MiL has been here 60mins...

[whatatod0]

Oh god. parents-in-law have been here 1 hour into a 7 day visit. They are already annoying me.
MIL likes to help/take over my kitchen and she doesn't listen when I tell her to go and sit down (nicely). If I give her a job to do she just gets in my way and takes forever to do it.
I want to run away for the week.

Semaphorically You hit the nail on the head, at least for our house. When MIL wants to visit, who does she call? Me. I work full time and can't always answer. Her DS is the SAHP and can. But noooo… couldn't possibly bother her own son. It's obviously my job to organise. When she wants to stay over, I get the messages. When she has some sort of criticism about DC, it gets delivered to my ears, because it's obviously my failing. She doesn't see her own son either as the equal parent (he's fucking better at it than I am and does it full time every day ffs!!!) nor as someone to be bothered by domestic arrangements. Drives me spare.

Those of you who have house guests for longer than two days - why do you do it?

With my MIL we have no choice. She just announces when she will be arriving and when she will be leaving. Saying it's inconvenient or that we won't be here makes no difference, she's already asked a family friend if a key can be left with them in that situation.

With my MIL we have no choice. She just announces when she will be arriving and when she will be leaving. Saying it's inconvenient or that we won't be here makes no difference, she's already asked a family friend if a key can be left with them in that situation

Same - unfortunately

Change the locks then.

I honestly cannot imagine letting anyone walk all over me in that way. She would be booked into the premier inn.

The thing is, I'd even have had MIL live with us if she was actually nice to me. I had such high hopes for the relationship.

Bloody hell! I can't imagine what that must be like, having people just invite themselves and ignore you when you say they cannot come!!

Why do you leave keys with people who will let her in?

I just couldn't live like this - you have superpowers of tolerance!!

Houseguest threads always remind me of the Italian saying about fish and visitors (both start to stink after three days).

I have a wonderful MiL. She's kind, funny, clever, under no illusions that her children/grandchildren are perfect, never criticises the way I do things or our housekeeping standards, doesn't interfere in the kitchen and is a keen gardener, so happy to be let loose on our jungle garden with shears, secateurs and a strimmer. And she adores the dog, and loves it when the mutt snuggles up on the sofa with her.

Tbh, the only fault I can find with her is that she voted for Brexit ...

Madison Same. I mean, technically I could put my foot down and say no (I suppose any of us could) but the sheer fallout of "Why am I being rejected? Woe is me! I can't do anything right! I'm such a victim in all this!!" and the way she'd make life miserable for her DS too with sniping about it just makes it easier to roll my eyes and let her stay and fuck off to work every day she's here if need be.

Oh god Lakie, can you do timeshare on your MIL?? I would LOVE one like that.

Hi . I saw this post when I was looking for an update on another one. If that makes sense. I'm recently an MIL myself . Have skipped through this post but will save it and reread properly - when I get back from a visit to my DILs {Joy. Apparently I'm already ring fenced to sort out the gardens, Which is ok with me cos It means I'm not in the house having to listen to the non stop complaining from MIL. her health, family stuff, stuff in the news. On and on until I numb myself with alcohol at the earliest opportunity. Apparently that's my role. DH and DIL sit on the sofa like a couple of bookends or disappear into t'shed.}. PS before anyone says 'oh well, she's elderly' I'm no spring chicken myself. Second marriage. Never too old to be treated like a child, it seems.

Anyway, the real value for me will be to read your posts and to use the information to work out how best to be a good MIL. I don't live near so I can't invade too much - but I can't help out too much either. They are much better off than we are - but I don't borrow. I know that money can be used to manipulate [ my own DM ]. I think I can be in danger of not interacting enough probably [ a react to distant but dominating parent] . Like having to learn to be a 'good enough' parent I now have to learn to be a good enough MIL ? Any pointers ?

I am prepping my head for a visit to DMIL. She is a "D"MIL, but still can be wearing.

We were supposed to be going to my DPs for 4 days, near the beach and actually relaxing. But DSIL has to go to a wedding so cannot visit DMIL, and even though DBIL lives next door to her, she is "so lonely" and DH has to go down (which means we all do).

So now we go down there for 2 days, leave on the morning of day 3 to drive to my DPs, probably get criticized for leaving, probably have DBIL's family expecting us to stay longer, I've already upset DM because of it, DSis is juggling plans she had to take DD out for lunch (has to do something else instead as much shorter time available), and will have just 24 hours with DPs and have twice as much travelling as we expected.

By the time I get there, I will have my nice head screwed back on, and will be a good guest.

I just wish that very occasionally, our needs could take precedence, and our plans that have already been made could stand.

Sorry, my moan is more to make sure that I am a nice person in person - by venting elsewhere and letting it all out.

I actually do like DMIL.

But needed my actual break and relaxation time.

But WHY does it mean you all have to go Biddypop?
Why would you upset your own dm in order to pander to your mil?

Makealist1: I now have to learn to be a good enough MIL ? Any pointers ?

My list of five golden rules which I've written for my future self, is basically this:

1. Allow your DS/DIL to be the experts on their DCs, just as you were (quite rightly) the expert on yours. Don't assume that having been an expert on your own DC, you are now qualified as an expert on all children. Let them teach you and tell you about their DC, and if they say "[X] does/doesn't work, DC1 loves/hates Y" etc., believe them.

1. Learn their family dynamic and norms, respect them (at least externally), and overlook what makes you roll your eyes. (Obviously this doesn't excuse abuse, but that's a whole different issue.) If they don't spank, you don't. If they don't shout, you don't. If they feed only organic hand-knitted quinoa custard rainbows, get knitting. These are their choices, and their learning curves. Let them figure it out, just as you did, and fit in to their lives and their family unit rather than trying to make them fit your ideas of how it should be done. And for heaven's sake, don't undermine them by sneakily doing things they asked you not to do when your DGC are in your care/home. There is no trust between me and my MIL because she will categorically go behind my back at the first opportunity. As a result, my DCs don't stay over with her, and I don't leave her unsupervised with them. She She thinks it's because I'm selfish and overbearing and doesn't see how this is a direct consequence of her doing exactly what I asked her not to do.

1. Be extremely careful about just "volunteering" unsolicited "help" or "advice". If you want to do something, check first that it's what they actually want. Think how much that "help" might aggravate you if someone came into your house and did it unasked. Like rearranging cupboards. Oh my god. brain explodes. And give advice only when it's sought. Even then, make absolutely sure that they want advice. They might actually just want a shoulder to scream into. I guarantee you, in the midst of a parenting crisis, no parent on earth wants to hear the unsolicited trill of, "When mine were little and did this, I did [X] and it always worked." Chances are they've tried [X] 10,000 times and it's been futile. Also accept that in the intervening years, you may have donned some very rose-tinted glasses. If you were to believe my MIL, she potty trained her DCs at nine months and they "never had tantrums because she didn't allow it". Again, these are stories that no struggling parent enjoys hearing. What's almost always more helpful/soothing is to hear that yes, you struggled too, and some days you went round the bend, and if they could have seen you in the pantry necking wine they would have laughed like drains. Stand with them, not "over" them, if that makes sense.

1. Don't treat your DIL as the "proper" parent, skivvy, point of complaint, administrator of all family relations, etc., and your DS as the one with no responsibilities. Treat them both as equal parents.

1. Don't assume that they're doing things differently because they disapprove of the way you did it. Chances are, the advice has shifted radically and they are rejecting outdated advice, not what you did. After all, they're doing exactly the same now as you did then - following the current, best advice out there. On that note, the advice changes so drastically that if you have the time, your best bet is to just relearn everything as if you're becoming a mum again yourself, then you don't inadvertently recycle outdated stuff.

Anyway, sorry it's long, but those are the major things that drive me nuts in my house. Oh, if I could get my MIL to follow even one of these...

And for heaven's sake, don't undermine them by sneakily doing things they asked you not to do when your DGC are in your care/home. There is no trust between me and my MIL because she will categorically go behind my back at the first opportunity

Same here along with a host of other boundary stepping crimes. As well as general rudeness.

Anyway - excellent brilliant list there, should be left on MN somewhere actually as a guide for all future Mils, and as a standard for " is my mil really being difficult or am I" - good check list.

excellent ! I'd better go outside and do something other than reading soon, but I will read - and digest. Bookmarked the list. Anyone want to write a guidebook? - I see a gap in the market. 'MIL- ing for Beginners'. ' Advanced MIL'

What a brilliant list! I want to give this to my MIL! I like the bit about believing the parents when they tell you something about their children! I tell MIL things about DS all the time and I can just see her brain thinking "no he doesn't" or "no I won't be doing that, we'll do it my way". Infuriating!

My DP's used to have a key and even if we were out, they'd use the key I gave them (given in case I locked myself out). They'd make themselves tea/coffee, use the loo and have a nosy. I knew the later because of the pertinent comments at some point later. Now we've changed the door and she wants a new key. Unfortunately, I keep forgetting! Plus I never seem to drive these days as I have a painful chronic condition, had to give up my job and we don't see them as they've stopped dropping in. Probably because they never want to offer help in any form and our relationship is strained to say the least.
My FIL on the other hand comes to stay for Christmas. He arrives before my DD's birthday so around 20/21st. Then he complains when he's here that if he goes home just after Christmas, he'll be alone on NYE. SIL doesn't help out ever. He comes to us every single year. So he ends up staying over NYE. Then he comments that the Christmas traffic will make the roads busier, so may as well stay a few extra days. DH takes it hook line and sinker. He says it might be the last Christmas with his father. This has been a running excuse for several years. So my chronic condition has deteriorated, meaning that I need more rest time. Strangely coincides with tea time. Also I don't have to be so hands on with the children.
So these days I tend to gravitate upstairs to my hospital bed, genuinely over tired and rest. Plus watch the tv I want to. Back to back motor racing - he dominates the remote all day and in the evening. DS enjoys watching this type of thing but we negotiate times between us. FIL doesn't. He treats the house like he owns it. DH always goes and buys all FIL's favourite foods and wines.
By the end of the stay I have jaw ache from clenching my jaw so much. I dread Christmas every year without fail. FIL expected exactly the same Christmas this year, despite the fact I'd just had "very, very major"(surgeon's words) surgery three weeks before!
This means FIL stays a fortnight, expecting better treatment than you'd get in a five star hotel.
I just wonder if I'm being mean... 🤔

There is no trust between me and my MIL because she will categorically go behind my back at the first opportunity. As a result, my DCs don't stay over with her, and I don't leave her unsupervised with them. She She thinks it's because I'm selfish and overbearing and doesn't see how this is a direct consequence of her doing exactly what I asked her not to do

I could have written this. DS had an intolerance to cows milk protein, so what does Mil do? Puts milk chocolate in between the layers of the wrapping paper around his Christmas present and constantly offers him Muller yogurts.

Totallybonkersmum: I dread Christmas every year without fail. ... I just wonder if I'm being mean...

No, you are not being mean. Unless by refusing to be a complete doormat, that somehow makes you mean.

Ditto on dreading Christmas, and DCs birthdays, and all special occasions, for that matter. MIL wants to dominate the whole experience - it's all about the presents she's bought, and the DC playing with her stuff and nothing else. We have to do our gift-giving the day after otherwise she gets jealous if there's a preference for our gifts more over hers. Same with Mother's Day. Bizarrely, she somehow thinks that this day is hers. The first year I let it go and we had our Mothers Day celebrations the day after, but the second one I got militant, and when I said I wanted to go out to lunch with my DS for our Mother's Day treat, she was mortally offended that I was stealing time on "her" day.

It's stuff like this that convinces me that she hasn't yet mentally made the shift from being the DM to being the DGM.

Great list fuck - duly noted for future use.

Biddy I agree with PP - why did you ALL have to go?

Ginge85 I literally cannot count how many times I've told my MIL about my sensitive, shy DS, "He'll warm to you faster if you let him come to you". And every... single... visit, over and over, she'd grab him up/get in his face/demand his attention, especially when he was engrossed in something else. He hates it and as soon as he could move, he started avoiding her. She then decided we'd been telling him not to like her (many tears and hysterics) and finally, on one visit a few months ago, she decided that she would "punish" him by ignoring him. Two hours later, he wandered over to show her something, and had a little chat with her. (She didn't have the resolve to carry on ignoring him, luckily.) But at last. The lightbulb finally went on. Imagine how much upset and annoyance on both sides could have been avoided if she'd just listened. Urgh...

Cherry - "book a hotel" isn't always an option either financially or in the countryside where hotels/bnbs/airbnbs are practically unknown or 12 miles away. Having said that my DM would holiday with us where she had a lovely room in a grand house while we had a much less grand cottage ... and would hang a tea towel out of the window to let her know when we were up and visitable.

Sorry meetings all afternoon.

Dh had already said yes before telling me, and as she is the bereaved widow and my Dps are both still alive, she gets first call.

I know. I should probably have put my foot down but his argument is that we hadn't finalised details with my parents (ironically as Dh was away with work).

I have already told both DM and DMIL that while we don't have exact plans yet, we will not be going "down home" for Christmas.

Dh is already kinda off with me as I didn't take hold this week - DD is in camps even though dh took leave but I have a lot on so I am letting him deal with it.

Hold =hols

Sorry Biddy - I think we are asking why did ALL OF YOU have to go to MILS? Couldn't DP have gone to see her and you go to your DM?