About MIL popping over?

[PurpleCrutches]

So today we've been really busy - shopping this morning/early afternoon, we got back, had lunch, then been doing various bits and pieces round the house.

MIL lives a street away from us.

About half an hour ago she turned up - at the time the living room was a state because DH is sorting out his aquarium (he has to move furniture when he does this) and I was trying to entertain the DCs while prepping the dinner. I answered the door, said hi, and asked what's up. She said, "oh, nothing, just thought I'd pop over."

I said that we were a bit busy atm and indicated the carnage around me. She looked very hurt and said, I did text you earlier but you didn't reply. I said well yes, we've been busy all day, I didn't hear my phone go off.

She still stayed for 10 mins, and then made a big show and dance about leaving, because we're so busy, we have so much better things to do, etc etc.

Now I never go to hers without texting or ringing first. If she doesn't answer I assume she's not available.

WIBU to tell her we were busy? Was it rude? She's done this before, always when we're eating/prepping dinner, or when we're putting the kids to bed. I've never said anything before, but I knew it was her when the doorbell went, and it really irritated me.

[GingerBlondecat]

DontmindifIdoSun 06-Jan-13 20:37:14


^ Yep, people who are 'poppers' don't get that other people hate it and find it rude - they are usually out in force on threads like this and make out you are odd for wanting to be in control of when you are available to visitors and that your home is not commual extended family space, but private space just for the people who live there and anyone else is a guest regardless of their relationship to you.

They never see the rudeness of feeling they have a right over your space and time because they have no problem with seeing their space and time as commual for the extended family/friends, so assume you are rude for wanting control over these things.

That your MIL texted you is irrelevant, she didn't wait to find out if you wanted her to visit, she assumed that you always want her to visit unless you specify and give her a reason not too, or are not in. She has assumed that because she wants your company and it's a good time for her, that must follow that you want her company and it's a good time for you. Otherwise, she'd have waited for you to reply that it was a good time to come over. A non-popper wouldn't do that, they would assume they aren't welcome to come over until you'd replied to tell them they were.

Unfortunately, there's no way to get through to a pop in-er that you find it rude without being rude to them. You either have to accept that you no longer have rights over your time and family space or you tell them they have to call/check they have permission to come over first, which they will see as rude.^

Many Many Thanks for putting my thoughts into words.

[Morloth]

I don't know, depends on your relationship with her.

Mum/MIL+FIL/Sisters/SIL popping over for us means they play with the kids and put the kettle on themselves and usually come bearing cakes. They are close family and therefore we kind of consider them as part of the immediate family unit, so it isn't a problem. If housework is being done when they turn up, mostly they will do some as well. I have many a time hung out washing when arriving at sister's house and the machine was just finishing, while she puts the kettle on etc.

It is a very small group who is welcome do to this in our home though, and those are the only people I would 'pop' over to as well. Anyone else I expect for them to call first and would do them the same courtesy.

So it really does depend on what sort of relationship you have/want to have with your MIL.

Mine turning up to an aquarium project, with kids needing entertained and dinner being cooked would probably help out with the kids, Mum on the other hand would take over dinner - that sort of thing...

[jessjessjess]

I hate poppers. I especially hate poppers who can't fathom that they won't automatically be welcomed just because they decided they should come round. If you're going to pop round unannounced, surely you accept it might be bad timing?

[NamingOfParts]

I agree that it does depend on the type of relationship but also relative time pressures.

We both work including DH working for part of the weekend. Our weekend is therefore strictly limited. Both my DM & DPiL are long since retired and have forgotten that the rest of us have only limited time.

My problem isnt so much that DM/DPiL pop in but that they cant stick to the arrangements they have made (turning up late) and then once here wont go! They get sat on the sofa and then need a crow-bar to get them out again.

A visit fro DM/DPiL means that half a day goes up in hot air!

[Tee2072]

I am greatly disturbed by this assumption that people's worlds get smaller as they get older. My mother is 72 and my step dad will be 80 in about a month and their lives are even fuller than they were when they were both working full time and had kids at home. Your life is what you make of it.

I hate poppers in. I think it's incredibly rude. And I don't care if you're my mother, my brother or my sister's uncles cousin's step mother's mother in law. It's rude to assume that people are willing and able to have you in their private house just because you want to be there.

I am also tired of this assumption that because some people don't get along with their mothers in law that it's something that automatically happens when your become a mother in law. Being a good mother in law is simple: don't be an ass. So the same a being a good person. Unfortunately, there are plenty of assholish mothers in laws and see some of their attitudes on this thread. 'He's my son, why can't I see him? How dare she block me from him.' Maybe because he is now also someone's husband and father and, sorry, you are no longer number 1 in his life. As is right and proper.

[shandybass]

Hi Op. I wrote a similar post a few years ago when my mil walked in on me three days after I'd given birth when I was trying to apply cream to my episiotomy stitches. We lived in a two room bedsit at the time so there was not much private space anyway. I was mortified and asked her for some privacy and she acted all affronted saying she was only family!
Although this was extreme its carried on 6 years on she continues to walk in to our house unannounced without even a courtesy knock and has been known to come round the back of the house and peer in the windows if the front door is locked!
She is a nice person and we have an ok relationship, where we both try but we have very different approaches and values. I would suggest trying to lay some ground rules now about how you want things to be. It's not rude, but you are entitled to a bit of mutual respect. I think it sounds like you're mil is of the strong personality types as you say she did not respond sensitively to what must have been fairly obvious as a not very convenient time. Others may well have more sensitive mils, I do not, and certainly in similar circumstances my mum and siblings would have picked up the obvious signs and responded appropriately. Good luck op. but hold your nerve, you sound like a much more sensitive empathetic person than your mil.

[ChoosandChipsandSealingWax]

It seems to me that the popper-inners can't have it both ways.

Most popper-inners on this thread are insisting that the "etiquette" is that you should just carry on what you're doing while they help themselves to some tea and you get on with what you're doing while they muck in, as they're just family, so you don't need to stand on ceremony, or host.

This is exactly what OP did with her MIL. Except that the MIL then didn't muck in, or make her own tea, and got all offended and passive aggressive and flounced off. So really, she did want OP to drop everything and entertain her, despite it obviously being an inconvenient time. Which is exactly what all of us being who hate popper-inners hate about popper-inners! It's not the fact that's she's a MIL, that's the problem. It's the non-mucking in and the flouncing.

Sounds like you need some ground rules, rather than an apology, OP.

[NUFC69]

I think if the MIL only stayed for ten minutes, it's not a huge deal; and that's what the OP said (except she said "she stayed for TEN minutes" - I would hardly call that a long time, and certainly not long enough to start doing things around the house.)

As I said earlier my DS and DIL rarely let me know if they are coming, and whilst I don't like people just popping in to see me without letting me know they are coming, I always make them welcome and stop whatever I am doing - it's only common courtesy.

[GoldPlatedNineDoors]

Just apologise and say she caught you unawares and that ypu were worried about making her feel comfortable when you were run off your feet. Manke a joke like "next time you pop round, if we are busy, just help yourself to a brew while im doing the dinner - stay for dinner if you fancy"

[ChoosandChipsandSealingWax]

NUF " I always make them welcome and stop whatever I am doing - it's only common courtesy"

Exactly, that's what I feel, and that's why I don't like popper-inners, whoever they are, even if it were my own DM - I would rather arrange a time and properly be able to make them welcome and spend quality time with them, perhaps have bought something nice/made a cake.

The popper-inners on this thread seem to be saying one doesn't need to do that, but, actually, that is what the MIL wanted, and why it was a problem. I agree ten minutes isn't very long, but the passive aggressive flouncing would have got my back up.

My grandparents were notorious popper-inners and wound my DM up no end with it. I once had a dream (while choosing uni places) that they "just popped in' on me in the middle of a rather wild party. I immediately changed which uni was my preferred option (only an hour away from them) and instead went 400 miles away

[ChoosandChipsandSealingWax]

Also, she didn't intend to stay ten minutes. If that had been her intention, it would of course, have been fine. But it wasn't. She wanted to stay and be made welcome.

[Pandemoniaa]

I don't have an objection to poppers in. I rather like an open house. But, the popper in has to understand that it might be impossible for me to stop what I'm doing and entertain them for a lengthy visit. I'm not the only one of my friends who works some of the time from home and actually, I'm not lonely, I'm busy. As are my friends. So we'd usually text quickly first.

With family, we've got an unwritten rule that you don't assume everyone is sitting around waiting to be visited at the weekend too. So while anyone turning up with cake is enthusiastically received, if we aren't home when they call, we aren't going to feel guilty about it.

I think a lot depends on the behaviour of the respective poppers in though. My dm would happily put kettles on, entertain children, hang washing out or whatever. My former PIL would sit on the sofa like immoveable objects and take umbrage if they didn't get undivided attention. Yet ironically, you'd not have been very popular if you'd fetched up unannounced at their house.

[SpringtimeForHitler]

Everyone is different I suppose.

If one of my friends pops by and I'm in the middle of something, they get stuck in and help or go and put the kettle on.

My mum often comes by unannounced between her appointments at work, I love her, why wouldn't I want to see her?!

[YouWithTheFace]

I guess it's all a question of how you define your space and time. I'm at home most of the day, but either with a toddler or with a to-do list, and currently also with pregnancy tiredness and a retrenched husband. We schedule our day around all the stuff we need to do and splitting the childcare. After more than two years, and having had it written down for him, my father still thinks I'll / we'll be available for an hour or two's tea-drinking and chatting whenever he pops in. Which he does without fail ten minutes after the toddler's finally gone down for her nap. If you don't answer the door he lets himself in, makes tea and waits for you.

And that is why we now tell him that it's not a good time when it isn't and close the door in his face. And make him schedule his visits. Because he is very welcome but not on those terms!

[NamingOfParts]

I think that the automatic assumption that the popper-in can be expected to help out, muck in can be way off as well. Elderly & infirm or inveterate faffers are not to be trusted with helping out & mucking in!

[chickensarmpit]

My MIL pops in whenever she likes it too. Tea time, kids bed time and once she came around and invited her clan with her while we were decorating! Grrrr i was up a ladder and she was telling me to put the kettle on. I was not amused.

[gotthemoononastick]

Oh she got the hint allright. You know this too,or wouldn't be giving it a thought.Probably will withdraw more now and soon we will all read about how she doesn't give a fig at Christmas and birthdays.Damned if I would go near your home again after that welcome.(Cuts off nose)

[EldritchCleavage]

The only unreasonable thing is being annoyed with her coming unannounced if you've never had the conversation about not coming round unannounced. She won't know you don't like it if you don't tell her.

I would smooth things over and get your DH to speak to her about ringing you in good time whenever she wants to visit.

[propertyNIGHTmareBEFOREXMAS]

As per your OP, yanbu.

However, yabvu to live one street away from MIL, get the For Sale sign up, pronto!

[2rebecca]

I do agree that living round the corner from relatives is asking for this sort of problem. It's good to have at least a 10 minute drive between you.

[DontmindifIdo]

I do think the problem lies with poppers in who don't accept that they are taking the risk it's not a good time - and then being told that actually the random time they have picked for a visit isn't good, getting offended by the fact. OP's MIL hadn't driven for hours, she just popped round, she shouldn't have insisted on staying for 10-15 mintues once she was told at the door it was a bad time. She was then being rude by insisting on being in someone's home who had told her they didn't want a visit.

There are some people on here who can't comprehend that for others there's ever a time they don't want visitors because they always do, and that's fine for them, but for most people, there are times when they want just to get on with stuff without others there.

But then I find it really hard to comprehend why anyone would think it wasn't rude not to entertain a guest in your home, of course you don't just tell someone to make themselves a drink, of course if it's a meal time you feed them, of course you stop, take time to give them attention when they are in your home.

If I was visiting your house (after making sure you told me it was a suitable time for you) and you just got on with your housework, I'd think you were rude. If it was over a meal time, I'd expect you to have planned either to feed me too or us all to go out but then I'd not just turn up without giving you chance to plan. If you have this view of 'hosting' guests, then poppers in are hard work.

[jessjessjess]

These MILs who just pop in and peer through the windows... do they know how grandchildren are made?!

[elleephant]

Well I don't do popping and I'm not mad about being popped in on either!

But I still think you were rude.

Pop inners are not being rude they are just friendlier and more interested in other people than the non pop inners.

Ime those who pop in don't expect a big palavar, esp family. I'd just treat her as one of the family, ask her to distract kids or set table or something and give her some tea. Just try and relax into it and just work around her and have a bit of a chat. It'll make for happier family relations. And if she doesn't like being asked to help, she probably start to think more carefully about her pop in times...

But as a non popper, I do feel your pain!

[lisianthus]

YANBU. If your MIL didn't know whether you are a pop-in family or not, the onus was on her to be polite and find this out before just turning up and getting huffy at your daring to be too busy to entertain her properly. I do think that pop-inners are rude if they turn up unannounced and expect to be entertained if it is a bad time. The other side of being a pop-inner is that you should be prepared to go away again if it is a bad time.

And I certainly don't think pop-inners are "friendlier and more interested in other people". It's arguable that it is entirely the other way around- non- popinners are interested in other people because they take the trouble to be considerate of the visitee and find out what is going on in their life and whether it is a convenient time for a visit. Pop-inners are often just thinking "I've nothing to do at the moment. i know, I'll drop in on X." Whether X wants this to happen doesn't figure in this at all.