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?

I text my mum every other day or so, but only speak/visit once a week. My husband talks to his mother weekly - same time every week. Weekly is better as then you have lots to catch up on, but just the same old boring talk. Unless you are frail and needy, I think you should just let him crack on with his life. My children are young adults living away from home: two working, one at uni. I speak to one of them weekly (if he gets round to it; more if he has a problem to talk through) the others once or twice a week. I’d be concerned if they wanted to speak to me every other day: I’d see that as overly dependent. They need to be independent from parents and forging their own lives.

He’s married. You stop getting one to one time together. I believe here that the issue is your struggle with being replaced by a wife as a central person in his life. I see men do this all the time. Daughters are typically the ones that stick around.

your son has said he wants you to treat him and his wife like a unit, which you clearly refuse resolutely to do. Him allowing her to interrupt the phone conversation is probably their way of signalling to you that she is now around and you should cut the phone call short.

I bet your other sons’ wives find you overly involved and controlling. But those sons are obviously fine with the set up so pour energy into them.

Have you thought about asking your son how often he would like to speak, rather than assuming every other day even if it is just for five minutes should be good?

Hhhhmmm. Reading through the lines I feel that maybe son feels stuck between a rock and a hard place.

His wife is his priority now. So you need to accept this or be prepared to be pushed out.

Be extra thoughtful to his wife.
Start genuinely including and complimenting her. Really listen to what she has to say.
You may see a difference.

Cut the phone calls down to once a week at a convenient time for you both (not when his wife is about to get home from work). You might find after a week he has much more to tell you & he’ll be more engaged. Every 2 days is way too much. Do you work OP? When my mum first retired she started phoning excessively because she missed human interaction, but it was very draining for me to be asked the same mundane questions too regularly.
Also truthfully no one ever wants gifts / souvenirs/ tat from other peoples holidays. Are you filling their home with magnets etc they don’t want? It’s a bit cringe to walk around in a T-shirt from somewhere you’ve never been because your mum went on holidays there. A mug sounds like a sensible present that will actually get used, maybe that’s why she’s suggesting it.
Also if you want to speak to your son privately, SAY THAT at the beginning of the call. You can’t resent your daughter for being in her home while you phone him every other day.

And yet a hallmark of emotionally abusive relationships is being moved away from family and friends /discouraged from contacting them

So we should always be alive to that possibility when it comes to people we care about.

I don't expect DH to either, and he doesn't expect me to. But we work similar hours and so have a lot more time together than OPs son and DIL do because of conflicting work schedules.

If I haven't seen DH much and he comes home as I'm on the phone, or I get home and I've been talking to my mum on the way, I'll say "right mum I'm off to spend some time with DH" and she says "oh yes off you go, say hi for us, catch up later".

The way my sister and her husband schedules work, they have one day a week together that matches up. My parents wouldn't dream of expecting her to give that time up to see/speak to them instead.

People are allowed to choose who they spend limited free time with.

Yeah, you’re the problem here and YABU.

They've been together a long time, you should think of her as another child of yours and treat her and your son equally, not separately.

Also you are overbearing - calling three times is a lot when he has a family of his own.

There's every chance he doesn't want to be on the phone 15 minutes 3-4 times a week. You're presumably retired and look forward to this but he works nights and has limited daytime. If his wife is coming home and disturbing the calls, firstly what time are these calls and secondly, do you ever think he maybe lets you blame her because he wants to get off the phone?

Let him call you. This his preferred level of contact.

Hint: your son that calls daily is a massive outlier and most men don't call their parents more than weekly.

Answering someone's phone when it's someone they know and the person is busy is absolutely normal in a marriage. As is prioritizing your wife as your main family. Why is "worshiping the ground they walk on" a problem? You have said you understand being less of a priority but the rest of your words suggest otherwise. My mother treats my husband to gifts equally to me (and my brother), I'm not saying that is essential but honestly the way you are talking suggests you don't even particularly like her and almost certainly resent their marriage. If he works nights perhaps he's quite busy trying to hold family life together alongside work and phonecalls need to be short? I work full time and have a toddler and it's hard to find time for the same hour long chats with my mum like I used to have. Do you show any interest in his life and marriage or just in him personally?

Your son is absolutely right. As a DIL I would be appalled if my MIL bought gifts for my DH and not for me. She and my DM always treat me and my husband equally.

It is perfectly normal for a wife to answer her husband's phone if it rings and he is not in the room.

A 15-minute phone call every other day is too much. Once a week would be reasonable.

You did a good job bringing up your son to be a good husband and decent human being. Now he is an independent man whose first priority, rightly, is his wife. Leave him alone or you risk driving him farther away.

Op, you are not coming across very well here. She is his primary family, you’ve said yourself they don’t get to spend much time together so yes, he wants to get off the phone when she comes in from work, my DH and I would be exactly same. And no, my MIL would never buy a gift for her son from a trip and not get something for me or it be a join gift? My mum would be the same.

You can show how much you love him by loving her too. She is his choice. If he gets the impression that you don't like her, you're literally implying that he's chosen badly. Embrace her with kindness and you'll find that your son will appreciate you more and be less distant.

@MyCyanShaker when my children got married their spouses became part of my family.

I wouldn’t buy one a present and not the other, if I couldn’t buy two I would buy a joint.

Maybe step back and see if your son contacts you. He may be upset that you are excluding his wife, they’ve been together a long time. Your DIL joining in may be her way of saying please treat me like family.

I fear you may lose your son if you don’t accept your DIL is part of your family.

Yes we should.

But in this instance the son is telling his mum something he wants her to do (treat his wife as his equal) and she's refusing.

So we should also be open to the fact that not listening to our loved one's wishes is a great way to push them away.

And FYI, my husband goes to help my parents on his own sometimes and i visit mine alone with the kids because they treat us like family, not parasites attached to their children.

OP, do you have any other interests in your life apart from your children?

I have not rtft but it sounds to me as if he is really into his partner. The reason he jumps off the phone when she appears is probably because he wants to talk to her not you. You should be proud to have raised a son who has this capacity because many don’t. Now you have to go through the most important and possibly most challenging phase of motherhood which is to let go.

I have a brother in a similar relationship. I've never once seen him alone since he got together with her. Once we were meeting up as I was passing through the area, and she said she couldn't make it due to a work trip away, I said well it's a shame to miss you but never mind, good chance for he and I to have a good catch up. Next thing she leaves the work trip early to make sure she's there!!. The moment she arrives DB's focus is on making sure she is OK, is happy etc (she is very picky about a lot of things, and he bends over backwards to please her).
However I have never said a word because he knew all this before they got married and our dad was the same, spent his life trying to make our mother happy in the face of lots of sighs and disapproving looks.

He is an adult and if he wanted to talk he knows where I am.

OP, you have to step back and let him call you. It might take a while to turn the dynamics around - a year or so - but be patient and let him set the pace of his relationship with you. Try and be grateful your other sons are willing to continue the close relationship, because it's always far from guaranteed.

She has been in your family for 14 years I think not getting her a gift from your travels is mean-spirited and maybe it's this kind of thing your son is pulling away from. I also think ringing someone who works nights and is probably tired 3 times a week is too much. I was absolutely prepared to sympathise with you as it's one of my future fears my son marrying a controlling person, but I think your expectations are too much.

I remember when I started going out with my husband.
After we had been together a year or so I was fully integrated into his family, they were so warm and welcoming, my MIL would never ever not get me a gift, she often bought them for me and not her son.
My mother on the other hand was obsessed with keeping me as her daughter and him as an outsider. She wouldn't get him a birthday present, she always asked me to come see her alone, i always heard the phrase 'your my daughter and i want to see you, not him'.

I started getting so snarky with her because I had this life away from her with my husband and a big warm loving family and she was just there trying to fight for my attention and keep me as this singular person she wanted. I hated when she rang, she had no concept of my actual life, what me AND my husband were doing.

You really sound the same OP, it sounds like you need to completely change the way you look at your relationship with your sons family.
My mum is dead now but in the years before she died I seen her the bare minimum and didn't have a relationship with her that was based on adults wanting to be around each other.

I think the best thing you can do is, ask him, what is the best time to ring him and just phone once a week.
You could be right, his wife might be controlling, but there could be another reason, that they feel you ring too many times per week than they feel comfortable with.
If you want to offer a gift, offer them a joint gift.
When his younger brother visits them, don’t forewarn him of your fears. He might bring it up to them and it builds more resentment up or if your DIL is controlling, it gives her more ammunition.
You need to acknowledge that your own need’s to hear from your adult son’s might not align with their needs or wants.
If your son is being controlled, you need to pull back, do not discuss it with him as it will push him further away from you. The frequent phone calls and offers of gifts, will make it worse for your son and will make things worse between them. He knows you love him, once he decides (if he ever does) that he has to leave the abusive relationship, then you and your other sons will be the first people he will contact.
Your posts seem very one sided, they are all about your need for frequent contact, your need to send gifts to your son, you feeling pushed out and blaming everything on your DIL. There are other reasons that could explain why this is happening and it could be both of them trying to tell you indirectly that it’s not convenient for them, for you to phone up every two days. They might feel it’s unfair that you only want to treat one of them as they are a pair.

The daughter/ mother relationship is different. As a mother you only have your son until he gets married, then his priorities are totally different. As it is you have a close relationship with your other son so why push this one.

I'd suggest that you stop pushing and let him drive the relationship in his own good time.

But we don't know that she's "expecting" him to put the phone down. It could be that he wants to see/speak to his wife.

I don't think there are any issues here that you need to worry about OP. Men, especially, can be terrible communicators. My partner loves his parents dearly, but probably wouldn't speak to them for months on end if his mum didn't call him.

If you know he always ends the call when his wife gets home presumably at the same time of day why do you continue to call at that exact time? Also it’s just assumed he ends the call because he has to maybe he just feels there is nothing else to talk to you about and wants to talk to his wife. Dh is another man that only cals his mum when he wants/needs something however and wouldn’t be doing calls every 2 days as he would feel they wouldn’t have anything to discuss or anything that needs updating to her.

With regards to butting into the phone calls. Dh will often chime in when I’m on the phone with my mum and I will with his mum. If I’m the one who has the relevant information to something being said when he doesn’t.

Apart from birthdays unless you just happen to spot something that makes you go ooo son would love that I do feel it’s a little off to only want to gift to one half of a couple.

Maybe his so independent that he does exactly what he wants and it’s nothing to do with his wife how he behaves towards you. But it is always easier to blame the spouse than your own adult child for their behaviour.

@ungratefulcat If the OP had described the same situation but it was about a DD and SIL, I would still think the OP was the one with the problem. In this thread and her previous one, she has not shared what her relationship is like with her DIL. There have been no examples of cross words or selfish behaviour provided. She keeps giving the same examples which are not of the DILs behaviour but of her son. We can only go on what we are told and based on that the OP has shared, she is coming across very unreasonable. She has a rigid and inflexible view of her relationship with her children and I think that is very sad,