Dil pregnancy

[Bell501]

Hello
My Dil is pregnant which I'm delighted about. I've known now about 5 weeks and have sent her a text about four times to see how she is keeping. I bought her a gift and left it outside her house. Noone was there. I got a message from my son saying she wants no fuss and she wants him to keep me updated.

Is there any obvious way I have upset her? What do I do now apart from the obvious ask my son. How often should I inquire?

Our relationship has been very civil I think up to now. She is a private person

Of course a Mil would be more interested in your wellbeing when you are carrying their grandchildren! Why would a Mil constantly enquire as to the wellbeing of a perfectly healthy non pregnant woman constantly?

You can't do anything right can you, is it because you are the MIL?

My lovely, sweet, kind MIL is now sadly dead. I have sons, I hope I have a lovely relationship with my DILs. My sister is incredibly close to her MIL.

I think what you did texting and leaving flowers shows that she is in your thoughts and cares. It is strange to get information through your son about her pregnancy. You didn't bombard her with texts, you sent 4 over a 5 week period. But now you know, just ask your son about her occasionally.

I love my MIL, get along really well. She comes stay for a week and I enjoy her company, first person I left baby with. Still don't text her weekly. Even my own mum texting weekly would grate for me. I don't like feeling 'checked upon'.

Also, if you normally speak every month then suddenly you're pregnant and you're texting weekly it just feels a bit shit. Like it's for the baby and not you. And then suddenly near the end it's daily and you know they're fishing to find out if you're not answering you might be in labour and it just pisses you off.

Edit to add, it was same with my own family!

It’s not about you. It is literally what she said - she wants no fuss.
Step back, give her no fuss ( now and straight after birth-and all will be well.

Your contact had gone from seeing them a couple of times a year to texting roughly weekly to ask about the pregnancy. That's a big change for your private DIL - she's still herself, not just the vessel of your grandchild, and her interest in communicating is the same as it was before.

I'd pull back and be led by your son and DIL. Occasional texts or phonecalls with him to ask how things are going, keeping it low key because that's clearly how they want things.

It's wonderful that you are excited and want to help. However, they may well not want babysitting. They are different people to your other son and DIL so don't jump to conclusions about how involved they want you to be.

Congratulations on your future grandchild!

I’m Irish and living in Ireland, and among my family and friends there’s a wide variety of approaches to unannounced visitors, open houses etc.

Different perspective. I let my dh deal with his side of the family and I deal with mine. If he doesn’t then that’s down to him. Not my responsibility to keep communication open especially if before pregnancy your texts were sporadic and now have ramped up. But then I don’t know what their relationship is like.

dont read anything into it and keep communicating with your son as you would normally.

she isn’t being rude but setting her boundaries that are very reasonable. You e said she is private so her request reflects that.

also who knows what your relationship was like up to this point , what her relationship is like with her parents, how you interact at gatherings etc.

go with the flow. No expectation of you babysitting, they may have budgeted for one of them reducing hours and nursery.

Of course a Mil would be more interested in your wellbeing when you are carrying their grandchildren! Why would a Mil constantly enquire as to the wellbeing of a perfectly healthy non pregnant woman constantly?

It's not specifically asking a bout the health of a healthy person though-it's showing an interest in general.

Why more attention just because someone is pregnant?

It's her grandchild, not some random stranger. Of course she's interested! What is wrong with people?

I think you're getting some really hard responses, OP, but you're a mother in law so the cards are stacked against you.

I personally think your daughter in law is being a bit rude. She could have thanked you for the flowers and just told you that she's not feeling herself and your son will update you but she knows you were thinking of her and appreciates that.

That would have completed the loop; made you feel ok about a polite response from your daughter in law. I don't think much of her for not doing that, she's not a child and has the same duty the rest of us have in a family to be straightforward and say what we need/don't need.

You sound very kind and thoughtful. In your place I would pull right back and go through your son (not too often either), just with "You know where I am if you need anything, lots of love". Loop closed again, with kindness and thought.

Wow some weird replies on here OP.

I think you sound lovely and very far from 'too full on'. Your DIL is the one who is behaving weirdly.

I text my SIL and DIL now and then .... maybe a follow up if they've mentioned a job interview or a stressful time for them. I think it's nice to let family know that they are in your thoughts.

I really agree with this. Cutting people off, 'going NC' and torching relationships at the slightest provocation has become so normal, and then we have an epidemic of loneliness.

To add context, I am very low contact with my mum due to abuse, so I do get the need in some cases, but that is the exception, not the rule - for minor things like disagreements/annoyances or personality differences there is a degree of tolerance and conflict resolution that need to be employed.

Yes, but that itself can be upsetting. She is private, probably has a small group of close friends, and these people can have social anxiety. It can be, for lack of a better word, 'triggering' for people to know someone only wants to know them for another reason. That you're not worth that attention yourself.

I think it's chilled too. But you're a MiL so you HAVE to take the lead from your DiL

Why indeed? But if a woman shows no interest whatsoever in her DiL and maybe only speaks to her on an occasional basis, then as soon as she becomes pregnant is in her inbox every week, she'd be quite justified in feeling as hurt and rejected as OP feels now in the face of her son's response. Because it's clear the new interest is neither in her, nor necessarily borne out of concern for her welfare. Her welfare as an individual that is, not simply because she's carrying the grandchild.

The important thing now is to reach an understanding and not let any ill-feelings grow. That's if there are any, and there might well not be on DiL's side.

I doubt that many of the more extreme responses on this thread, saying how awful and rude DiL is and how out of turn OP is behaving, are likely to help find the balance with that, but MN does have a tendency to think in extremes.

Please ignore the people saying you've been OTT or intrusive. Is this your first grandchild? Of course you're going to be excited your son is going to be a father, it's natural that you'll want to know how your DIL is. For your own peace of mind, you could text your son and mention you don't want to annoy them but you are also excited and would like to know how things are going. I think it's sweet you're interested!

The postman tends to creep around my house quite a bit ,you know when he's delivering things. I'm going to set him a few boundaries .

I think you've answered your own question here OP. She's a private person. She doesn't want weekly messages from her MIL asking about her pregnancy/health. She's telling you this is too much. Please back off for the sake of your future relationship.

I think this is probably spot on. The DiL is an introvert and the attention isn’t welcome.

Aww you sound so lovely.
My MIL suggested we abort our son as she was ‘too young’ to be a grandma and our relationship wouldn’t last! And she’s been a witch ever since.

I tried for years and years to have a decent relationship with her but DH, our children and me have always been treated differently to everyone else.
I stopped trying (far too late, wasted far too many years being upset) and finally went no contact, it’s been wonderful.

I would have loved to have had a relationship where we text and went for coffee etc but it wasn’t to be.

Perhaps your DIL is feeling overwhelmed? Or possibly she is not as far along as she wants to be before getting excited about baby. Maybe just leave her be for now and hopefully she’ll come around in time. Let her set the amount of contact between you both and go from there x

I don't think you have done anything wrong. Some people are jusrlt odd bods who prefer a life in isolation. Just stick to asking your son and don't waste your money.

Nice of you to drop flowers and send her a congrats text. But given you weren't close before, YABU to try and force a relationship now. I'd be annoyed as it clearly just says "now you're an incubator, I will pretend to give a shit about your wellbeing although I only care about the fetus".

She replied, she was polite. She doesn't suddenly owe you anything!

She's going through a massive life change, God knows how sick she's feeling, all while trying to hold down a full time job. Creating an artificial relationship with her MIL should really be the last thing on her list.

I haven't RTFT so apologies if you have already said this, but is this a pregnancy that's still in relatively early stages? If so, your DIL may (as well as being a naturally private person) be feeling anxious and a bit overwhelmed and find regular messages and gifts a bit much.

I personally think that as well-meaning as you are, you have been a bit OTT if you were not very close to her prior to her pregnancy, and she might find it a little overbearing. To share my own experience - I fell pregnant for the first time last summer and we let our parents know at around 8 weeks following an early scan. Immediately my ILs sent a big bouquet of flowers, which at the time I told my DH was a bit much - I was feeling quite overwhelmed and suddenly being sent flowers by my MIL felt like being put under pressure to get the pregnancy "right". A few days later I miscarried and the first thing I did when I got home from the hospital was to throw the flowers in the bin. I've been fortunate to become pregnant again since then, again we told parents after an early scan, and this time I specifically told my DH to tell his parents not to send anything because I had found it too much the last time.

I will add that I get on very well with my ILs, my MIL in particular, and we probably message each other a couple of times a month - if she had suddenly ramped up contact after finding out I was pregnant I would have found it very annoying and would probably have done what your DIL has done and tried to channel updates through my DH.

TL;DR - she is still a person in her own right not just a vessel for your grandchild, if you didn't message a lot before she was pregnant you don't need to now, and she might be feeling anxious/overwhelmed/unwell and just want to keep everything low key. You can let her know through your son that you are thinking about her and she will most likely appreciate you respecting her wishes, much more than if you keep pushing.

I definitely don’t think that’s too much - it was a text, not even a phone call and flowers are very sweet! I just wanted to stay you sound lovely. However, I’m not your DIL and unfortunately it seems she’s being a little unwelcoming, but I think you just have to go with it and take your lead from her. She would probably be annoyed if you didn’t check in too. Hopefully she will relax a little when baby arrives but if not just coordinate with your son x x

I'm a DIL - get along with MIL just fine but we've never had the type of relationship where we text/speak by ourselves. Neither of us are difficult people I don't think, just wouldn't chose to be friends.

Once I was pregnant she would start sending me messages - she showed no interest in talking to me beforehand, so I knew it was just because I was pregnant which made me feel a bit like a grandbaby incubator to be honest (I'm sure the hormones didn't help). But then I realised she was just excited to be a grandma, so would respond politely to most of the messages.

So I can see both sides to this - but I would for now just do as she asks.