Anonymous wrote:Op here--DH and I both work equivalent jobs, so not like I have extra bandwidth. I get along enough with his family, but we aren't close. Don't see them much. In fairness, he isn't close to them either. They are traditional, though, so they will look down on us as a family (and probably more me than him) if there are no gifts/cards from us. It does create awkwardness.
Plugging all of this into his calendar sounds like a good idea.

NO. POPULATING AN ADULT’S CALENDAR IS WHAT A PAID SECRETARY DOES. Stop being such a doormat. If he wants to know when his niece’s birthday is and set a calendar reminder, he can ask his niece or her parents! FFS!

Anonymous wrote:I wanted to end the exchange with nieces and nephews because like all of his family, his brother is also a terrible gift giver and everything that arrived for our kids was the wrong age range, wrong size, not at all inline with anything our kids were interested in, that he had already sent the same thing to our older kid, etc. Whereas I did all the buying for his brother’s 6(!!!!) kids and thought about each gift, came up with 12 ideas for each age that I hadn’t already sent to one of the older ones, etc.

Instead I said I wasn’t doing it anymore and it was all on him. I programmed all the kids’ names and birthdates into his phone and set a reminder for each and for Christmas and left it at that. If he remembers now it’s super late always. And our kids still get crap too so now it’s all even. And still all so stupid, please let it end!

Do you really think programming an adult male’s phone for him makes you look like some kind of feminist badass? It makes you look like an unpaid secretary.

Op here--DH and I both work equivalent jobs, so not like I have extra bandwidth. I get along enough with his family, but we aren't close. Don't see them much. In fairness, he isn't close to them either. They are traditional, though, so they will look down on us as a family (and probably more me than him) if there are no gifts/cards from us. It does create awkwardness.
Plugging all of this into his calendar sounds like a good idea.

I honestly don’t understand why some women think they need to take charge of a grown man’s relationship with his family, and what that needs to look like.

My brother is a great person who loves his family. He shows us that by calling and texting, visiting, and inviting us over for holidays, etc. He doesn’t do gifts, but he does call for birthdays and holidays that we aren’t together. He also sends my mom flowers for Mother’s Day and usually takes my dad out to lunch or something else that’s fairly low-key.

And that’s fine. He’s a grown adult, and he’s not big into giving (or receiving) gifts. I’m glad his significant other doesn’t pressure him or wheedle or whine or “take over.” His SO is great and often joins in on the call, or sends a text, and is generally very friendly with us.

As for the argument of “well then if he doesn’t send a gift, they think we’re bad people.” First of all, so what? No one is owed a gift, and acting entitled to one makes you the bad person and not the other way around. Second, why aren’t you replying, “I guess the son you raised doesn’t send cards or gifts.”

For spouses family, I buy for nieces amd nephews weddings, husband buys for bdays and anniversaries and mothers day and fathers day for his siblings and parents

I wanted to end the exchange with nieces and nephews because like all of his family, his brother is also a terrible gift giver and everything that arrived for our kids was the wrong age range, wrong size, not at all inline with anything our kids were interested in, that he had already sent the same thing to our older kid, etc. Whereas I did all the buying for his brother’s 6(!!!!) kids and thought about each gift, came up with 12 ideas for each age that I hadn’t already sent to one of the older ones, etc.

Instead I said I wasn’t doing it anymore and it was all on him. I programmed all the kids’ names and birthdates into his phone and set a reminder for each and for Christmas and left it at that. If he remembers now it’s super late always. And our kids still get crap too so now it’s all even. And still all so stupid, please let it end!

Anonymous wrote:It is his responsibility but, that's marriage. You make up for each other's shortcomings. Hopefully there are things he is doing that support you, too.

This. My husband generally buys the gifts for his family (except his teen nieces) but we both do all sorts of things for each other and basically take on all the chores and things that we hate less than the other person hates that particular chore.

In your case it's the husbands job unless you have a very close relationship with the niece. If he doesn't do it. It will likely look bad on you as well, but I'm at the point that I don't care.

I literally went to a women’s event at work on this topic a number of years ago. My fave part was one woman said she always had to take her kids to bday parties (before they were old enough to drop off) and then one kid had an NBA player dad and her husband said he’d do that party and she said - no way. You didn’t do any others so you don’t get to do this one now. I still laugh about that.

Both my husband and I work and I don’t think it’s my job to buy gifts for all of his family. That said - we’ve been married 16 years. I have tried to say, it’s your family and you’re in charge of getting them gifts. And, he doesn’t. And I don’t care if it makes me look bad because the “woman” is the one who is supposed to do it.

That said - in my “old age” (I’m 41), I decided that I actually do care about his family and I’m just going to get them their gifts because I want to - not because I’m the woman and I have to.

GL.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I usually did it, until my MIL accused me of extravagantly spending "my husband's money" when I handed her a present. I didn't break it to her that I've outearned her son every year of our marriage, but I stopped buying anything more.

We made it all the way to the third post until someone gratuitously bashed her MIL. A new record!

BORING

Oh I don't want to bash her though it stung at the time. But it certainly put things in perspective as to where the gift I thoughful picked stand in her perspective.
It was freeing. DH buys now (when he remembers.)

Anonymous wrote:Each person in a relationship has strengths and weaknesses.

Do you like your in-laws? But for them.

I forget all events but my DH remembers. He buys my mom stuff.

Except with gift giving it's endless. Between us, we have over 20 family members. There are birthdays just about every single month between grandparents, aunts/uncles and nieces and nephews. I think June and August are the only months we don't have one on either side. And that doesn't include the massive exchange around the holidays! So no, I will not remember my DH's mom's birthday and mother's day and Christmas. He can do that. If he doesn't want to, he can address it with her. I do the same with my own mother.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I consider this my husband's job and I remind him of that. If he forgets/doesn't follow through, that's on him.

This.

I used to be the one planning and shopping and wrapping and generally felt under appreciated by both DH and ILs. I dropped the rope.

I would still remind DH, but he’d often forget. A couple years ago he decided to tell ILs we wouldn’t be doing adult gifts anymore, and we’d instead just do nice dinners or experiences, so I guess he hated the mental load and decided to drop the rope, too!

Same story here. After having kids 10 years ago, I dropped the rope on this because I had too much going on. I am sure his mother has been offended by some of his gifts or lack of gifts. But I don't care. My family doesn't do much gift giving between adults, and that's a solution that's been proposed many many times.

Each person in a relationship has strengths and weaknesses.

Do you like your in-laws? But for them.

I forget all events but my DH remembers. He buys my mom stuff.

Anonymous wrote:It is his responsibility but, that's marriage. You make up for each other's shortcomings. Hopefully there are things he is doing that support you, too.

NP, and this would be a fair deal if in fact there were things he does that I don't. He earns more money than I do, but then, I do everything else to keep our household running so he's able to lean harder into his career and still have a family.

I suspect this is true for a lot of women married to men.

I make his life easier, he makes mine harder. I'm not taking on the additional responsibility of buying his family presents.

DH buys for his family, I buy for mine. If it’s not a priority to him, oh well. That’s his family. They can take it up with him if they want.

It’s not my job to tell a grown man that he “should” do this or that for his family. He either feels organically close to them and actively wants to do that kind of stuff, or he doesn’t. It’s his relationship with his family, and it’s not up to me to decide what he “should” or “needs to” do.