MIL has accused me of cheating on DH!

[DillyDingDillyDong]

I've been losing weight and trying to get my confidence up a bit with a new hair do, new clothes, make up, nails eyebrows etc. I have felt really frumpy since DS (1) was born so thought I'd try and give myself a boost.

It's really worked and I am starting to enjoy the occasional meet up with friends which I wouldn't do before. I used to make excuses as I felt like a fat mum! DH has noticed a change in me and even though he says that he loved me the was I was I know he likes the more confident me better. I'm more like the person I was when we first started going out.

I've joined the gym and got a personal trainer, let's call him Paul. Paul called me the other day when MIL was here and I went in the other room to answer. I made plans to see him at the gym the next day for a session. I came back in and MIL had clearly been trying to listen in. She asked who it was and I just said it was someone from the gym.

This weekend a friend of mine has booked last minute flights home and has arranged a last minute get together. DH was invited too but he has plans so I said I'd stay with DS and see the friend Sunday morning instead. DH decided to call MIL to see if she could have DS for a couple of hours on Saturday while we're both out. DH came back in and said in a really serious voice "I think we need to talk."

I started to worry and he said he'd spoken to MIL and she thinks I might be hiding something and if I am I should tell him now. I was a bit taken aback and couldn't think what he meant. He must have saw my worried face because he burst out laughing and apologised but said that MIL has just told him I had lied to her about speaking to a man named Paul and arranging to meet up with him while DH was in work. She said he should get evidence of me meeting this friend as she thinks there is something going on. He obviously to,d her she was being ridiculous and she said that its the only way to explain the sudden change in appearance and all these afternoons/nights out. (I've had maybe four over the last two months)

He said that he trusts me and he knows I'm not cheating on him and that he was annoyed that she had came to this conclusion without talking to either of us first, but also said that it isn't any of her business what I get up to anyway. She said she was just worried about him and DS and doesn't want to have to pick up the pieces when I leave.

DH was angry at first, but obviously couldn't resist winding me up, and now finds the whole thing so ridiculous it's funny. I am sat here fuming that she came to that conclusion and has accused me of cheating!

Would it be unreasonable for me to call her and give her a piece of my mind?

In fairness, I've been shagging my PT for years, but he's also my husband. Am I still a fallen strumpety harlot?

Well done on your progress op, ignore you're MIL and let your Dh deal with her.

Honestly I wouldn't. With your DH, wind her up.

When she comes round get him to call and you pretend it's this 'Paul' guy, take the call in the other room and be flirty and a giggly. Arrange to meet him at the gym in a few days when you have childcare.

Get DH to 'talk' to his mum saying that he thinks she may be right, you're more secretive, etc etc.

Would serve her right. Just because you want to feel better about yourself doesn't mean someone has the right to assume you're cheating!!!

Id definitely get your dh in on winding her up for a couple of weeks to teach her a lesson!

I'm clearly going to be a terrible mil as I would have done some digging if I though dil might be seeing someone else - not sure I'd have told ds though. It's not as if no one has ever had an affair I read the relationships board Going into another room to take a call is a bit odd?

I would always leave the room to take a phone call therealyellow. I think it's rude not to.

Agreed carabos, it's rude!

Get DH to leave the room next time his mother is there and call you on the phone. Leave the room and make talk sexy to your husband without uttering his name, then go back in the room to see her face. Will be fascinating to see/hear what transpires when your husband comes back in.

Funny as it might be winding her up is not a good idea long term. I think your DH has handled it fine and you should probably ignore it. After all, we do say on her often enough that DHs have to handle their own family personally I get DH to handle my difficult DM (she takes things better from him because he's a man )..

To be fair when I married I did have a total crush on my PT. However I still managed to keep my knickers on, because, you know, I was married. It was a crush.

Play it up, have some fun with the interfering old cow.

reverse this to the wife's mother overhearing the husband on the phone to a woman and arranging to meet, then being secretive, adding to him suddenly smartening up his appearance and going out more.. I am sure most wives would want to hear about this..

If the OP had posted on here the reversed scenario, most posters would be telling her to be suspicious of her husband.

I've got a new hair cut, decided to ditch the frumpy mum clothes and lost some weight. I still look like me but I'm starting to feel better about myself after suffering with PND.

I was hardly being secretive on the phone, she asked who it was as I went up the stairs to get DS and I replied back quickly that it was someone from the gym. She knows I go the gym and have a couple of friends who I've met there and I arrange to go to classes with. On the phone I asked him when he was free and I said that I could make that time but will also be going to spinning in the morning and then said I'll see him tomorrow. DH has a best friend who is female and I also have male friends one of whom I lived with for a few years when I first met DH so it's not as if DH would be bothered if I had a male friend at the gym anyway.

DH and I are doing so well at the minute. Everything seems to be going perfectly and we're in this little bubble of happiness. I just wonder if she's jealous of me. I know that sounds like I'm full of myself, but she has always hated it when I get more attention. We ended up secretly planning our wedding and telling the guests who met us for a meal that we were getting married partly because I was worried about how she'd be!

Honestly some MILs just need to keep their bloody noses out and focus on their own lives. Their sons are not babies and the obsession some carry for them is creepy with the whole only woman In his life thing. I get that from mine and it drives me crazy, children grow up and find partners, that's kind of how the world works.

So what if you go in another room to take a call. The mil has no right to know about the ins and outs of the OPs life.

I have to say, on one hand I can see where the mil is coming from. If someone posted their partner has lost weight, started going to the gym, changed their hair, seems happier, new clothes etc. It wouldn't take long before someone suggested it could be an affair.

It must be an awful position for a parent to be in.

On the other hand, it doesn't sound like the mils intentions were purely for her son. She obviously doesn't think much of the OP. The comment about her leaving her son, shows that.

Why would the OP leave her child, even if she was ending the marriage?

So she's actually very controlling if you ended up planning your marriage on the quiet. I would be mounting a united front with dh and talking to her about it on no uncertain terms is she to accuse you again. Yes, the jokes sound hilarious but I think seriously, it's more important to create boundaries and give her the expectation that you are a unit and she must treat you, as her son's spouse with respect.

centigrade what century do you live in?

Curren, the "son" is the OP's husband, i.e. the son of the mother-in-law.

I'm also sure that Paul would join in with a bit of the fun too, I could get him to call the landline and leave a message for MIL to hear grin

You see I was with you all the way till I read this. Your DH is being very supportive, you too can manage by yourselves so what does Paul have to do with this? Isn't that a couple's matter? Why do you bring him in to this? And maybe you wouldn't but the fact that you said it to me it looks odd. So I'm definitely not saying you're doing anything dodgy, all I'm saying is that maybe by mistake you said something wrong to the wrong person if that makes sense

And to be brutally honest here if it was the other way round would you like it if Dh said Pauline would love to join the fun of winding Mil up?

Curren, the "son" is the OP's husband, i.e. the son of the mother-in-law.

No the op said

She said she was just worried about him and DS and doesn't want to have to pick up the pieces when I leave.

Personally, I think it's very odd that Paul called you. Is this part of the service, that he nags you to book in another session? From your mil's perspective, I would find it weird for a dil to want to go into another room to make a gym appointment. Did you not want her to know you are spending money on a personal trainer? Or are your telephone conversations not entirely professional?

It always surprises me on mn that women are allowed close relationships with their mothers but men are not.

Most women I know can talk to their mums about absolutely anything, including marital or family issues, but men who do the same are considered disloyal somehow.

If my mum suspected DH of having an affair, I'd expect her to tell me about it.

If I suspected DSil of having an affair, I'd tell DS.

Having said that, op's mil did jump to some pretty big conclusions. But just worried for her son surely?

TBH, I don't think your MIL has done anything too ghastly, on this occasion.

Okay, she listened in you your telephone conversation (but you were only in the next room) and then jumped to the wrong conclusion. I know her conclusion wasn't very flattering to you, but how many times on MN do we read about a husband, and also sometimes a wife, having an affair apparently out of the blue, in what appeared to be a happy marriage?

So, she mentioned it to her son, maybe because she didn't want him to be hurt?

I know you and your DH have had problems with her, so I can see that your reaction to this would be coloured by those, but as a one off incident, it wasn't really such an awful thing to do. (It would be awful if she persisted in her allegations, now that she has been set straight, though.)

The winding up suggestions are funny, but a bad idea.

If my mum thought my dp was having an affair I would expect her to tell me!

It's strange for a PT to call someone to arrange a session. It's classed as badgering?

Ffs there is a couple of posters that really don't want women to have male PTs or think all males PTs are dickheads.

It's usual to call clients to arrange appointments (in any industry).

As I said I don't think the mil has done anything to bad on the face of it.

But it doesn't sound like the relationship with the OP is great. But only the MiL truly knows if what she did was to cause trouble or because she is a concerned parent.

I can't imagine how hard it must be to think your child's spouse is cheating and know what to do.

roundabout I have a PT and I'm married to a sports coach. These people spend a lot of time on the phone with their clients, endlessly arranging and re-arranging appointments, dealing with queries, giving advice. It is part of the service and it isn't nagging people to book another session. They are just doing their job.

There seems to be something around the whole male/ female trainer/client here that is making some posters surprisingly uncomfortable. IME long experience as the wife, it tends to be the clients who develop inappropriate feelings for the trainer (it's transference), rather than the other way round, but it is rare and even more rare that it goes anywhere. For clarity, we know lots of trainers and coaches, DH has been in the game for more than 30 years and we don't know anyone whose marriage has come unstuck because of an inappropriate relationship with a client.

It's entirely in keeping that someone would make other changes in their life at the same time as starting to train more seriously. Lose weight, get a haircut, improve fitness, buy new clothes are all part of the same process. Ditching the marriage isn't.

I don't think she has done anything wrong from you're perspective it's totally wrong but not from hers. I would try and get over my initial reaction and have a quiet word reassuring her. She us only trying to protect her son who has firmly told her that her guesses were wrong.