Married to Mum?

[SaveMePlease]

Hi all - AIBU? Big moan/rant ahead

I'm a man who has been married for 8 years. I have a great relationship with my in-laws (and my MIL in particular), but the relationship between my DW and MIL is now impacting me so much that it's reaching breaking point for my marriage.

My DW is very close to her mum and it's something I used to see as incredibly positive. Whilst I did have grumblings about how often they spoke on the phone (personally it seemed a bit unhealthy but more because it might interrupt a movie we might be watching), it wasn't a huge issue. However since having kids, I'm finding their whole relationship unbearable and even consider a breakup reasonable just to maintain my sanity.

Since having kids, my DW speaks to her mum on the phone multiple times a day including in the evenings when the kids are asleep. They talk about fairly unimportant things and whilst that is none of my business, it's the minute run down of what the kids have been up to, what they ate, what time they went to sleep which drives me mad as I'm basically having to next to DW on the sofa, putting our evening on hold or having a show/film on pause to essentially listen to a rehash of our day. Often it will involve my MIL making her own suggestions about why we didn't try this or that as well. I'm sure many of you can understand that when you have two kids under 3, having a few hours in the evening to watch TV is the only time you might get some down time and instead, I have to break this up so that my DW can speak to her mum for the third time to update her on what the kids have done in the four hours since they last spoke.

In the last six months we've been on holiday twice. I was looking forward to having some time with just me, DW and kids and instead, every evening was once again a long video call so they could literally go through everything we did on the day whilst on holiday. At one point, as we were in a hotel room, I decided go and have a 40 minute shower just to hide myself away. I have told DW about how excessive calls are ruining our evenings and it's now got to a stage where when her mum calls, at any time of day, I will just leave the room to try and maintain a calm distance (something DW has actually told my MIL I do).

I should add that MIL actually comes over to pick up and drop off the kids twice during the week so it's not even that she doesn't see the kids and is compensating by video calling all the time. Often they'll spend more time on the phone on the days when they've already physically seen each other!

My in-laws, whilst happily married, basically operate as individuals who do their own separate things 90% of the time. What that seems to mean is that my MIL who doesn't work and has lots of free time, is taking the luxury to call my DW whenever she wants and assumes that like my FIL, I don't want spend evenings with my DW.

I think what upsets me is that I have brought this up with my wife and whilst she said we should sit down and talk about it later this week, she has indicated that I am in the wrong. I'm from an Asian background where there is a lot more emphasis on the 'marrying into the family' but I certainly don't agree with this and in any case, this all feels like too much involvement in our immediate family. I do have wider issues over MIL getting involved in all sorts of decisions but I'll keep this focussed on what I see as excessive phone calls.

I know many women have incredibly close relationships with their mums but I see this as eroding the independence within our relationship and for right or wrong, it's impacting the dynamic of my relationship with my wife. AIBU?

@Peanutbuttercupisyum

What’s wrong with discussing it with her Mum instead of or as well as friends?

Speaking as a woman who is very close to her mum and grandma, this is ridiculous!

I think some women basically see their mum as their child raising partner and main emotional support and their husband as someone who dips in and out. And a lot of men are happy with that dynamic too.

But it sounds like you aren't which is a problem.

I wonder if the way to address it is to be less "don't call your mum" and more "once a week, I would really like to have a phones away, just us evening where we can really chat and focus on each other, is that ok?"

My sister in law is like this with my MIL, to the point where her husband has been pushed out and barely has a role anymore...even all 'family' holidays/days out etc are only taken with my MIL. Bizarre

I see, then it sounds like your MIL is maybe more in the driving seat of this unusually intense closeness. I think she's being a brilliant support for both you and your DW, and is obviously very caring and involved with your kids. I'd just tread very carefully because neither of them are doing anything inherently wrong.

You've had loads of good suggestions on how to go about hopefully getting more quality time with your DW in the evenings without creating an enemy out of your MIL.

You could also plan a cinema date with her every couple of weeks when MIL has the kids, go see anything. She can't/won't be on her phone at all then!

I just want to thank you @SaveMePlease for posting this. At first I actually thought it was my DH who had posted this about me as this is what me and my mum are like. I FaceTime her at least 2-3 times a day. I have a 15 week old baby and the FaceTime calls have increased. My husband has also commented on it.

Time for me to scale it back - thanks again and to the replies on here for opening my eyes

Probably because she’s on the phone with her mother, so he can’t.

It think you actually love your wife which is adorable so just have an honest chat with her. I'm sure you'll be able to work it out. Don't keep it in like you clearly have for a while as it's eating you up. Just TALK to her.

I suspect this problem is not going to go away quickly but I think you can do things to help it. I think if you try to make too big a change, she will be unhappy and will be unable to follow through, and it will end up with you feeling like she is not listening to you. I think you need to find out what need these conversations with her mother fill for her, and then see if there is way to get her needs AND your needs met at the same time.

I also think you yourself need to work out, what is a boundary you can draw that meets your own need and that does not step on your wife's boundaries. I don't think you can say, 'You need to not talk to your mum after 7 pm." That is controlling your wife's behavior. But you could say, "I am tired after work and I need to feel like I can relax at some point in the evenings. So I would like that, by 8 pm, I can watch a show and wind down for bedtime. This means I would like the house to be quiet, no more social phone calls after 8 pm, as the noise is distracting. Is that possible for you?" That is asserting your own boundary: you want some downtime to watch tv that is not at the mercy of having to stop for undefined periods and listen to her half of her conversation with her mother.

Now, she may just decide that she will take her mother's phone calls in the bedroom so you can watch a show by yourself. Then you have to decide how to handle that.

OP, this sounds very much like the relationship my DM had with my DGM. My mums side of the family are also Indian. My DM was the youngest and deferred to my nan on almost everything. My DGP lived with us for several years when we were very young , and when they moved out DM visited them every single day. Growing up our lives revolved around them to an unhealthy degree which I can see once I had a partner and family of my own.

My parents relationship crumbled under the strain of my DGM presence in their relationship and DM reliance on her mum, so much so that my dad just gave up, both being a husband and father. Don’t get me wrong my nan was a wonderful woman, but she enabled my DM inability to make her own decisions and live independently of her parents.

My dad treated my mum terribly, it’s in no way an excuse but my mum involved my nan in every aspect of her life, and to be fair she always made some excuse not to have time with just the two of them, eventually my dad stopped asking and started living his life separately from us all, which eventually led him to numerous affairs and they finally divorced about 5 years ago having had a miserable excuse of a marriage for over 30 years.

I do think my mums relationship with my Nan was at the heart of the failure of their relationship, although I also think my DF was not really cut out for family life and to fair he was a complete dick for most of our lives.

In your position, you are going to have to set boundaries, the issue is with your DW, she is sabotaging your marriage. She seems aware of what she’s doing so the question is why is she doing it knowing that it’s upsetting you to the point that you cannot be in the same room as her?