MIL wants to text 24/7

[jasminesmummyttc]

My MIL and I have a very civil relationship, we invite her to our house at least once or twice month and if she's in the area more often she can always pop in, we've never said no (whether my husband is home or at work). And when they do visit we’re absolutely fine, no conflict, have polite conversation. I'm a SAHM. She’s (seemingly) happily married and seems to have a lot of friends near where she lives (about 1hr from us)

She has recently decided she wants to text me 20-25 times per day (no exaggeration) with things like 'are you enjoying the sunshine' 'do you want to see my new vase' 'i just swam, isn't swimming such a nice sport?' 'what's the baby doing' 'how is your mum' ‘are you having a nice day’ ‘how was the park’ and honestly it's a bit much for me. If I give short responses like 'yes thank you' or 'all good, thank you' or '👍🏼' or if I ignore the messages she doesn't get the message and sends more random questions and chat. If i try to call her and discuss all these pressing questions, then she will act surprised if I round off the call after 15min (nothing is said, just the same small talk) she acts surprised that I gtg and tries to fall back later with something new like ‘oh you’ll never believe what I saw in M&S! Heart shaped cookies so I bought them but they don’t taste as nice as I hoped’ . I told my husband I'm finding it annoying and I don't have time to keep pointless talk going - id rather play with my DD or cook her a meal than be glued to my phone. He subtly told her that I'm not loving the messaging (she would start with a good morning message around 7am and try to keep the conversation going all day) but I'm happy for her to join us for a day some time soon so we'd go out for a walk, playground, have lunch together etc and this apparently made my MIL very upset because she has that kind of relationship with my SIL - her daughter who doesn't have kids and has a relatively chilled job. They message from morning to the night and share every minor detail ('had salad for lunch' 'saw a cute dog'). Now my husband is upset that his mum is upset...

Jaysus OP - that would do my head in and probably put me off MIL longterm. There is no need for 20/25 useless BS messages every f__ing day.

I would be putting her chat on silent and check it once a day whenever suits you.

Your DH sounds line a wet fish.
I would forward every single message to him and tell him to respond.
Every.Single.Message.

I would have no problem with a family group set up on WhatsApp.
Just because someone messages you doesn't mean you have to respond.

You don't have to reply to every single message you know. Just mute her and reply every day or 2 - 'just catching up, busy day you know what it's like with a baby. Off to bed now, Hope you're well' and repeat until she gets the hint,

This would drive me bonkers. I like the idea of forwarding all these messages to your husband though....

Like a pp, my MIL would be like this with me but i just won't play ping pong texts with her. Honestly if she told DH she was upset about it and he passed that on it it would change nothing except to make me think worse of DH. I'd say sorry but i don't look at my phone that often .... vague vague vague. I'm a SAHM at the mo as well, but i won't be held to ransom because of it.

There's a family group chat which i am not a member of because i can't stand the constant one upmanship with who's doing the most amount of worthy activities and/or exercise between the siblings messages and i just wont be drawn into texting MIL.

Play the long game and just carry on as you are happy to OP (ie: answer when you're happy to and not if not) and if they all get their knickers in a twist let them! Presumably DH is not going to divorce you over it or going to gaffer tape you to a chair with one hand free for the phone for MIL all day, so what's the logical conclusion going to be in the end? She'll give up.

Not exactly the same as it wasn't this intense and the relative isn't as close as a MIL (still on DH'a side though), I just often don't respond tbh or not for long periods of time and eventually she backed off a bit. We still get on great though and she didnt make a drama out of it with DH or anything so I guess the issue here is more MIL's personality than the texts themselves.

I hate banal text chit chat, I can't even tolerate it from my DH or own mother.

Just message her once in the evening a reply to her days worth and say how busy you've been interacting with your daughter and don't get much time to pick up your phone.
Stick to it.

Yes, I was thinking that. I’d get my dad to constantly text him about garden tools etc. That should drive the point home. If your DH says that you’re on mat leave while he’s working, remind him that may leave is your work.

It's hard I think for many mil or parents in fact. Want to be seen as friendly and taking an interest in your life without being too much. I agree 20+ messages is too much. Say I love to hear from you Mil but I'm so busy now and can only reply realistically once a day really. Hope you understand

You are under no obligation to reply to her mindless messages. She's intrusive and needs a hobby
I'd personally mute her calls and reply when / if I wanted. She'll hopefully get the message
And definitely forward all messages to dh

Does she work or have friends to go out with? Perhaps She can suggest clubs she can join.Does she live alone sounds lonely and needy.I agree mute messages and only answer at end of day or just reply on the group chat.

This would give me the rage. A couple of messages per week are my limit- that's how my mum and MIL do it. 20 messages a day, I would go crazy.

Even waiting till lunchtime or till after work and having to read through all of that and send back a message to let her know you read them or you'll talk later, etc, would bother me, because it presumes that she has the right to expect you'll be in contact with her every day. No one has the right to my time or attention every day except my husband and children. It's essentially trying to force you to do emotional labor for her, salving her need for constant attention, with no consideration for the impact on you. Looking after the needs of a spouse and children is enough emotional labor without having other people assume they also have a right to make you pay them the attention they desire.

In addition, the implication of her daily 20 messages, her responses of "when can I call" when you try to bow out of constant contact, it seems like it carries the idea that even a once-a-day summary response to her messages is a cop-out on your part. So you're doing more than you're comfortable with, but it's far too little for her. It's basically a chess game for her to see how much attention she can get out of you without you making yourself the bad guy by reacting in a way that she and your husband can label as rude (and thereby make you then even MORE obligated to do what she wants). I've come to realize this is just a manipulation tactic. They push and push for you to do the thing they want. You politely respond "no thanks," then "no, I can't" then "No, it's not possible" and so on, and they keep pushing. Eventually you get annoyed and respond sharply, "NO!" and they get all upset that you were "rude" to them. And that is then used to guilt you into giving them the thing you said "no" to in the first place, because by speaking in a sharp tone, or saying it in a non-ideal way, you've just PROVED that you're the bad guy. But the constant pushing and pushing is never acknowledged by them as being inappropriate or rude.

So it can be very difficult to maintain your boundaries with a person like this. I suppose one way you could do it is to just put notifications of her messages to you on silent and ignore them. Continue to contact her at whatever frequency you normally do. Or, if she constantly brings up that she keeps trying to message you and you don't respond, just breezily say, "Oh I don't usually chitchat all day, I'm more of a talk by phone once a week or two kind of person." It doesn't matter if you chitchat over messages with your own mum and your best friend, because "usually" doesn't mean "every single time". Your relationship with your own mum is "unusual."

OMG. NGL that would really piss me off. I would 'lose' my phone. Has she got nothing better to do in her life?

If you d tried forwarding them and saying nicely that you can't only reply once a day I think the issue is that DH doesn't value what you do in the day. So time to change that.

DH gets home and say "I'm just looking out to the supermarket, could you put DD to bed please"? If he asks why, you've been busy talking to his DM all day.

No sooner ready the next night, well you've been busy again haven't you.

Shirts not washed or ironed, deary me, all this chit chat with his DN really is time consuming isn't it.

Exactly - and she also has time to write a long post on MN and read all the responses.

I get that there are too many texts, but it would take literally seconds to respond to a few of them, which would keep her happy. You could even tell her that you don't have time to respond to them all.

I'm so grateful I will never be a MIL - whatever they do is wrong!

Block her. Texts, calls, everything. Unblock her in the evening every day or two, send one cheery message, then put her back on block.

She will probably start calling your H. Win-win. Now she's his problem. You're busy and can't be on your phone in the daytime, end of story. She will probably stop quite quickly once she stops getting reinforcement for this.

This!! Absolutely this. Let dh deal with the endless questions .

I could have written this! This is what I did too. I also now go out and do what I want to do when they visit because I never get any time to myself and DP gets loads of time alone when I'm at my parents who live nearby.

Passive aggressive thumbs up emoji... every...single...message.

She'd need a thick skin to keep going.

What a load of shite.

There are thousands of MILs to members here who will be no bother. People tend to post about the ones who are arseholes because they want advice. Those who don't have problems don't post.

Sorry about the typos.

I'm an introvert with a confident personality, e.g. comfortable doing public speaking, so people rarely realise how much solo time I need unless I tell them. This peaked once DS started needing more grown up social interaction from me, and it took me a while for me to see and be able to explain to others that DS was using all my social spoons - but now even my oldest friend who lives around the corne has now accepted she can see for me a max of 2.5hrs every 1-2 months as I just can't do more than this. I mention this as it might be help your MIL (and DH) to consider that not everyone is nurtured by constant social interaction and that your focus is on your DD, not her.

Just send her a message and say that you’re trying to actively disconnect and spend less time on your phone so you are more present with your daughter / for your mental health / because you are aware that constantly looking at your phone is taking away from your IRL interactions / any of the myriad of good reasons.

that you’re happy to get her messages - but you’re going to be checking your messages in the evenings and will reply then.

This one time, I was trying to quit swearing and also trying to cut a toxic friend out of my life. My cousin thought it would be a great idea if I text said ‘friend’ every time I swore. Unfortunately, I can’t control my language and toxic friend ended up in a similar position to you.

How much of a swearer is your MIL?

Lots of MIL hate on here, sounds like the poor woman is lonely and just trying to be close with her daughter in law, not exactly crime of the century, I feel sorry for her. As PP says, simply don’t reply immediately to every message, but just do a round up reply to all of them once or twice a day. No need to be rude and upset what sounds like a nice lady.