To be furious at my MIL for cleaning our living room

Seriously? The woman is rearranging OPs possessions in her own home. FFS

Have you read all the op's posts?

As frustrating as it is, this is your husband's mum. I am sure she means well and doesn't appreciate that you feel she is overstepping the mark. I would take a deep breath and let it go in the best interests of family relations.
PS, I would also respond to her text.
You may be MIL yourself one day and appreciate the difficulties of getting it right 👉

There speaketh somebody who has dealt with a narc! I think you just described my mother! Don’t they just love to play the victim?

Classic gaslighting! Please please please do some research into narcissism and you’ll see she is a textbook example. You’ve done nothing wrong and she has a mental illness that she will never ever acknowledge. You can’t reason with her, you just have to learn ways to “manage” her behaviour to minimise the impact it’s having on you. This might involve telling her a lot of white lies but believe me it’s necessary to retain your sanity because you can’t use normal reason or common sense with a narc.

How delighted would you feel about having your furniture rearranged to suit your MiL, your parents' photo replaced by one of DH & MiL, your dog being fed things that made it ill (despite being told not to), your clothes being ruined by MiL's ironing (despite being told not to iron anything).

But if she had just said “oh sorry” she’d be criticised for being too superficial and that she didn’t really understand.
I’d be very careful listening to all this advice that she’s a narc. Lots of keyboard warriors out there and lots of people who have damaged relationships. She’s a busybody pure and simple, but that doesn’t make her bad to her very core. For goodness sake she’s apologised, what more does she have to do!!

No she is a textbook narcissist! Unless your comment was meant to be sarcastic then you have obviously never had to deal with the toxicity of a narcissist relative. Lucky you.

She definitely sounds like a narcissist. I bet if you have a look online at the typical symptoms then all her weird behaviour will suddenly make sense! Basically, everything she does is about her and her feelings and she is incapable of empathy or putting herself in someone else’s shoes. They are also expert gas-lighters. You could even say to her “How would you feel if I did this in your home?” and she wouldn’t see the relevance! She’d probably reply with something like “Well my house is always tidy so you wouldn’t need to”. Oh and they often have a “golden child” (usually a son) who can do no wrong and therefore doesn’t see what a nightmare his mother is. Narcissists are infuriating but once you understand the pattern of their behaviour it allows you to see that it’s definitely them being unreasonable and not you.

I would be delighted if someone cleaned my living room, including a MIL.

Edit: I like the idea so much, I'm going to pull it out

😂she may do it again -in which case, I'd just keep replacing her photo with the dog in various funny poses

I'd have some fun with this. Photoshop her out of the photo (take a screen shot of it and then photoshop) so it's just your DH, or even better, photoshop a photo of the dog in her place.

She cant say a thing about it without admitting what she did. See if SHE notices the next time she comes round 😂If she says anything say "sorry, I don't know what on earth you mean?- it has always been like that, are you sure you're ok?"

😂this is genius

You need to find a way to talk to her. Try seeing it (as unreasonable as it all seems) from her (warped) perspective- I.e. ‘I understand that you’re just trying to help’ - but tell her that she’s having unintended consequences - i.e. you have to rearrange the living room again and you are tired and don’t have time - and how that makes you feel - I.e. ‘the wildflower meadow wasn’t weeds. It was intentional and our garden and we felt undermined in our own home by that’. Then finish with illustrating how the future will play out if she continues- I.e. ‘if you keep undermining us, as much as you feel you are trying to help, our relationship is going to break down and we will stop inviting you to our house, which would be sad for all of us’ (just lie).

Maybe try drawing boundaries (if you want some free cleaning) - I.e. if you really feel the need to clean, then dusting, hoovering is fine, but please you need to not rearrange our furniture, throw things out, etc.

You won’t get through to her getting annoyed - it sounds like she gets some satisfaction from that and having the ‘upper hand’ as she sees it. Also, use ‘we’ to include how your husband feels - you’re more likely to get through to her if it’s between her and her son…like so many daft MIL’s she likely doesn’t really care if she hurts your feelings. Good luck, she sounds like a pain in the arse.

Rearranging her house - as well as being a waste of your time - just makes it seem as if that behaviour can be excused. And is inconsistent with the message you sent her. Better to suggest she finds something else to do (if you have to say anything).

I love this 😆 🤣 😂

Well done for standing your ground.💪

Classic narcissist reply from her, “You two are the most important thing to us” My NPD mother used this sort of response when she had pushed it too far with me. Just a little guilt tripping reminder from her that, “I do these things because I love and care about you” and a way of reeling you into her little games again.

Sorry to sound so cynical, but I’ve seen every facet of this kind of personality being played. It’s all about them and their feelings and if you try to very reasonably stand your ground and set boundaries, you become the ungrateful baddie. Narcs are just brilliant at convincing those on the outside that they’re totally philanthropic and self sacrificing when it’s actually all about manipulating situations so they always come out looking like the hero/victim/virtuous one (delete as appropriate)

Oh please do this op. 🤪

Yes I meant to say well done but the faux cringe response suggests she is just worried she looks bad. Anyway, you have her measure so well handled.

She is in denial, (and possibly has an untreated psychological disorder?) so in the circumstances that is the only reply you were going to get.

However, you have set a clear boundary in writing. At least that is something you can refer back to if it happens again.

Well done @GelatinousDynamo for a calm, assertive and clear message - wishing you all the best that she stops the pushy behaviour !

Jesus. Well I don't reckon it's over, but you will just get some other problems later.