To ask why my DIL is being cold?

[ConfusedGranS]

My son and daughter-in-law are both in their 30s and have two children, aged 4 and a baby.
Before they got married, I always had a lovely relationship with my DIL. She was friendly, warm and seemed very happy to spend time with us. However, since they got married, I’ve noticed a real change in her attitude towards me and my husband.
She’s become quite cold and distant. When we visit, I feel as though she puts on a face and is just being polite for the sake of it. There’s an uncomfortable atmosphere that wasn’t there before.
A few things have made me notice the difference even more. For example, she doesn’t seem to behave this way when my son’s siblings (the children’s aunts and uncles) visit. She’s perfectly relaxed and friendly with them. It’s specifically when we’re around that things seem strained.
They have a four-bedroom house, and there’s a spare bedroom, but we’ve never been invited to stay. Both children currently sleep in their parents’ room, so it’s not as though there isn’t space. I appreciate that nobody is obliged to host us, and I’m not particularly bothered about staying there, but it does feel as though we’re being kept at arm’s length.
I also feel that we’re not really encouraged to have much involvement with the children. We’ve offered to babysit, but they’ve never taken us up on it. They have a full-time nanny and housekeeper, so I appreciate they have childcare arrangements in place, and I’m not suggesting we’re entitled to look after the children. We’ve never been left alone with them, and as far as I’m aware, we’ve never done anything to make them uncomfortable or given them any reason to question our care of the children.
For context, my DIL comes from a considerably wealthier background than we do. We’ve never had the same financial means as her family, but we’ve always tried to be welcoming and supportive. I don’t know whether that has anything to do with it, and I don’t want to make assumptions.
I’ve spoken to my son about whether anything is wrong, but his response is always along the lines of “No, no, everything’s fine”. He doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t want to put him in the middle or create problems in their marriage.
I’m genuinely not looking for an argument or demanding a closer relationship than she wants. I’m quite happy to respect boundaries and be a hands-off grandmother if that’s what they prefer. I’m also happy to change anything about my behaviour if I’ve unknowingly done something to upset her.
What I find difficult is the awkwardness and not knowing where I stand.
Would I be unreasonable to ask my DIL directly, perhaps privately, whether I’ve done something to upset her or whether there’s anything she’d like me to do differently? Or is that likely to make things even more uncomfortable?
I don’t want to force a relationship, but equally, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to understand why things have changed so much.

In principle it seems like a good idea to ask her if something upset her, but you might not get a useful answer. She might be a snob or she might be one of the many people in the world who is just not that bothered about other people. Maybe she’s like a cat, she takes more interest in people who don’t try with her. My advice would be to see if you can get something going like a monthly call with your son but stop offering to help them or asking to visit. The call would at least allow you to get updates on him and your grandkids. And when they are a bit older they will come to realise what a lovely granny they’ve got. 💐

Far too early. This is unreasonable.

No, truly I don't 😂 I thought the use of the word entitled made perfect sense in the context of my post, which was suggesting that, as a general rule of thumb, in our society Grandparents are 'entitled' (have a right) to a relationship with their grandchildren, but that that right does not extend to how warm and friendly the relationship with their DIL is. It's what this whole thread is about.

Yes, so you’ve said. Personally I think your own attitude is dripping with internalised misogyny. The person who needs to be centred during and just after childbirth is the birthing mother. Not her DH or his mother. Sulking about waiting a few hours while she recovers is preposterous.

Ask her if you can take the 4 year old to see Santa. Tell her you'd really love to take them. See what she says.

She appears to have a strong disdain of contempt for you. It might come simply from her looking down on you; thinking you are a fool and a poor fool at that. She doesn’t need you. She doesn’t respect you. She is busy and doesn’t give a spare thought to you or your feelings.

My ex SIL was like this, she palmed her babies off onto childcare helpers, got a cleaner, and spent her time socialising. She did eventually get a job of sorts and she would tolerate my mum staying as an unpaid undervalued babysitter, especially during holidays or when nanny was on vacation. They even made my mum sleep on a sofa bed. It made my blood boil but my mum took the scraps.

I would get your other dc (“dc2”) who lives nearby to find out on your behalf. Tell the dc you don’t care what the answer is, you just want to know why. Get them to approach it obliquely - find out from your ds how his wife is doing with the baby and the four year old and then steer the conversation to why she doesn’t want or need your involvement.

It’s possible to be too nice, OP

It can take a long time for some to feel that it's fine to leave both children on their own with someone else - I know that you said they have done this and you feel as if you are at the bottom of the list, but it can be as much about the comfortableness of the mum (or dad) as it is about one child or the other. It might even come down to jealousy from DIL's own parents - ask me how I know? My ILs live much closer and there is nothing I can do to stop them 'popping in' unless I make myself scarce when I know. It gives me all kinds of grief from my Mum who feels the one who is left out and has to be 'invited' because there's no way of doing it without hosting or arranging longer stays.

I have never employed a nanny but I have had to juggle different kinds of wrap around care year on year over the pre- and early school years, sometimes never the same because of the jobs and circumstances and continuity of the childcare places. From what I'd found, it is really difficult to chop and change that (even when you have no choice, or even when there are odd times where, suddenly, your childcare hours could be 'fixed' for one week by a family offer. There is a sense of keeping to the hours that are normal and paid for, because it's also not easy to juggle the plan.) Possibly the whole family don't see each other as much as they would ideally like, so time and space (or luxury not to be hosts) is something they protect at the moment - but it may not always be like this. It's a hard path to negotiate but it sounds like you have done as best you can.

Myself and my MIL have a similar relationship, very cold. She has never been overly warm towards me, has never text me to ask how we are, we have very different parenting styles so now just choose not to discuss certain things etc. My DH tried to raise it with her once and gently suggest she could text me sometimes to ask after the DC. On the back of this she’d text me every evening for the next 2 weeks just to say “hope you’ve had a good day at work” then just stopped completely again. Bizarre! I’d of happily sent pics etc but felt she didn’t want to know. Personally, i’d raise it again with your son and try not to let him brush it off.

I think it’s as simple as she doesn’t like you OP.

With a housekeeper and a nanny…I don’t think so

I'm a mother. Also a wife, daughter, daughter in law. You sound a bit of a snowflake tbh. I didn't make any difference at all between my parents and my husband's parents after my children were born. My husband called both sets of parents one after the the other.

Well, as you weren't knackered how could anyone else possibly feel different?

Agree. So many people on this thread falling over themselves to excuse DIL bad behaviour and hostility!

As I said earlier, people who employ lots of help often do so because their jobs are all-consuming.

One of you is a nightmare and it is impossible to say who that is. I would just be nice, avoid making judgements and offer to help. If she declines, don't take it personally. I do not know any parent who would refuse a genuine offer of help from a kind person, especially when the children get older. Hopefully things will improve.

What difference does it make? If you are contacting one set of parents to inform them of the birth, then why not just do the other set straight after? It just makes sense that they both get informed at the same time.

I don't think its unreasonable of the OP not to wonder why they were not also contacted, as if they are not important enough to be told.

I think the answer lies with your son. You need to tackle him again. He knows what is going on with her/them.

When you asked him what the story was his response of 'no no everything is fine' seems off to me. Surely if he thought that there was nothing in it and there was absolutely no issues between DIL and yourself he would have delved deeper into what you were saying and your point of view.. Even if he thought you were imagining things he could have tried to put ypur mind at rest. His dismissive response of saying everything is fine to me screams just the opposite.

He is well aware there is something going on.

I think in her eyes ye are superfluous to her life, she has everything she needs.

I would stop trying with her and communicated directly with your son, Couldn’t he meet ye with the children especially the four year old.

If she rules the roost and your ds isn’t one for rocking the boat then you will be a very part time granny and there isn’t anything you can do unfortunately.

I think the park idea is a bit bonkers.

Forget the 1-1 thing, it’s perfectly possible to have lovely relationships with DGC without this.

Hmm how much did the wedding cost - we are well off and the kids got 10,000 each plus money towards their first house, and that was a while ago - I would suspect the money was something like 20+K from the parents and 7K from you.
Could be she or her parents were not happy with that.

Are the other DPs in her life?
I would speak to the siblings - what are their views?
If the other DPs are constantly swamping them with gifts, expensive days and meals out etc then perhaps your offers are not enough.
Does she work?
If she has nannies etc she doesn't need a break.

You could say you want to take DGS to the zoo or any day out and ask DS when it would suit him /them. So not visits to hers but taking DGS out of the way.

I don't think there is really enough info - but with a new baby you probably want peace and quiet not visits.

I’m sorry you’re having this experience op. I think you should just back off a bit and try to arrange stuff with your son. For what it’s worth my mil was the sweetest little old lady and I used to really struggle when she came to stay ….looking back she was desperate to help, but I didn’t need what she was offering as I was quite capable, and her parenting experiences were very different to mine (not just different era but different culture & country etc) so it was difficult to relate. She was also keen to develop a chatty friendship style relationship - but I don’t think realised that, at that time, I only chatted to my own mother once a month/every six weeks ish (my Mum only came to visit my newborn because my sister told her she had to😆). It became easier as time went on, and my kids adored her. Give it space & time - it’ll come good. She does sound a bit of a cow though, it must be demoralising - sorry.

The DIL sounds very controlling of the husband. He had to wait to tell his own parents his child had been born, until after the wife had told her extended family. Having the mother's parents visit the baby ahead of the father's seems to be an accepted thing on Mumsnet but why the hell can't the father's parents be told the baby has been born?

She sounds dreadful & rude, and I’m sorry you are being treated like this.

I struggle with my MIL as she’s hard work (very emotional, self centered but in fairness she’s not over bearing), but would never ever treat her the way you’ve been treated, particularly around the delayed birth announcements and the way she talks to you.

If she’s fine with your other children could you ask them to ask if everything is ok?

I don’t like my MIL very much since having kids :(
after first one was born she became overbearing and undermined me so many times.
If it was me, I would prefer if she spoke to my husband about what she’s done wrong. I wouldn’t want to speak to her about it!