Advice for dealing with parent who tries to control relationship between adult children
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Anonymous
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My MIL has started to monitor how often my husband and I communicate with my SIL and her husband. This has led to her trying to micromanage the relationship between her adult children. For example, she'll instruct my husband to text SIL about something, and then she brings that topic up with SIL at a later date. If he hasn't texted his sister about that she finds out and comes back to him asking why he didn't text when she told him to. That is just one example of the type of monitoring/managing she's been doing. She also uses guilt to try and get us to reach out more frequently to SIL.
My SIL and her husband rarely respond to any messages or gifts we send, and they don't ever reach out to us. This has been the way it is for years. When we're all together things are friendly and light, but that happens infrequently since we live in different parts of the country. I believe that my SIL and her husband basically like us, but they are probably pretty self-absorbed people who are wrapped up in their own lives, and they don't like us enough to make time for us when we're not physically together. I've basically made peace with that, until MIL has started to try and orchestrate a relationship between her adult children. This is adding a lot of stress to our lives, and I don't think it's making the relationship better. Have other people had experiences with parents or parents-in-law trying to control relationships between adult siblings? I have been looking for information on this topic but haven't found anything all that helpful. |
Anonymous
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I'd ignore it as much as possible.
My guess is MIL is responsible for the strained relationship. She could have used comparisons to cause them to dislike each other or done other things to drive her children apart. Now, she is being controlling and trying to get them to contact each other. My mother does stuff like this all the time. I tell her that I don't like to talk about other people (sibling) and change the topic. You can't answer MIL's questions or they will never stop. You have to make the game uninteresting to her. |
Anonymous
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My sister lives on the other side of the world and my mother is always digging for info on how often we talk, what we talk about and so on. Similarly my FIL is constantly bringing up my husband's sister 2000 miles away as if she lived next door, though they never speak to each other and my kids don't even know who she is.
I think it's just anxiety about the family not being cohesive. With small families and high mobility this happens. |
Anonymous
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I don't think it is controlling the relationship but rather facilitating a closer relationship in the family. My parents, siblings, spouses, kids etc are all on one big Whatsapp group. It is wonderful to be able to share news, greetings, pics etc with everyone. I video call regularly with my brothers, mom and one sis-in-law.
My mom (82 years old) - is a very connected person. She is the revered matriarch of my maternal and my paternal side of the family. She remembers the names, birthdays and anniversaries of everyone, and is a great confidante for everyone. My advice would be to take the initiative and make a group chat with the ILs including siblings and spouse. Make everyone the admin. Don't comment too much but send cute gifs to wish for things like birthdays, anniversaries etc, and occasionally send some picture of innocuous stuff. |
Anonymous
It's obviously not facilitating a closer relationship though. It's creating anxiety and resentment. Also, it would not be appropriate for OP to create a group chat for her ILs. If her DH wants to do that to try and reduce the pressure, that's his choice. But having death with this dynamic in my DH's family, OP's DH may have zero interest in that. My ILs often try to force my DH and his brother to be closer, but the truth is that DH doesn't like his brother there much and it's healthier for them to have more distance -- they get along better at family gatherings if it's been longer since they saw each other or talked, because then there is less conflict. DH has no interest in a group chat with his whole family and prefers to interact with them separately. And it's definitely not my job to tell him how to handle it. |
Anonymous
 You are not OP. OP did ask for Advice in the thread title and this advice is not for you.
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Anonymous
OP's family is not like your family. SIL and her husband have been distant and kind of rude. While I have several family groupchats, you also need to recognize that some people absolutely hate groupchats and want nothing to do with them. Don't create a groupchat without checking with people first. OP, I don't know how many elders you have had in your life, but I have seen an almost universal desire in them for their kids to be close, even when there's total estrangement for good reason. I think there are a number of things that contribute and I'm sure it's different for each one. Part of it is a feeling of responsibility, part of it is the contentment they experience when everyone is "together," and who knows what else. I have watched sensitive lovely elders become pretty unreasonable and demanding on this issue. Can H talk to her and let her know that she needs to let them have their own relationship? Ordinarily I favor being extremely direct with boundaries, but this is a case where it may be better to have three gentle talks instead on one direct one. It might reassure her to say that he loves his sister but they have busy lives and just don't have time for frequent contact. If he doesn't feel that he can talk to her, then you just have to grey rock and divert this particular behavior. |
Anonymous
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My mom does this and unfortunately it's because she wants me to be closer to a sibling that I don't really want a relationship with (nothing much against the sibling but can't stand their spouse).
The sibling is having a baby now and my mom constantly brings it up, I have to shut it down and change the subject. Don't want to discuss or hear about their family. |
Anonymous
| I agree with the group chat thing. My brother and I are not close at all (we would never speak if not for my parents...Not actually sure why, just not close) but we have a Facebook chat and share pictures of the kids, info in there and parents are on it as well. I think this might help appease your mil. |
Anonymous
OP here. We have had a family group chat set up for years. SIL and her husband rarely respond to anything in that chat, and hardly ever message there. On occasion, when I've sent my MIL and FIL something outside of that chat, FIL has instructed me to post it in the family chat. These days, the main people who post in that chat are my husband, MIL, and FIL. I have backed off recently because it feels inauthentic. I think it is very difficult to build an authentic relationship with someone if both parties are doing it mainly out of a sense of guilt or duty to someone else. My husband is planning to talk to his mother today to step back and allow him to handle his own relationship with his sister. I appreciate all the anecdotes and advice. |
Anonymous
Yes, so incredibly difficult. That's how my dh's entire family operates. My mil got her brother to invite us to his son's wedding after complaining for months that we were not invited (cousin is very nice but has many closer cousins...We were totally fine not going!). So now it feels awkward. We're also going out of guilt to appease mil. Honestly relationships like these make life a little worse. |
Anonymous
This is great advice! You remain calm, ignore, distract and don't give it air. Don't allow badmouthing of anyone, but also don't give air to forcing relationships. Change subject or distract. If she is truly dysfunctional and obsessed with control, this may make her explode or give you the silent treatment or escalate to more guilt tripping and pushing. Just remain calm. You are in charge of you and you get decide what level of relationship you have with people. Sadly you cannot reason with people who act like this. You just have to manage yourself, detach emotionally, use strategies and then if needed create more distance and/or take breaks. |
Anonymous
Yep, my MIL is exactly like this. Compared her 2 sons constantly as kids and now trying to orchestrate their distant relationship as adults. |
Anonymous
| Every time she does this, you tell her no "I'm not triangulating if you have something to tell someone, tell them directly." |
Anonymous
Often really dysfunctional people escalate and even rage when confronted this directly. Sure you can try this, but have a plan if things get crazy. With the dysfunctional people where we have low contact, we simply manage things with our own boundaries and when they escalate we take a break or try to change the subject. We found using any psychological terms like "triangulating" was a sure way to add gas to a fire and ignite defensiveness and anger. On the other hand with someone emotionally healthy, you're more likely to get questions for clarification in an non-defensive matter, self-reflection or respectful disagreement. i don't do any group chats. We found all the crazy dynamics entered the chat. Even with friend groups I no longer do it, but I tend to prefer close bonds 1-1 or couple to couple or family to family bondsthese days and don't do the group stuff that much. When I did the whole mom group thing I found some moms would complain to me outside the chat about being offended by another mom in the chat. I have too much to balance to add unneeded dramatics to my life. |