My mil is a lovely person. She has done nothing 'wrong'. But I am a fairly aloof, contained, non-touchy feely, private and quiet person, and she is a gushing, over-sharing, hugging chatterbox and it's reaching the point where I can't stand to be in her company.
My husband adores her. Rightly. She's his mum. But when we go and visit he sits on the couch on his phone and I'm left to field her for a couple of hours, and it feels like running a gauntlet. It exhausts me. I'm pretty certain I'm neurodivergent, and I find her extremely over-stimulating. I don't like to be touched really, and she's always linking arms or hugging me, or stroking me. She reminds me of my son when he was a toddler. Magnetically drawn to touch me. She tells me she loves me over and over again, and asks insanely probing questions on anything from my weight to the state of my relationship with her son.
When we're not with her, she emails all the time - maybe twice a week - asking when she will see us, and her emails are full of declarations of love and always have at least 40 kisses at the end. If my husband is away, she makes a point of calling me to make sure I'm ok on my own and I'm not missing him too much. 'Are you missing him dreadfully, Rubber...? I bet you're counting the hours down until he's home'. Well, no. I love him very much but we are both grown adults. I never, ever miss him when he's away. I'm always really happy to see him when he comes home, and enjoy reconnecting into the rhythm of our shared life. This feels healthy to me.
I know. None of these things are crimes. What ridiculous things to moan about. But she really gets under my skin, because we are just polar opposites in temperament. And while I can sit and make polite small talk with anyone regardless of my own social discomfort, I REALLY struggle with her because all she talks about is love and feelings and how much she loves her family and how she feels about us. I find it really overwhelming.
My husband knows I feel this way, and understands to a degree. Though he does keep saying, you're the only person I've ever met who doesn't like my mum. Everyone likes my mum. And it's so hard to explain that it isn't that I don't like her - there's nothing not to like - but she breaches every single one of my boundaries without knowing it, over and over again, and I find spending any length of time with her utterly exhausting. That's the only word for it - she doesn't just drain my social battery, the energy it takes to not run away from her wipes me out. I should probably say at this point that my upbringing wasn't brilliant and my relationship with my mother is very complicated, and I find being 'mothered' utterly repulsive.
He says I should just tell her that I don't like being fussed over. But she's 87. Fussing is her style, she's old, I don't want to upset her, and I'm not sure she's capable of changing.
Can anyone think of a way of phrasing it that doesn't make me sound like a nutter, or make her feel terrible? I obviously do not stop my husband seeing her, and he's made it clear I don't have to accompany him every time, but I know she loves 'family' and having us all together and it's reaching the point where I absolutely dread going to see her. I have told her before that I don't like being mothered, but I don't think she sees her behaviour as mothering. She just... loves you. Full bore. All the time. With very few alternative topics of conversation - she either talks about herself, or love and feelings.
How can I make it stop so the last few years of her life are spent with a dil who isn't recoiling inside all the time? My dh suggested that they move into the house next door to ours the other day, when it was up for sale. My insides went through the floor. But she doesn't have a daughter or another dil. I'm it for any kind of more personal care as she gets older and less independent, and right now she freaks me out.