My Fiancé (27M) is going on his bachelor trip this week. He, his brother, and friends are road tripping about 17 hours away to get to their destination. To give some context, his mom has extreme anxiety that she refuses to do anything about. She believes that us keeping her totally updated about every situation will ease her anxiety. My fiancé and I believe that this just feeds into the issue, she does not need to know every detail of her adult son’s life. She has his brother on Life360 but not him. Before he left, we were on the phone with his mom who said “if he doesn’t respond to me I’ll be calling you to find out where he is” to which I jokingly said “sounds good”.
Last night (Sunday) his mom called and texted multiple times at 1:30 AM to ask if I could see his location because his brother’s location hasn’t moved in 25 minutes. I did not answer because I had to be up for work at 5:30AM and my fiancée and all other men with him are capable of taking care of themselves. The location hadn’t moved since they lost service going through the mountains so it did not update as they were moving. He generally does give her updates after she’s called/texted a couple of times.
Am I the asshole for thinking this is an absolute overstep/ ignoring her calls and texts? He is a grown man who does kindly let her know when he arrives at his destinations, isn’t that enough? I really don’t appreciate her interrupting my sleep when I have to get up pretty early.
NTA
You are doing the right thing to not enable her.
She is choosing not to be responsible for her mental health and to burden others because of this. That makes her an AH.
If anything, your finacé should be even firmer about not updating her.
NTA. You should all cut her off from any form of location tracking and put her on a strict information diet about your plans and whereabouts. She has to learn to live with that or not.
NTA – the constant updates don’t solve the problem, just give her temporary relief and kick the can down the road. What she’s demanding is plainly unreasonable.
NTA.
It’s natural for a mother to be worried about her children. However sometimes the worry turns into overprotection and anxiety. That’s her problem to deal with. If she chooses not to manage it, that’s one thing. But projecting it onto her children and their partners is unreasonable, especially calling someone at 1:30am. That’s unacceptable behaviour.
Given what has happened, she took your joking comment to heart, a lowering of a boundary. You are right to ignore her but I fear this behaviour won’t stop until you establish a firm boundary.
NTA. His mother needs to do something about this “anxiety”, which, I suspect from personal experience, is simply the fact the she refuses to let go of “her little boy” and let him become a man.
NTA she’s being ridiculous
NTA. It’s between fiancé and his mom. But he needs to tell her to try to get her issues under control, or you’re going to be dealing with it forever.
NTA.
She definitely has a problem if she’s checking his location at 1AM. You should mute her at minimum to make sure you get sleep. She does not have any right to their location, and certainly no right to interrupt your sleep.
Your future MIL is old enough to remember the days before cell phones. I’d really push back at her and ask how HER parents kept track of HER when she was 27. It’s ridiculous.
It is completely overstepping boundaries for her to reach out to you in the middle of the night. In fact, although it’s not inappropriate to care about her son and want to know he’s all right, this level of expectation and tracking is very much out of control.
To speak to your actual question, NTA.
NTA 1. Do not cater to her anxiety unless you want to do it for your entire marriage. 2. This is a fiance problem. HE needs to establish this boudary with his mother. Do not put yourself in the middle of this or you will regret it.
NTA: This is a problem that exists between him and her. Stay out of it. He’s 27, not 7.
NTA. But make it clear that you two are not going to support this at all going forward. She called you in the middle of the night over this. Her anxiety is her problem and not yours or your fiance’s. Stop updating her at all about anything she doesn’t flat out need to know.
NTA. Anxiety or not I would give one warning that calling me multiple times in the middle of the night will result in your number being blocked.
If you, yourself are in immediate danger or require emergency assistance you can call but if it is truly an emergency then perhaps the authorities should be your call.
Wondering where a grown man might be is **not** an emergency.
NTA. calling you at 1:30am to track her adult son is absurd. youre not her anxiety hotline and hes not a missing person, she needs professional help