DS got engaged and never told me

[Mumsier]

My eldest DS is 26, he's been with his partner for 2.5 years, they live together, she is lovely. I see DS about twice a year, call about once a month and we have a family group chat active most days.
2 weeks ago DS and his gf went to Portugal (where she is from) on holiday, they sent loads of pics in the group chat.
Today while I was doing the shopping I ran into the mum of DS's childhood best friend, we chatted and she said "you must be over the moon at the news" I had no idea what she was talking about which was very embarrassing and then she told me that her DS had mentioned my DS and his partner were engaged.
I've messaged DS about it now, but no reply (only messaged an hour ago and I know they are meeting up with friends and going to a gig tonight). DH also didn't know, nor did DS2 or DD.

AIBU to be really hurt and confused by this? He never uses his social media and his partner doesn't have any of our family on hers, so there was no way for us to have found out incidentally.

Glad all’s well - I really felt for you.

There are some right arseholes on this thread yakking on about whether the OP is close to her son. Being close can look different for different people/families. Why is that so difficult to understand? Honestly, pick pick pick like a bunch of fucking vultures.

I’m glad it all came good in the end OP.

Glad that it has all been sorted. I felt for you getting so many replies suggesting that you were not close. Frequency of contact isn't the only thing that indicates closeness. Otherwise we would not have any of those posts on Mumsnet in which the poster describes how family members (usually parents in law) have keys to their house and let themselves in every day, despite this not being what the poster wants at all.

But when you say “we prefer” maybe ha and his fiancee don’t have the same view? I get why you’re upset, but use what has happened to work out a relationship that is positive to both sides going forwards. A family chat is not the same as a 1:1 chat.

I don't understand what people talk about if they are calling each other every day or two!
I do see my parents once a week, but I never spesk to my mum on the phone, and my dad only if he calls while he's at Asda the day before we are going, to ask my son what he'll want for tea! I tell them both anything and everything, just not every day!

I've seen this post before, a while back.

Rubbish. At 26 I barely saw my parents as I lived far away. I had my own life. We are super close now at 50.

Some people come on here especially to try and knock others down. You know your relationship better than some rando on the internet, just ignore them!

I bet your son was planing on telling you in person x

Ahh, just caught up! I knew it!

Yes, so nasty. So f*g insensitive. Who the hell
are they to judge? They don’t know either of the parties. MN is such shitty place sometimes.

Well like I said we all have our own lives, hobbies and friends which are the main reason but also his partners family are split between Portugal and Italy, my parents live in Ireland and don’t really like to travel anymore (they will travel for weddings or big events but find it stressful so limit the frequency). If they see us 2 times a year, her mum 2 times a year, her dad 2 times a year + my parents once a year that’s already travelling to or hosting family every other month, add in personal travel, visiting her uni friends in Paris, going to sporting events, I’m not sure they actually have time to see us anymore than that!

Maybe he is waiting for a suitable moment. See what he responds to your message.

Speaking daily to DC or DP sounds excessive. Whats app is fine for keeping in touch.

To be fair, it’s a lesson to not run straight to mumsnet saying you are hurt and telling your tale without bothering to find out the facts.

OP apparently has a good relationship with her son and his partner, so it’s quite strange to post on mumsnet about it before you know there is actually any issue. As it turns out, there isn’t an issue. People just like drama. 8 pages when there was no actual problem.

People need to just communicate with the ones in the actual situation, and when posters see an OP not doing that, of course they may read into the situation more than there might be. If my son hasn’t told me some big news in his life, I would know there would be an explanation that wouldn’t be a bad one, because we are close. The last thing I’d do is come on mumsnet and invite comment. 🙄 Drama and attention seeking.

I would be happy for them. Easy comes easy goes.

As someone who lives abroad as well, those "filler" conversations are what keeps you close. Talking about the day to day mundane shit is what keeps you involved.

My DH is like your DS and only speaks to his family once a month and the problem is, a lot gets missed out when you only talk about the "big" stuff and the relationship gets more and more polite and formal.

For example, when a tough thing happens, my parents know all about it. My FIL? He gets a 60 second summary after it all happened already and everything is fine again. And in time, that takes away from the closeness. Not just because you don't talk about stuff, but when things get hard you don't call for support (and when things get good, you don't call straight away to celebrate).

It’s not a strict once a month never more call, when things are hard we will call each other, I don’t see his name on my phone and think nope only been 2 weeks since the last call!
Also our monthly chats are long, like 2-3 hours FaceTime while they cook and eat, last time we had deep conversations about work and life but also a chat about what colour of kitchen tiles they want on the floor and whether using hand painted snowboards as art was weird, it’s not at all formal. We make time for those longer monthly chats but I still get the odd “I’m trying to make chicken and rice soup but it’s going horribly please help me” calls or the “I have a cold and I’m stuck in bed so please tell me how aunt Lorna’s cat is doing in the new house” calls, they are just adhoc and situational compared to the monthly calls.

His brother going through a break up seems pretty relevant here. I’m not surprised he might wait until that’s eased up before announcing it.

You all are weird about needing to talk every day, btw. Fine if that’s what you like, but it’s really not the only way to have a perfectly good family relationship.

My guess is that DS and (now) fiancee wanted to tell you this in person and not by text; and the reason blabbermouth friend's mother knew is that DS had consulted friend about the proposal.

Might be best to act thrilled and surprised when they come back?

I think you sound like lovely parents OP. You're understanding of them having their own life and other family to visit and don't put any pressure on them to visit more often. You also have a busy life and this set up works well for you all.
I don't understand the comments saying you can't be close, sounds just right to me!

You very clearly are not close with him a call once a month, me and all my siblings are constantly calling each other or our mum n dad or our other half a will be speaking back and forwards not to mention all the texting chats. Probably visit with each other every other day and 2 of my brothers are way down country and we either meet every 2 weeks in the middle for a weekend or we take turns to go up or down with parents for stays that's what a close family does :)

This would be stifling, excessive and unsustainable for our family. I’m really glad that works for you but how on earth do you propose DS and his partner sees her family in Rome, her family in Lisbon and us every 2 weeks? We are in Aberdeen that is a flight away at best. What about the environmental impact of travelling that often?

As for calling all the time, how does that fit in around hobbies, long work hours, socialising, having time alone to decompress?

Not every family functions in the same way, when all of your children move away you make compromises on how often you and see and speak to them but you don’t view the quantity of communication as an indicator of quality of relationship. When I had children and raised my children my goal was to give them the confidence and reassurance that they could go off into the world and not be looking back over their shoulder every day to keep our bond intact.

Your family relationships sound enmeshed and unhealthily co-dependent rather than close.

OP's relationships with her adult children sound fine to me. If everyone is happy with the frequency of contact, that's all that matters. In OP's scenario where her DS and his fiancee were planning to visit to announced their engagement in person, even if OP phoned him every day, he still wouldn't have told her about the engagement over the phone as he was keeping it as a surprise, so she would still have found out via the mum of her son's best friend.

I think you're fine OP.

It's obvious to anyone with half a brain from your update that your son cares deeply about you. He wanted to give you a lovely surprise.

Don't feel that you need to keep defending your family set up. We live far from family and also use WhatsApp for the bulk of our contact and it works well with everyone having different commitments etc.

Every family is different and some are still holding onto those apron strings 😉

Lots of people giving the OP heat for the level of contact with her DS! To put another perspective, @Mumsier, I don’t really know anyone that speaks to their parents every day or even every week when they are in their 20s or 30s!

I’m in my 30s and call my parents once a month with text chats in between. They don’t actually need to know the extremely mundane details of my life, like what I ate for dinner or that the dog had to go to the vet. When we talk it’s about the bigger things in life.

We have an absolutely great relationship and I love them very much. This year I took them on holiday to Rome for a weekend, they came up to Scotland to visit me and I took them to the Highlands, and we’ll all be going to visit my sister next month who lives in a different country. Keep in mind that when we do see each other it’s often for a whole weekend so we catch up in a different way to someone who sees their parents every week for Sunday lunch.

I also live in Scotland and they live in London - I don't have time to visit them every month! That would be absolutely excessive for me. Like your DS I also have my DH’s family who are spread out and my family are spread out between different countries so we actually end up with around 8 trips a year to keep in touch with different people, which is a trip every few weeks. A Scotland to London trip isn’t actually as simple as a ‘one hour flight’ as people are implying, it’s usually about 6 hours door to door for me. So a whole day there and a whole day back.

Most of my friends have busy lives and the majority live in different cities and countries from where they grew up, and I think it’s very normal for independent adults to not speak to their parents every day. Also my parents have busy lives and four children so have plenty of their own things to do!

My parents are very happy and proud of their kids for pursuing lives away from where we grew up, they love to see my travelling and enjoying my life and do not ever, ever, put pressure on me to visit at a set frequency because it is ‘expected’.

What a sad take on a perfectly understandable choice to wait a short time to suprise the parents

A shame your experiences have left you bitter