about PIL coming to house when no one is here

[Anydrinkwilldo]

Can't figure out if I am BU, if it's pregnancy hormones or what. I have been signed off work for 2 weeks so been home FT but this morning I had hospital appointment. Got message from MIL (as I do every morning) to ask if I needed anything today from shop etc. I replied no thanks have hospital this morning so not home. When I did get home I saw that 'someone' has been at front rockery and put pots of plants around front of house. I'm fuming that they have come down to our house without either my permission or dh permission and done whatever they wanted to our property. I don't go to their house and start doing what I want to their garden etc. But I'm not sure if I'm over thinking it and should I just let it go.

Not wanting to drip feed they have form for doing this, waiting until there is no one here to come down and clean our windows/paint windowsills and doors etc. I know I sound so ungrateful if they had just text to say they were here I would be fine but I find it so rude to just go to someone else's house and do things. AIBU?

You aren't being straight with them though. They keep on coming and doing gardening because neither of you will tell them to stop (this time I see they have been told in the past) because you don't like it. Your conversation was all about not wanting them to be on their own which sounded as though you only didn't want them there alone out of concern for them.
Say "I really don't want you doing stuff in the garden, if you would like to help in future can you please arrange to come when I am in as there are a lot of things you could do to help that we can discuss but I'd prefer you to leave the garden alone and not do any more to it and not come round when I'm not in"

go of she did that I'd open the door wide and invite her in with open arms. It the waiting for us to be gone to come down and do the garden only that irks. As I've said many times before I have a list as long as my arms of things that need to be done

I wouldn't be grateful to someone else ordering food for me unasked. I hate waste and can't see someone else's choice of groceries being the same as mine. Asking for a shopping list and buying stuff on it great, sending me random food not great unless it's a wine box or something that will always be used. Vaccuuming fine if I'm in and they ask if anything needs doing.
I no longer take food to my son who's a student as he has had a surplus and insufficient shelf space at times I ask him if he'd like me to bring anything bake a cake etc.
Being helpful sometimes involves asking the other person not just doing what you think they'd like because you'd like it. This is where the treating others as you'd like to be treated yourself thing falls down because we have different ideas of how we'd like to be treated.

I take your point on board rebecca. I suppose I've been more focused on getting them to stop coming down without permission that I never thought of saying stop doing it because we don't like it. I'll be keeping my distance for a while maybe until baby is born as I can not pretend everything is happy chappy while I'm so mad at them. Dh can do visiting for the next while

*clappy

Maybe they wait till you've gone out because they know you don't like them and they feel uncomfortable when you're around. Just a thought. And do correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure you will) but didn't I read that DH asked them to come and do gardening but they planted the "wrong" stuff.

Can I ask why you don't like them in your garden when you're not there - I actually think this is a huge insult because it's like they're going to steal something - makes them sound like thieves or trespassers, but then I think the latter is how you view them. And what's the Neighbourhood Watch thing about

And you're "so mad" at them OP because of the pots of flowers they left you and were "at" the rockery - still don't know what they did. Totally unreasonable in my mind but maybe it is pregnancy hormones as you suggested in your OP.

Nina- You go on about how much of a good MIL you are but you really can't see what is wrong with them coming to the garden/ house when the OP is out and doing things they want with it without being asked?

Maybe they wait till you've gone out because they know you don't like them and they feel uncomfortable when you're around. Just a thought.

Who gives a fuck if they are uncomfortable!! Its not their fucking house! They shouldn't be there! They are NOT helping! They are doing something to the OP garden because THEY want to- can you not see thats selfish!?

Nana that's crazy! If you don't feel comfortable around someone you don't wait until they're gone before letting yourself into their garden!

You wouldn't go around there at all!

Nananina they pulled my lovely but dying tulips and replanted marigolds in their place into the rockery. DH asked them if they would like to help as our back garden slopes and needed lifting. He knew fil was at a loose end and asked if he would like to help. PILs took this to mean next time we are out come down to our house and dig holes to plant shrubs in when we've just pulled shrubs out of our garden because we don't like them.

Are you happy for people to come wandering around your house when you're out NanaNina? And only coming down when you're out. Not actually coming for a visit when you're there. It bothers me to have people on my property when I'm not here. Might be slightly controlling but it doesn't matter who it is, I don't like people at my house when I'm not. And then to start doing things that they want WITHOUT any discussion at all. It would be different if I said 'oh my windows are so filthy I need them cleaned' or something similar but the fact that they just take it upon themselves to arrive at our house whenever they feel like it just oversteps the mark.

Next time, pretend you haven't seen them and turn the hosepipe on to give the garden a good watering...

You will want some time alone when new baby arrives OP, are you going to be adjusting to a newborn while they are carrying on outside? DH needs to get them out of there if they are not going to listen to you and carry on being disrespectful. I agree with 2rebecca on this as well- you need to say you have loads of jobs to do in the house and them coming around without being asked to work on the garden at their leisure is stressing you out and making things harder for you

You don't have to justify why you feel the way you do, anydrink. Fair enough to check if your resentment is reasonable and the overwhelming consensus is yes - even if some people go a bit far.

If people haven't had experience of people subtly encroaching on your territory when you've asked them not to, then they don't have that experience and simply don't get it. It's a subtle thing.

There's some wilful blindness going on too, you've said in your post that your SIL really resents PIL's invasiveness and even their own children get annoyed by it. Choosing to ignoring those posts is cherry picking info and distorting the picture.

Really you just have to plan how to handle it.

OP - Ignore nananina.

You are totally nbu. You do have to bring your ILs in to your house when your DH is there and sit them both down (both MIL & FIL) and say to them "We don't want to hurt your feelings and we do love you. However, we don't want you to visit when we're not here. That means that we don't want you to garden for us, do shopping for us, or do anything else for us, when we're not here. If you want to visit, you're more than welcome to visit when we are here. Please stop 'fixing' our garden to your ideas of what you think we might like. We've actually taken out a huge amount of shrubs as the ones that were there, we didn't like. Unfortunately, the shrubs you planted will be removed too as we don't like them and don't want them in our garden. If you'd like to remove them and put them in planter pots for the local church sale or something do it by X date or else they'll end up in a skip." and see how the land lies after that.

Feel free to tone down the message in words of your chosing but make 1000% that they get the message - no visiting, no work, nothing, unless you're at home to welcome them in.

Invite them around and ask them to take out every single plant & shrub you don't like...

I think you need to actually ask them into the house OP, sit down face to face with them and calmly explained that whilst you realise they have their way of doing things it isn't your way.

Make it clear that having them coming into YOUR home uninvited and when you're not there makes you uncomfortable and annoyed and you and DH will not tolerate their intrusive behaviour any more.

You have to keep repeating and repeating until they get the message.

Once will not be enough.

If they take offence, so be it.

My exh is exactly like this. He will organise things and arrange things unasked - one example: without consulting me he arranged for some random estate agent to come and give a valuation on MY house because he'd decided the estate agent I'd instructed hadn't set the price high enough - and trust me it is all about him thinking he knows best and wanting to control everything.

You have to be very, very firm with them and stick to your guns.

Bit of cross posting with Whatchamacallit

Great minds think alike there pigs

Of course:)

i think the issue is the DH asked for help with garden, but that would equate to help after you have decided/agreed on what you want there, not PIL taking over.
We have a similar issue and it ends up with DP and i arguing.
Differing opinions but in the end its the home owners choice.
I do wonder if MIL (mums to sons only) are so used to controlling them /helping them that they cant step back. Whereas you are more likely to tell your own mum when she does stuff you dont like.
I think there can be a tendency for parents to prioritise how their own child feels about things over their child's partner. And also to blame them saying to yourself 'i know my child likes this so i will keep doing it its sil/dil that have a problem with it'
I would equate it to bullying and very underhand.

nananina if you are even a fraction of the character you come across as on this thread, I wouldn't be too self-congratulatory as I am breathing a HUGE sigh of relief that we are not related.

You really aren't helping the cause of MILs at all!

OP YANBU and I agree with watchamacallit and pigsDOfly. You're an adult, it's your home too, and a conversation with DH and then together with ILs is what's needed

I don't know if its just mothers to sons, but I see what you mean.

My MIL has two sons, my DH and BIL. She is a bullly. She tries to bully DH, BIL and myself because she has a certain way she wants her family to go. So she tries to control major aspects of our lives so it goes her way, and as long as she gets what she wants (which is rarely) she doesn't care what she says.

Some of the things she has done and said to me and DH in the past have been absolutely disgusting and shocking. It was clear she only cares about her role in her son's lives and doesn't care if she hurts them or their partners. She was a very strict and controlling mother to them too.

Op, Yanbu. I don't go to my sons flat uninvited, wouldn't dream of it. I get on brilliantly with his gf, and help out when they ASK!

I'd go out in the dead of night and "steal" all the freshly planted marigolds....

My MIL came to stay last weekend, she had to use our bathroom as no shower curtain yet on the other bath tub. I heard her going through the drawers and cabinets after her shower, having a good ole rummage.

Not the first time she has shown where her boundaries are (will go around the house reading the messages in any cards lying around, idly flick through letters lying on my desk etc). When we were first married, my Xmas cards to BIL and SIL always contained a couple of paragraphs about the year they had had, how happy I was for their achievements and what I wished for them for the next year. That all had to stop after I caught her reading everybody else's cards in addition to hers. Basically reading other people's mail.

The thing is, she is a good woman. She loves her family with every cell in her body and would do anything for them. However, as I think is natural in a parent-child relationship, this isn't reciprocal. So gives 100% and gets back way less from her children. So she feels obliged to snoop. It's the only way she can find out what's going on in her kids' lives, what they're feeling, what they're doing etc. She confesses that she has no hobbies or friends because she doesn't really want them because her kids are enough for her.

It's absolutely infuriating as she hasn't clicked yet that going through the drawers and medicine cabinet in her son's bathroom is also going through the drawers and cabinet in MY bathroom. I am NOT her child and she is NOT my mother (one is quite enough, thank you). I do not accept this over-familiarity and, if I wanted to, I could and would stop it. She knows she's in the wrong as she does all these things when I'm not able to see her (she thinks), she wouldn't dare do it in front of me.