scenario is that she feels very uncomfortable talking to the OP (and I don't blame her, to be honest). However, it could be as simple as just not "getting" or liking Face Time, or that she was out of the room doing the washing up or something at the time. That happened to me on Christmas Day, actually. Not Face Time, but my parents phoned my sister's family and I started off by hanging around to have a word, but after their conversation looked like going on for a bit, I wandered off to do something else. When I came back, they'd gone.

Their son lives there too remember. They're not in laws to him.

I can't imagine doing this at my parents either to be honest , certainly not without asking beforehand .

1 the proposed text is perfectly polite, if I received it I would be perfectly happy
2 fgs op, give your poor mil a break. To me, she's done nothing wrong at all, though perhaps could of mentioned visitors to your house when first thought of them, though I doubt it occurred to her that it could cause offence.

Not read everything but re: the wedding in my defence

1. I was leaving my 10month old & 2.5year old for the first time ever ( we have no close support) and it was for the whole day and night
2. 10 month was breastfed and this would have been the first time anybody else had put him to bed
3. They arranged to come down fr-sun. On the friday they arranged to go out and visit old friends anyway
4. We never asked anything of them re: children, they offered on this occasion. We just assumed for one day of the visit the children could have been there sole interest
5. We found out the day before all these extra people were coming round at midday when we were out at the wedding
6. When I say I put my foot down that's a bit of an exaggeration, I phoned DH up pissed off as I was worried about my DC and how they would settle for bed with all the extra people in the house and upset that they couldn't spare the day to look after DC. DH then phoned them up and asked them to rearrange for the Sunday - which they did
7. MIL then blanked me in my own house until the Sunday

There we go, but that's an aside. I'm fed up of my children being snubbed by MIL but I really shouldn't let it bother me (but it hurts). I really don't think I'm the DIL from hell (I don't think I have chance ;-))

Happy New Year's Eve AIBU!

I remember that thread. Not telling someonethat you've invited friends or family to their house is damned rude. What if the OP and her DH had wanted to see of pass good wishes onto these guests? They couldn't, as the guests were kept a secret. Even if your tone in pointing all this out was abrupt, OP, I think that is only human.

And the tone of your proposed text is "bridge-building" and "keeping the higher ground" rather than passive aggressive. I think it would be a nicething to send it: at least it won't escalate the situation in any way.

I don't think it's fair to berate the mil for "sulking" in the OP's "own" house either. She was probably very upset and offended herself, having been told off like a small child by her dil. Not easy to come back from that and be all whoopy-do.
And as I said, the OP didn't originally appear to be mortally offended by the lack of permission request, so was sharp and arsey about a difference in expectation as to what the babysitting required. That's the main thing about all this that is unacceptable. Who thinks it's OK to be so rude to someone who is doing you a huge favour?

I wouldn't send the text , it probably won't make any diiference.

I would have reacted exactly the same as you and in fact would have expected that with children that young they would have wanted to spend the day before familiarising themselves with the children's routine etc

Clam if you read the OPs update you will see it was her DH who contacted his parents , the OP did not give her a public dressing down.