Fed up of mother in law constantly contacting me

[SophieRules]

She’s a nice woman but I’m finding the amount of phone calls and messages a bit overwhelming. I don’t speak to my own mum this much. If I don’t pick up she’ll then just keep calling and it’s never anything urgent. She asks questions about really mundane things and I feel like I’m having to update her on aspects of our lives unnecessarily. What do I do? I find it stressful. After a long day, I just want to relax, I don’t want to have phone conversations updating her about the new kitchen we are having fitted for example, when we’ve already had multiple conversations about it already. It’s driving me a bit mad. I don’t want to offend her. I’ve spoken to my husband and he’s fine with me not picking up, or not responding that quickly to messages but that also doesn’t feel right.

if she calls and you don’t feel like chatting, could you not text her back and say ‘hey, hope you are ok. I’m really knackered tonight, shall we chat at the weekend?/ looking forward to seeing you at the weekend’ etc.

If she texts and you don’t feel like answering right then, just don’t, that’s fine. Text the next day to slow it right down etc

I’d try to find a kind way of doing it though, she sounds like she’s making an effort

I voted yabu simply because your dh has told you how to deal with it but you're not willing to do that.

You can either:

1. ignore all/some of her communications and delay responses
2. tell her she's contacting you too much and ask her to reduce contact politely or in a more roundabout way
3. suck it up

Schedule a time to call her for a 10 minute chat, at a time to suit you. Outside of that, just ignore her calls.
Maybe she'll cotton on.

Listen to your husband. Don't pick up unless you want to speak to her.

Break the cycle.

And then when you DO pick up - tell her that it is too much and she is to stop it.

Perhaps she feels she needs to get to know you better. Perhaps she’s lonely. Perhaps she’s just being a friendly MIL and hopes that you can have a good relationship with her.
Be friendly but just try and slow the pace down. Having a good MIL in your life is a wonderful thing. I’ve had two and they were both fantastic.

Whe she rings, pass your phone to your DH and let him answer it. Then immediately go and lock yourself in the bathroom and stay there for as long as the call lasts.

Text her at the beginning of the week or take a call and give her all the updates.

Then set her number straight to voicemail until you next want to talk to her.

Respond to texts with 'Busy at the moment, no updates. Speak next week.'

If she gets angry or frustrated, hand it over to your husband.

I’ve spoken to my husband and he’s fine with me not picking up, or not responding that quickly to messages but that also doesn’t feel right.

Why doesn't that feel right?
Why are you not giving yourself permission to ignore her calls?
Who told you that you had to make yourself available?

What happened in your childhood when you ignored someone who was demanding your attention?

I have been happily married for almost 20 years and have a good relationship with my mil. However, all contact goes through dh. As it should. She doesn't have my number and vice versa.

Do you think men feel guilty about not having phone contact with their mils?

Get your husband to have a word with her.

This.

How often does she contact you?

you didn’t mention her age, but it is common for elderly people with early dementia to start calling multiple times a day. It’s a mixture of loneliness and fear because things don’t seem right.

I was going to say what @Awrite said.

There seems to be an unwritten rule that once a man is living with a woman, his responsibility for communicating with his family transfers to her. And it’s only his family, never his friends. Can you imagine saying, “We’re married now so your friends need to contact me instead of you now.”

He’s saying you don’t need to answer her because he knows you will anyway. Who would completely ignore a family member? She may well be contacting you because it’s you she wants to speak to, which is nice but you are probably going to have to tell her that you enjoy talking to her but can only really do that at say, 6pm on Sundays. But obviously DH will be glad to hear from her any other time. If he’s not, that’s something they need to sort out between the two of them.