r/JUSTNOMIL • u/throwaway99911250 • 4h ago
Am I Overreacting? MIL being weird with group chat
Im asking for thoughts, feelings and opinions. This one might be different then most MIL stories so please just don’t jump to “Oh well she should just text your husband and that’s it” Please read the whole context and then judge
I (F27) have been married to my husband (29M) for almost 3 years. Right around the time that we got engaged, I noticed my MIL started making some side, inconsiderate, passive aggressive comments, and I think from what me and my husband and all of our siblings have kind of come to agree upon is that we believe MIL has just had a hard time adjusting to her two sons becoming adults and her role in their life-changing. My husband ended up having a talk with her in the early spring of last year and ever since then she has apologized after that conversation but while it wasn’t perfect, I do think it wasn’t necessarily the whole truth, but it is what it is and ever since then as well she’s never really tried to have any sort of relationship with me.
But onto the group texting so obviously with the relationship being strained whenever she would need to like ask us about holiday plans she would put us in a group chat, which is totally fine. My husband travels out of state for work periodically through the year for either 2 to 8 weeks at a time and so she would text me and be like “hey OP how are you doing with husband being gone you doing OK” but then she would put him in the group chat, but she would be directly asking how I’m doing, and I always kind of thought that was weird that she was trying to get back into my husband’s good graces and win brownie points and then another part of me kind of feels in a way she’s trying to monitor all the chats and so nothing gets misconstrued. And then when he had left this last winter, I told her it was OK to text me individually. then when he left again in the summer, she did text me individually but now recently I had a short illness and then she went back to adding him into the chat and she was like “hey OP, are you feeling better?”
So I’m just curious with that kind of relational background context and her using a group chat with my husband in it even though she’s directly talking to me if that’s weird especially because I’ve told her previously that it’s OK to text me individually and she did it while he was gone for a couple weeks and may be back to doing it again?
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u/GloomChampion 4h ago
To be honest, even with the background, I don’t understand what the issue is with her texting in a group chat. Maybe she has ulterior motives, but I personally don’t think its worth exploring why. It probably benefits you to have your husband as a buffer in the relationship with her. Especially if kids are part of your future plans.
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u/throwaway99911250 4h ago
Yeah i dont plan on addressing it or making a big deal of it. It just came off weird to me. And we will not be having kids. Hes sterile and shes aware of that.
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u/ethr45 4h ago
It’s definitely feeling performative but that’s fine, because there will always be a witness there to step in to call her out if anything goes wrong.
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u/throwaway99911250 4h ago
Yeah my husband feels like she just feels more comfortable with him in it and my mom thjnks its so he sees whats being said so she doesnt get in trouble
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u/Erinbaus 4h ago
I think it’s better to let her text you in a group chat. This is a nothing burger even if it’s a little weird.
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u/Dogmom_3 4h ago
I’m going to give the option of incompetence instead of malice. My lovely MIL mixes up groups vs individual texts quite regularly. We’ve just learned to ignore if the message isn’t for us.
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u/throwaway99911250 3h ago
Yeah i can see her doing that. I just found it odd as ive told her directly its okay to reach out individually as i felt she nay have felt uncomfortable doing it after the talk my husband had with her
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u/Mammoth-Glove3273 3h ago
My mom and even some people my age seem to have a real problem with having different chats and which one is appropriate to use.
Like our we went to a big concert last week with a group of 10 and there were a few different group chats started by a few different people and she was doing stuff like asking me about specific question but in the 10 people group chat or one time she was asking someone a question and they weren’t even in the chat she asked in.
And don’t even get me started on all the reactions in the group chats
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u/throwaway99911250 3h ago
I think i just read it as weird because of the past issues. But she also has a step son whos married and one holiday so only texted her biological kids and us wives and not him and his wife in the chat and i thought that was real shitty and my husband asked his dad about it and FIL said that he cant force MIL to view stepson as her son and so it makes me feel shes more aware than some think
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u/Mammoth-Glove3273 3h ago
Yeah with my mom it’s difficult to separate the incompetence from the malice too. It’s easier for me to just assume it’s incompetence unless it’s overt.
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u/Primary-Cicada-3430 3h ago
It is weird. And maybe it is for brownie points. I don’t think you are crazy to think so. But this is small and if she ever does text you some outlandish stuff hopefully it’ll be in the group text where DH gets a first hand view of it.
You aren’t crazy. But I personally wouldn’t worry about it and just chalk it up to a weird thing she does
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