To not let PILs in the house ever again

[IsThisYourSanderling]

PILs live abroad and occasionally come to visit for 5 ish days. Ostensibly it’s to see the grandchildren (DS nearly 3, DD 9 months). Really it’s to ransack our house and rant at us.

Yesterday, we went out in the morning - we invited them, but they chose to stay at the house. When we returned at lunchtime, they were busy destroying the living room, rugs up, sofa dismantled, all our stuff piled up on surfaces, washing machine going, hoover out. DS starts crying, MIL starts ranting about the mess (it’s a normal family home with a normal amount of low level mess and a bit of dirt where the hoover can’t reach, because we have two young children and no support or childcare, but she talks about it as if it’s a doss house - it’s emphatically not). We asked her not to go into the bedrooms but she had, taking laundry out and moving things about. They rearranged our furniture. They dismantled DS’s reading nook.

They have always behaved like this, ever since I’ve known them. DH is a quivering wreck around MIL, do I don’t mind doing most of the arguing, as he goes into shutdown (childhood habit). I understand, as I’m NC with my own mother and he steps up to deal with her when necessary.

Anyway, they’re staying in a village Airbnb. I don’t want them to come back to the house again. MIL was insulting me in front of DS as he cried. I was asking them to stop, telling them that guests don’t behave like this and that their priority should be connecting with their grandchildren. Each time he sees them they only succeed in alienating him more with this behaviour - how can he warm to them while they rampage over his house and insult his parents?

We’re meeting up today and I’m not sure what to say/ how to play it. They go home on Sunday. I don’t want them back in the house, as they can’t control themselves there. They can never just sit and chat with the children.

Also they never praise anything we do, or any effort we make. MIL can be nice at times. DH won a big award recently and she didn’t even congratulate him. Our HV told me how lucky our children are to be growing up in such a lovely home with such caring parents - all I get from PILs is constant low level criticism.

How to proceed while they’re here? WIBU to say they can’t come to the house anymore?

Yanbu, she sounds just awful. If I'm staying in one of my sisters houses, I'll often do a couple of small jobs like putting a wash on, unloading dishwasher, tidy away toys etc. Nothing major I swear, just a light hand and she would do the same in my house if staying for a few days. Your mil is a whole different ball game. Hope today goes well for you.

Try looking at the toxic parent and IL books?

I strongly suspect my parents and us kids married into families with similar sets ups to ones we grew up in - I wonder if that what's happened here as well.

Dsis exMIL used to let herself in and change curtains and furniture and once invited people to stay in their flat and it took 6 months to get them gone.

MIL does PA cleaning though last few years that annoyes DH as well- but I've learnt to manage that somewhat or ignore but not at this level.

I can only suggest meet up locations outside the house- meet at zoos, softplay, walk and cafe - change locks if they have keys and don't leave them alone ever in the house for any reasons and get DH on board but ideally LC.

My mum used to do this. In a misguided attempt to help out as both DH and AI have busy full time jobs and when it was the same for my mum she had a cleaner. But she shrank some lovely woollen trousers and tumble dried a cashmere cardigan to a size suitable for a barbie. So now I direct efforts

For example, when she's here she always goes for a poo. She never uses the downstairs loo for this activity and uses my en suite bathroom. So now I spot her moving off and arm her with a cloth and bleach and ask her to have a clean round while she is in there

However, your MiL is batshit. No doubt about it.

I've been that MIL... well, nearly. My son's house was a mess (no, REALLY awful and my standards are far from high) and his DP was heavily pregnant, so when I stayed overnight on the sofa, after they'd gone to bed I would pick up the toys, wash up and wipe the kitchen worktops and wash the floor. I just wanted to help.

"Mum, you really shouldn't have!" wasn't enough of a hint. But after I did it again another time, my DS told me firmly not to because it was insulting, like saying their house wasn't clean enough. "It isn't!" I said.(It seriously was filthy - as in, centipedes living in visible mounds of dirt on the kitchen floor, pile of used nappies in an open the corner, mouldy piles of old clothes and towels still crunched up on the bathroom floor in the same positions since my previous visit, shit-encrusted toilet... ). But it was their house and not my decision.

So, as I'm a normal polite person, I stopped doing it. And fretted myself into a frenzy while I wasn't there, wondering if their new baby would die of an infection and it would be my fault. Fortunately, this didn't happen.

They moved to a lovely clean house and are currently in the process of making it like the previous one.

Given half a chance, I would willingly spend two weeks blitzing their house from top to bottom, but I don't, because they asked me not to. They know my views. It's still not my business.

Your MIL is different. She will never understand that a reading nook is not "mess" but a special play area created by and for your son, and that a bit of dirt here and there is no big deal. More importantly, she will never understand that it's not her decision to make.

Don't go NC, but never let her in your door again.

They obviously think you’re cleaning skills aren’t up to much! Please don’t leave them in your house ever again OP! They sound rude and very passive aggressive.

Your

@ThumbWitchesAbroad

Please tell us about the bookcase incident!

Don’t let them anywhere near Millets with a mallet, @IsThisYourSanderling

YANBU

Of course you shouldn't let them in again-does your husband agree with that?

How far away is the air B&B?

With their form it's odd that you left them at yours tbh.

When you left in the morning, you should have traveled to their house and FaceTimed them from there "surprise, we're redecorating your place" (que your child hand printing the walls with neon paint).
Can you boobie trap your house for next time they visit? Think Indiana Jones.

This is very odd! They do sound crazy. Are you sure you haven't just become nose blind to your own place though? I wouldn't clean up as you describe, but I do find it really hard staying anywhere where there is a lot of dust, or cats, because I'm really allergic and it makes me ill. I have been known to get up and hoover / bleach surfaces in the morning rather than have a massive allergic reaction going on all day.

Cherrysoup - it's really not that exciting, I'm afraid!

I have hundreds of books, and many of them were still boxed up in the garage because of no space. I'd bought a lovely big bookcase, 6 shelves, double width, to put more into. It hadn't been placed yet, it was outside under the verandah, ready for me to decide where it was going and then I could organise my books and sort them into the new bookcase.

I got back from the UK and the bookcase had been placed and filled with random fucking books - no organisation at all, some were just piled up, some were even upside down. Worse (to my mind) they'd placed it in such a way that the gap between it and the wall to the side of it wasn't big enough (JUST wasn't big enough) to fit the head of the vacuum cleaner in. It could have been - if it had been 3" further over, it would have been! - but it was now there, full and too fucking heavy to move.

I know it's pathetic but I'd been really looking forward to going through and sorting my packed books into that new bookcase, without having to take piles out beforehand.

But it was also symptomatic of the whole lack of regard for my opinion in MY house - I think this was the last time it happened because I may have suggested to the husband that if he was so keen to have his mother arrange his living area then he could fucking well go back and live with her instead. Overreaction, I know - but it did do the trick.

I eventually got over myself and sorted at least half the bookcase out - but it's not in a good place still. Never mind.

And I do get on fine with MIL, now she knows that I don't appreciate having my "territory" encroached on by her. She was lucky - she never had either a mother nor a MIL to do the same thing to her, so I guess she never realised how boundary-overstepping it was to do it.

Oooo - could have worded that last bit better - obvs MIL wasn't lucky she didn't have a mother around, but it did mean she had no experience of another female taking over her space and how intrusive it could feel.

'Don’t let them anywhere near Millets with a mallet'

@OoohRhubarbLetsGo surely only if the FIL has a mullet?

(are we confusing everyone else on the thread?)

What horrendous behaviour by your MiL. I feel sorry for your DH having her as a mother and think he is unlikely to feel able to confront her but I hope you do. At the same time, telling her she will not be allowed in your house again.

FlamedToACrisp whatever the state of your son's house, I would love to know what possessed you to imagine that you weren't majorly overstepping the boundary by doing what you did? Did the thought that it was inappropriate never cross your mind?

For example, when she's here she always goes for a poo
there's your territory marking behavior!

Op we have extremely similar mils.

People might say... Oh but that's so wondeful cleaning your house, what's wrong with you.

My dm might be in my house and as habit, may pop some stuff in dishwasher or think... There maybe light stuff to do but coming to visit and then cleaning wouldn't be a priority. It would be to see us. But if she did do something it would be from a good place.

Mil on the other hand does it because dh is useless, I am useless, we are nasty filthy people who can't clean.

So of course if Mil does something with wasp face it doesn't come from a kind place it's a very very different sort of help.

Becsuse more than help what it's actually saying is.. Your useless.

For example, when she's here she always goes for a poo

there's your territory marking behaviour

Or it might be you cooking....

Why did they dismantle your sofa? what is their explanation for their behaviour? It's seriously weird and I certainly wouldn't be leaving them alone in the house again.

Interesting post Flamed - I can appreciate that you're in a difficult position there if the house is genuinely a potential health hazard. I guess you just have to hope that their health visitor says something.

Autumn thank you, that's exactly it. MIL does it in order to show us that she thinks we are useless, feckless slobs. There's an anger there. That's also connected to her inability to praise or congratulate either of us.

oohrhubarb fortunately FIL hasn't had a mullet since the 80s, so I think we're safe (phew)

Funnily enough, DH has applied for a job in his home country (where they live), because we're quite keen to escape Brexit. But the idea of living near them is so horrifying that we've decided if he's offered an interview he probably won't go. Which must been we think PILs are even worse than Brexit

@flamedtoacrisp you are that mil its not your place to do anything withut someone asking you -just dont go there if yu cant stand it

@IsThisYourSanderling it might actually be easier if you lived in the same country to them as visits could be light touch, eg meet for lunch / coffee / at soft play rather than 'big' visits with them coming over etc? Just a thought.

I would tell her to fuck off to the other side of fuck then fuck off some more! No one talks to me like that in front of my child and especially not to the point where my child is crying in his own home over it!
As for the deep cleaning, dismantling the sofa I'd be livid!! I seriously would cut contact and not deal with this kind of crap, life is too short to made miserable by people regardless of whether are family or not!

MIL did nothing when she was here, nothing. Even when another visitor would suggest they help out with the washing up or something she would decline and say she didn’t know where anything went 🙄. Whatever. But then she would send us cleaning materials through the post!

She’d also send pictures of herself and FIL in frames and tell us where to put them 😶.