How to ask MIL to go home on Saturday?

[BloomsButtons]

MIL has been with us since Saturday. As far as DH and I knew she was coming for a week but apparently she's told our DC and my Mum that's she's here until after new year.

I need some time these holidays to chill out and DC 3&4 want to go and visit DC1 this weekend and he lives near MIL. How can I politely tell her that DH is taking DC to visit other DC and so he'll take her home at the time?

I know this doesn't seem all that hard but DH won't say anything so I'll have to do it but I don't want to cause major offence.

DC 3&4 are 14 & 12 year olds. DC1 is 24.

@BloomsButtons she is. CF of the highest order!

Glad your boys are home unaccompanied !

Yeah, BIL will no doubt have to pick up the NYE slack etc.

Well done you. This is a fight worth having. How extraordinary that she should give her dates to everyone but you. Is DH seeing the light?

"Apparently she gave each person a different excuse and DH was mortified."

Why was he mortified-because his mum lies to her friends/tries to embarrass him?

Perhaps he should have spoken uo & said that her returning yesterday was always the plan!

What a saga! Well done for standing firm!

Apparently she gave each person a different excuse and DH was mortified

Has he specified what the excuses were?

@BloomsButtons - gathering together things that you've said, it appears that your MIL comes to stay at least four times a year - you've mentioned a summer and an autumn visit, and not needing to worry till Easter. Please tell us she doesn't pull this shit every time??

(And if she does, Jesus, you should be beatified)

Brace yourself for the onset of a sudden 'illness' which means she needs to come and stay - don't fall for it.

@GiantKitten the excuses included 'I came home early because I was too sore' relating to her arthritis/osteoporosis; and 'son and wife are back at work this week'. Not sure what other gems there were!

@MontyPythonsFlyingFuck she's visited 3 times since July this year. Usually it does work out roughly 4 per year. Visits are never easy but have got much worse in the last 12 months. The July visit was particularly hard for a variety of reasons.

Christmas visits are every other year.

Glad everyone’s in their respective homes.

Stunned at the cheek of telling all and sundry about the extra week apart from the chumps who were expected to facilitate this!

I hope DH enjoyed his extra bonding time with his Mum/learns a lesson.

BloomsButtons

the excuses included 'I came home early because I was too sore' relating to her arthritis/osteoporosis; and 'son and wife are back at work this week'. Not sure what other gems there were!

That’s less devious than I was suspecting - I feared there might have been some implied/explicit criticism of you...

(But why not just say there was a misunderstanding? Because there was, really! )

That’s less devious than I was suspecting - I feared there might have been some implied/explicit criticism of you...

There will be I'm sure. It will be along the lines of " Well I didn't want to say a thing while DH was here but i just didn't feel welcome by my DIL..."

Has DH at least realised that it was planned, what with her telling every single person in her life?

We are on day 5 of a 6 day visit. We invited MIL for Christmas as felt sorry as FIL died two years ago. She played siblings off against one another as all of them invited her for Christmas. Then she decided to spend it with her DD who lives closest to her (absolutely fine with us). She then phoned us and said you know you invited us for Christmas well i’ve Decided to come to stay with you for NY she was vague about arrival and departure dates (to wind me up and persuade DH he should spend 2.5-3 hours each way then settled on a 6 day visit). She is now planning her next visit on DH’s birthday so we won’t get to go out on our own together (we only go out on each other’s birthdays which she knows full well).

@Amazonian27 you'll just need to say 'that's super MIL! We already have plans so you'll be able to babysit the mini Amazon's, thank you!'

She has suggested the night of DH’s birthday and wants a meal out with DH as a a belated treat from us for her birthday as she likes going out at night. I suggested they go on there own for a meal when no date was decided as cheaper. We can’t really afford to go away at Easter but I am going to look for a caravan small enough and somewhere outdoorsy enough that she wouldn’t invite herself as we can sometimes get a 7-10 day visit at Easter.

Why oh why wasn’t DH correcting her every time she lied about returning? I’d have followed her around offering lines like “why did you tell everyone you we’re staying longer than we agreed?” “No mother, we always planned to come home today” I’m sure she would quickly let him go home alone after that. I guess it’s like the whole funeral thing though isn’t it, he doesn’t challenge her

@Amazonian27

Why can't you just tell that you already have plans?

It's YOUR house so she visits when it's convenient to YOU!

What does your DH say?

"Why oh why wasn’t DH correcting her every time she lied about returning?"

I would imagine that he didn't because (no matter how much she had manipulated the situation to try and stay for two weeks instead of one, no matter how disruptively she'd affected family life) at the end of the day she is still his elderly mother (over 80, if I remember?), and he probably wanted to leave her with her dignity intact at least among the circle of people she knows at church.

Would you rather your mother lost face before the people at church, @ForgotTheBastardElfAgain , as long as you could set the record straight? I don't think I would.

Amazonian, you both sort of deserve what you get with your MIL because you don't stand up to her and tell her NO.

And also Amazonian - you really only go out with your DH twice a year?

I never get to go out with DP on our own, didn't think that was unusual with small kids.

It doesn't matter how little she likes you, OP, you will be good enough to take her in and care for her wipe her arse when she is only a little bit older. She is already gearing up for this - visits getting more frequent and lasting longer. Be very careful. Once she is in, she will be hard to get out. And she will not care if it causes you and DH to split up, as then he will NEED her again, won't he?

And also Amazonian - you really only go out with your DH twice a year?

I don’t think that’s overly unusual for people with young kids! DH and I didn’t go out together for years!

Ours aren’t that young any more but we have more than one of each sex and they are very close in age. We are starting to leave them more now as both secondary get out a little more now they are Secondary school age. So now and again on a Sat we sometimes nip out mid afternoon or early eve for a quick couple of drinks to the local
pub up the road but it’s hardly a date night or anything special where you have time to properly get dressed up, relax and enjoy ourselves properly and I/we still have to do dinner/teas before we go out or when we get back in. But we snatch what we can get from time to time. I will organise something for DH’s birthday with the kids and something just for our two selves which definitely doesn’t include her. She will have to wait until hell freezes over for DH to book and plan a night at a fancy restaurant for her birthday and no way am I planning anything for her on his birthday that includes her.

Think I would still ha e been tempted to go with a jokey ‘if only you’d remembered to tell us Mum when you decided to change the agreed plans to come back today, you would have known that we already had plans for this week so next Saturday was never on the cards and you could have made plans to do things with your friends! What are you like, what are we going to do with you!!’

All said in a very smiley jokey friendly manner but enough to let her and her friends know that she had been busted and it wasn’t going to happen again! But not badly enough for her to lose face, at least this time.

Might also be tempted to block bits out on the calendar before she comes again so that if she does look at the calendar it will be much more difficult for her to suggest dates as you can legitimately say sorry, I’ve looked at the calendar and it says we are away/busy/etc then. Which is true - calendar is saying it. Whether the calendar is accurate or not is not an issue you’re discussing and therefore irrelevant 😂