MIL watering down my fairy liquid

[Whack]

The thread title sounds trivial and I know it is but it's driving me nuts. DH and I have recently celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary and this has been ongoing throughout married life.

MIL is on her own, and only really has us. She is a 20 minute bus ride away and will come to our house approx 4 times a week to see DH who WFH. (This annoys me as if he's working she should let him work IMO. He's too soft to tell her he is busy as if he does she flounces off telling him he's rude.)

She means well but IMO has an issue with boundaries. Her issue is, she doesn't have any boundaries. She likes to "help" although I've never asked for any of the help. DH however does appreciate it and for the sake of peace I have stopped making a fuss about her coming to our house when I'm at work and cleaning. It's tricky because I appreciate some elements of it but the boundaries are non existent, eg. Folding my knickers in my knicker drawer, leaving little items for us she thinks will be useful (but I just see as clutter) etc. Some things like hoovering and cooking are appreciated so for the most part I bite my tongue although I wish she would ask me first instead of doing it all the time.

She is quite sensitive to any kind of confrontation/ questioning and would be deeply aggrieved if I said this and/ or just ignore me and carry on. Also DH is wonderful in many ways but very over protective of his mother and thinks I'm being mean if I criticise her over any of this.

One thing in particular I want to put a stop to is she always waters down our fairy liquid. So the first few days worth of squirts are normal and then one at you turn up the bottle and go to squirt some in the sink and it pours out like water. It's so annoying! Also I resent that she does it in my home! It's a small thing but it's bloody maddening.

How can I stop this in a sensitive way? I don't want to upset her and I sometimes think I should put up with it as anyone will think it's really petty, but I don't like watery washing up liquid!

I really don't think it too much to ask, for your MIL to visit and not go through the contents of your underwear drawer FFS.

Standards, people...standards!!

I think your stance on this (I've seen it many times before) is very ageist and blinkered Bertrand.

It is NOT unreasonable to not want ANYONE including mothers-in-law to come in and take over and invade personal space in your own home.

If you aren't fussed and don't have a problem with it, then fine! But that's you, not op.

I think it's very unkind of you to make out she is being unkind.

If my DH wasn't an only child I'd have sworn we have the same MIL.

Mine does these things, coming in when DH is actually working from home, 'helping' in the house which IMO is actually overstepping boundaries because I too don't want my knickers manhandled by my MIL or made to feel like my house isn't clean or a mess or like she thinks I'm not doing a good job of running a household. So many people don't understand though when I've told them what my MIL is like and how it drives me potty.

When we moved we decided not to give parents keys any more due to my MIL just letting herself in, whether invited or not, including one time I was startled as had just got out the bath and she accused me of having another man in the house!

Can you imagine if the OP went into her MiL's drawers and re-arranged them?

Good point almost . Maybe we should do this to all MILs who invade our privacy 👿

SheSaidHeSaid

Although I feel sorry for you it really does help to know I'm not alone in dealing with this.

Thank you to everyone for offering solutions, I'm going down the superglue route- don't want a stunt double as it will annoy me each time I see it sitting by the sink!

According to Mumsnet any man who has any sort of relationship with his mother or enjoys her company is infantilized or has issues or needs to cut the apron strings.

Rubbish. Most women have no problem at all with their DH/DP having a good relationship with their mothers.

What they do have problems with is if the ILs don't respect them, repeatedly ignore reasonable requests regarding overstepping boundaries (especially in the OPs' own homes) and then throw a hissy fit when they are confronted over their behaviour.

Is your MIL also my MIL? I feel your pain, mine constantly mooches around my house and will often go in the kids and my bedrooms despite being asked not to.

Snap her fingers off?

What these MILs are doing is, essentially, a perverse form of bullying. They are behaving in a way that they aware makes their DIL feel highly uncomfortable and yet they insist on continuing in this behaviour.

I think that 9/10 this is about power. It's about the MIL selfishly striving to fulfil their own needs (wanting to feel needed...wanting something to fill her empty time with...not wanting to acknowledge her DS has another family now...whatever) with a total disregard for the feelings of others.

It's bang out of order. It's incredibly selfish. It is extremely unhealthy.

Let us know how it goes, OP!

Probably said already, DRTFT. Too long and I'm tired.

But why not decant some cheapie stuff into the Fairy Bottle and let MIL enjoy herself watering THAT down.

Obv hide the real thing until she is gone!

It is a trivial thing in the round, but if it drives you craaaazzzzyy you need a strategy!

And then snigger afterwards lol.

Spot on maqueen summed up well.

Op good point about going into their houses and rummaging in underwear drawers etc and dominating their kitchens, re arranging their own homes etc.

Maqueen I agree with you too. My exH's mum regularly invaded our home under the pretext of 'helping'. It was all a power trip she had to know that her DS would allow her to be in control. When I finally had enough of the random, let herself in with s key, visits she tantrumed for over a month.

Recently (year after divorce) she told my DD that she still had a key and wasn't it a shame she couldn't help mum anymore? My DD told her the locks have been changed so the key won't work freedom from the twisted witch interfering MIL.

OP, yours may not be quite so bad, but I feel for you dealing with a silent power struggle in your own home.

Th superglue on the bottle sounds like a very satisfying method, you can imagine her frustration as she twists and pulls and the top doesn't come off!

As for the knicker drawer, I'd be tempted to get a huge dildo (maybe even a double ender that would really fuck with her head) and leave it lying on top of all my knickers.

Out of interest, if the dh concerned actually likes having his mother visiting and pottering round, does the dil have the right to insist that he doesn't allow it any more?

Blimey, Bertrand
I think I'm starting to see my MIL in a better light, and don't envy your DIL (if you have any) one bit.

Id leave a note in the knicker drawer as follows

MIL I really appreciate everything you do for us with the exception of folding my pants and putting them away. Please could you stop? I'd really like to do this myself. (I wouldn't want you to find my crotch less knickers that DH likes to wear in bed!)

Stick a note on the fairy bottle saying "Please don't dilute me" and superglue the lid on!

I second the dildo option.

I feel you, it's not trivial, it's utterly infuriating.

My MIL is mostly the kindest loveliest woman I know and I'm glad that she feels comfortable in our house. But the one inexplicably irritating thing she does is chuck out the boxes that tinfoil, cling film, greaseproof paper etc are kept in. It's just the oddest thing. The first time it happened I thought it was a mistake made by someone else when DD had a birthday party and a few people were in the kitchen covering plates and the like. The boxes just disappeared. It was mildly inconvenient but I didn't think much of it.

Since then it's happened with every roll I've bought, coinciding with when she visits. It's like she's decided it's a waste of space on the drawer having them all in there, so she just chucks them. It's so odd but I don't feel it's worth talking to her about, it's just odd!

if the dh concerned actually likes having his mother visiting and pottering round

Maybe DH is getting strange sexual kicks out of Mil pottering around his wife's knicker drawer

I just cant imagine my Dad pottering around DH underwear drawer

If your DH likes his Mum "pottering about" while he works, then perhaps he could go and work at HER house. Then she'll have company and your knicker drawer will remain unviolated.

Honestly OP - the only thing that got my brother to tackle my Mum's interfering in his house was for his DP to go all shouty and cross at my brother for not stopping his Mum from doing this. My brother then tackled the issue because he was sick of earache from his DP. (I have told this story before but my Mum insisted on cleaning everything in bleach, including around the filter to brother's DP's fishtank, killing all his fish. BIL replaced all his fish, she did it again, killing her son-in-law's fish a second time. At that point, BIL lost his shit at my brother, who had to tackle our Mum's "helping")

just because you do something that you know pisses off the home owner under the heading of 'help' doesn't make it ok.

I just cant imagine my Dad pottering around DH underwear drawer
Lol. Yeah it would probably be remarked upon. Bertrand Russell wouldn't mind some inlaw fumbling around in her gussets and may even do some fumbling herself, I for one think that is deeply inappropriate. Get the fuck out of my sex life, because this is what putting knickers away means, nosy intrusion into deepest privacy.

I think Bertrands posts are interesting because it illustrates so well the fundamental issue - "I have no issue with what I'm doing, therefore you are being unreasonable".

Its a total obliviousness to the idea that anyone else might have boundaries or preferences or choices that are different to your own, or that they are deserving of being respected in any way, a total lack of empathy.