Weirdness around Christmas 'helping'

[Orangeblossom78]

I was staying at the in laws over Christmas and got confused over this and wondered if others could help.

MIL kept telling me just to sit down at breakfast and then commented 'oh she is sitting waiting for her breakfast'. I had offered to help her and with the dishes and did do quite a bit over the time there.

She doesn't comment on DH and the DC 'sitting there' and it feels a bit like a jibe.

Also, she then commented that DH was 'like a waiter' as he asked if I wanted coffee and brought me some. But I would feel a bit odd going off to get coffee in their house.

PS. I should add that she runs a very 'women do women's work' kind of household, but I'm an outwardly spoken feminist and we clash over that. I've spent years training DH out of his outdated upbringing and I think she see's me as a princess who isn't a proper wife to her DS.

She’s martyring herself. My MIL does this. Amongst many other sly digs, she once remarked that DH had no choice but to “teach himself to cook” because, obviously, I do no cooking at all so the poor wee penis-encumbered soul has to fend for himself.

Or the time DH has given DC the usual late evening bottle so that I could get a few hours sleep before dealing with the almost constant nighttime feeds...she spotted the bottle in the kitchen next morning and said something about poor DH having to get up in the night. I’d been wide awake since 4 am when I gave up trying to get DC to settle.

All of these “poor man having to help” were enabled by FIL and have damaged my relationship with them.

Call her out on it.

I don’t tend to help much in other people’s houses. I am a guest there. I might clear a few plates etc but that’s about it and I wouldn’t go rummaging in the fridge or making coffee. The opposite is true in my house, I wouldn’t dream of asking or expecting someone to help. They’re a guest in my house. In fact I don’t like when people help, I’d prefer them to sit and relax and I’ll serve them, get them coffee etc. as I would probably do in their house.

Next time smile proudly at your DH and say " It's taken us a few years, and many manly tears, but yes, I have to say, I am quite proud of how well his retraining is going. He can hoover quite nicely now you know. 2020 is the year we are going to focus on laundry skills."

She sounds like my mother.

I was recently stuck on the couch under a teething 5 month old who has finally stopped screaming and started napping. I asked DH to give me a glass of water and, based on my mother’s reaction, you’d have sworn that I had asked him to recreate Heston Blumenthal‘s entire back catalogue using the contents of the Lidl whoopsie aisle.

My mother raised housewives, and the fact that I’m very much not one horrifies her.

There's a certain sort of woman who has spent her life running around after men and can't bear seeing other women not doing it and still having a husband, children, etc - because it shows you don't have to. I think it must actually be quite painful to realise that you've been essentially a slave for no reason. Looked at like that, pity rather than annoyance is probably the most appropriate response.

She's a martyr. There is also a hierarchy over who is allowed to be a martyr. It's tough. I'm sorry.

Oh so annoying. My mum is still like this. Has let my brothers off doing any kind of housework - cooking, cleaning, washing and - if one of my brothers is there when I visit - attempts to get me to run around for them.

She also does it in a sneaky, roundabout way, pretending it's something for her and while I'm at it, could I just to x, y, and z for brother.

My MIL (who is lovely) is a bit like this - she came to stay with us over Christmas, and getting her to just sit down and not fuss about in the kitchen was a nightmare, so I just gave up.

She'd insist on washing up, rather than bunging it in the dishwasher (and she's a bit longsighted these days, so the washing up isn't done well, plus our draining board pools water, and she was running the taps while DP was trying to shower which caused yelps).

She worried about getting Christmas dinner on from the moment she woke up (we had roast beef, which was already sous-vide cooked, and just needed firing on the BBQ, plus some veggies and yorkshires + gravy - 30 mins work max, plus another 30 mins of time to cook).

She folded all DP's washing (I've been refusing to, since he never folds mine and the kids), and every 10 minutes was asking me about some household task that really didn't matter during Christmas - and which she could have just as easily asked DP.

I just baffle her a bit I think - with my laid back attitude, and expecting that DP will pull his weight without my having to manage him (not completely true, but I'm still not managing him).

You lost your moment. You should have INSTANTLY sprung up and said ‘ would you like me to do to help you MIL’ and then enlisted your DH to help as well ‘don’t just sit there, let’s you and me help your poor mum. We shouldn’t be letting her do all the work’.

From a kinder angle, this sort of internalised misogynistic wife-work is probably very hard for her to shake off. I’d have been inclined to have been telling HER to sit down and chivvying the pampered men in her life to get a bit more involved in sorting stuff out.

There's a certain sort of woman who has spent her life running around after men and can't bear seeing other women not doing it and still having a husband, children, etc - because it shows you don't have to.

FIL died this year, and the scales have been falling from my MIL's eyes ever since. She talks about it now, full conversations about things that previously were just whispered warnings in the kitchen to stay out of the way of FIL for a bit. But it's so ingrained, this deference to men - and I'm genuinely scandalised at the things that come out of DP and his brother's mouths sometimes - the expectations of labour they have for 70-odd year old MIL. DP gets short shrift from me for it, but I also don't want her to feel bad, hence working around her desire to fuss in the kitchen by just disappearing tasks, or taking massive shortcuts to show here that it's fine for her to do that too if she's hell bent on doing housework when she doesn't have to (at least in my house)

She's being passive-aggressive and playing the martyr. Sounds like the sort of MIL for whom you can't do right for doing wrong, sad to say.

I used to try and help then noticed the men weren’t. So I don’t anymore.

And when they come round to ours my DH is the cleaner washer upper tidy away person with his mum while his dad and brother sit and expound.

My mother is like that, slaving around like a martyr waiter, she doesn’t even eat until everyone is finished BUT you can’t possibly get her to sit, if you do she starts complaining you are doing everything wrong and gets up in a huff to do it herself. We just ignore her these days and visit less.

Next time she makes a comment about you sitting down just say "for gods sake Dh/Ds get up and help do mil/granny do the dishes and while you're up make me another cup of tea".

Family who “offer to help” tend to irritate me.

Just do something. Don’t expect me to give you a list. If I’m busy, I probably don’t have the headspace to think about how you slot in. Do some dishes, empty or fill the dishwasher, set or clear the table. You don’t need my permission, just do it.

Could it not be that she wants to get you to sit down so she can martyr herself and make you look bad for not insisting on helping?

“But I would feel a bit odd going off to get coffee in their house”

This is the key.

As Pp have said “offering to help” is tricky: if a guest says “can I help” the polite answer is “no thank you”.

You are a DIL, staying in the house. Make your own tea / coffee / kids brekkie and ask if anyone else would like some.

Just say "I offered, you said no". My mother and MIL are similar. They are 83. It horrifies me when women under 70 do it.

My dad does this. He always invites me round, and then makes comments on him waiting on me like a princess - yet nobody has a chance of being allowed to help him in the kitchen in any way!

Just laugh and say in a jovial voice is asked if you wanted any help and you said no'

As others have said, when she comments on your dh being a waiter, be positive 'yes he's lovely isn't he' 'thank you darling'

Sounds like mine too, OP. She wouldn't say anything in front of the family, but I've overheard her bitching to a friend after I gave in and reluctantly accepted the 'help' she insisted on giving me, that I was 'like the Queen of bloody Sheba'. Her voice is louder than she thinks, and I've even heard her squawking away about my deficiencies as she walks away from my front door. After more than 3 decades of this I can laugh about it, but when I was younger it used to baffle and upset me,

MIL does similar. Theatrical sighs if I'm sitting and she's working. So I ask her if she needs help then get DH to do it.
Once started a thread about not helping as DH doesn't, got my arse handed to me for being lazy

My husbands grandma was like this. When she started asking me to make tea for everyone in her home (I was the only other woman) I felt a bit puzzled. I asked my husband to help me make tea (it was alot of people) she kept telling him to sit down! I told him that it was only fair to help too. My husband helped me make tea. Both grandparents commented on how domesticated he has become!