MIL sending passive aggressive texts to son via me

[comfortblankie]

WIBU to tell my MIL that I'm not her son's secretary and to stop asking me to tell her son to keep in touch with her?

We're on holiday at the moment, but even at the weekend at home she would text me, demanding that he would phone her asap.

It's never urgent or a crisis, but definitely if she carries this up she'll be like the boy who cried wolf.

Cuboid in 30 years you have never communicated directly with your PILs.

Goodness.

Pil don't communicate with me. They go via Dh. Well. When they remember.

The last time mil said anything to me it was to remind me that I'd forgotten Mother's Day. We hadn't. We'd sent something when it was Mother's Day here in uk. She was sulky because we'd missed Mother's Day in NZ where she lives. U.K. Mother's Day doesn't count any more. She hasn't actually spoken to Dh since.

tell her to phone him! then ignore.

Just tell her directly but gently that she needs to communicate with her son and that you won't be brokering their adult relationship. I've found that women of my late mum's/MIL's age can expect the DW to do that kind of stuff because it was expected when they were younger.
Just be gentle about it. Worked for me.

I do feel for my MIL. She adores DH, and he never contacts her off his own back. He always remembers her birthday and Mother's Day, but it never occurs to him to call her outside of special occasions unless I mention it. I've had to really twist his arm to persuade him we should visit her over the holidays, and even then we're going for as short a time as possible. When she visits us he makes no effort to change his normal routine and has to be reminded that she probably wants to spend time with him, not just me and the kids.

There's no problem in their relationship, he loves her and always speaks very fondly of her, he just doesn't seem to realise their relationship needs nurturing. So I remind him, because I have a son, and while I hope he'll grow up to be more considerate of his old mum; if he doesn't, I hope he'll have a thoughtful partner who'll give him the odd nudge.

Having said all that, while my MIL has my mobile number - and we even exchange the odd call or text, imagine that! - she doesn't contact me looking for her son, and if she did I'd ask DH to tell her that I'm always happy to chat if she wants to speak to me, if she wants to speak to him she should call him herself!

'sorry I forgot to pass the message on' each time

Tell him yourself, his number is xxx. Despite having a vagina I am neither his mother nor his secretary.