If I was your DIL, and I politely asked you not to phone on a Sunday, would you carry on phoning?

[ilovepiccolina]

FIL is retired, and gets bored. MIL goes to Mass, so he started ringing us a lot on a Sunday, and it started to really stress me out. I realise it's my problem, he doesn't understand why he shouldn't etc., but surely he should respect the request?

I like a nice quiet Sunday. Cut off from the world. I find the phone intrusive. Once he phoned four times, starting at 8.50am - 'What, it's nearly 9 o'clock and you're not up yet? What a waste of a day!' and then, later, when the dch were at Sunday School - a brilliant invention, a whole hour when DH and I could, er, reconnect . The phone is by the bed and DH would feel obliged to answer it: 'If it's a green bird it must be a greenfinch.' etc.

He would ring before lunch when I was cooking, when we were eating, when we were just about to go out for a walk. It got to the point where I had a sort of phobia and was dreading it. And I started turning the phone off but hated it, felt guilty, just in case there was an emergency, or the dch needed collecting, or whatever.

So, with DH's permission, I asked him, politely, if he could leave the phone calls until the evening, because we were always doing something, cooking, eating etc. He was v. surprised, but agreed. It was fine for a year or so, but now he rings every Sunday again. Last week - 12.30, I was cooking while listening to some beautiful music: 'It's been raining all morning. What's the weather like down where you are?Spoilt the mood.

He has other dch to ring ffs, or he can ring on Saturdays, weekdays. I've asked DH to ring him on Saturdays but often he CBA.

Am I weird? I don't want to make a big thing of this with DH in case he thinks I am. But should FIL respect my wishes? He can be nice but is also a bit of a bully. A power thing, do you think?

I haven't read the whole thread but its all relative and I think you should just be glad that you have a FIL who is interested in you enough to phone you! Get a phone with caller ID and then you can screen calls if you need to.

We used to go to Sunday school but our parents never went to church. They felt sending us was part of their vows taken at our christening.
I don't see answerphones as at all antisocial. If I ring my dad or sibs and it's inconvenient then I'd rather they either told me they were busy and would ring me back (often happens as we eat at different times)or just had me leave a message and got back to me later. If they said a particular time was inconvenient I wouldn't ring then or have a huff. If you like someone surely you want to talk to them when its convenient for both of you and not feel that you are putting someone out?
I'd just let the phone go on answerphone if you don't want to answer it and stop feeling guilty about it. You've said Sundays are inconvenient, he can ring on a Sunday but you don't have to answer. Your husband can ring his dad on Sunday if he wants to, you just don't get involved.

I will tell you what I think of this malarkey
on Sunday. I'll phone you at 7:00AM okay![

What's wrong with wanting to chill out on a Sunday?
Admittedly many of my Sundays are spent doing sporty stuff and supervising the kids doing homework, but if no sporting fixtures and no kids (divorced) then we like to chill out and not be hassled by phone calls and uninvited visitors.

Why is it extrreme to say I have lost my FIL and wish he was around? Am I not allowed to mention how I feel I wish i'd have given him more time when he was alive because now it feels so bad? Its nowt to do with guilt tripping its all to do with THINKING about the way you deal with people while you have the chance and hopefully stopping any 'wish id have done more' feelings when they are no longer around to be an inconvenience!

Just another question here- why does your DH not answer? If he is aware his own father phones a lot on a Sunday would it be too much for him to speak to him?

Sure RedRedWine1980, the way you feel may help the OP to put her dilemna into perspective, I appreciate that and I'm sorry that you miss your FIL.

I'm just saying that if the response to every request for advice posted on here was "well you're lucky to have that problem in the first place, I don't have a FIL, DC, DH to be annoyed at" then we wouldn't get anywhere.

OP's FIL phones to speak to his son
Who cannot be arsed to phone him himself
So OP is directing her ire in the wrong direction
It is still rude to tell people when they may and when they may not attempt to speak to their own children, particularly when you are not prepared to get an answering service.

Hi peeps.

DH does answer the phone when he's here, but more often than not he's in the garden/garage/fiddling about outside.

ANYWAY!! I have made a decision, and you have all helped: I am not going to ask them not to call, I am just going to use the call screening thingy!! Yes, we do have one I just never use it, just rush to answer to stop the bloody thing from ringing. (But, of course, if the dch are here they will answer it & hand it over to me

I don't want to involve DH/MIL further or play games: if he gets 'no answer' he will, as you say, be more likely, eventually, to ring in the evening, rather than me getting huffy/martyred at answering it when I don't want to.

So many of you are SO right, eg. from Maisie:
"...you're making a mountain out of a molehill, when there doesn't even need to be a molehill.

I want to be a loving, tolerant person. But with a backbone. Once again MN has made me a better person. To those of you who've lost your parents or grandparents, I'm sorry and I know it hurts - I idolised my Dad. He died a few years ago. But it does get better, it still stabs like a knife sometimes but those occasions get farther apart.

Thanks to Screamin', 2rebecca and WingedVictory (of Samothrace? I love that statue) and the others who have argued for me.

xx

well sorted piccolina, and you are good to acknowledge your supporters. I promise not to phone on Sunday as you have been a goo sport.

You'll get short shrift from me if you do!

No wait, scrub that - I'm tolerant now.

And repeat. Tolerant and Loving, me.

If you ring I'll just turn the music up.

Good old call screening! Much as I love my mother and MIL, sometimes I really don't want to speak to them, and that's when it comes in really handy

You've been a brick about this, ILove - I admire you

You did mean brick? Not p a typo? Thanks.

As mentioned, my Mum is very strict and overbearing. (She has good points of course, but her way is the Only way, and she's incredibly judgemental.) I don't want to be like that, but sometimes it's hard to shake off your 'early training', no? So I've tried to bring up my dch completely differently to her way but sometimes need a bit of a hand to see where IABU. People on this thread have shown me another side (that I might be hurting someone, might regret being a cow). It's not the first time that lovely MNers have helped me manage a situation (with the dch for example)in a sensible way.

DH has promised to stop me when if I show signs of being a PITA/judgemental bat. He dreads me turning into my mother. I dread him turning into his father!

good lord an AIBU which turns out rather nicely

I think I need to go and have a lie down.

No, definitely not a -p- typo!