In asking DH to speak to MIL.

[Milmingebag]

Earlier this year I fell out with my MIL over her unreasonable behaviour. Had a thread on here and the verdict was unanimous that she was unreasonable. I confronted her via email and she denied/was political in her response and we have had a very light touch contact since.

I had a blistering argument with my DH yesterday because he is spineless over Christmas arrangements. Because she moaned about the food I cooked I have told him he is cooking if he is inviting her. I have asked him to make it clear to her that she can stay for three days but won't be hosted beyond that. He refused outright. Last year she stayed the entire time he had booked off of work (14 days). I think this is unreasonable.

Other niggles - she refuses to sleep anywhere else but the front room and this limits how we function as a family. She often wants to go to bed at 9pm because she is an early riser. I asked him to speak to her about this. He refused.

I have hosted her for various extensive stays (every Easter,Christmas etc) over thirteen years and suggested to my DH that she might like to do it herself this year. She has a big enough dining table and large enough house of her own. He refused saying she has never offered.

Last year she bought all her presents off Amazon and asked me to check them to make sure they had all arrived. I decided to wrap them all up, labelled from her as I thought it would save her a job. She was furious and said I had only wrapped them up to see what she had bought. When I pointed out she had asked me to check she then whiffed on about wanting to wrap them herself in her colour co- ordinated wrapping paper. This year she has stated that the adults won't be exchanging gifts. Aibu in thinking that when you are a guest at someone's house you don't dictate what you are going to do but ask if they agree.?She has long had an unusual thing about hating getting presents as she has guilt about receiving. To be honest it has really affected how I feel about present giving. It's gone from being a source of joy to one of anxiety. She sulks if anyone buys her even the smallest thing and has left other presents behind on purpose because she doesn't want/like them. She insists on thing being bought from her Wishlist.

I'm dreading Christmas this year. I wish I could just go off on my own for a few days. When I explained how I was feeling yesterday my DH twisted things saying I was asking him to choose between his wife and his mother and that he wouldn't leave her on her own at Christmas. That was obviously not what I was asking but for him to put some boundaries in place or I said he could always go down to hers and spend it with her just the two of them because after doing this for thirteen years I would quite like a Chrustmas that doesn't revolve around meeting his mother's needs.

AIBU? Any advice appreciated. x

She sounds really weird - who would insist on the sofa when the host was offering the spare room?

Well done for standing up to her though OP, and I'm glad your DH has found his balls.

Geez, your husband needs a kick up the arse. WTF is wrong with him?
Why should you accommodate for 14 days!?

Perhaps he would prefer to spend his annual leave with his Mummy instead?

I'd strongly consider speaking to her directly and having a "We don't like eachother so i'm going to make myself quite clear" speech.

If he dares not to back you, he had better be returning with Mummy to wherever she came from.

YANBU

I do wonder if the "Front Room" puts her at the heart of the household and therefore almost recreates a situation where it is the parental home and YOU are the visitors/younger generation? Unless there is something seriously wrong with your guest room it seems a control move.

I find it very odd when people seem to also resist having their own privacy. Who wants to be on public display all the time and not have a place to retreat to? Most people would be uncomfortable if told they had to stay in the front room while a family were living in the house, especially more than a day. To want to stay in the front room for weeks takes some front ;)

Does your mil possibly sleep sitting in an armchair these days? I know one or two older people with back or breathing issues who no longer lie down to sleep?

It sounds like she wants to sleep in the front room to "control" the household.
A close relative did this everytime his wife's family visited. They felt uncomfortable and uneasy like they were disturbing him if they watched TV/stayed up late/ drank tea in the front room at day time.
It was deliberately done to make sure the household revolved around him and all visitors payed him "homage".
He usually shared a room with his wife and there was never any actual need to give up his room.
His own nephew from Oz called him on it (psychologist) and his wife nipped it in the bud.

I am so so glad that you sent that email, and that your husband now has your backing. I suppose we're all quick to judge him but when it's your parents they can suddenly transport you back into being a little child.

I can't believe she still tried to insist on the living room. How dare she.

Y'know I'd love her to come on here and read her side, to see how on earth she would try and condone what she's demanding

I can't believe she still tried to insist on the living room. How dare she.

Ditto.

I can think of reasons why a couple of my elder relatives might find this useful in theory - nearness to a toilet, being able to walk around in the night and make tea etc without disturbing people - but none of them would ever admit to wanting to do it if it mean the rest of the household being sent to bed at nine to accommodate them! They'd rather suffer through a few nights in silence than cause the disruption. To intentionally inconvenience the rest of the family like that says a great deal.

V glad to hear a compromise is being reached OP, well done. And well done your DH too.

Well done, OP! As DH is now onboard would it be appropriate to change some of the 'I's in future emails to 'we's? So that she knows you and DH are a team?

Well done, OP! She is a nightmare. But as long as your DH means it about backing you up, and you stick to your guns, surely it'll be OK?

How silly she is about the present.

Well done for sending that email - and for your response to hers. It's difficult to take that first step, but it does get easier.

I don't want to worry you but I don't think this is over by a long shot. She is likely to go to extremes to get back some form of control. Just stay strong - believe it or not, you hold the cards here.

Well done OP. She is a monster

Hope your assertiveness will help your DH get the strength to stand up to her/for you

Well done OP!!

Maybe you and DH need to start watching a movie at 8.30pm in the living room, on the sofa. Maybe a really long movie.

Well done OP She wants to sleep in the front room because she is controlling and abusive.

Maybe the entire series of something we've been meaning to catch up on! Lost maybe? eyes up thick box set

She doesn't sleep upright and the guest room is a converted garage which is very comfortable with it's own shower. The kitchen is just off it so she can get to the kitchen to make tea etc and there is a downstairs toilet. My mum has stayed and remarked how comfortable it is.

There is no practical reason I can think of as to why she insists on sleeping in the front room. She has got quite aggro when asked previously to use the guest room.She is quite an,er,eccentric person. She has previously slept on her floor because the price ofthe bed frame she wanted went up while she dithered about buying it- so she went without a bed for three years. She has a mattress on the floor she uses now. Money wise she isn't skint so thats not the reason. She has hoarding tendencies as well and keeps all sorts,newspaper clippings,leaflets, elastic bands, jam jars etc. I do tolerate the bomb site she turns my house into with her insistence on keeping stuff and making piles of it everywhere because people have quirks but now I am wondering if something else is amiss.

I don't think it's over by a long chalk. I think next she will try to put pressure on DH to force her will.

I am wondering if she has some sort of personality disorder. A couple of things she said to me are strange.

She has remarked, several times, that she has always felt special and knew her life was meant to be that of an extraordinary person.

She has weaved into conversation a number of times that she believes she is superior to most people, looks and intellect wise and has always felt this. She said that as a child she was convinced she had been dropped into her family accidentally and that a flying saucer would come and take her back home. She used to look out over the water from the Projects where she lived willing it. Apparently that is why she loves Margaret Atwood because she often relates this feeling of 'otherness'.

She says she has never felt she has been in the wrong. Ever. She has never had the need to apologise.

Lastly she says her son was born and destined for higher things. She repeatedly told this to him as a child.

Writing down actually is helping to clarify how abnormal this stuff is.

Those are some really big narcissism flags, especially the one about being special and superior but also the never being wrong.

thenarcissisticlife.com/the-narcissist-is-never-wrong/

Book yourself a week in Barbados, OP, and let your DH deal with his mother.

She can want the front room all she likes. If you're sitting there watching TV or playing a game there's nothing she can do about it - even if she appears in her jammies!

There is something most definitely wrong here-those sound like delusions.
I find it difficult also to understand why anyone-even with breathing problems etc would insist on sleeping in the living room when a comfortable guest room is available.
You did well in your e-mail-polite but clear.

I think that now, after you biting the bullet and being tough, if she continues with this hideous rudeness and goes through your DH to try and arrange sleeping in the front room... you simply email and revoke her invitation.

'I am very sorry to have to tell you that I am no longer prepared to have you to stay over Christmas. I was quite clear that our invitation was for you to stay in our very comfortable guest room. For you to go through DH to try and get your way in sleeping elsewhere is so absolutely rude and inappropriate that I no longer want you here at all. The fact that the guest room is more than adequate and far more comfortable than the front room also leaves us with the unpleasant thought that the only reason you prefer the front room is that you enjoy putting the rest of the family out, by disrupting family life that little bit more. All in all, it really does seem best for all of us if you do not visit.'

dear god! she is a narc! the superiority stuff confirms it.

love, you can't have a normal relationship with a narc, don't even try.

never, ever give her an inch, she will exploit every nanometre of latitude she gets..

read up/google. you need to know what you're up against!

I second Castlemilk - if she continues then retract the invite.

I'm at your last post

Don't get me wrong she can be very charming. She is extremely intelligent and able to get people eating out of the palm of her hand. She is excellent in social situations. She has friends who genuinely think she cares about them which amuses her. In her field of work she boasted about being able to fake the caring aspect such that people geniunely thought she cared when she had not one iota of feeling for them or their situation.

One of them spent hours making her a hand stitched quilt, who obviously felt a connection with her but she was confused and said she didn't regard this woman as a friend at all really just an ex-work collegue.

To be frank I just thought she was one of life's oddities all adding to it's rich tapestry etc and have attributed a lot of odd behaviour to being a different sort of person to me and have tolerated accordingly.

The narc stuff seems, worrying, pretty spot on.