To remove SIL from the group chat?

[whyberude]

We have a family group chat, my mum, my brothers, me, my husband and my brothers wife (SIL)

I just find her so rude. We all message each morning just to say good morning to which she never replies or messages good morning to us. It takes just a second of your day? Means a lot to my mum, her MIL who lives alone and can be lonely. Why can't you just say it?

She very, very rarely engages in conversation. If you @ her directly in the chat she will reply (which leads me to suspect the chat is muted and she only gets notifications when tagged...)

Only one in a blue moon do I click on the chat and see two blue ticks, and when I slide across she is the only one who hasn't read them. All the messages in the chat will be grey ticks for weeks at a time until one day they'll randomly be blue where she's finally clicked on us (and there must of been hundreds of missed messages by that point)

She will very rarely send a photo or video of her kids, to which I just ignore. If you don't want to bother with us I'm not bothering with you.

AIBU to just remove her? Clearly she doesn't want to be in it, so why does she need to be? It is just so rude.

Does SIL get along with your mum? Have you considered the possibility that she has another chat with your mum or another group chat that is just brother, SIL and your mum ?

I can absolutely relate to SIL, I'd mute chat this chat too. What is the actual point of perfunctory 'good morning' everyday?

You suspect she has it on mute. You are probably right.

I have DHs family thing muted so they have to @me to grab my attention

I don't want to be included in their daily family chat. I am not a brother, sister or parent. I have my own family chat for that, DH and other OHs are included and similarly muted, easy to include as and when

She may be being considerate, as we all are.

I think I'm the SIL! We have one too, and there is an insane amount of trivial crap that goes backwards and forwards on there - I ignore the vast majority of it, as I've got 101 other things that need to take priority over what is about 95% meaningless content and an abundance of emoji reactions. I honestly don't give a flying toss that my niece's dog had a shit at 9:35 this morning, when the little darling usually goes at 9:45 on the dot. I also don't care that little Johnny spilt his lunch down him and had to have an entire outfit change.

If your family thread follows anything along these lines, I don't blame the SIL for not tuning in constantly!

I do think it would be rude just to delete her, why not simply ask her if she wants to remain in the group instead, if the volume of traffic is too much for her?

However this:

She will very rarely send a photo or video of her kids, to which I just ignore. If you don't want to bother with us I'm not bothering with you.

is making you 100 times worse than her.

Please get your phone and type good morning, it doesn't even take a full second. How on earth is that intrusive? If you can't spend literally less than 1 second of your day on family that is rude... I don't see how it isn't rude.

You assume that everyone is permanently attached to their phones, some people have real lives. I don't believe that anyone can type 'good morning' in under one second either!

Isn't it normal to mute groups? Surely the only WA that you don't mute is for actual messages rather than pictures/ general chats.

@whyberude do you message your MIL everyday, what about the rest of your in-laws?

If she works she might be showing as active on WhatsApp for work reasons. Me and my team have a WhatsApp group and we communicate via th8s every day.

but I don’t have time to read social messages until later. I’d never have the time for inane wittering of good mornings.

I'd be removing myself from the family Whatsapp - this sounds like the text message equivalent of the Waltons bedtime routine.

Just message your own mother individually or better still give her a call once in a while, or you know, actually see her.

You don't need to do it while virtue signalling how wonderful you are to have spent 30 seconds sending a text in some kind of Whatsapp family circle jerk.

Jesus that's intense. I would definitely mute that chat. Don't delete her just because she doesn't want to be pinged several times every day for something silly. When she's busy getting kids to school going to work etc.

Deleting her is excluding her
If it's something important @ her bit you're level of contact is unreasonable

Also I have turned off the thing that tells people whether I've read messages. Perhaps your SIL had has the good sense to do that as well.

I’d hate this level of mundane messaging

Are you my SIL? I am on DH's group family chat, and I rarely engage, as it's so fucking boring, especially the stuff that my SIL posts. She once called me out for not participating, so I continued not to participate!! You sound like hard work.

Crikey. That is way too intense. We have a family whatsapp chat too and if it was anywhere near that frequent/that level of expectation I would be deleting myself from it sharpish! You are being incredibly unreasonable!

OP, I can understand feeling a bit slighted by this. My brothers wife has, in different ways, bunmed me out that she’s not into engaging with our internal family culture.

its been helpful to talk it through with my husband and get a loving but external perspective. He laughs at how tribal we all are. My SIL is much more introverted than us + is very self contained (she’s smart, and loves my brother, but just doesn’t really get us)

I know I get overwhelmed by all the group chats I’m on. It is a bit crazy how immediately so many people have access to our peace - I mute most of them most of the time. Including my own family ones. I think that if she was being rude or didnt want to be involved at all she’d just delete herself. She’s not - she’s just got some (quite reasonable) boundaries around her energy + peace. You mention she has small children - I bet she has 100s of messages a day from a gazillion group chats. And probably family expectations from her own side too.

if I was you I’d try and reframe it to yourself as ‘she’s a bit overwhelmed by it all and carving out some peace. And then let it go. Don’t let her stuff take up space in your head.

Sorry you really do sound awful and entitled, yeah if you remove her you are just showing your true colours to be fair!

It's a family chat and she is family. Why cause a potential problem by removing her. Just let her be. All members of the group can use/not use as they want to. To be clear, you cannot dictate how others choose to use the group. Sorry....

Op you sound like a complete and utter nightmare.

I feel sorry for your sil.

Get over yourself.

This is phenomenal and my favourite thing I’ve ever read.

Good evening everyone.

Also sounds like you have jealous issues with her spending time with your brother, all seems abit too much! Saying good morning everyday 😳 just too much. Please take a step back and reread this from outsiders point of view.

Did she even want to be in it in the first place?

I hardly ever check whatsapp. It's not personal or rude at all, I just don't use it much.

This is phenomenal and my favourite thing I’ve ever read. Good evening everyone.

Evening, @TempyBrennan 😂

I'm team SIL - that sounds completely OTT, having to message good morning every single day?! Sounds a bit full on.
Especially seems unfair as you say she does reply if you tag her, so she is engaging.
Loosen up a bit

OP you surely do not say good morning every morning.
The only people I know who do that are my gran and her sister in their 80s.

I'm in an extended group chat and an otherwise lovely family member set it up in covid and we all shared what we wrte doing with our day. All this time on, they still post and nobody responds.

In answer to your question, I think your sil would be mightily relieved to be removed.

As a PP asks - does your husband ever respond?