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That's a big part of the problem, MIL doesn't understand sharing.  My parents don't live here but when they do come out here, MIL invites them to all her events.  It sounds nice but it's a pain.  MIL doesn't get that my parents want to spend some time alone with just us.  So we have her hovering the entire weekend, calling, emailing.  And if my parents do decide to partake in any part of her activities, she spends that time asking and hounding them to stay the whole time so that DH and I will stay the whole time.  And before they come, it's a non stop barrage.  If she doesn't get a yes from me, she moves on to DH.  If she doesn't get a yes from either of us, she has FIL start calling.  If he doesn't get a yes, then SIL's start calling.  And if we say anything to her, she was just being nice!

And if my parents do not come out here -- which a lot of the times, they don't, they have young children in school too and have a busy life, like DH and I.  MIL takes that as a sign that she gets free run for the entire time.  Just yesterday she got it in her head that she wanted to do something yesterday afternoon, between DH and I we had 5 voicemails, an email to each of us demanding we call and I don't want to even know how many times she actually called b/c BOTH of our phones battery died.

Well, it's just not my parents either.  DH and I are busy, we don't have time for a lot of this.  I think from reading around we do spend a lot more time with her than most people do, but it's still not enough.  I don't know if we are young, we are late twenties.  And MIL is married, she does not work -- has never worked, even after the kids were in school and out of the home.  She has hobbies but I don't think it is enough to satisfy her.  She does cherish her role as mother and I've never really heard her talk about anything outside of that, anything she's done with or for her children etc.  She also had a tragedy happen to one of her kids a long time ago and I don't think she's ever gotten over it.  But I also think a lot of people just give in to her because of it.

Thank you Pen and Luise.

The conversation is mostly about making plans.  MIL doesn't tell us plans, then calls last minute over and over again, multiple messages and then pouts when she can't get a hold of us.  It also has to do with holiday time.  DH and I haven't spent one holiday with my family, at all!  So, instead of the usual where she makes the plans and demands us to come along, we want to get through to her that she has to ask us and accept our answers.

Every holiday/major event we go through this with her and frankly, it ruins our holiday spirit. Well, even minor events she does this too.  It's draining and causing problems.

And we are trying to make a point to include my family more, so it's even more important that she start notifying us within a reasonable time frame and give us the space we need to make plans with our entire family. 

Pen,

You sound like you feel a lot like my FOO does.  They don't necessarily feel cut off and DH has never said they don't like them.  However, they do feel left out and an afterthought b/c MIL takes up so much of our time, energy and resources...they do often get the scraps. 

My FOO and I are not as outwardly as close as my DH's.  But we also just relate to each other in a different way, we don't need to see each other as much as DH's family does and we don't need tokens to be shown love.  Something MIL almost demands to have.

My parents have acted very graciously for the most part but every once in a while they say something.  The worst was when they told me that DH and I needed to move since we were being swallowed by his family.  I understand their point of view and that's why DH and I are taking the steps we are to start incorporating them more, our problem is now MIL thinks she rules us all. 

It's difficult for both DH and I.  I'm sure your son sees it too, it's just difficult for him to navigate now.  I wasn't given a marriage manual and I'm assuming he didn't either lol. 

I think another problem with MIL/DIL (in cases where I've observed there is a problem) is that most of the time, it is the DIL doing a lot of the heavy lifting for her husbands side of the family and well, the husband doesn't do so much for his wife's side. 

In my situation as a DIL, I do most of it.  I shop for the gifts, I organize the get togethers, I keep on top of our schedule and I'm generally the one that reorganizes our schedule for our families.  I also talk to my husbands family and keep the traditions going that they like etc.  My husband doesn't do that with my family and he doesn't talk to them as much.  So of course when he does talk to them, they are free to talk about whatever pleasant topic they like.  I, on the other hand, deal with my family like I do with his side of the family.  The difference is that I know my family very well and we can talk to each other without some kind of hidden motive.  If I say no to them, they understand the reason and don't have a reason to speculate that I'm doing it out of spite.  My husbands family doesn't know me as well and they speculate.

I think also some MIL's and husbands may not see the work it is for the wife.  It's not always a joy, it can be a job.  DIL is often put in a position of damned if you do or don't.  She didn't live with his family, she doesn't know their native ways of speaking to each other and the little nuances of body languages and such.  She's often just thrown in without a paddle and told to make it work.  And often blamed.

Hello all, I need help from you wise women.  I am a DIL and new here.  I've searched all over the web for a helpful site but most don't seem to fit me.  I'm looking more for solutions than just a venting space.   I've found too much venting makes me feel worse.  Anyway, I read here a bunch last night and the sites name fits

Neither my husband or I can talk to my MIL about anything serious or that we need to change.  Any deviation from what she did or does still do, she can't handle the conversation.  If DH talks to her alone, she cries, screams and yells at him.  Conversation with me, she ignores and changes the subject.  Conversation with both of us, she does a mixture.  After the conversation she goes around gossiping about me and DH, how my family made me the way I am -- like I'm bad or something.  She tries to get other family members on her side, gets them to call us and try to change our minds.  She pouts and moans for weeks, lays guilt trips and is generally a very hard person to be around.

We do see her a lot by my standards, probably 4 - 6 times a month on normal months.  Holiday months it is  3 - 4 times a week.  She sees us a lot and she gets lots of quality time.  So that makes our situation even harder, we are around her a lot to begin with.

So now we have to talk to her about something relatively important in the next few weeks and as it is a change from her norm, it's going to be a blow out.  Both DH and I are very tired of her problems and the massive problem of talking to her.  We are both tired of feeling guilt tripped and like we are bad people for wanting to have our own marriage.  We've both felt like we've given in to her an extraordinarily amount of times and give her preferential treatment over my family, because the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Right now, we are going back and forth about how to approach the conversation.  And for clarification purposes, the conversation is about something normal adults get to decide but it is something that MIL still has not let go of with her grown children.   I'm leaning towards we just need to tell MIL "no" and ignore the outbursts.  If she starts in, then we leave, we don't take phone calls from other family members etc.  I think we need to pull back.  DH said he has no idea what to say or how to act, he said he can tell her but when she starts in on the guilt trips he doesn't know what to say and is afraid he will just get angry and say something nasty.

So what would you wise women do?