AIBU to be worried about my son’s marriage dynamics?

[MyCyanShaker]

I've noticed some concerning dynamics in my son's marriage. When I call him, he'll often rush off the phone as soon as his wife comes home from work or starts talking to him. Sometimes she'll even answer his phone when he's not around. When I offer to get him something, he'll mention what she'd like too, without even asking me if I want to get something for her. It feels like she's dominating the conversation and possibly even controlling him.

My son works overnights, and I rarely get to talk to him. When I do, he often sounds agitated, even when I ask him simple questions. I've tried texting him to check in, but he doesn't always respond. He's always been a bit independent, but lately, I've felt like he's becoming more distant. We've always been close, but now it feels like I'm struggling to connect with him.

They've been married for 5 years, and they've been together for 9 years before that, so I thought they had a strong foundation. I'm worried about his well-being and feel like his wife might be isolating him from our family. We've always been a close-knit family, and it's hard for me to see him pulling away. He's always been closest to his younger brother, with whom he shares similar interests and personality traits. They're close in a way that he and his middle brother aren't. Given this, I'm thinking of asking his younger brother to check in with him and see if he's okay. Maybe his brother can get a better sense of what's going on and offer some support.

I'm torn between being a concerned mum and respecting their marriage. I don't want to overstep or interfere, but at the same time, I want to make sure my son is happy and healthy. Has anyone else dealt with similar concerns about marriage dynamics? Should I be worried, or am I just being a concerned mum?

My middle son doesn’t care for her either and my youngest son likes her but he is just so go with the flow so to speak that it would take someone to really wrong him for him not to like someone if you catch my drift. I’m just concerned that as soon as his wife comes home from work he magically suddenly has to hang up or she just starts talking and then I ask my son specifically what he wants and my DIL chimes in and says oh and can you get this for me or my son asks me to get something for his wife when I specifically asked just him. I get some people view the word “you” as plural and themselves so much as a unit that it automatically implies their spouse as well but I operate under the assumption that if someone was including me then would specifically mention me by name

but I

OP, your entire line of posts on this thread is “but I”. Its not all about you - your DS does not want you phoning him constantly asking questions which irritate him.

Honestly you would drive me nuts if you wanted to call me every couple of days, ask me questions which were plainly irritating me, expected me to ignore my DH when he walked through the door and said “hi I’m home”.

For pity’s sake at least ask your DS when he would find a call convenient (once per week at most) and stick to it and stop blaming other people for your DS’s irritation at your behaviour.

Even your other sons - you agree with one who says he doesn’t like her and dismiss the view of the son who does like the DiL. Honestly just listen to yourself.

Apart from your son ending calls when his wife comes home and DIL expecting a souvenir if you get your son one, what has your DIL actually done to make you and your middle son dislike her? Or is it just her existence? Or do you blame her for your son moving away? Because I really can’t see the problem here.

My DS and I are very close.i supported him through studies, took him to After Schoo clubs pushed him a lot .got him into a RG uni .today he is independent ,with a good job and lovely fiancee. We see each other every few weeks and text or chat in between. I buy presents for birthdays. It's easier to buy his girlfriend TBH! Look at it like this .you haven't lost a Son you have gained a DD!.13 hours is quite a distance ,Are they abroad. There will be a natural distance then .you had him to yourself when he was little. Now you have to let them fly

You are just repeating yourself with your limited concerns, and seem to refuse to consider any other point of view despite what so many people have said to the contrary, so am not really sure what the point of posting the original question really was??

Can I ask why you started a thread asking if you were being unreasonable if you did not in fact wish to know if you were being unreasonable

OP you are just repeating yourself, rather robotically. You don’t seem to be able to grasp anyone’s posts here which require you to imagine being in another person’s space mentally. For example lots of people have posted “here is my experience as a DIL/MIL/Mother/married son and all you do in response is say “No, but , my point is that son snd DIL are wrong…”

Ok? I mean we get it! You want to be able to call your son three times a week as he and his wife cross paths of an evening and take priority over her. You want to give your son a gift and have him ohh and ahhh over it and have your DIL recognize that she (obviously) doesn’t get that special recognition that he does because she isn’t important to you. You want to talk to him without her being around.

So much is clear. But here is the thing: you aren’t going to get what you want. They live 13 hours away from you and they are very happy together. They have been together 14 years. Even if, as you seem to think, she “wears the pants” they like it like that.

All your fussing and interrupting and meeping and cheap souvenir gifting isn’t going to change the fact that he eats and sleeps with another woman 365 days a year. Nor should it.

Try to stop shitting on their relationship. It won’t work to separate them and it will lead to further estrangement.

It's a bit tight to buy your son a souvenir from a holiday and not pick up anything for his wife as well. Or buy something useful/interesting that works for both of them. It's weird to just get your son a gift from your holiday.

I get some people view the word “you” as plural and themselves so much as a unit that it automatically implies their spouse as well but I operate under the assumption that if someone was including me then would specifically mention me by name

this right here, this sums it up
this is the narcissist in you.
why would you operate like that and just be bolshy because you think like that.
This whole thing is summed up in that one line.

OP, I think the phrase is 'read the room'.

I think you misunderstood the OP—she is not asking you for your help understanding her behavior she is hoping that the poster to whom she replied will agree that the DIL’s behavior is controlling. So although you are right that the “ buying for the son only” seems cheap OP won’t listen.

Pretty spectacular Freudian slip that the OP has stated at 07:11 that she is afraid that her other children might become 'flying monkeys'... "flying monkey" being a term in psychology defined as "the enabler of a highly narcissistic person or someone with narcissistic personality disorder."

Says it all... surely.

You just keep repeating yourself. I can almost picture you stomping your feet as you make the same points over and over again.

It’s clear that you’re jealous and bitter, and that’s honestly quite sad. I don’t think this situation will improve, because you don’t seem willing to take any criticism on board or reflect on your own behaviour.

It’s always the mothers of boys that are like this. Why do so many people have a hard time accepting that their sons have wives and girlfriends who are their family now, and who see them as an extension of their family.

i would HATE for my son’s girlfriend to feel like I didn’t see her as family after that amount of time. Think about who runs the household for you, I would suspect that more women run their household than men, and his partner may be doing the organising so she knows what they need/want etc.

i suspect you will be back her upset that you don’t get to see enough of your grandchildren soon enough, and it will be all her fault too

But a lot of people do that.

I’ll be nattering away about nothing important. “Oh Joe’s just got back ima go now bye bye bye”

He hasn’t told me I can’t be on the phone but unless it’s actually important and not just a natter I’m going to get off the phone and welcome home my husband.

If my phones ringing away and my watch is telling me it’s mum or it’s whoever and his in the room and I’m not I’ll shout can you grab that and answer it. I do the same with the children.

If it’s not urgent but still nattering and dh is home sometimes I’ll pop it on speaker and so then his part of the conversation too. Sometimes he will be on the phone with his mum and it will be when such and such and he has no bloody idea so I’ll say oh that’s booked for the 20th June 6pm. Oh did you let Joes sister know that such and such event is on next weekend near them? It’s only £ and on all day every day over the weekend. kinda more as if we are all actually in the room talking.

None of the phone stuff is controlling unless it is controlling iykwim. You’re looking at it as it has to be controlling were as for lots of people that’s just how we are with our phones and conversations.

I talk to my mum at least once a day but when my husband walks in, she immediately says "I'll go let you two catch up, make dinner etc" and hangs up quicker than I can say bye. He doesn't care if I speak to my mum and he's certainly not putting me off. My mum just expects that our little time together is valuable and we'll want to speak about our day. I don't know why you think it's anything other than the same happening with your son, OP? That's a perfectly normal thing to do.

As for the gifts, your son has told you it upsets him and his wife when she is excluded. You don't seem to listen or care about the impact on either of them as long as you're doing it your way and in all honesty, it sounds like you're making a point and putting her in her place by repeatedly refusing to buy her a gift. Take on board what your son's actions and words are telling you or you'll push them both away.

When I buy / offer our ds anything, I do it for the both of them.They are a unit. Sometimes I get bits for her and not for him, he loves that.

Again, if you are always phoning when she is due home, why can you not just phone 30 minutes earlier? It's almost as if you're doing it deliberately.

Well, fairly or unfairly, I can quite see why your son lives that far away! If they lived nearby, I dread to think how his poor wife would survive your spiteful comments.
Shape up or you will lose him, (if you haven’t already).

I agree with PP why are you phoning when your DIL is due home from work, either call earlier or one your DS commute and talk in the car

also never once has my DM called me from her holiday to ask me what I want from a gift shop, she just used to just buy some for both me and DH, now she only buys for DC, if you want to buy DS something just buy it, it doesn’t need a consultation but at the end of the day why can’t you buy something useful to them as a couple or that they can share

And I don’t speak to my own DM on the phone that often although she her once a week, both my DM and MIL often message me to ask ridiculous questions and that highly irritates me so I if they phoned me I would defo come across as irritated on the phone, maybe your DD just doesn’t care to be called 3 times a week at a clearly inconvenient time to be asked questions of no importance to him

@MyCyanShaker I know what you mean. Also, if you posted that your daughter rushes off the phone every time her husband came in and had an inkling something was off, everyone would be saying to trust your instincts.

Like @Plantlady10 my brother is in a similar set up. We all live close together. He and my sil work long hours, he does nights quite often and she works away so I understand we don't see him as much. Me and DH and my parents help them out with their 2 dogs and they'll have parcels delivered to our houses (parents are retired and my DH works from home) but we hardly ever see them socially now.

She talks to him like dirt, he has to check EVERYTHING with her, he's constantly anxious about doing/saying something wrong. I found out the other day they have a "dog cam" for her to check on the dogs but also uses it to check where he is or how long we stay in the house when we go in for the dogs. He gave me a lift to work once and she immediately called asking where he was going (phone tracker) and he had to justify it by saying he was going that way anyway?!

I've told him if he saw my husband doing these things he'd go mad and he doesn't really know what to say. The worst thing is we used to all be really close but it all changed after they got married.

I'm not sure what you can do @MyCyanShaker but I'd maybe ease up on the frequency of the calls but try and schedule in a time for a "catch up" call where you can try and chat a bit more?

Who says the DIL expects a souvenir/gift? Did she say that?

I find it very odd that you are so determined to not see her as family. Of course your son is your priority, I'd 100% assume my husband is my MIL's, but we are still family, she treats me as such. She bought me gifts when we were in our teens and only just started dating, I go out of my way to do nice things for her, it's how a healthy relationship should work. She drives me crazy at times and I'm sure I do to her, but we both let it go because we both love her son and neither of us would ever want him to feel put in the middle. She has always been loving towards me and so she remains very much in our lives and often it's me initiating contact with her/including her in things. Basically, his priority is her. You might not like it but you have 2 choices, stamp your feet and continue to try and drive the narrative of her not being your family, or suck it up, build a relationship with her too and I think you'll be surprised at how things change. To be honest, I get the impression she's fed up of the way you treat her and has finally hit a point where she doesn't care if she's rude back. I bet it's caused arguments between them and that's why he tenses when she comes in and he's speaking to you. Ultimately, you keep expecting him to choose will not end up the way you hope.

I know what you mean. Also, if you posted that your daughter rushes off the phone every time her husband came in and had an inkling something was off, everyone would be saying to trust your instincts.

If OP was actually concerned then she'd be phoning her son when she knew her DIL was at work, instead she phones when she knows her DIL is due home.

Ah OP don’t you know that you have ceased to exist now that your son has got married! When this happens it’s totally unreasonable to expect a text back - ever. He has a busy life now, busy with his own little family. Your only role now is to be a babysitter whenever they want and lend (or more likely give) them money when they want it. And if you don’t they’ll go no contact with you and chuck you in a terrible nursing home.

This is the world of mumsnet (absolutely not my view!)