When DH calls his mother overseas, once every 2 weeks, it is mostly to talk about his life. I urge him to ask her how she is doing and feeling, because she's the type to suffer silently and not complain. I have great admiration for her - she single-handedly arranged for her family to escape a war-torn country, settled in a completely different place with nothing, built a real-estate nest egg, encouraged her 4 sons to achieve academic success, and has always cared for her bipolar spouse... She deserves more from DH!

It's not the frequency. It's the love and attention you share on the phone that's important.

Anonymous wrote:OMG my MIL calls my DH like 4 times a day. I think he answers at least once. It's awful. I always joke that I check his cell phone not to see if other women are calling but to see how often his mother has called.

MIL calls every day, several times a day. As long as she does not attempt to run our life, I don't care.

Anonymous wrote:OMG my MIL calls my DH like 4 times a day. I think he answers at least once. It's awful. I always joke that I check his cell phone not to see if other women are calling but to see how often his mother has called.

We keep a running tally! He's drawn some boundaries with her, so it's not as bad as it once was, but still. It's a lot. One of us will post a picture on FB and we'll get a call 5min later asking about it, we bet each other how long it'll take before his phone rings sometimes. We've managed to turn it into a joke, it's the only way to keep our sanity!

OMG my MIL calls my DH like 4 times a day. I think he answers at least once. It's awful. I always joke that I check his cell phone not to see if other women are calling but to see how often his mother has called.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He calls his parents once a week.

This. And god forbid one of them isn't on the call, the one who missed will call back and want H to repeat, verbatim, what he said to the other. It drives me insane. Why can't the first just relay to the other any actually pertinent info? (Of which there is usually precious little.)

They each want to hear his voice. You'll understand when you're their age with a long-empty nest.

Calls everyday and sees her at least weekly. I don't like my MIL at all, but I think calling daily is a normal thing to do and would never oppose these calls. I wish I did not have to see her that much though.

We FaceTime once a week. She'll sometimes call at other times, and usually texts and emails. I'm sure she'd like to talk more frequently-she's been known to freak out if he doesn't return messages quickly enough.

In laws visit every 6 weeks or so-they'd like it to be every 3-4. DH is getting better about setting boundaries, but it's an ongoing battle.

They talk on the phone a couple times a week and exchange texts/photos for quicker updates. We all skype once a week because they live in FL and generally don't get to see DD in person more than a few times per year. He has a good relationship with her and she's always been very loving and welcoming to me.

Usuallly once every week or week and a half. She also knows that if she can't reach DH, she can call me, I'm much more reliable about answering my phone. She also calls me if she wants to talk to her grandchild, since it's more likely she'll be with me.

I feel very fortunate, both me and DH were the 1st kids in each family to have a child, so our DD is still the only grandchild which means she's quite quite popular! But even before having DD, DHs parents were very welcoming and wonderful. I feel very lucky. And my parents really like DH, although they speak to each other on the phone much much less often.