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?

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

My Dad tried that with a picture of my mum. These were the people who never had a picture of their children any where and derided people that did. I stuck it in a drawer.

PILs will be angling to come in today. I hate conflict, it sends my cortisol sky high, so I hope I can stand firm. It's when they just want a cup of tea etc, do we really not let them in? So much shit will fly. But then, I can imagine them just coming in for a cup of tea, and the starting to sweep under the table, and that evening I'll go to cook and won't be able to find my saucepans because they swapped them round while I was napping the baby, or something.

Give me strength today

This isn’t a MIL problem, it’s a DH and FIL problem. Yes she sounds like an awful woman but until one or both of them grow some balls, it’s not going to get any better.

Why on earth, if she’s always been like this, would you leave her in your house when they weren’t even staying there?

Re today and them wanting to come in - assuming you are already meeting them elsewhere, you could just say ‘I can’t invite you back as I noticed a speck of dust on the table before I left and I know how much that would irritate you, so to save you the stress, we’ll just have another coffee here’.
Good luck

It's when they just want a cup of tea etc, do we really not let them in?

Find local tea/coffee shop and say you are going there? Or meet and say goodbye at the location you are going to - maybe it has a cafe -and avoid them getting to the front door. Or meet them where they are stopping so they don't get to your door.

Don't hear any suggestions to come in - your DH could be an issue there so try and get him onside - and if they outright ask just say no it's not convenient and don't explain or elaborate if you do gives a chance for someone to pick holes in your arguments when no doesn't.

If you fail and they get in you can tell them outright their behavior is very rude or try and re-direct it to something useful or just leave them to it and go out or upstairs away from it all and deal with it when they are completely gone so you are not being got at and wound up - my MIL often stops cleaning when she gets not response.

They won't change - pick up hints or behave better without some change so it's manage it or avoid it.

Or meet and say goodbye at the location you are going to

This is the best advice. Have somewhere to go when you are leaving - somewhere they absolutely cannot tag along. Fictional hospital visit to sick friend, medical appointment, family trip to the dentist?

When I refused to have the ILs in the house they would come down to London and DH would meet them elsewhere. Every single time they tried to get into my home on some pretext. FIL needed to brush his teeth (?), they wanted to change for the journey back, leave their cases...

Stay firm. And yes, not even for a cup of tea.

Ultimatum time.

Straight out - if you do anything that looks like cleaning in my home, MY HOME, you will not be invited here again.

I had to say something similar to my inlaws, although they weren't anywhere near as bad as yours sound. Mine babysat one Friday a month, but live 3 hours away, so came down Thursday night and stayed until Sunday. I like them, I didn't mind that. Came home from work one Friday to find the kitchen, living and dining room furniture all stacked up in a corner (open plan), with mops and buckets out to clean the floor and cupboard doors. I just pointed out that I wanted them to spend time with my child, not my mop and bucket. We agreed that they can clean the sink, and it's turned into a joke - we leave the sink to get a bit manky before they arrive.

Oh - they used to do that rearranging of the kitchen cupboards too - I got my partner to sort that out. Now if they ever do anything with washing up, emptying the dishwasher etc, they just stack it on the kitchen tops and we put it away. I hated playing hide and seek every time I needed the cheese grater.

pfrench - TBF that sounds more like genuinely trying to be helpful.

Unloading a dishwasher and putting some items in the wrong place is hardly "rearranging your cupboards" or the end of the world.

Gracious of you to "not mind" your PIL staying when they're driving 3 hours to visit and provide a day's unpaid childcare for you..

I agree, not even in for a cup of tea.
Best plan - keep your coat either on or by the door ready to put on the instant they turn up - open the door and walk out, into them if necessary, saying "Oh we're going out to a café instead this morning" - not "I thought we could" or "perhaps" or anything even remotely arguable with - just "We are doing this".

If they ask to use the loo, or make some other spurious excuse, say "there's a loo at the place we're going to, it's only 5 minutes, come on, we're ready to go now".
Any other attempt to get through the door, say "no, we're going out - it's not convenient for you to come in"

Good luck - your DH does REALLY need to be behind you on this though!

Nah, I wouldn't let them in and would tell them exactly why. They have disrespected you so they don't get to call the shots anymore where entering your home is concerned. Arrange to meet them for lunch out somewhere. If it doesn't suit their agenda then tough, they don't see ye today. Same goes for tomorrow and then on Sunday you can breathe a sigh of relief when they're gone home. At least you have the ability to speak up for yourself. So what if it causes a shit storm, it's better than lying down and letting them wipe their feet on you.

I wouldn't let them in and would tell them why too. Just tell them they obviously feel your house isn't clean enough for them, so you think they will be more comfortable in a café or whatever.

Another long term sufferer of the dreaded MIL here, she has always thought I was a feckless, lazy, rubbish mother and partner for her DP, despite getting my degree at 40 and always in work in management in high powered jobs despite having no qualifications whatsoever until I was 40, how’s she has changed her tune but although she would slag off my housework even though the house was clean, she would never get off her arse to clean for us lol. My MIL lives 2000 miles away now, keeps me happy, certainly wouldn’t move to be near the old dragon, and she has never had any interest in my DC, either when they were small or now that they’ve grown up, no birthday / Christmas presents at all for years, even though we send stuff to her on birthdays etc, now she’s reaped what she sows because my DC have no interest in her at all. They know exactly what she is like, I haven’t had to say anything at all and have avoided doing so in front of them as I don’t want to taint their impression of her, but they have both made up their own minds.

They should never be allowed to stay again.

Next they are over they can stay at ours 😂😂😂

Leave a flask on the doorstep....

Meet them elsewhere. Be nice as pie but don’t invite them to yours. Have days out, Sunday lunch in pub, meet them at the park then shout them a coffee, invite them to join you a farm/play area/child-friendly destination, anything but you having to entertain them at home.

Windy

My Dyson was blocked one week, I couldn’t get a part unstuck. My mum and brother turn up. She was threatening to phone social services due to the bits on the floor. Apparently I should of got a replacement one. I was miscarrying twins,, bleeding heavily. What did she say? The blood got on the floor while changing pads, I was every other name under the sun and it was no excuse. I have very little contact with her. I totally sympathize x

Be super super nice. Honestly, it will make you feel so much better and they will be entirely wrong footed. Say how helpful and supportive you find everything they do. etc etc. You cannot thank them enough.

Practice on your own, before you go public, though, because it has to sound sincere.

Good god my child would be removed by social services if any of these people came to my home. Do they have OCD?
Best advice - keep them away from your home. Weirdos.🤧

FIL is the reason we haven’t gone NC
And then you list a whole load of stuff why frankly you should be NC with him too. Being "quite funny and good humoured usually" really isn't enough to make up for being his wife's enabler. It doesn't make up for the fact that he "always begs people who do stand up to her to please not" HE IS AS MUCH A PROBLEM AS HIS BATSHIT WIFE. MORE SO, SINCE HE FLIES UNDER YOUR RADAR.

"We’re meeting up today and I’m not sure what to say/ how to play it."
"PILs will be angling to come in today."

Be blunt and unambiguous.
"You are no longer welcome in my home."
"You cannot be trusted."
"No."

I presume you are meeting in a public space such as a park or cafe? Be prepared to just walk away. They start giving you shit, just tell them goodbye, get up and walk.

And go No Contact.

"Oh you can't come in because you don't think it's good enough do you?"

Seriously you need to refuse visits full stop until you are ready to go NC.

What kind of an entitled moron feels comfortable dismantling and cleaning someone else's house - close relative or not - without their expressed permission? Notwithstanding what your OH says, I'd tell them not to come back

Your MIL is a nutter OP. I would be distancing myself so far I would be a dot on the horizon.