Is it me, or is it her?

[MillieH30]

DMIL visiting; but staying elsewhere as we have no room. She visits me and DD during the day, and is pretty hard work as she is rather grand and very inclined to criticize everything andveveryone.

Anyway, I left her in charge of DD for 2 hours during nap time and...come back to find my fridge re-arranged with raw meat on the top shelf and cheese/ butter on the bottom. Through tight lipped smile, I say "thank you but actually it's the way I like it" and I actually cleaned and tidied my fridge yesterday because you were visiting. Later I quietly put it back the right way round.

Following day, DMIL left in flat again and...various of DD's toys (building blocks, Acquadoodle etc) have been moved round or hidden. DMIL confirmed they were deliberately hidden so DD can't play with them - because they are messy. Again, I explain that she's allowed the toys and I'm happy to tidy up. I ask her straight out to discuss any changes she wants to make to MY flat with me first.

Next day, I have a doctors appointment and ask DMIL if she can take DD for a walk - but give her keys so she can get into flat if necessary. I return more quickly than expected to find she's mid way through re-organizing fridge again, with DD -24 mnths - playing unsupervised next door. When I came in she jumped a mile and looked very guilty. When I asked her what she was doing, she took offense and left. she texted me later telling me she expected an apology for my "outburst".

AIBU or is she crossing a line? I don't feel comfortable leaving her alone in my home as I don't know what she'll get up to next.

I agree with the poster who says 'don't kick off'.

Just try saying cheerfully "absolutely no need to rearrange things! I have a good system and it works well for us".

Yes, it's her.

My mum has form for this sort of thing. It's like in her head, there's only 2 ways of doing things. There's mum's way, and there's the wrong way. It winds me up no end when she starts "helping me" by rearranging my stuff because it's not organised in the way she'd do it. Kicking off doesn't help though. She gets all huffy, behaves for a bit, then after a while she just can't stop herself from moving things.

MIL would never dream of reorganizing our house though.

If that was a dig at me Amanda, dig away.
In my Auntie's case she has a medical diagnosis ( which she is outraged at)

Not a dig at you at all Humansatnav
It alarms me how often i hear about NPD. My default position with most women is to assume the best iyswim.
So I expect I would struggle with someone with NPD and wind myself in knots before realising what I was really facing.

diagnosing npd! that is rare, every body else is the probably so they wouldn't go near a therapist!

Apologies Amanda . I am being a grumpy git today.
I am now nc with my Aunty ( as are most of the family), but the effect she had on my loved ones, especially my dm, was heartbreaking.

Mampire it all came about after her dh ( enabler) died.
I believe her children ( adult) cajoled her into grief counselling and it went from there.
As I said we are mostly nc with her, but another cousin isn't so word got back to us.

No need to apologise. Its easy to misinterpret a typed message. Sorry you've had all that grief with your aunt.

I don't think you're being unreasonable, but tbh I'm not sure if it was only once a year I'd get too worked up about it. If she was round every month rearranging your house then I would, but I'd suck it up this time - mostly because I can't be arsed with confrontation!

I think, sometimes, some mums and MiLs have a difficult time differentiating between their homes and the homes of their children, particularly if they have always been a bit of a matriarch.

I have had a few problems with my MiL with this kind of thing, and I can sense that, to her, because it is her son's house, she somehow feels that she has a kind of "parental responsibility" over his environment, despite the fact that it isn't her home.

But then I think this perspective has been compounded by the fact that neither she nor my FiL have actually properly accepted that their son is actually an adult married male (regardless of the fact he is in his mid 30s). They still treat him like a teenager and just see me as an adopted addition to the family -- and they refer to myself and DH as "the kids". I am nearly 40, for crying out loud.

It is fine talking about boundaries, but what happens when the mum or MiL in question just doesn't recognise a boundary even exists? Some of this kind of meddling, I think, comes from very deep-rooted psychological perceptions of familial relationships and roles that may have never evolved over time.

So when DH and I realised we had to say something, the blow-back from my FiL was very exaggerated because his mum got very upset.

In hindsight, it wasn't because we were asking her to respect boundaries in our home, but more because we had delivered a blow to her perceived identity and role as a mother to her son. Yes, that identity and role was very outdated, and she did get better, but still .. I can tell she can't quite let go of the idea that she has to be domestically looking after things for him.

TL;DR - people are complicated, but that doesn't mean we have to accept the rearrangement of items in our fridge.