My partner recently moved in after 2 years of dating. It’s a special time for us as we’d wanted to live together for quite some time but wasn’t in the best place financially until now.
Now to be clear it’s not a MIL bashing thread as I genuinely love her as a person, she’s been a great support to me and I have a lot of time for her. She is physically disabled which is important to note, but she can walk for some time before it becomes painful and she’s bed bound for the rest of the day, she is independent and can be left alone with a Walker/stick.
To get to my point, she is becoming increasingly overbearing with our relationship so I could do with some advice if it’s normal or if I should say something.
She will randomly phone my partner and ask him to come and help her ‘with something important’, so being a good son he drives an hour to find it’s something silly like changing a plug socket over, moving bins, closing a window she can’t reach and so on.
He has 2 brothers who still live with her and 3 relations in the nearby area who would be more than happy to help with quick jobs and won’t take as long as an hour to do it. My partner has also expressed he’s happy to go back and do bigger jobs when he isn’t working such as garden work, cleaning and so on. I have also offered when I’m free, I asked her if she’d like me to catch up on her ironing on Tuesday which was my day off work, she said no but then asked my partner if he could do it the next day straight from work (he didn’t).
We had party plans the first weekend we lived together which we had to cancel as she had a fall and wanted my partner to spend the weekend with her to help her, Despite her other sons being home. We stayed for a few hours and came home as she was walking fine when we’d all been very worried and called an ambulance on the way. I offered her to stay with us if she was concerned about being alone which she refused and said she didn’t want a fuss.
Now I’m starting to see perhaps she’s struggling to accept he has moved on with his life, and using it as an excuse for him to come back daily, but I’m concerned she will come between us eventually with her instant demands. If he doesn’t do it she will sulk as she doesn’t reply to him for the rest of the day. He feels guilty and goes back. He’s obviously worried about her as she’s his mum and needs support, but I think he now needs to step aside and live his own life in my opinion. If her other sons aren’t happy to take over the general care of her then there are carers and relatives available. She is his mum and will always be an important relative of course, I’m hoping she will calm down soon, but I’m worried this will never end!
I am being understanding that it’s not a nice situation for her and I do text her daily to make sure she is okay and we made an agreement with her to visit her weekly to do odd jobs or take her for lunch hoping it would stop the daily demands. But she doesn’t seem content with this.
Before I have even finished typing this out she has text my partner again on his day off knowing we are about to have a BBQ with friends asking if he can come and walk her dogs as her other sons have gone to the pub with their partners. I asked my partner for the first time to say no, as this our day off and we deserve to relax, and now I worry I’ll be seen as the controlling DIL!
Later on in the relationship I don’t want to feel I’m competing for attention from my partner if he’s always with his mum. My friend told me I need to set boundaries directly with her but I don’t want to ruin a bond between us and I can’t expect my partner to refuse to help his unwell mother.
Please tell me I’m not being unreasonable for this rant!! NC as could be outing.