When it comes to coordinating plans or just general communication, I text my family and my husband texts his. But whenever my MIL has a question, she will text me. Are we still going on the trip my husband told her about? What are we doing for Easter? My husband asked her to babysit our dog but she forgot which dates so she texted me to confirm. I always want to reply ask your son! 🤦🏽‍♀️
I know it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but my husband is an involved and capable member of our household. He can answer these questions too, especially her follow up questions regarding things he told her in the first place!
Anyway, I just wanted to vent since she texted me asking following up questions regarding plans he told her about so instead of replying with “Ask your kid!” I came here instead lol.
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This is unfortunately gendered expectationsÂ
A lot of older women are just used to taking charge of the family’s calendar. They didn’t expect their husbands to handle the household’s weekly schedule or social affairs. So it’s natural for them to treat the female partner as the family secretary.
My MIL used to tell me about upcoming dates and events just to “make sure” we knew about them. I eventually looked her in the eye and said, “[MIL name], your son is 43. He can keep track of his own responsibilities.”
I would continue to redirect your MIL to her son, or ignore her altogether. She will eventually learn that her son is capable.
Why don’t you just tell her to ask her kid out of curiosity? If you’re not the manager why are you catering to her tendency to treat you like one? Will it cause some kind of fight?
God, yes, it’s infuriating. Packages for both of us sent by MIL are addressed only to me, she contacts me directly to discuss her hamfisted plans to visit us instead of her son (thankfully we live a long distance away), she goes to me first to talk about holiday stuff. I literally do not respond to her or will tell her to directly ask my husband and we’ve been married almost eight years and she’s not changed her antics.
Ugh my sil is like this. She will text my husband to make plans with him for the three of us (neither of them are good at communicating or making plans). The morning we are supposed to meet she will text me “what are we doing today?” Like idk you made the plans with your brother. Maybe it is time to just be direct with your mil and tell her her son is a functioning member of your household and to text him
It is a big deal. She’s putting the mental load on you. Just text her to ask her son or tell him to ring his mum and ignore her if you don’t want to be that direct.Â
Uhhh, yep. And here’s what I do.
MIL texts me about something from DH.
I screen shot her text to me.
I send the screen shot to a group chat with me, DH, and MIL.
I text, DH, please respond.
I did that twice.
I don’t respond. I just forward said texts to DH. He can respond or not. Not my problem
Stop answering. I used to wait to open messages until I was home with my husband and then casually mention that his mom messaged me about our vacation plans, did he forget to tell her when we were travelling. I did it when I was clearly busy doing something, and his hands were free so there was no confusion that I was not responding. I’d frame it as I just saw it before coming to the kitchen and wanted to check with him to see what he had told her. After a while she realised she might as well just ask him, she wasn’t pulling me in.
Next time tell her: please check with (husband), he is handling the arrangements for (event). Repeat, until you have her trained.
But I feel your frustration! I have basically the opposite problem in. My in-laws will ask my husband everything. For example: if they can borrow my car (take note, they call his car “your car”, and my car is “the Pathfinder”). They will refer to everything in the house as his – his washer and dryer, his microwave, his couches, even the house is his house. They blatantly and deliberately exclude me in my own home. The last time they asked him in front of me if they could borrow “the Pathfinder”. I was having a bad day, already irritated after a few-day visit, and loudly said “No. I will most definitely not lend you MY car, mostly because you don’t even have the bare basic decency to acknowledge me, or my possessions as mine.”. FIL was visibly upset. He started this speech about how it isn’t my possessions, it is mine and my husband’s, as we are married. I interrupted him there and said: yeah, it is. But it is quite convenient that you tend to forget that and just call everything his.
My husband tries to include me, usually he would say something like “it is xxx’s car, you need to ask her” but they never do. He would later check with me if it is okay if they borrow my car (I usually don’t have a problem with them using it for an hour or two, sometimes even a day).
MIL once asked my husband to show her how “his” washing machine works, as she had to wash some clothes. He did, and I was fine with it, until I realized she used a 19kg top loader to wash ONE chiffon blouse. Literally one blouse. I asked her why she wasted so much water for one blouse, she just shrugged and said she didn’t want to hand wash it. I was fuming!
The last time his aunt visited, she handed me a jar of homemade jam, looked me straight in the eyes and said “it is just for (husband’s name)”. Yup, message received. I wouldn’t eat the jam you made.
I shut this down by not responding and immediately making a group text with her, myself, and my husband. “Sounds like MIL has some questions primarily for you, husband, I’ll have her ask them here.”
After doing this a few times they’ll correct. I think it’s because they are from a different time when men aren’t expected to carry any mental load whatsoever.
So, I handled this a few different ways over the last 20 years. (Thankfully VLC now so I don’t have to worry about it):
Hopefully it won’t take much to retrain her. It’s definitely a generational, traditional gender role thing.
Any time MIL texts like that tell him hey your mom texted XYZ – will you please clarify it for her? Then you completely drop the rope and are not involved in it.
Be strategic here and stop responding. When asked, you can say you’re not a texter and barely look at your phone. Remember to stay off your phone around her so it looks like you’re not a phone person. She will get frustrated by the lack of response from you and stop.
Mine does the same thing. I dont reply to her, I just screenshot and send to him and its in his hands. I wish he never gave his family my number, and just gave them a spare email to use.Â
gently, why don’t you start telling her to ask her son? i started doing this with my brother a few years ago – every third time someone asked a ‘manager’ question about him, i’d politely say ‘oh, i don’t actually know! he’ll know though, so i’d suggest getting it from the source.’ after a year, i started doing it every other time, and now i reject the management role entirely.
it’s much easier if you feign ignorance and slow down your own responses – people want answers fast, and if you stop providing that, they’ll get frustrated and go elsewhere. MIL might complain, but you ~simply don’t know the answer~, so she can’t attack you for blocking her.
So why don’t you reply just that. “I don’t know – you will have to ask son.”
My MIL does it to brag, likes that she has planned something without me with her son. She likes to try and show me how much they talk and make plans. She likes it when she catches me in the dark on a matter. Makes her feel more special in her 40 year old baby boys life.