To be furious at my MIL for cleaning our living room

When she asks plaintively ‘have I done something wrong?’
Let your husband say firmly and without hesitation:
Mum give it a rest. No one wants you as a martyr, no one in this house wants you rearranging furniture or treating the house as some kind of extension of your own home. You’re very poor at recognising boundaries, and I don't want to have to repeat this conversation again and if you've something to say, about my home you say it to me and don't whinge on the phone to my brothers.
Stop manipulating people. Stop doing the wrong thing, stop intruding and stop asking ‘what’s wrong’ and then pleading justification when you keep on doing inappropriate things. Enjoy your life with Dad. BTW you have a good life, you are still young, still in good health, maybe you're bored, maybe you're feeling fed up whatever it is, you need to fix it and the solution isn't coming into another married couples home and acting like some mini wife. Ive got a wife and one is enough….
More wine anyone…..

Love the dog photo 😍

I would just say no need to talk about this any more. You have agreed not to touch anything in our house and as long as you stick to that everything will be fine. If she tries to talk more just repeat repeat repeat. Good luck!

You are a better person than me OP

Put some dog cameras up, they don't need to be switched on. Tell her they're there. She sounds unbearable.

How did you train him to stick his tongue out at mil?

"You need to go over this yet AGAIN? It's very simple. You kept moving my stuff and doing things in my home that I've repeatedly asked you to stop doing. You are NOT being helpful, you are being rude. You are sailing much too close to the wind. Back off before you do something you'll regret"

I have never managed the tinkly laugh, I would love to do it, its so pass agg with a side portion of up yours. When wind up merchants try their shit with me, I have to glue my gob shut or it comes out as a 10 min expletive rant, losing the moral high ground and wanting to throat punch them😂
I am learning manners rather late in life dealing with family!

maybe have a chat with your DH beforehand and ask him to step in while you say nothing. best policy

@binkie163 also perfect the art of a tinkly laugh while saying 'You know perfectly well that isn't true'.

@Vegemiteandhoneyontoast brilliant idea, saves spluttering for answers.
I would say you & husband have asked her many times not to rearrange your home and interfere in your 'tightly run ship' it isnt helpful and want no further discussion about it. It is a shame that she rode rough shod over your feelings but it is no longer a problem. (you dont have to add that is because she is banned from your home) just refuse to discuss it....if she pushes and you fancy an argument just tell the whole family the truth and then ask them all to get the fuck out your house.

agreed with the script
"with respect MIL that is not true, you know you are not helping as you have been told multiple times that it is not, and asked multiple times not to" Calm and factual
, then a breezy 'more potatoes anyone?".

Gorgeous dog!! 😀

When she says something just say you've already asked her to leave your things alone and maybe she needs a Dr's appt for her hearing problems.

What I do is write a script, learn it and then deliver my lines when the cue arrives. It helps a lot.

I can't find "thank you" in the OP's text any more than I can find "sorry" in the one from the MiL.

I'd go for photoshopping the picture, but replace MIL with you. It's what she's fighting against, anyway, so you might as well fight fire with fire. And put the photo of your parents beside it.

So she marked her territory and you said thank you?! She didn’t mean well. You both know it. Her reply shows it. She just won.

god speed OP. This won’t get better.

she still aruging the point -she didnt movestuff she was just helping you

someone like tat wont ever change

I'm impressed at the tolerance of all those posters saying they'd reply 'I'm not angry with you'. I could not do that.

I'd have had to say straight to her 'Yes I am angry with you. Of course I am, and you know it. You've had the nerve to come into my home and re-arrange my furniture, remove a photo of my parents and replace it with one of you. Of course I'm angry. It's an utterly disgraceful way to behave and you know it. Now go away and cry to whoever you like, but you and I both know that you would be furious if someone came round to your house and pulled this kind of silly stunt. It's fucking ridiculous. You won't be allowed into my home again because you are intrusive, rude and you don't listen. The only excuse would be if you are developing dementia - which is of course a possibility, but I suspect you are just doing it on purpose'.

I can't be doing with tip toeing round narcs.

Ahh reminds me of the time my MIL was feeding our cat whilst we were on holiday, a simple once a day job really and at the time she lived a few roads away...

For some reason unbeknownst to us she decided to strip just our bed whilst we were away, but then hid the bedding at her house, I wish I was joking. That was a great discovery after over 24hrs travelling!

She also said she missed the bin collection whilst we were away, no biggie I thought, but it turned out she had proceeded to go through the entire contents of the wheelie bin as in literally taking everything out of the bin bags and re bagged everything including the contents of the bathroom bins. Wtaf!

I imagine she had a blast going through all of our stuff uninterrupted for 2 whole weeks.

Oh and she used to take down notes/dates from our family calendar and school stuff on the fridge and opened two letters on the side. I shit you not.

Unsurprisingly, we don't have a lot to do with her anymore and thinking about it, I'm not sure we ever got that bedding back

Oh my god this behaviour would make my head explode! First of all, if she has a key please change the locks, no more coming over and doing what she wants. You’ve asked her, told her and even had arguments about and she doesn't care to listen and instead emotionally manipulates everyone to bend her will. These messages of “I hope you’re not angry with me” are baiting you, so you could reply with “ I’ve been thinking about what you did, and I’m not angry just disappointed that even though we’ve asked you not to rearrange our living room, you ignored our request or forgot? Do you think so little of us that you will ignore our wishes? You say are only trying to help, but it’s not help if it’s against our wishes. For example you mowed down my wildflower meadow without my permission, I would never do that to you.” It sounds like MIL loves a guilt trip so let her have one of own. Or say “we’ve said many times the help is not required and in fact is quite unhelpful, so are you deliberately ignoring our wishes or did you forget? I’m worried that we might need to get you some help for your memory.” I hope it’s not memory issues and is in fact MIL being a pain in the arse. X I wish you luck 💐

ah get ya. makes sense now would kill her
I actually have colour coded clothes blue is bathroom pink is kitchen etc. helps ensure everyone knows what one to use

Cloths sorry I have different cleaning cloths for the bathroom and kitchen that I replace weekly one wipes down the bathroom sink and bath and one wipes down the toilet seat and lid and sits in bleach, I then have one in the kitchen for wiping down counters and sink. I had to reclean my whole kitchen because I obviously didn’t know if she’d used the toilet cloth all over my kitchen.

Whole heartily agree agree MIL is cracked in the head but what is bathroom clothes and why couldn't they go in the washing machine if they touched the toilet instead of binning them ?