MIL excluding us from family communications about our kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MIL likes to take the lead in managing mass family communications and has a long email distro list of people she always includes. She sends out a monthly calendar of birthdays, anniversaries, memorials, etc. plus a full contact list for family and friends who are like family. She also puts together special birthday e-greetings for everyone and is always the first to get the next congratulatory or holiday thread going. You get the picture, and it's great, except when it comes to discussing our kids.

Our kids are, and will ever be, the only grandkids. ...

I've talked to MIL about this and asked her if she could please not specifically exclude DH and I from these threads as we'd love to ...

What's my move here? MIL is a generally well-meaning person, but this behavior just stings.

Only grandchildren for MIL and your parents but assume not the onlies for the rest of the list - aunts, friends, etc. MIL is the self appointed matriarch and despite repeated requests will not add you/DH to the email list or is she posting all this stuff on a facebook or instagram and maybe blasting your children's personal stuff to all? Privacy settings? Others forwarded emails it to you? Does the creature send it bcc? Your MIL is not a well meaning person. Stop sharing all this stuff with her.

The creature? Why would you refer to her MIL this way?

I assume pp meant to type creator, and autocorrect got in the way.

No. I wrote creature and like some later posters consider the MILbehavior to be that of a classic narcissist. Is it nice to purposefully exclude the parents of the children? No. It is rude. Matriarch gone wild. If age peers of the OP-DH [cousins - nieces,nephews of MIL] also get this stuff it is even more peculiar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP back - I guess DH and I are more introverted and just not the type to openly boast about our kids to the masses. And honestly, I have no issues at all with MIL playing the bragging grandma role, if she just wouldn't purposely exclude us.

OP I totally get you! Me and my husband are introverted and don’t want to boast either. And my MIL does the same!! She not only does it with our baby’s pic, but then she sends pics of her bff’s grandkid (we don’t know them). I can’t figure out why with the bff other than that she’s lonely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe your mother in law figures that you already know about your kids' accomplishments so therefore there's no need to include you.

This seems like a really bizarre thing to get upset about.

Np. In a previous post, op said MIL also sends emails about other's achievements without excluding them. So I agree with op, it's very weird that she only does this to op and her husband.

Op, please ask her directly why she does this. I'm dying to know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just stop it. You have the distro list. Send the message yourself.

Are you for real, OP? I'm surprised you can't figure out you can just send the email yourself directly to the family. Forge your own relationships and communication plan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MIL likes to take the lead in managing mass family communications and has a long email distro list of people she always includes. She sends out a monthly calendar of birthdays, anniversaries, memorials, etc. plus a full contact list for family and friends who are like family. She also puts together special birthday e-greetings for everyone and is always the first to get the next congratulatory or holiday thread going. You get the picture, and it's great, except when it comes to discussing our kids.

Our kids are, and will ever be, the only grandkids. ...

I've talked to MIL about this and asked her if she could please not specifically exclude DH and I from these threads as we'd love to ...

What's my move here? MIL is a generally well-meaning person, but this behavior just stings.

Only grandchildren for MIL and your parents but assume not the onlies for the rest of the list - aunts, friends, etc. MIL is the self appointed matriarch and despite repeated requests will not add you/DH to the email list or is she posting all this stuff on a facebook or instagram and maybe blasting your children's personal stuff to all? Privacy settings? Others forwarded emails it to you? Does the creature send it bcc? Your MIL is not a well meaning person. Stop sharing all this stuff with her.

The creature? Why would you refer to her MIL this way?

I assume pp meant to type creator, and autocorrect got in the way.

No. I wrote creature and like some later posters consider the MILbehavior to be that of a classic narcissist. Is it nice to purposefully exclude the parents of the children? No. It is rude. Matriarch gone wild. If age peers of the OP-DH [cousins - nieces,nephews of MIL] also get this stuff it is even more peculiar.

Classic narcissist? Stop trying to diagnose people you know nothing about. MIL doesn't need OPs permission to talk to her family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t understand why anyone would care if MIL does this. I would be *delighted* be left out of frequent, long and/ or annoying extended family threads - even if they are saying nice things about my kids.

Because it’s weird to be pressed for information about your kids only to have it be used as a narcissistic supply for an attention seeking person. She isn’t including OP or the kids because it’s about her receiving attention and praise. She probably also embellishes from time to time to amp up the praise and doesn’t want to be corrected.

MIL sees (insert whatever) as my accomplishment as a grandmother, look I’ve got a better grandchild than you. She isn’t celebrating the accomplishment of or for the actual child. She cuts the kid who did whatever and the parent out of the picture.

Classic competitive and narcissistic granny behavior.

You nailed it, pp.

[Anonymous]

I would let her know that if she doesn't add you and dh to the list, you will create your own list and share your own news yourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would let her know that if she doesn't add you and dh to the list, you will create your own list and share your own news yourselves.

Or be an adult and stop making idle threats and just do the obvious thing here. Send the email yourself.

[Anonymous]

My mil does this. Here is what we’ve done.

- I have DH manage most communications with her
- I tell her less and am more vague when I do
- When we share something with her that we would rather share (recently we had a kid) DH says “I will be sending out an announcement so please do not.”

It took a few years to pull back. It was not overnight. Now it works for us. Before this I was hearing back from so many ppl, family and non family, including medical details, house troubles etc I would never have shared with so many people! We tried talking to her but it is a habit for her and how she handles everyone’s info. She is well meaning but I was uncomfortable with the mass distribution of info.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mil does this. Here is what we’ve done.

- I have DH manage most communications with her
- I tell her less and am more vague when I do
- When we share something with her that we would rather share (recently we had a kid) DH says “I will be sending out an announcement so please do not.”

It took a few years to pull back. It was not overnight. Now it works for us. Before this I was hearing back from so many ppl, family and non family, including medical details, house troubles etc I would never have shared with so many people! We tried talking to her but it is a habit for her and how she handles everyone’s info. She is well meaning but I was uncomfortable with the mass distribution of info.

And to add - we were also left out of the distribution of info and also not notified before or after that she would share with many or that she had told so and so. She was sharing info via mass emails, group texts, 1:1 conversations. I would have no idea. Then I would go to a gathering and 5 different people would approach me and say “oh I’m so sorry to hear about xyz”. This went on for about 9 years before I started to get really irritated. The last straw was when I had a serious medical issue recently I wanted kept private and I got a call from someone whom I hadn’t seen for years pressing for more details.

[Anonymous]

Consider this a blesssing. Honestly not sure why you care, and I’m the type of person to find lots of things annoying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MIL likes to take the lead in managing mass family communications and has a long email distro list of people she always includes. She sends out a monthly calendar of birthdays, anniversaries, memorials, etc. plus a full contact list for family and friends who are like family. She also puts together special birthday e-greetings for everyone and is always the first to get the next congratulatory or holiday thread going. You get the picture, and it's great, except when it comes to discussing our kids.

Our kids are, and will ever be, the only grandkids. ...

I've talked to MIL about this and asked her if she could please not specifically exclude DH and I from these threads as we'd love to ...

What's my move here? MIL is a generally well-meaning person, but this behavior just stings.

Only grandchildren for MIL and your parents but assume not the onlies for the rest of the list - aunts, friends, etc. MIL is the self appointed matriarch and despite repeated requests will not add you/DH to the email list or is she posting all this stuff on a facebook or instagram and maybe blasting your children's personal stuff to all? Privacy settings? Others forwarded emails it to you? Does the creature send it bcc? Your MIL is not a well meaning person. Stop sharing all this stuff with her.

The creature? Why would you refer to her MIL this way?

I assume pp meant to type creator, and autocorrect got in the way.

No. I wrote creature and like some later posters consider the MILbehavior to be that of a classic narcissist. Is it nice to purposefully exclude the parents of the children? No. It is rude. Matriarch gone wild. If age peers of the OP-DH [cousins - nieces,nephews of MIL] also get this stuff it is even more peculiar.

Classic narcissist? Stop trying to diagnose people you know nothing about. MIL doesn't need OPs permission to talk to her family.

Of course MIL doesn't need permission to speak but she should get permission to include details disclosing facts about the OP nuclear family: verbal, written and photos. And scope of content. This MIL is beyond casual verbal mentions in a call. Narcissism is a spectrum and MIL appears to want to control communication to the point of excluding the parents. These communications are not irregular texts to a friend or family like " we visited x family, saw child y play soccer before going to lunch."

[Anonymous]

OP, we are introverts too and don't boast. We have also seen how the boasting makes people competitive and antagonistic so we set boundaries. No info goes in newsletters. When that was ignored, we just did what another person on here suggested: we kept things vague and gave minimal info. It's never a good thing when a "matriarch" is the one in charge of family news.

People should talk directly to eachother and not go through a middle person/gatekeeper of all the news. In our family people will even do invites through the "matriarch" and the matriarch is passive aggressive and likes to create drama so she will forget to pass it on, tell you too late or find other ways to make it chaotic. it is always better for people to communicate directly, especially adults.

[Anonymous]

OP, can you ask one of DH’s siblings to reply-all and copy you in to the threads? Seems like the easiest way to achieve the outcome you want - knowing about the emails and seeing the responses. Doesn’t have to be done aggressively, just a quick “Noticed that Larlo and Larla got left off the cc list; adding them in! Give Larla Jr our congrats!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really don’t understand why anyone would care if MIL does this. I would be *delighted* be left out of frequent, long and/ or annoying extended family threads - even if they are saying nice things about my kids.

Because it’s weird to be pressed for information about your kids only to have it be used as a narcissistic supply for an attention seeking person. She isn’t including OP or the kids because it’s about her receiving attention and praise. She probably also embellishes from time to time to amp up the praise and doesn’t want to be corrected.

MIL sees (insert whatever) as my accomplishment as a grandmother, look I’ve got a better grandchild than you. She isn’t celebrating the accomplishment of or for the actual child. She cuts the kid who did whatever and the parent out of the picture.

Classic competitive and narcissistic granny behavior.

You nailed it, pp.

This is 100% what's going on here.