My (28m) fiancée (26f) is dragging around a 26-year-old umbilical cord and I’m starting to lose patience

When we were just dating it was one thing. Annoying, yes. But tolerable. Now that we’ve been engaged for awhile, I’m starting to lose my patience.

So my future mother-in-law (MIL) lives less than two hours away and calls my fiancée every hour or two just to chat and see what my she is up to. If she/we are watching TV/a movie, my MIL has to watch the same thing “with” us (and we have to pause for her or wait to start until she’s ready). My fiancée has to answer whenever she calls or texts regardless of whatever she/we are doing. This has led to us being interrupted having fun, arguing, and even having sex (or at least starting to). My fiancée also has to call her every night before she goes to bed which leads to me sitting bored on my phone for 40+ minutes every time. All of this extends to when we are on vacations together which ends up with my fiancée on the phone for 1-2 hours per day on our romantic getaways (it’s less frequent with the random mid-day calls, but there’s still at least 2 or 3 per day). She also has to call whenever we’re going somewhere and then again when we’re coming home (even on dates which absolutely kills the romance for me).

What is really pushing me to my breaking point is that I moved for grad school in August so we’ve been long distance since then (I decided to leave grad school after this semester and move home though). My fiancée works second shift so I’m not always up when she gets off work. Instead of calling me before she leaves (because she won’t have a chance to talk to me the rest of the day) she will call her mom who doesn’t work and stays up until she gets off anyways. I brought this up to her weeks ago and she apologized, but it’s still happening frequently. I’m not a possessive guy whatsoever, and only mind that she’s not calling because she IS calling someone and that person talks to her at least 4 times per day (when she wakes up, on the way to work, on the way home, going to sleep) while I’m left with nothing.

When I have been home to see my fiancée over weekends, her mom will still call at the same schedule saying things like “what’s wrong? You’re not texting that much.” She clearly is just oblivious to the fact that two twenty-somethings who currently live four hours apart would, ya know, just want to be together when they’re actually able to be.

All of this is particularly problematic because I’m giving up my dreams to come home to my fiancée and yet her mother is still basically the third person in our relationship. I’ve more or less let all of this ride for the two years we’ve been together, but it just seems like waaaay too much now that we’re engaged. It’ll be even worse once we’re married. I can’t imagine trying to deal with kids and my MIL at the same time. I also really don’t want to be left dicking around on my phone for an hour or more per day on our honeymoon.

Last notes: I have told my fiancée I would like this all to change but I have zero faith it will as it’s only gotten worse, not better. She just seems to think it’s “normal” for her and appears to be unconcerned with fixing it. I plan to talk to my fiancée and basically say “if I’m giving up school for you, then I need to see the same commitment back” (but like phrased more gently). Any advice on how to handle all of this would be greatly appreciated as I’m just at a loss (and absolutely would not end things over this so don’t bother going there). My relationship with my own mother is about as healthy as they come and so this is foreign territory for me.

TL;DR: my future MIL calls and talks to my fiancée on the phone for 2-4 hours per day (not including the constant texting), seems to be completely oblivious or unconcerned with us having our own time/relationship, and is basically just constantly interrupting our lives together (something my fiancée doesn’t seem concerned with) and I’m not sure how to deal with it.

Submitted November 05, 2018 at 07:02AM by fartyplato https://ift.tt/2D859B8