Parents in law obsession with arriving safely

[Brentinger]

AIBU that it drives me mad that my parents in law have to ask us and call us every single time we travel to make sure if we arrive safely ?

If we give an eta and go over for whatever reasons (traffic, food stop, nappy change etc ) they will call us to check 10 minutes after our eta.

It comes from my MIL being anxious and over involved, which I get - but post kids, this habit is driving me crazy. We travel a decent amount by car and anything over 2 hours away automatically gets us our ETA checked .

If you’re all in daily contact you don’t need to, do you! I doubt very much whether OP is in daily contact with her PIL.

if someone is generally anxious I’m not sure feeding it is helpful.

This would drive me crazy. It makes me feel claustrophobic just reading some of these. I communicate a lot with my parents and we care about each other enormously but I cannot imagine doing this. My daughter’s journey to school takes about 40mins I never expect her to tell me she has arrived safely. My commute takes about the same time. What is the agreed length of trip that requires a check in with parents? What about trips to the supermarket? Most accidents happen close to people’s homes!

Add extra time to your estimate as suggested.

I have a bit of sympathy for them, especially if someone known to them has died in a car crash. Also whilst you are probably one of the better drivers, remember that many should not have a licence because of their conduct behind the wheel or medical reasons.

Agree with the poster above who noted where most crashes are relative to home.

I wouldn’t be replying to any more of these messages ever. If your partner wants to overshare he can deal with the fallout and the messages.

Send one message saying quite clearly that you find the messages intrusive and won’t be replying in future and then silence the messages. This is his problem.

It’s sweet. Be grateful that people care about you. If it’s just a message why can’t you ping back ‘Got here safely Sue x’. No one is too busy to send that. I get that a call might be irritating, but don’t answer, and send the message.

I think this is a pretty common thing to do.

You need to stop answering those calls and texts. Her anxiety should not be impinging upon your lives.

Perhaps he loves his parents and appreciates their interest in your family news and doesn’t see a problem with it? Perhaps he’s a kind person who understands that as people get older their lives sometimes shrink (especially if they've retired from work) so they have less to focus on? Perhaps he thinks your attitude is unnecessarily unkind?

I hate this, because its yet another thing I have to remember to do, it adds to the mental load. It's also completely potty for people to demand this simply because I've been with them that day, when I travel around every other day and they have no idea about it. And what exactly are they going to do if I don't get home safe? Come and pull me from the wreckage themselves? It's totally illogical.

I know that will probably make me sound awful to those on here that like their loved ones to check in. When I remember, I will usually send a message unprompted just to say "home now, thanks for a lovely day" or something like that, but I find it smothering and demanding when someone insists on it.

It's actually impacting on your safety imo. Imagine you're stuck behind an accident and need to concentrate or by the side of the road tending to a child who's vomited in the car, and there's bloody MIL calling your phone non stop.

Your husband is entitled to share with his parents whatever info he chooses. You don't get to control that. If them caring about you is so annoying then delete their numbers and leave all communication up to your husband.

I agree with those saying it's another thing to remember. If you're someone who wouldn't naturally do it, it's worse to reluctantly agree and then forget to do it. That really would give the in laws something to worry about.

My Mum is like this, very anxious by nature. I find it suffocating and in all honesty I don’t think it’s helping her by texting or calling. If you do forget she gets even worse.

I won’t explain logistics but I returned from her house once and went straight into a work meeting. She called four times whilst I was in the meeting and by the time I had finished (30mins), my brother had also called as she had been phoning him to see if he’d heard from me. She thinks it’s caring but it’s actually an anxiety problem.

This is so true.

You can share your trips (we're off to France at Easter!) and your highs and lows (Got here yesterday, view is lovely but Millie was sick on the plane) without either feeding anxiety or being in someone's pocket.

Does it do you any harm to just send a text saying “Arrived safely.xx

My mum is worse than this. She has my dad on life 360 and is obsessive with it. I’ve been out with my dad and she rings constantly asking ‘why you go that way, what’s happening’. So on a hours drive she will call multiple times. He’s so patient but it would do my head in. She put me on it and my brother once - we removed ourselves after we got endless similar calls. I found it so so intrusive and invasive (as did my brother). She is most offended that we removed ourselves.

id get ‘oh how come you werent there today, what was that for?’ Etc. so so annoying. Shes gutted she can’t spy anymore. lol.

When you kids are adults you still worry about them you’re PIL do seem particularly anxious, is there a reason for this? My DS1 will always msg when he gets off a flight etc, and after a really long journey, but a shorter one, he wouldn’t and I wouldn’t expect him to. He’s getting on with his life, 😂 just as I am typing he’s just msg to say he’s back!

My mother does this. She follows the progress of any flight or train journey a family member is making and gets in a fuss if there are delays. I've actually had to tell her to stop texting me with updates because I'm in the airport and can see what's happening myself, also to cease burning up my battery. If she doesn't get a reply she starts blowing up the phone of everyone I know. She's always been an extreme worrier.

It's got worse as she has retired and doesn't get out so much, so her world has shrunk and her travel obsession increased. She even monitors flights we sometimes take but are not on that day. I keep her on an information diet because she is so extreme sometimes and then she complains I don't tell her anything.

I let her know when I am home safely of course. I think that's fair enough.

Oh give over with “l haven’t got time” bullshit. It takes literally 5 seconds to send a 2 word text that will set someone’s mind at rest. Not doing it is deeply unkind-even deliberately cruel.

it doesn’t hurt if the OP remembers or wants to, but the OP shouldn’t be obliged to either. Messaging or calling ten minutes after their ETA is smothering and if the MIL can’t handle that people might stop or be delayed for more than ten minutes on a 2 hour+ journey, or might have things to do in the ten minutes after arriving which aren’t updating MIL then frankly, that’s for her to work on and limit the information she has if it exacerbates her anxiety.

My best friend even follows my flights, how sweet is that!

I'd only do that it someone was visiting and I was collecting them or waiting for them at home, so I'd know if they were going to be late arriving. Otherwise I'd find it a bit OTT.

My parents used to do this - mind you they used to get upset with their parents as first thing we had to do on my childhood hoildays was find a pay phone.

It was hard because kids were young and demanding and frankly whatever we said they insisted journey was terrible and we shouldn't have gone and wouldn't get off the phone in less than 30 minutes.

In end I told them less - was vauge about travel plans - and stopped phoning straight away but sent pics from beach next day. They adjusted and think were happier as they didn't have information to worry about and come up with worse case situations about. I was certainly less stresses and irritated.

Yeah. 5 seconds to put soneone’s mind at rest is such a fucking obligation…..