To insist MIL asks me, not DH, when making plans that involve my kids?

[Maree1986]

Just to be clear, this is not a MIL-bashing thread. She's great, and a loving, involved grandmother. I'm lucky and I know not everyone has decent grandparents in their children's lives.

BUT whenever she wants to do something with the kids, she naturally asks DH, her son, and not me.

I am the one who organises the family calender and their lives, not him. He will just say yes, should be fine, and then immediately forgets the whole thing, and never mentions it to me.

Now, I KNOW that the actual person in the wrong here is DH but since that's what he's like I have said to MIL that it would be easier for everyone if she just went through me.

So last week we were together, me, her and the kids and she announces to the kids that she's taking them to the cinema this weekend! Absolute first I've heard of it and she gets the kids all excited. I said, no, I'm really sorry, but I've got something else on and it's all booked and paid for, you need to ask ME when you arrange stuff. She got all huffy.

Is it an unreasonable request? Obviously I am pissed at DH too, I'm not putting all the blame on her, but I don't know why she can't just do it.

• not calling the work calendar a 'family' calendar
• not telling other people they need to make plans through her

How does that equal

• never make any plans
• never use a calendar

They obviously have zero communication skills and each make their own separate plans then hers overrule his if there is a clash
It's one way of doing things

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

No I'm not. What I am is someone trying my hardest to ensure my kids, a boy and girl, don't end up in the 'natural roles' society sets for them. I never want my boy to make some poor woman miserable and I definitely don't want my girl to end up as a house elf. So yes, short term, train the DH. Let the kids see this process. However, the OP has decided to just carry on making plans as she is happy with the way her family runs. Wouldn't be for me but we are all different.

They are her kids, they are his kids, they are their kids - people are always trying to jump on what is normal innocuous sentences as some sort of gotcha. I can refer to ds as my son, dh can refer to ds as his son - it doesn't mean that either of us does not recognise the other's importance - it is only as you want to suggest the op is controlling

There is no indication that that is the case, the op had already booked and paid for an activity- it sounds more like first come first served from what I have read. And the husband is not at the door waiting to go out with his parents and kids - he literally does not recall saying yes, he isn't actively making plans. He probably just says yes to everything.

Did you know you were sexist?

This is a great demonstration of why we are still where we are even in 2023.

Man is shit.
Woman expected to solve Man's shitness

Come on OP - help womankind out here!!!

Op certainly doesn't say she had booked this event before her mil/dh had made their plans, so there's no reason to think it's first come, first served.

That's another way again to organise things.

Another way could be family first, so whenever family want to do something, thd other plans are dropped. Ops sister seems to work that way. Perhaps her dh does as well

Yet another could be - if there's a clash, op gets to do what she had planned. Still reads to me like that's how she runs things.

My sister doesn't work that way, she was embarrassed and felt silly when I explained that we would be away on Holiday for her DS's birthday. She is however in the UK for five whole weeks and we are only away for 10 days of it.
She certainly wouldn't expect me to cancel a holiday costing thousands and planned for over a year just because she didn't think to tell me she was coming specifically for his birthday. We will just have to have fun in other ways.

Mil had not purchased cinema tickets

Mil had not purchased cinema tickets

MIL had indeed not purchased cinema tickets.

I think there's a huge point here 5hat people are missing and that I should have brought up before.

I have asked her before to make plans through me before, with DH present, AND SHE AGREED.

SHE AGREED. Then she went ahead and asked DH anyway. Yes, he's a shit, but there was a definite breaking of the agreement we made there which I do think gives my plans priority.

I honestly find that to be hugely controlling behaviour. It's the part I found most worrying. Has noone else ever said to you that you can't demand that everything goes through you and your dh doesn't get equal say in things?

Perhaps they both disagree that you are the final arbiter but are both too passive to directly challenge you?

Ah, you mean first come as in whoever pays first rather than when the agreement was made for the event? I was talking about who made the agreement for the day first.

Yes, that would be yet another way to decide who gets final say.

Tricky for all the family events as they never involve buying a ticket to visit grandma/auntie/friends.

So many different ways to decide who gets final say.

"Worrying" 😂

No. Neither of them are passive people in the least. They are both very able to stick up for themselves against me, the big mean wife/DIL.
I have known DH (and his mother) since we were children. We've been together since our teens and are now in our late 30s. I know him inside out and I know for sure that he would tell me if he was uncomfortable and that I would sense that he is. Her too. And he would tell me if his mother was uncomfortable too.

We decided together that I would be the main caregiver of the children and manage their lives. It's the reason we set up our business the way we did, so that I can work from home and be flexible around them, giving him the freedom to work wherever and whenever he needs to, without worrying about childcare or plans with the children, unless he is directly involved in them. I would also be the one handing the kids over to MIL for said cinema trip.
Noone is uncomfortable here. Noone is controlling. They are simply not doing their side of things.

"Noone is controlling. They are simply not doing their side of things."
But who made you the boss?

Honestly if you can't be bothered to read what I said which perfectly answers your question already, and just want to cherry pick key phrases, then I really don't see the point in talking to you.

How does “I manage the work calendar. I also manage the family calendar.” equal “We only have one calendar” or “He’s not able to view or use the family calendar for scheduling”?

How does any of this mean “He does not want me to manage the calendar but I’ve given him no choice.”

He has access to the family calendar. He chooses not to consult it or to put anything on it.

Following your suggestions, no one would be keep a schedule at all. “Hey kids, not sure what plans your Dad made for today. We are agreed to go to a birthday party but let’s see if someone else like Grandma shows up to take you out first!”

If he doesn't use the 'family' calendar then it's not the family calendar, is it? It's op's calendar and she just calls it the family calendar. He uses a different way to arrange family events. It's a total lack of communication between them but op insisting there is a family calendar when there isn't, doesn't help.

@Maree1986

Honestly if you can't be bothered to read what I said which perfectly answers your question already, and just want to cherry pick key phrases, then I really don't see the point in talking to you.

Yep - this person is playing their own game. A waste of energy responding to them I think. 🌹

He doesn’t use any calendar. He also doesn’t inform the interested parties.

If you want to have a meeting at work do you you decide on it, store the info in your head, then just go sit in the conference room at the time you decided on wondering, “how come no one else has shown up?”

I think you are having fun here, no one is really this obtuse.

I get that what you do works for you both (usually), OP. But at the same time it's de-skilling him, and he's just learning that he doesn't have to think anything through and check availability, or even take responsibility for where he has to be whem, whether it's business appointments or family.

I realised that I was doing a similar thing in my marriage. I was the money and buudgeting person. I did all the bank stuff, all the family account keeping, all the bill paying. I liked having control of that, and as we a weren't on high salaries and were constantly budgeting and saving, I liked being in control of it. And my late DH liked me being in control of it and just letting him know how much 'pocket money' (for want of a better term) he had to spend each month, because he knew that he'd spend more without thinking about it if he was let loose on it.

But after a couple of decades of this, i realised that if anything happened to me, he wouldn't have the first clue about anything to do with our finances and bills. And that's really not a good thing. As it turned out it was him who went first, but I had already tried to involve him more.

So yes, MIL thing apart, I think you need to ensure that you taking full control of the calendar and him not having to even look at it because you'll tell him what's happening, isn't setting him up to fail should you ever be incapacitated.

If my mother in law arranged things through her son, my husband, she would never see the children. He would read the message and then never reply because he's like that. Always has been. Maybe that's my mother in laws issue as she's the one who raised him, not me.
So as she knows he's useless, memory wise, she talks to me, as I'm the one who knows what's going on each weekend, if they have school parties or sports clubs etc. If she couldn't communicate with me after I'd asked her to then that's her problem.

I don't think you are being unreasonable OP to just ask your mother in law to message you instead, I think feminism is being taken a bit too far here. We all have our strengths and weaknesses and all have our roles within the family unit whatever they may be.

It’s really nice she wants to spend time with her grandchildren and had the courtesy to ask. Just suggest as your husband is useless, she discuss with you instead

Yeah totally with u she has to ask you or she risks clashing with plans you made. Just say sorry once again your son didn’t consult me I have plans and that’s it nothing else you can do op x

Just tell your husband to tell your MiL to message you as he’s useless at remembering thing.