To think MIL has Invaded my privacy

[Passthesaltdear]

My mil looks after ds once a week while I work, she drives considerable distance to do this and I am very grateful for that as ds loves it and it saves me a fortune in nursery fees. I have no complaints about her but this...
I got back from work a few weeks back and went to my bedroom to get changed, opened my drawers to find that all my clothes had been removed and then folded into neat piles and rearranged in my drawers! The psycho theme tune rang in my ears! I feel it's an invasion of my privacy and that our room would naturally be considered off limits to this sort of rearranging (which she is prone to in other areas of the house which I find bad enough). I didn't say anything at the time but chewed ear of dh who sympathises but doesn't want to upset his mum (nor do I as I don't want her to stop looking after our ds!)
Then this week came home to find she had been in my wardrobe and rearranged everything in there too.
There are things in our room I wouldn't want her to see (normal married couple type stuff) and am pissed off she is even in there! I have tried shutting the door to make it clear the room is off limits but obv not worked. Am loathe to put a lock on my own door in my own house.
Anyone else experienced anything like this? aibu and how to deal?

Def not being unreasonable. Maybe try a 'thank you so much for doing that for me but can I ask that you leave the bedroom alone in future as I like to be organised and now that Christmas has passed I will start buying and storing gifts for your and family's) brithday/ Mums day etc in there and wouldn't want you to stumble across them'

I don't see this as a MIL issue, it's a parent overstepping the boundaries with an adult child. Your DP should be able to say to his mother without offending her "thanks mum we appreciate your help, but this isn't appropriate".

I was reminiscing with my sister yesterday about when she had just bought her first flat. Our dad helped her loads with the decorating but then continued to let himself in to do little jobs that he thought needed doing. It just needed to be gently pointed out to him that she was an independent adult now and this wasn't OK. It hadn't really crossed his mind but he understood.

Brugmansia

Yes def - a parent over stepping boundaries - in fact I think you have hit nail on head with grounds of alot of MIL issues...

Op I agree with posters that you are going to have be direct as nicely as possible...try and chanel her energies somehow -

Or maybe you should just get a lock - say its because of DC...its a pain BUT it means you can stop her going in...without hurting her feelings...

Unfortunalty in my experience alot of people who think it is ok to " over step" boundaries like this - are rather thick skinned - lets face it - if they had any tact or thought they wouldnt be rummaging aournd in a couples bedroom in the first place.

I still remeber grabbing a handbag off MIL that was buried in the back of my wardrobe that I knew containted a bedroom toy.....I can still see her hand reaching in for it - in the middle of an enforced bedroom tidy by her....

There is no way she would have responded to hints about the bedroom...FIL also once changed our bed and sheets!! Then made rude comments about our room!! We ended up having a very big falling out about other things, DH said it was probably a good thing - I agree because they were v diff and thick skinned to try and control nicely....

Oh bless her! I agree with the other posters who have said she is overstepping, but not intentionally.

My MIL will often do my ironing and has reordered my kitchen twice. I love it! However this does remind me of when we moved into our current house and she came to help with the unpacking. We had one large box in our bedroom marked 'PRIVATE - MASTER BEDROOM' literally all over it. SIL had come over to help too and I had asked them to start wherever they liked but that I planned to unpack all our bedroom myself. Anyway, they made really excellent progress and MIL decided that she would unpack our room and save me a job later. Poor SIL was saying no Mum, I think you should leave that Mum, and finally ran downstairs to find me. I started towards the stairs to find a rather flustered MIL coming down. Nothing was mentioned, but I did later discover that the tape on the PRIVATE box had been ripped off and resealed. Suffice to say there was some pretty kinky stuff in there

She is trying to be helpful, dont insult her by saying anything just lock your door

Nice one Never, some people just can't understand a hint :o