Not being an awful MIL is much harder than it looks!

[Butterflyhelp]

My MIL was a nightmare, always jealous of any time we spent with my parents and often upset that she felt DH we didn't visit enough when had busy lives and couldn't fit in everything we wanted to do at weekends.

DS and GF are about to move into their own home. Her parents have been far more involved than me. I've really tried to stay back and let them have this chapter of their lives, but it turns out her parents have been involved in everything, gone to all the viewings, given loads of advice etc. If I'd known they wanted help I'd have given it willingly and am arguably better qualified to give it but I didn't want to interfere. I'm now feeling very hurt at being excluded. Also worried about some of the advice they've had!

I also feel very stressed at how much contact I'll have/be allowed once he leaves. I know he won't visit or phone unless I "remind" him. I don't want to be demanding and I'm not expecting a lot, but I also don't want lose touch completely.

I like GF but ever since he became smitten, she's had a lot of control and everything he does is about keeping her happy. I'm not saying that's necessarily a problem, it's a natural progression in his life and I'm glad he's a good partner. I am and have been happy to step back, but I'm don't want to lose him altogether and I'm finding it very difficult that her family are always prioritised. This is obviously his choice, to let that happen, but that doesn't make it easier for me.

It doesn't help that her dad is prolific on FB and so I see all the dinners etc they have together, which are far more frequent than anything I get. I'm a widow and DS2 is away so there isn't the "family" for them to visit/return to like there is at her parents'

It is so much the pattern we had with my MIL. I'm finding it really hard and don't know what to do that doesn't make it worse.

Ultimately, OP, this isn't really about being a MIL. It isn't about your relationship with your DIL. It's about your relationship with your son.
It seems that your DIL has a much closer relationship with her own parents than you currently have with your ds. I can understand why it hurts to become aware of that

This, precisely.

I make the effort to meet up with, visit and call my parents. Not out of a sense of obligation or because I am female. But because I like them and enjoy their company, and I value their views on eg house stuff. I have always had a close relationship with my mum.

DH doesn’t bother so much with his parents. He doesn’t dislike them (nor do I) they are nice people, but he has never had that kind of relationship. They are all very independent and get on with their own lives. They have never been “friends” in the way I am with my mum.

Were you very close to your DS until the DIL came along? Did you chat daily about his life, your life, views on things? Did he proactively choose to spend time with you? If there wasn’t this comparison with the ILs, how much contact would you expect?

How do you treat his girlfriend? Do you make her feel welcome and part of the family?
My in-laws are very hostile towards potential in-laws coming into the family. They don’t view in-laws as part of the family even when married in and treat them almost like they are a threat to them. It makes it uncomfortable for everyone, so we spend very little time with them. Could you be unintentionally making them feel this way?

When I split in my late 20s with my exH- I was more upset about kind of losing my lovely in laws than I was my Ex H !

As a consequence of course they spend all their time with her family. You only have yourself to blame for bringing him up like that.

What an unpleasant comment. My dd phones and texts the whole time but ds much less so - it s just the way they are.

Very true. For the first couple of years after I got married my MIL would ask me if I had remembered to send birthday cards (on behalf of my husband and myself) to members of her/their family! Not my job! After me saying a few times “no, that’s not my responsibility” she stopped asking. Just a old fashioned viewpoint really.
But I think the same applies - she probably assumed I should be the one who arranges to on see her and DH’s siblings. But it’s his job to arrange if he wants to see them, not mine.
Hence we see more of my parents than we see of his mum because I organise it and he never bothers!

Sorry you lost your dh. Hard isn't it. I did too. Could you chat to your ds on WhatsApp as a way of keeping involved?

Why are you holding your DiL accountable for how much your son sees you and involves you? I’m sorry, but that’s on you. Raise sons to be considerate rather than relying on an unrelated women to facilitate your relationship with him.

It's always like that isn't it? The DIL always gets the blame and labelled as "controlling".

If your son can't be bothered to call you or visit what does that have to do with your DIL?

She makes an effort to keep in touch with her family and so can your son but he chooses not to. Leave your DIL and her family out of this.

I would definitely start to cutivate an independent relationship with DIL . My MIL calls me DH hardly ever answers his phone. We chat , laugh she then speaks to DD then DH. She probably has more contact with DH because I'm her friend , she will ask me to visit, go for a meal together. She doesn't really ask DH.

I've seen a lot of responses like this throughout this thread. Maybe it is just a "sons" thing.

Gently, it’s all very well ‘reaching this epiphany’ after a lifetime of treating your own MIL like this, but really you’re just experiencing the downside of a culture that you propagated 🤷🏼‍♀️ I don’t know what to say really, sorry you feel this way but equally you’re only experiencing what you put your own MIL through. Do you have a daughter?

Well, I have only sons so I spend a lot of time with boys because all their friends are boys, and I do think that boys are, how to put it nicely, quite oblivious to the feelings of their mothers. They are all about themselves, what they want, what they like. Research-wise, girls are known to be more prosocial than boys. It's not that they'll never do it, they just don't notice other people's needs and desires as much. So I don't think this is your fault, I think it's fairly normal.

I think teaching sons to be mindful of their mothers is a difficult line to walk. My own MIL and FIL taught their boys to be VERY, VERY mindful of their mother. The consequence was that each of their sons put her before their wives. It did a lot of damage I think, to their marriages. It's taken me years to get over the way I was expected to put my own health and wellbeing lower than the ego-needs of my husband's mother. If she had been willing to accept less attention and prioritization from my husband, she probably would have been less happy, but our marriage would have been healthier and isn't it a mother's goal that her child should have a happy and healthy marriage?

I think if you are not getting invited to your son's house, it would be ok to have a conversation with him and say something like, "I haven't seen you in weeks. How do you want this to work? Do you want me to invite you to my house when I miss you, or do you want me to invite myself to your house? Or would Theresa be unhappy if I invited myself over? What works best for you?"

When my dh and I got married, the priest who married us said, it is really best if you live far away from both sets of parents because a married couple spending too much time with their parents is actually not good for the marriage as it prevents the couple having the independence to build their own family culture. A priest!

However I do think it is acceptable for parents to want to still be somehow part of their children's lives after marriage. It's not right, even for sons, to simply put their mother into metaphorical "attic storage" once he no longer needs her, and I doubt any of these DIL's would appreciate that happening to themselves when they get to be our age. But the frequency of contact probably won't be as high as we'd like.

I have observed that what "works" for a husband's parents is acts of service, because these signal explicitly the willingness of the parents to be supportive rather than to dominate. In your case, maybe this is dropping off your son's favorite cookies at his house, or inviting them to eat a special meal with his favorite dish or a traditional dish you're particularly good at making. Offering to do chores at their house is tricky as she may take it as criticism. Complimenting how she does things is probably safe.

I would definitely start to cutivate an independent relationship with DIL . My MIL calls me DH hardly ever answers his phone. We chat , laugh

No!! Speaking as a DIL please don’t start calling your DIL for chats. I actually really like my MIL but this would drive me up the wall.

Yep and it’s something never expected of men. Can you imagine a woman being told to cultivate a relationship with her SIL so that he can plan, manage and arrange to include her more in her own daughters life?! Madness.

You really have to reframe this if you're going to move forwards and have a healthy relationshiop with your son and his partner. It isn't about her being in control, or about her parents being allowed to get involved, it's about him and about the effort he is willing to put into his relationship with you. He shouldn't need 'reminding' to contact his widowed mum, FFS.

Talk to the man you raised and let him know that the current situation is making you sad. That you're very aware of not overstepping now he's in this exciting new chapter of his life, but that you want to find a level of contact that makes you both happy. Because ultimately that's the girlfriend's 'crime' here, just having a level of contact with her parents that they all enjoy. She isn't the enemy, but framing her as such in your head isn't going to help at all.

When I was a child, my parents first cut off all contact with my paternal grandmother for a decade, just before I was born (until they needed her to home us for 3 of the most miserable months of my life) and then cut off my maternal grandmother for 9 years - that only ended because my younger brother got drunk on his 18th birthday and rang her.

30 years on, my mother now wonders why my older brother is so bad at keeping in touch with her ... she's lucky if he rings her twice a year. She lives in Australia, he's in the US, and has not actually seen her in over a decade.

Of course my mother blames my SIL. I've even outright said to her that both her and my father showed us growing up that keeping in touch with family wasn't a priority, but she just can't make that connection. It's all the fault of my evil SIL...my mother also bitches a lot about how involved SIL's parents are. I can't say anything about the situation without my mother taking it as a personal attack.

This is a bit harsh, and probably not a reflection of how he was raised at all!

Well no we built an independent relationship. I don't know why there has to be automatic friction there just because she's the MIL. My MIL didn't start out ringing me that's how the relationship developed as time went on she's interested in me as a person not just DH the natural side effect is she has more contact with DH who is bad at contact. I guess sometimes personalities clash but the assumption mil must be the enemy and you won't get along is false.

I married a man who was an adult and made the effort to maintain good relations with his family without needing a woman to do it for him. I'm the daughter of a man who did the same. I'm the mother of four adult children and my sons don't expect their partners to mediate their relationship with me any more than my daughters do.

You, OTOH, were the one complaining about the evil DiL who took your Nigel away, had the temerity to want to protect additional assets she was bringing into marriage from early marriage breakdown and failed to inform you (for consent?) first.

I don't think I'm the one with issues here.