SIL imposes crockery apartheid on me...AIBU?

[Figfarmer]

Whenever SIL comes to stay she rearranges my cupboards.

I was making her toast for breakfast and she opened the cupboard to get a plate out, and I watched her sort the pile of plates in order of size and colour. I have told her that I like things to be relaxed and casual in my house, but she "corrects" my things anyway.

My glasses and mugs occupy their shelf in a pleasantly random manner, in perfect harmony, and she changes them into crockery apartheid.

I love the way in nature things move and end up in just the right spot, like shells washed up on a beach or trees in a forest. I have mentioned this analogy to SIL, that the same natural movement happens in my kitchen, as plates and cups are used and put back in their cupboard as they come. My house is neat and tidy, colourful, busy, and relaxed. SIL is lovely and can sort her own cupboards to her hearts content but I wish she would leave mine alone. She is not OCD, and doesn't make the bed, which is fine by me. After all, she is my guest. DB and SIL are staying for two weeks, from overseas.

Is she being PA or should I just chill the fuck out?

My mother in law "organised" my medicine cupboard to "help out". She then asked me about the beta blockers in there.

I keep a dildo prominently displayed in there now. She has never asked about that!

YANBU. Your crockery, your cupboards, your rules. Personally, I couldn't cope with having non-matching crockery and cutlery, as I am obsessed with order and everything having its exact place and being the same way around. But that's in my house. Unless anyone asked for help, I would follow your rules in your house, although I can't deny I would have to brace myself every time I opened your cupboards, knowing I'd be faced with random stuff.

I'm the one who 'organizes', but only my own cupboards! I used to be 'retentive' about it but have learnt to relax for the most part as my family is pretty about my need to sort by colour of dish and type of glass. So I let them get on with it (at least it means they're putting dishes away!) and then every so often I re-sort them.

I suggest you let SiL do the same. If your house is anything like mine, the 'colour chaos' will resume in short order after she leaves.

I'd suggest you just tell her straight you prefer a more mixed-up look in your cupboards, since she's not getting your little analogies about shells on the beach. To be honest you're coming across not quite so 'relaxed' about your home as a tad wanky about the appearance of being relaxed.

I'm picturing your home as very now, an 'artfully artless' style of randomly-but-not-really mismatched, deliberately mixed-up unorganised (as opposed to just disorganised) decor. I bet it's lovely and colourful and delightfully carefree looking but that's just as carefully calculated a look these days as matchy matchy regimentation of furnishings and accessories.

Your SIL probably goes for the latter more rigidly coordinated aesthetic in her own home and as such I don't think she's doing this to deliberately annoy you, it's just an unconscious reflex with her to put away plates and stuff in order of colour/size/shape just as she always does at home. Again, just tell her.

I would tell her explicitly that she is putting them in the wrong order, that it makes your teeth itch and the world seem wrong when you know they are in the wrong order so will she please put them back in the proper order.

That way she either has to say sorry, I didn't realise and put them back or she has to start a conversation about why she thinks her way is the right order and thus you get to find out why she thinks it is ok to change your cupboards...

Brecon I think we have the same in laws!

My sister takes great delight in moving my glasses around so that they're all mismatched

@Figfarmer - I dare you, the next time you visit your SIL, to go through her crockery and glass cupboards and impose eclectic disorder on them. If she complains, you can say 'Well - you mess around with my cupboards so I thought it would be OK to mess with yours!'

And if she says nothing, you can still have the fun of watching her grind her teeth and bite her tongue (not at the same time, though - I don't think that is physically possible).

They don't call me evil for nothing!

Oh goodness, this really is not OK.

If saying 'please do not do that' doesn't sort it, stand over her while she puts it all back, so that she gets the message that it is not up to her to do this. Don't just fix it when she isn't round.

If she makes any fuss, send her round to me, I'll sort her out for you.

I say this as someone whose fingers itch to organise things logically, even I get though that its up to the owner to decide how they are organised.

They came back. We had a nice walk and a nice dinner. DH tidied up so she stayed out of the kitchen.

They made a few conversations about how we should live more like them, in regards to raising teenagers, but oh well. DS deflected most of their advice with polite assertiveness.

It's not about the plates, I don't care about them one way or the other, but it's her attitude that I'm somehow wrong because I'm not living like her. On previous visits she has altered my house daily when I'm at work.

Waiting to see what happens with the plates and comments at breakfast time.

My PIL do this with the cutlery drawer. At the time (as I re-rearrange it) I vow to repay the favour when we stay at theirs, but actually it's a really petty stupid thing to do so I haven't. I'd ask her what she thinks she's doing when she next starts in front of you.

My DM does this to my SIL, doesn't stop there and continues to rearrange the kitchen and proceeds to clean the entire house. DM sees it as being helpful my SIL sees it as an affront to her cleanliness. I've always thought as a guest you offer to help the host out but don't actively start rearranging the house! When you've visited has she ever asked you to help out with anything ?

"They made a few conversations about how we should live more like them"
What a surprise! Seriously - do the 'stop that!/deathstare combo. She's fucking rude!

A flatmate's boyfriend did this once. Rearranged everything in the kitchen. Tried to justify it as 'well, it's more ergonomic as you're all right-handed.' Except I'm left-handed the twat

I pointed this out; when I came back into the kitchen half an hour later it was all back in the right place

They made a few conversations about how we should live more like them"

"SIL is lovely"

I am not entirely convinced by your definition of lovely.

I wouldn't think it was lovely if someone repeatedly told me that I was doing my life "wrong" and changed things in my house to better align with their idea of "doing it right".

Fig I really don't understand what you are waiting for.

"Please stop rearranging things" would presumably do the job.

They wouldn't do it to any other grown up. They are doing it because they think you won't behave like any other grown up and call them on it. And she's right you aren't calling her on it

My mother told me when I was young, "in life you get what you settle for"

Stop settling!

I'd never arrange someone else's stuff. However.... DH jokes that if he wants to drive all of the Mavis clan bonkers then he will just make the cutlery on a set dinner table all squint.

Mum was a mad neat freak and we all have inherited her habit of needing things to be angled correctly.

I once went for a job in an agency with dozens of awards on the wall of reception in frames. God, a monkey with a nail gun must've put them up - I was itching to straighten them. I worked in another place with loads of bloody ads lined along the hallway - I ended up blu tacking the frames as they were always slipping off angle and it drove me nuts.

I did go to art school, so maybe it's just an aesthetic thing...

They made a few conversations about how we should live more like them

it's her attitude that I'm somehow wrong because I'm not living like her.

That's a horse of a different colour. She's not doing it from 'OCD', she's doing it to 'make a point'.

The next time she's due to come over, I'd find a way to put locks on my cupboard doors or hang a 'do not disturb/no maid service' sign on them. The next time a remark was said about 'living like her/them' I'd reply with a firm "No we don't live like you, and thank God for that!"

Am I the only one looking forward to breakfast?!

When I awoke, she was emptying the dishwasher and sorting the plates as I entered the kitchen. I just smiled and let her get on with it. If it makes her happy then she can go for it.

I have been taking on board all the comments. It is reassuring that I'm not alone in being miffed and finding her interference rude. On the other hand so many of you must value plate order more than I do!

Whisper - ouch, your assessment of me is maybe a little bit true. Shit, hey?

SIL is a very quiet person, but also very strong in her conviction of what she sees as important. Whilst I don't agree with her imposing her values on me, she is a good egg overall and she probably thinks she is "helping" me.

My strategy at the moment is to work the topic of respecting individual choices on how people choose to live into the conversations...and after lunch I'll put back the plates as they come and see what she does

Also I don't actually feel any need to have them in random order like a wannabe bohemian. They are just fucking plates, and will be used again in a few hours. I just think it's insulting that she thinks it is her duty to alter them.

Actually I might try Notso's suggestion. I have a fake spider I could put between the plates to separate the colours. Trouble is she is so freaking calm in her conviction she would just quietly move it to where she thinks it belongs!

Figfarmer Sorry, if I offended, holding my hand up here, it's slightly true of me too!
I really like a more eclectic look in my own home but I can't lie, the seemingly organically-placed-by-wind-and-tide furnishings and sundry items were chosen and put there by me for the nicest visual effect and I'm not that relaxed about them getting moved about. My kitchen cupboards, on the other hand, would fill your SIL's soul with joyful songs of angels so precisely organised are they.

You are both exactly alike: insane adorable.