a son is a son until he takes a wife, but a daughter is a daughter for the rest of your life

[maama0f3]

Is there truth to this? What's your experience? Hear of so many sad strained DIL / MIL relationship dynamics and being a mama of sons curious.

It seems to be the case in our family for DM. Not strained relationships, just us sisters & DC are closer to DM than SIL/DBro & family. Not intentionally, just the way it has worked out. It also seems to be the case for pretty much all of my friends too tbh.

I have DS so it does make me concerned.

Not in my experience. In fact, the only people I know NC or LC with their parents / families are women.

I think it completely depends on the family in question.

I think it can be true in that a lot of women tend to take over (ie, get dumped with) the logistics of managing the family plans, and this usually naturally means that more time is spent with her own family than her in-laws, and her parents see the grandchildren more etc.

I also think women might be more likely to want to stay close to their families while many of the men I know have been happy to move a bit further away, which can impact relationships.

But equally I do not lots of examples of men who make lots of effort to keep in touch and see their parents etc, so it's definitely not cut and dried :)

I had a hell of a shock when my brother got married. He was 31 and had never had a serious relationship before, totally fell in love and got married and dropped me like a stone! We used to be really close, chatting about nothing on messenger most evenings, gaming together, playing pool or darts or flying his RC helicopter when we were at my parent's together etc. Since he got married we exchange a couple of lines via text every month or so, he doesn't come for family Christmas or birthdays any more and the couple of times a year he visits are very fleeting, around 24 hours, and it just feels like hosting a stranger. Saddest of all for me is his wife is having a baby next month and despite me being a maternity nurse they haven't involved me at all - I would have loved to have had a bond with the baby as our own extended family were crap and I wanted this generation to be different, but it seems it's not to be.

So I don't know about mother/son relationships (although in my brother's case he's become more distant, more formal, and often doesn't reply to my mum's texts, but she makes out she doesn't really mind) but I was shocked at the impact my brother's marriage had on my relationship with him. I don't really understand why she couldn't become 'one of us' but they just want to be in their cosy club of 2 (nearly 3) instead.

In general women look after relationships better than men do, but so many exceptions.

My dad tries very hard to keep contact with all of his siblings, from many marriages. He was closer to his mom than dad, and I think same could be said of his 3 brothers (2 different mothers).

DSs are closer to me and DD is closer to her dad.

IME it has been like this. I have a 7 week old son and hope he's the minority though!

My mum says this but I think she uses it with different intent, as in uses it as a way to exert power over me. DH finds it an abhorrent saying.

My DD has gone off with her BF, we never see her. She never messages first, so IMO it’s the individual, not the sex.

Yeah it's impossible to generalise.

Load of crap. Every family and every person is different.

Hand on heart although we are close, my mum is probably closer to my brother than me.

My son in law and his brother are very close to their parents. Not that this is a meaningful scientific study.

I think this happens less often with families of only sons because the parents make more effort with DIL and GC.

My brother is much closer to both our parents than me and spends more time with them than I do. So... No

Load of crap, totally depends on the family and the people

It’s true in my family (mums brother). Obviously it’s different for every family. My mother keeps telling me that brother and sister relationships are temporary.

It's not the case in our family. I'm much closer to my MIL than my SIL is.

I do see it happening around me though and it comes down to who makes the effort. So many blokes I know consider family stuff 'wife work' even if it's their bloody family.

I've always refused to do this so if the nieces and nephews are to get presents and cards, he should buy them. If he wants to see them then he can arrange it. I'm not a social secretary.

It’s an easy cliche for those who have difficult relationships with their sons to blame the dil for that 🙄. Mil parrots this when the actual reason she has a shit relationship with her son is due to her not me 🙄

It’s not always true.

I have absolutely no relationship with my parents and haven’t spoken to them in almost a decade. I’m currently sat at MIL’s with DH and our DC watching a movie.

I love my MIL and my DH is still very close with his mum, more so since we had our DC.

I’ve been married twice. First MIL was a lovely lady and we used to go shopping and out for coffee, she only had sons and was thrilled to have DIL, she cried when her son dumped me. Second MIL is a bitch spewed forth by Hell itself and I wouldn’t shed a single tear if I never saw her again. I am the same person in both cases. So I can say confidently that being a nasty cow is what makes the difference.

I think it's a silly old fashioned saying.

One of three sisters - two of us very close to our side of the family. My other sister is much closer to her partners. Lots of reasons my sister children our similar ages to mine so we naturally do things together as a family. None of us live near each other and we always invite everyone but my sister who doesn’t have children yet I can imagine the thought of a camping weekend is usually met with a nope.
My husband is still though close to his Mum - though she does make it very difficult. To the point we no longer visit as a family. Just my husband which she loves the one to one attention! She bitterly complains if we say we going to my family. And then sulks - but she expects the kids to act like mini adults and behave in a certain way - which means they don’t relax when around her.

I think it just depends on expectations and what works for families.

My brother is really close to our Mum and lives in the same town. Ditto, mil speaks to each of her 3 sons daily (her DD too) and sees them at least weekly.

It's a trite saying not a law.

My DH had a lovely, close relationship with his DM. She was a truly lovely woman and a wonderful MIL. She died 7 years ago and she left a big hole in our lives.

I'm not emotionally close to my own mother but my MIL was a great role model. I learnt a lot about being a nurturing mother from her.

Looking back, she welcomed me into the family with welcome arms. She never criticised, never interferred. Never made me feel that I wasn't good enough for her boy. But she had a good reason for doing this. Her own MIL was dreadful. An awful woman who was quite abusive to my lovely MIL. So my MIL simply wanted the exact opposite to what she had.

So it is possible for Mils and DILs to have strong, healthy, close relationships. But it does depend on the people involved and in all honesty, the son/husband is key here.

Ime many men, particularly younger men, have a sort of priority list on giving love.. It’s like they believe they only have so much love to give. They get married and then tell themselves they have to prioritise their wife over their old family. Kids come along shifting the other part of their family down their priorities even more. It’s like they just don’t get that you have infinite capacity for loving and it enriches your life. Personally i think it’s just cos they lack any understanding that sometimes we have to demonstrate our love by undertaking “duties”to our family- and they can’t be arsed. Stuff like keeping in touch by phone, remembering dates and events, Mother’s Day, visiting where some effort is involved. It’s very easy for them to tell themselves they have to put my “own” family first. I think it’s also away of avoid conflict and compromise. Instead of having to think how to deal with at time conflicting needs and coming up with a clever solution to balance both parts of their family, they just go with “my own family comes first” and then can sanctimoniously ignore the problem and potential hurt it causes.
I think girls are raised to do stuff they don’t want to , to be”nice” and to please people in order to be loved. Again a generalisation, but I have never once all my years a women say she had to “prioritise” her “own” family over her parents, siblings unless for a specific event ( or because there was some sort of toxic relationship). Women, ime, spend a lot of emotional labour juggling and compromising in the effort to show all their loved ones they are loved.