Hello

Our 30ish son married a 30ish young woman, very smart and a lawyer. They lived together for 4.5 years and have been married for 3 years. They seem very happy.

She has some issues. We understand this and its OK with us because its her stuff and doesn't have anything to do with us.

But we do have a question. She never, and I mean never, says thank you. Two times we have given them money. It's not just with large sums of money, it's anything, When we go out to dinner or when I take them to dinner, he always says thank you but she never does. When we send them a check, he calls and says thank you immediately. She is in the background and never says thank you or picks up the phone to say it. When we go out to eat or pay for them, she never says anything, but he always does. I can't believe that she thinks that it's OK not to say anything just because he does. We are doing things for them because we love them and they are very happy with each other.

She is very self sufficient, her parents never gave her money for college, just co-signed her loans. She paid them all off by herself. After college she was making 6 figures which allowed her to do that. She then went on to law school and passed the Cal bar on the 1st try, won Moot court for her school in her specific category. She's extremely smart.

My husband quite frankly is angry and we don't know what to do, if anything.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

She's your daughter-in-law. You see her all the time. She appears to be a nice lady. Your son loves her.

So what's the issue? She isn't an ogre. On the contrary, she is a smart, resourceful young lady who has probably seen more of life and worked harder for what she has than either you or your husband. To what she did requires that she be tough and independent, so....

ASK HER!

She won't break. You might just find out that she's shy.

The fact that you're pussyfooting around this and letting your husband fly into rages over something so small and trivial tells me that both of you have WAY too much time on your hands.

If this is your biggest problem in life, then SHADDAP!

Some people who are book smart are just not as smart in the personal relations category. If you want her to verbally express her gratitude, then just say so! It's not that hard. How about:

"We like doing things for you because we love you, but it would make us happy too if we could hear you say thank you."

Then smile and wait for her response. If your tone of voice is sweet and non-confrontational, only an utter gauche would refuse to say thank you at this point.

Let it ride.

If you give something to a couple, say as a wedding present, do you expect two thank you notes? No, you expect ONE thank you for the ONE gift you gave to ONE couple. She apparently sees his thank you as sufficient for both of them.

Now, if you were to give her something individually, such as a birthday present, it would be correct to expect her - the sole recipient - to be the one expressing thanks. However, if she has some issue which is holding her back from this, look at the bigger picture.

Is you son happy? Is she a good wife, faithful, etc? Is she otherwise kind and respectful to you and your husband? If so, ignore is as a weird quirk. If they have kids, you might encourage them to remember to say thank you, but there's nothing you can do about her saying it that wouldn't put a chill on your relationship with your son, her husband.

"We like doing things for you because we love you, but it would make us happy too if we could hear you say thank you."

My response to that right there would be "Yeeeeah... I didn't ask you to do ANYTHING for me, and you can stop now if you're waiting for me to grovel at your feet."

I'm sorry, I like to be very grateful and all, man, but it really gets on my nerves when people who want credit for doing a genuinely nice, generous thing sit around and wait to be applauded for it. I thought people did nice things to be, you know, NICE.

I also have to say something about these little "phone calls" you're getting all worked up about. I am expecting my first child with my boyfriend and his mom is going nuts buying all this expensive stuff I WILL need and totally CANNOT afford. She is a saint, and I LOVE her. When I see her in person I always make sure to thank her, but when my boyfriend comes home with things out of the blue, a lot of times I just tell him "Be sure to call her and thank her!" They are MARRIED, when he thanks you, she's thanking you, I promise.

the leading reason I can think of for why she doesn't say thank you:

1. She's a bitch.

2. A life of self-reliance has led her to feel gratitude is a form of weakness.

3. She hasn't opened yet with you, feels uncomfortable, but will eventually be more communicative with you.

with you duaghter in law is that she doesn't say thank you??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you effing kidding me????

get over it, get a life & get over yourself.

WTF????

I guess you can go and make this a big problem, if you really have nothing to do and just need to stir the pot between you and them and them as well.

She may well be defering to her husband, in the thank you's.

I wonder why someone who you describe as so totally self sufficient and six figure worthy needs cash gifts from you? Even though you point out that she is so very very smart and sucessful and has paid of her own student loans you sound a bit resentful of it?Is you son less successful? Is it possible she doesn't really approve of your paying for all the dinners and sending cash gifts to your son?

Any way I'm with DB.

"I wonder why someone who you describe as so totally self sufficient and six figure worthy needs cash gifts from you?" Maybe DIL has asked Son to tell the parents to quit spending money on them. They can afford their own dinners, etc., and she may feel that he should be doing things for the parents, not the other way around. Sometimes, accepting unneeded charity from one's parents implies a certain immaturity, and she's waiting for him to grow up.

Again, we never really know the situation, but aside from a wedding gift, I would find getting two large lump sums of money from my spouses parents when I was earning large a bit....I don't know....something...there's more to it.

I struggled hard with my ex and his taking money from his mother and stepfather. Before me he was constantly after them for loans, with me we never asked for one. However they still insisted on paying for everything, every time, no exceptions.

I politely told father-in-law that I would like the opportunity to occasionally treat them. He refused. I insisted, he started sneaking around behind my back to pay for things first.

I still said thank you but I did dang well resent it. Sometimes what you see as a 'gift' others may see as an imposition, even when we are talking about money.

Augh! One of my pet peeves. Control, resentment, self-reliance, career, shyness - whatever - these are possible explanations for the behavior, but an explanation is never an excuse for incorrect manners. At least 90% of the problems discussed here on DP wouldn't be problems for the letter writers or the other person if everyone learned and applied basic manners.

People aren't mind readers. Unless someone says thatnk you, how else are you supposed to know that they are appreciative or have gratitude?

I suspect in this instance that there is more going on, of course. With married couples, one person can speak for both in terms of expressing thanks. Perhaps the daughter-in-law's body language reflects something different.

Recently I let a friendship go over this very issue. My very close friend not only never had me over to dinner or treated me to a meal out, she never even offered to pay for my drink at Starbucks when she was paying for hers, despite the years (25+) of me hosting her. The real kicker is that she didn't say thank you. She acted the same way a child will with an adult relative, expecting the older person to pay and the idea of thanking them for paying not even occurring to the child. Women sometimes do this with men they have dated for a while.

Urr.

Oh grow up, people. All y'all who are bitching about being generous and then no one thanking you for it, you have a pretty simple option here, and that's stop being generous.

Pink, no one made you invite your friend to your house. She's certainly under no obligation to turn you down or offer up her house the next time around if she isn't comfortable with that. Nobody made you go to Starbucks and nobody made you pay for her drink. Maybe spending $20 on coffee rather than $10 is not within her spending comfort zone. So you offer every once in a while, should she save the 10 she was going to spend just so she can get back at you in the future?? Wouldn't it save you both a lot of trouble just to always split the coffee bill? Give me a break. If it was really that big a deal, you should have ended the friendship a LONG time ago, WITHOUT the hard feelings.

Pink_House:

People aren't mind readers. Unless someone says thatnk you, how else are you supposed to know that they are appreciative or have gratitude?

Yes, and if the DIL were asking for advice, I'd probably tell her either to thank them, or to ask them to quit giving them money.

However, it was the MIL writing. She says her DIL is otherwise a fine woman, so the logical advice is to stop worrying about it. She could press the issue and tell the son or DIL that she'd like to be thanked, but it wouldn't enhance the relationship in the least.

Do a GIS for Asberger's Syndrome - some forms of this can result in incorrectly assessing social cues, including thanking someone for any small kindness. My mother taught me to say thank you every time someone did anything for me, perhaps her mother never got around to doing that with her.

Another possibility is some form of Autism - maybe she isn't even aware that she is expected to say thank you.

Alternatively, she may have been taught to always defer to her husband. There are lots of religious sects that teach things like this to women. If this is the case, she would have been taught to keep silent and let her husband lead. This would include allowing him to say thank you for her. And there's that whole "respect your elders" thing.

Talk to her away from hubby, where she can let her hair down and relax.

Or just keep silent and leave things as they are.

I agree with others here though, if she is making six figures, they don't need cash gifts or loans. And if they really do need these, then there is something else going on, like a gambling or drug problem.