To NOT return MILs calls?

[ScrambledToe]

PIL got back off holiday 2 days ago

Yesterday I received 3 missed calls and a voicemail saying she was calling for a chat and a catch up.

My DH has received NO missed calls!!

I made DH call her back, WIBU for not calling her back myself, despite the fact that she’s not even my mother!!

I’m so confused by some of the negative comments. OP works full time, DH worlds part time. She had there missed calls in one day - maybe while she was at work - and her husband received none.

OP - YANBU to screen her calls for a while to train her to chat with her own child. It doesn’t mean that you don’t enjoy your relationship with her. It means you have boundaries and you aren’t going to take on responsibility for managing your DH’s communication with his mum. That’s the wife work bit. Not whether you or others contributing enjoy nattering on the phone with your/their MIL or anyone else.

*three

MN is so anti MIL. Mine calls me all the time to chat and I see it as a positive thing. When I married her son I like to think I became part of the family and that's why I want a relationship with her. Of course you are entitled to have nothing to do with your husbands family, but I'd find that very harsh without a good reason.

I also think this is sad but so long as you'd have no issue with your husband refusing to take calls from your mum 🙄

I stopped facilitating contact a few weeks ago. He didn't speak to them for a week and they started texting me in a panic. They rang the landline instead of his mobile while no-one was home (No matter how many times I told them that they're calling the wrong number) and are now angry at me for ignoring them.
Me. Not their son

She obviously just likes talking to you more! My mil does the same to my husband and I (she does adore her son though!) When she calls him, she'll ask how the kids are and he'll say something along the lines of "they're good, they did xyz today." When I reply, she gets a loooong explanation of the day. She loves it, I don't mind it

My MiL calls me first because apparently ‘I’m the management’. If she doesn’t get the answer she wants she calls DH and tells him what she wants and doesn’t mention the fact we’ve already discussed it.
Last time this happened we were planning a day trip. She called me and said she wanted to come. I didn’t want to extend the invite as we hadn’t been there before and I wasn’t sure of the disabled access. I explained this to her and that we’d prefer on this occasion to go by ourselves. She then called DH and asked what time we were going and that she’d see us there.
If you’re not comfortable telling her outright to contact DH then just ignore her calls. At the end of the day it’s his relationship. If he can’t be bothered why should you.

Some MILs have a friendship with their DILs and like them as people not just as their sons wife. Sounds like this MIL is one of these. The OP needs to stop answering her phone when she sees it’s MIL if she doesn’t want a “friendship” with her.

Because when I phone him re arrangements etc. he invariably says, 'I'll check with DW'. I can't see the point in going round in circles.

My DS regularly rings me to chat, DiL never does (but will have a few words if I ring when they're at home). It doesn't bother me, as I get on well with her.
What does bother me is the above ^^ as I know that if DS suggests a weekend for us to meet up (too far to visit for a day) and DiL then goes on to arrange something with her family or friends, I'll get a phone call from DS (sometimes the week before I was due to visit) to say that he'd 'forgotten' that they were doing something else on that weekend...
We're 22 years into the relationship, so this has happened a good few times over the years, and I've always been understanding.
However, DS then gets annoyed with me because I've booked to do other things on the weekends around the one he'd suggested - and has (once!) asked whether I really wanted to see them..!
When I pointed out that I do have a life and although I'm happy to rearrange things if I can, I'm not sitting at home every weekend on the off-chance that they might manage to fit me in, it seemed to dawn on him that maybe it wasn't DM being unreasonable...

Yes @SudowoodoVoodoo that’s what I think too!

Women often love to communicate. Men often don’t.

Often I see this interpreted as men bad when in my view it’s just men different.

Crumbs, the nerve of the woman eh? Fancy wanting to talk to your DIL!

YABU. It's not crime of the century. I love a good MIL thread, but this is pretty harsh.

With your attitude and 'friendly' nature, I'm surprised she wants to chat to you.

Poor MIL, having a DIL like you.

Women often love to communicate. Men often don’t

So the mil get to chose and the dil has to suck it up out of some outdated stereotypes.

Bullshit
Men are no different.
Some are just reared by dinosaurs

I think it’s kinda mean. If she’s not a bitch and just wants to chat, what’s the harm?

The level of over analysis here must be downright exhausting for those living it every day in every situation.

Millie2018
What happened on the day trip? Did your MIL end up going after speaking to your DH?

My MIL started out by contacting me, not her son, as soon as we got married.

This was a mystery to me as she had managed to contact him perfectly well, right up unto the point he had a ring on his finger. It also suddenly became my responsibility to organise cards and presents for all the members of his family, most of whom I'd never met. Unsurprisingly, with a fulltime busy job, I turned out to be shit at this.

I stopped doing this, and after a few visits to her where she clung to me like glue and DH wandered off and did his own thing I pointed out to him we were seeing his parents for HIS benefit not mine and could he sort it out.

He now speaks to her everyday and they have a lovely relationship. Also I get on with her much better, from sorting this out early on and not leaving it to fester.

Don’t answer the phone but also don’t complain when DH begins to start planning family activities with your DC and Mil without you during the time you’re working.

Yep @Rainbunny.
Unfortunately my dh isn’t a phone chatter either

Dh works away 3 weeks at a time and we very very rarely talk on the phone.

That’s it @DappledThings I do get on well with them and even go to stay without dh and vice versa

they’ve just been on hols for 6 weeks with only a few texts as contact. You’d think she’d call her ds! Not dil

YANBU. Maintaining social relationships takes effort and time. You already maintain your side of the family. Your DH needs to maintain his.

If MIL just wants to chat (as many on here are suggesting), why call you three times and not try him once? Esp since you work FT and he only works PT.

Why though @AmIRightOrAMeringue? He doesn’t even want to chat to me every weekend when away at work, he shouldn’t have to chat to mil? What should they chat about? The school run?
I like your 2nd idea though

God you sound a nightmare.
No she doesn’t

Christ there's another
Are all those who don't want to speak to mil happy for their partner and mil to make all the plans then, and they'll just fit in. Somehow threads on here don't support that theory.