DH on tap

[midlifecrisis64]

Around October time, DH's sister announced that her husband had asked for a divorce. I've never had a particularly close relationship with her as I have found some of her comments towards me and about my marriage to her brother wholly inappropriate. However, at this time, I did reach out to her asking her how she was and to let us know if we could do anything to help. My messages went unanswered. She then subsequently contacted DH to request that he didn't tell me anything about her news. Fair enough, I thought, not really any of my business anyway.

Fast forward a few months and DH is getting ear bashings from both SIL and MIL to say that we've not been supportive enough towards SIL and her situation. We live over 6 hours away from them and both work long hours - DH usually leaves for work at 5am and isn't home until after 7pm most nights. We saw them over the festive period, but SIL said she was too upset to see us and we only saw her a couple of times.

We get precious little family time in the evenings and have a young daughter who DH is keen to try and see in an evening. Usually he gets to see her a couple of evenings a week. The demand is that from 6pm when DH is travelling home from work until 9pm when we usually go to bed, he has his phone switched on at all times so SIL can speak to him when she needs him. This has happened previously and every evening for a couple of weeks he would be on the phone for her over an hour at a time.

AIBU to think this is unreasonable to place this expectation on him? I get she is going through a difficult time, but not to the point where she's needing to constantly ring him. I find her relationship towards him a bit uncomfortable as previously she wanted to know all about our intimate life!

I am trying to be open minded about it, but concerned that this is going to take DH away from quality family time. He's also under a lot of stress and pressure at the moment and he really doesn't need to be taking on anybody elses problems...

Jury's out!

Your SIL/MIL sound just like mine! Didn't think anyone else would be unfortunate enough to have similar.
We've only recently reduced contact, which has been a relief but also caused PIL to be very distant with poor DH.

Anyway back to your AIBU. No, YANBU! Their request is ridiculous and unhealthy and a bit weird.
However, what does your husband say? Is he happy to do it? Is he trying to please his parents? It's really up to him to stand up to them and explain that it's not something he's willing to do or come to a compromise.

I empathise hugely with you though as have so many similar situations with my in laws, they have caused us HUGE amounts of stress.

Depends on your relationship, really. If it's generally good, you'd want to support SIl. But it doesn't sound like it is, so...

You to MIL/SIL: 'Well, MIL, since SIL asked DH not to tell me anything about her news, I had no way of knowing what was happening and therefore couldn't help or be supportive.'

DH to his sister: 'Sorry, Mad Sister, it's not convenient for me to keep my phone on all evening - I want to spend time with dc, do the bedtime routine, have tea, and you know we go to bed ridiculously early so there's not much evening left for me to see Dear Wife. But let me know when you're free and I'll ring you. Or we can catch up at the weekend. Hope you're doing OK.'

Plus tell him not to tell her anything about your relationship if she has been inappropriate in the past...

Yanbu. I had a similar situation with a family member, it was a very controlling and manipulative situation and I felt that my children and I weren't allowed to have a life of our own (I was a sahm and a retired family member felt that she could phone me for long chats whenever it suited her and disrupt whatever the DC and I were doing)
If it was a one off and a genuine emergency then I wouldn’t have a problem with it but from your description it sounds like it’s becoming a pattern of behaviour. When is your young daughter spending time with her father? Are you having to pick up all the childcare whilst your husband is talking to his sister? I don’t doubt that his sister is having a hard time but that’s no reason to try to control another person time.

Definitely not being unreasonable.

You've made effort to reach out and been rebuffed. Your DH also lives far away and presumably doesn't see his sister often, she has also been rude about you, his wife. Why would he be her main source of support?

Surely she has friends?? Sounds like her and her mum are focusing on making it seem like you and DH are out of line instead of trying to move past the actual upset of her husband divorcing her.

Your SIL sounds extremely needy. She has obvious issues with you, which makes it even more annoying and complicated, but even if you were all on good terms, she shouldn't expect her brother to be "on call" every evening! She's going through a divorce, but that's hardly the end of the world. Time for her to grow up, or failing that, find one or two other supports, so she's not leaning so heavily on your husband.

I'd make it clear to your husband that you're not happy about her robbing you and your child of his time and attention, and that you're worried she's putting too many demands on him (and definitely tell him, if he doesn't already know, that you want to keep your private life private-- it's none of her damn business!).

...However, how forcefully I stated my case would depend on your husband's attitude about the whole thing. Will he be angry and defend his SIL? Or is he aware of how over-the-top she is and just needs your encouragement to tell her to back off?

How does your DH feel about all this?

Thanks everybody. Reassuring to know that the majority think I am NOT being unreasonable.

My DH is very defensive of his sister and we've had one or two rather heated arguments about her in the past. We had them to stay in the summer and one evening she started screaming at him telling him he was a control freak and how dare he speak to her in a certain way - he didn't. It all blew up over absolutely nothing. I was very annoyed that she felt this sort of behaviour was acceptable in our home. She had also made comments along the lines of it being obvious her brother was sexually frustrated and told me men had needs. He did get an apology from her before she left, but I didn't and since then I've not really gone out of my way really, although the distance also contributes to this.

I'm in a rock and hard place really as DH really places value on his family, but I do often remind me that he has a wife and DD too and we're family too.

I really don't want to fall out over her, but equally I don't want him bogged down with it all either, particularly given his own stress levels currently.

YANBU but I would just disengage with the situation completely. Don't fall out with your husband over it - some people love drama and I'm sure causing drama between you and your husband would delight your SiL. This ridiculous phone call situation won't last forever and if your husband can be bothered to indulge it, that's his problem.

Grit your teeth, be pleasant enough if you see her and otherwise give it absolutely no headspace.

(I have difficult in-laws and since I stopped engaging with anything to do with them beyond pleasantries, life has been lovely).

I'd let him get on with it. He'll get bored with it sooner or later.

I would suggest that your DH lets his sister know that the phone will be on from 6 - 7 only, when he is travelling. That way his sister can still speak to him for a hour and it doesn't affect family time. I would be careful about what your DH is saying if his sister is saying he is frustrated and "men has needs" where exactly is she getting that from? Sometimes relations between wife and MIL/SIL can be difficult because the husband is complaining to both parties about getting "ear bashing".

Please don't fall into the trap of trying to limit her crazy behaviour as suggested, e.g. by saying DH has his phone on 6-7pm to speak to her, that's ridiculous. Fair enough for the occasional call but he presumably is driving so may need to concentrate, deal with traffic jams or picking stuff up on the way home etc. Basically if you do try and allocate time then it only reinforces her belief that she somehow dictates his priorities, it's unhealthy and your DH cannot be the emotional crutch that his family seem to push him into.

Personally if it were me I'd have to nip this in the bud... I literally don't have time to sit and waffle every night in someone's woes.. support yes, occasionally longer calls np or if an emergency but not hours on the phone every week.

One of my parents used to do similar to me, except it was prompted by boredom and having been retired so long they'd forgot how pressured time is with stuff around full-time work. Even when they worked they didn't have the hour plus commute I've always had, so in their mind every evening I'm back home by 5.30pm and chilling (reality being my contracted hours are until 6pm with poor overtime expectations plus 1-1.5hrs commute on top). Even twice or three times a week phonecalls just doesn't leave time to make dinner, shower, eat, deal with life admin like bills etc if each call is an hour long!

The emotional bullshit pulled on me in my case made it come to a head. I was accused of "not caring" when the reality was that after getting home frazzled, needing to renew car insurance, dinner not started, I lost it because I didn't have an hour at 8pm to listen to details of Mrs Whatsherface's daughters new car.

Anyway, my point is that sometimes people put expectations on others that aren't reasonable and I'd urge you to sort it before you're at braking point like I was.

The key thing will be how your DH wants to handle it. Can you try and let him see that putting healthy boundaries where this is concerned is NOT being unsupportive. It doesn't mean he loves her any less. It's just that he has finite time, and saying yes to her for up to 3hrs a night means he can't fulfill a "yes" to the other equally important relationships in his life.

His phone can be on all evening - doesn't mean he needs to answer it.

When they criticise him, he just needs to say he'd answer if he was free to answer, but as it's a busy time with getting his daughter ready for and into bed, he's not got his phone to hand.

End of.

Can your DH phone his sister at 5am on his way to work? Something tells me she won’t be so needy then

What does she actually expect from him?

A phone call?
A visit?
To stay with you?

What a lot of nonsense from your SIL/MIL. If SIL needs a sensible listening ear (or just an audience), she can always crowdsource it with a thread or two on Mumsnet where there's lots of people ready and willing to analyse, advise and/or tell someone to pull themselves together.

When I got divorced I don't think I required anything from my siblings or parents other than to generally agree that exH was a hopeless, feckless tosser whom everyone was glad to see the back of.

It's definitely weird / melodramatic / passive aggressive to insist that your DH keeps his phone on in case SIL "needs" to talk to him about her divorce. The only time this is vaguely reasonable is when someone is seriously ill in hospital, lost in the wilderness, or potentially caught up in a warzone.

Staying with us again is out of the question. I am not keen to entertain her again after the last visit.

You are definitely not BU

However, if your DH is protective over his relationship with her he is also part of the problem so you don't need to worry about him being stressed, it's his choice.

If it is affecting his time with you and DC though, then you need to tell him that you guys must come first. It's only fair, your SIL is an adult whereas a child's time with their parent is precious.

Lol @ him phoning her at 5am when he's starting the work day.

Bet she'd tell him outright that it's not convenient to chat. But presumably she doesn't mind taking dibs on all his other time then!