To feel sad my adult son prefers his girlfriends parents to his own

[Bossie21]

i thought we were a close family, I have spent my life investing in raising my children and building what I thought was a close family.
my eldest son has been with his girlfriend for just over 2 years, she is nice, spends time at ours and comes out with us and has been a holiday with us. My son has done the same with her family.
they born still live at home but are moving in together at the end of January.
I have noticed over the last 6 months they have started spending most of their time at her parents house and can’t make decisions without her dad agreeing. I have always taught my children to make their own choices and be their own person. I don’t feel he is now.
they have booked a holiday for a week with her parents this year. I have just asked if he is coming on our annual family holiday (i
book 2 weeks but happy for them both to
come for some or all) and he’s said they can’t commit so don’t boom them a space. I am very upset they can commit to her parents but not us.
Am I right to feel a little bit hurt?

There’s absolutely no ‘should’ about where adults spend their time. For whatever reason they currently obviously feel more comfortable there than at your house. Why would even want to force them to spend time with you, knowing it’s not what they’d choose to be doing?

Just don't change. They may come back to your holidays. It's not fair but I wouldn't make an issue of it

I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. As a mum of a DS doing a similar thing, I feel the same, it makes me sad. What I think could be unreasonable is telling him how you feel. My family have a close relationship, we spend time together, but I'd prefer more. I think my DS prefers his GF house because it is often empty, and she has a bigger (tidier 🙄) room, whereas there is almost always someone home in my house. The same with my DD and her friends. They have bigger houses, or their own flats. Unfortunately, there isn't that much space in my house.

In my experience, girls are more attached to their parents than boys once they're adults...
So if the partner wants to spend time with her parents, he's probably happy to just go along with it to keep her happy.

As the daughter in a marriage, will give my very one sided opinion.

You may not do this at all, or be totally unaware if you do. But my husband has a brother, and both boys have absolutely pulled away from their mum (thank god, she’s toxic). Because we can’t do anything with my side of my family without a comment, judgemental eye roll, sad sigh or negative opinion from her. We could see her ten days straight but one afternoon with my parents and we will get “oh and you’ve left me all alone”.

Planning anything, like Christmas, birthdays, outings, all a fucking nightmare because it ends up a continuous guilt spiral for my husband because of her sheer passive aggressiveness.

If I asked my MIL, bearing in mind it’s all intentional, she believes her own lies that she’s done nothing wrong.

Whereas, both boys in-laws are non-judgemental, positive, don’t interfere, enjoy their achievements, don’t make comments, offer help when it’s appropriate, and don’t make everything about them. Y’know, a normal family.

You may not SAY anything outwardly but I bet your responses, attitude and demeanour tell a different story. And it would be interesting to know what kind of relationship, independent of your son, you’ve tried to create with his partner. My MIL doesn’t even acknowledge me in my own home, I am purely the vessel to birth her grandchildren. She will happily eat my food, comment on my decor, tell me what I should be doing for work, but won’t thank me for my hospitality or even say hello when she arrives.

I think there’s a chance from all your good intentions that you could come off a little intense. You desperately want the perfect upbringing and relationship that you’re offended and hurt when adult DC pull back a little.

OP, Adult DC are supposed to pull back. This is normal. If you keep your claws in or have a big reaction or keep insisting on more time together they are just going to get - I’m sorry, freaked out. It’s controlling and way too intense. You need to relax around them. Trust you did a good job and trust you have a good relationship.

You shouldn’t need your son to prove this by logging a certain amount of hours at a set number of locations.

I think your feelings and sadness are very valid. I don't know that there is much you can do, but it seems normal to me to be sad when you are slightly left behind by someone you sunk so much love and effort into and who you still love dearly.

It's nice to see them flapping their newly grown wings and taking off, less nice to feel the cold draft that's left behind and watch them land in another nest.

Have you tried asking her if there's anything you can do to make it easier having the children at your house?

I'd also remember your DIL is just going to see her mom and the children are coming with her, she's still a person in her own right and can spend as much time with her mom as she chooses. It's not her responsibility to make it equal as long as she isn't stopping her husband seeing you. This is coming across more combative than I mean it to sorry.

A son is a son til he gets a wife , a daughter is a daughter all of her life .
Is the old saying ( or at least the gist of it )
Look at all the relationships around you , and maybe even your own .
I think you will find merit in it .
It happens with girlfriends as well and don't forget they are moving their relationship forward by moving in together soon .

Your feelings are not unreasonable, but as @DoubleShotEspressox has very clearly illustrated, other people may view things differently.

But I think @ReleaseTheDucksOfWar has summed it up perfectly. The bittersweet feelings of launching your dc as adults.

Keep the door open to your son, and be welcoming to his partner. As he matures he will surely know your value.

It sounds that although they spend a bit more time with her parents, they still have a good relationship with you. With the holiday it is possibly due to limited leave they can take. They presumably also want to spend time together as a couple. It's okay to feel a bit hurt but I wouldn't turn it into a point of stress or conflict.

OP I doubt your son wants to hang out with his in laws more than you he just wants to spend more time with his GF and she wants to spend time with her family. It's a bit of a stereotype (that's not always the rule), but girls do like to spend more time with their parents as they get older than boys do (I like going on holiday with my Mum but my DH never went on holiday with his parents again in adulthood and my brothers never did either), your DS is just following his GF around.

I guess you could try to make more effort with the GF, perhaps instead of guilting DS into spending more time with you? Xx

I would hardly suggest OP is being “left behind” by an adult DC who has not yet moved out her home but chooses to spend more time out of her house.

A grown man still under his mother’s house, still spending time with his family just not necessarily “as much” time as he does with his GF’s family is perfectly normal. He obviously just wants to spread his wings a little.

I wouldn’t even assume that it’s anything to do with her parents. Perhaps he feels more of an adult in another family’s house than with his own family. You are in default mum setting, which you should be. But that means he will still feel more like a child with you than he is able to feel away from you.

Give him time to move out and find his feet. That’s literally all he wants to do.

My MIL doesn’t even acknowledge me in my own home, I am purely the vessel to birth her grandchildren. She will happily eat my food, comment on my decor, tell me what I should be doing for work, but won’t thank me for my hospitality or even say hello when she arrives.

Mine is exactly the same. Except the last time she visited my home she ate my food, accepted my hospitality, refused to speak to me at all and when I wished her a safe drive home dismissed me with a sharp gesture.

It was the first time I'd seen her since I had almost died from complications following a serious accident. I didn't expect concern or to be asked how I was: a simple 'hello' would have sufficed.

That was the final straw following years of passive aggression. She hasn't set foot in our home since.

Have you read the majority of responses to this post?

With respect I think you and the previous poster are projecting. There is nothing in the OP's posts to indicate that she is toxic in this way she's just sad that her son prefers to spend time with his gf's family over his own.
I have a dd so no skin in this game but she happily spends time with her boyfriends parents and has been away with them several times (as well as holidaying with me) so it isn't 100% a given that this will happen although sadly it does seem to occur a lot.

do you think it’s also about what we model to them? So if your sons see their dads not bothering to work at relationships with their own families they assume it’s not their responsibility either?

just something to think about for those posters saying how their husbands don’t bother making time for their families…

I found this an interesting read, as I’m experiencing something similar at the moment!

Boyfriend and I have a baby. In laws are retired and live 20mins away. My parents both still work but have Mondays off, and live an hour and a half away. Since our baby has been born, my parents tend to come on a Sunday afternoon, stay over and leave Monday evening. My boyfriend adores my parents and it was his insistence they have this routine, when I was pregnant he set up the spare room for them and went mattress shopping with my dad, to make sure my dad was happy with the chosen one etc. On Sunday afternoons, we either cook a roast or go out for one with my parents, or sometimes my boyfriend and I go out together whilst my parents (happily) babysit. My boyfriend works FT so I usually go out a long walk or lunch or something with my mum and dad on the Monday.
His parents live a lot closer and tend to see them for shorter periods of time, more ad hoc. We had no issues in the first couple of months, but recently we have noticed some jealousy from them about the amount of time my parents spend here. We’ve invited them to join us all for Sunday dinner and they sheets decline making comments like “no, we know that’s precious time with your parents” said rather sarcastically. They used to pop in at least one weeknight and some point on a Saturday. Whereas now we’ve started to notice they just turn up unannounced when my parents are here. They never come on a Saturday anymore, rarely on a weeknight. But they’ll come within minutes of my parents arriving on a Sunday (they know they tend to get here for 2ish) and take the best seats, want the first cuddles with the baby. They also note have started rocking up on Monday daytime, again knowing my parents are here and my boyfriend is working. It can be really inconvenient as sometimes they come just as we’re getting ready to go out, and multiple times they’ve turned up whilst we are out, and then send victim like texts , for example “just popped round to see baby but you’re not in 😢”. Boyfriend and I definitely feel like there’s some sort of jealousy here and it’s almost like they are trying to sabotage our time with my parents, instead of just coming when they know my parents aren’t there, and enjoying our company then. My boyfriend has raised it with them a few times but they just laugh it off say he’s looking for problems that don’t exist. I just feel like they’re making rods for their own backs with this behaviour!

But his gf is dictating the flow

i know ….that’s why I wrote it…..because generally women are social organisers…..and men are not 🤷‍♀️

Yeah and the boyfriend is happy to let her, it seems!

Is does feel hard sometimes

My adult dd and her dp and dgc were spending Christmas alone, just the family. All fine, I support whatever decisions they make. I subsequently discovered that they had gone to his Mum's. Apparently it was quite spur of the moment, because his brothers had decided to go, but it did hurt knowing they were having a big happy family gathering and dh and I were on our own (other dcs also doing other things).

However, dh and I had the most wondeerful chilled and decadent day. Other years will be different.

In the meantime enjoy your holiday with the rest of your family, and if possible keep the option open for your son and gf to join you last minute for a few days.

It was a diversion - some might say a derail. I'd spotted a scenario that sounded identical to my own situation and responded to it.

This wasn't meant to sound as though I'm insinuating OP was the same. If I've come over as having said so, apologies.

Men are autonomous adults with their own decision-making capacity.

I don't buy this get-out clause on the basis of strategic incompetence for one minute. Men certainly seem sufficiently competent to comandeer the vast percentage of high status occupations.

Your feelings are valid of course but you are still BU.

It is more common for sons to spend more time with their GF's/wife's parents than their own once they are in a relationship. This will likely be the case too if they have children. It will do no good to keep comparisons of how much time they spend with you vs her parents.

An auntie on my dad's side is like this and it is very toxic. Mind you she is nuts but recently she has started kicking off about all the times we didn't go to my paternal grandparents' house for Xmas when we were little kids but went to my maternal GPs instead (we were never invited to my paternal GPs on Xmas day and we always went on boxing day to see them), and she also kicks off that I spend more time with my other auntie my mum's sister rather than any of my paternal aunties. We have never been close to my paternal side at all so I don't get why she is kicking off now when I am in my thirties. All it has led to is me and my DB having even less to do with her or that side of the family due to her toxic behaviour.