Hi!
Just after some advice... I've always had a strained relationship with my MIL, I have two children (one toddler, one 4 month old). MIL lives 90 mins away and she keeps pestering me to visit. When she visits she usually stays for 6 hours or so. I end up having to provide lunch and dinner and spend the whole day waiting on her hand and foot whilst my husband is at work. She never lifts a finger. I wouldn't mind so much if she hadn't kept saying how much she was gonna help out when she visited when I was pregnant with my second. I end up feeling shattered by the time she leaves! She always brings a lot of sugary snacks for my toddler which she feeds him all day so he ends up incredibly hyper. I know she's insecure because my parents live 10 mins away but I see less of my mum than I do her. I know I am lucky she shows an interest but she has become so demanding. She's also rubbed me up the wrong way in the past, she refused to visit us the day we moved into our house because we said we didn't want her to bring her enormous dog as it would get in the way (we said it could go in the garden but that wasn't good enough, my husband was really hurt). Then when we christened our eldest she kept demanding group pictures of my child and all of her children (she has 3) and kept excluding me. Then there's a collage of lots of pics (about 15) of various ppl holding my son in her living room. I'm not in one picture. Don't get me wrong I hate having my pic taken as much as the next person but I just feel like she's actively excluding me. It's got to the point where she wants to see us every week, all day. We've told her we don't want long visits (i.e. 3 hours max) but she's ignored us. If it's not her visiting us she demand us to drive to her at least once a month. It's a long way with two small children and it's expensive with regards to petrol. She constantly tells me how to raise my children which I try and ignore but it's still annoying. I've also asked her to stop kissing my son on the lips and she was really hurt and didn't talk to me for a week. My husband feels the same but he said he can be bothered with an argument, I can see his point because when we've argued in the past she never apologises or tries to see it from our point of view, she's very much the victim. She already has one son that doesn't speak to her because he finds her too overbearing and interfering. I feel like the more I try to make her feel wanted the more she expects, like nothing I do will ever be good enough :( What would you do if u were in my situation? Am I being unfair? Help please!