Fed up with MIL calling to the house non stop

[Rosiebelle17]

Hi I’m ready to explode
My mother in law calls non stop in person over 5/6 times every day
She calls at meal times bed times etc and will not go away , she calls when I have my own family and will not go away
I have tried pulling all the blinds but she keeps knocking and calling out
She knows I’m there as she sees my car outside the house
Someone please help me
I have two kids under 3 and the disruption is causing havoc
I asked my husband to tell her politely but he goes off on a rant that he will tell her stay away for good

@saraclara loads of mothers are like this. Look at all the stories here on mumsnet of
"My mother is calling me too much"
"My mother rings me and talks at me and never lets me speak"
"My mother is ringing me every day , she doesn't respect that i have my own life".

There is definitely a problem with mothers in this generation. When they have children, they seem to think that they own them.

I think that mothers need to take a class- how to learn "when your children grow up, you do not own them, you need to respect them as human beings, who have their own lives".

Of my fifteen close friends male and female. Fourteen have problems with their mothers wanting too much contact, not respecting their boundaries, being critical and insulting. Only one person has a good relationship with their mother.

Way too many mothers see adult children as objects that they own, not as independent human beings.

To the mothers on here, when your children grow up, please do not be selfish, please let them have their own lives.

As an adult, My mother has made me cry so many times. If I stop contact with her, she just gets other family members to ring me and tell me how awful I am. It feels like no escape sometimes

@saraclara loads of mothers are like this. Look at all the stories here on mumsnet of
"My mother is calling me too much"
"My mother rings me and talks at me and never lets me speak"
"My mother is ringing me every day , she doesn't respect that i have my own life".

There is definitely a problem with mothers in this generation. When they have children, they seem to think that they own them.

To be fair, you aren't going to have the thousands of people with normal DMs/MILs starting threads on here asking "AIBU that my MIL calls to arrange a visit, we find a mutually suitable time and we all really enjoy seeing her once every week or two".

Same as with all of the horrendous husbands: to look on MN, you'd think that all men were terrible, abusive husbands and fathers, but nobody is going to bother posting about their normal, decent husbands.

For the record, we live 5 minutes' walk from my PIL (my own DPs are no longer with us). They're perfectly respectful of us (and we try to be of them). It's lovely being so close for when we arrange to meet or drop something off (lockdown permitting), but none of us would ever dream of abusing that.

My mil lives a 2 minute walk round the corner. I love mine to bits...it has been great living close to her. She wouldn’t dream of forcing herself into my daily existence like this utter pest.

In this case, I'd be strongly considering calling the police anonymously as though you were one of your neighbours and reporting that you keep seeing a very suspicious character 'over at Number 36' apparently casing the joint - turning up 5 or 6 times a day, peering in the windows, checking to see if the door is unlocked, sometimes even managing to coerce 'the woman who lives there' to let her come in. You don't know if she has criminal intentions or if she is just very mentally unwell, but she most certainly doesn't behave normally. It must be awful for your poor lovely neighbour, but you too are very concerned that she could move on to your house before long - give them a description of her and her regular times of prowling and ask them to come over and intercept her.

One would hope that, if nothing else, that might deeply shock her and make her feel ashamed when told by the authorities in no uncertain terms that her behaviour mirrors that of a typical criminal and very much constitutes harassment.

What will happen most likely is that akin to a previous poster, you will eventually lose the head and rudely tell her to fuck off or similar.
It probably wouldn’t be a bad thing ultimately, although it would be better to have some resolution before it gets to that stage.

I mean you can’t even have your own visitors without her sitting in residence.

I don’t think I’d be able to go on too much longer without exploding.

Built that’s about the silliest advice I’ve ever read. Like hell would you do that. Make an anonymous call, pretending to be a neighbour to waste police time to shame your overbearing mil? Don’t be so daft.

Tbh an explosion might not be the worst thing ever here. It's the only way the MIL will get the message. As long as OP doesnt fall over apologising or let anyone paint her in the wrong for having finally lost it under severe provocation.

Really OP, if your MIL never talked to you again, would that not be preferable to what you are putting up with now?

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll that’s the most idiotic suggestion I’ve read on here ever. As if the police have time to deal with prank calls like that. Grow the fuck up. Also, no one tells the family to fuck off. Truly. You can have a grown up conversation without that.
OP just talk to the woman, set boundaries that you are happy with (such as no visits past 4pm) and stick to them. If she tries to break them, then it’s an easy “we’ve had this conversation and this is what we agreed and that is what we will stick to”.

A son recently took out a restraining order on his mum in the UK.

A note to the mothers on here- respect your children when they are adults. They do not belong to you, they have their own lives

Fuck that shit! I hope you’ve managed to change the behaviour today and let you husband tell her not to come at all!

Chain on the door, never let her in after 5pm. Tell your husband he fix it or in two weeks the house goes on the market. I actually want to stab your husband repeatedly with a rusty fork, which must be what your days are like - doorbell stab, turning the handle stab, knocking On the window stab, coming in times she’s been told not to STAB getting the kids worked up before bedtime STAB coming in for the third fourth fifth time in a day STAB STAB STAB
Seriously it sounds like a normal day she spends 2-3x as long at your house as your actual husband. I would point this out and remind him you didn’t marry her and you would never have married him if you’d known this is what life would be like.

Golly how selfish. She doesn't care about you or the kids!

Build her into the new routine. Tell her when she can come. Don't let her in at other times. Every time she turns up at a different time, phone DH so he's as bothered but you are. Don't be afraid to slightly lose it if you have to.

Sounds like trying to change routine with a toddler. You have to have a plan and stick firm to it. Don't fold.

PP's telling the OP to say this or do that - she's already said and done it. And she's explained what the MiL does next. Which is to up the ante by continually knocking on the door or banging on the window or ignoring any requests to only come at certain times. None of that is going to work with this woman.

Op I think you only have two choices. Either you do tell her to fuck off and slam the door (as you haven't tried that yet, you don't know how she'll react) or divorce your husband. Given that he works away a lot you're effectively a single parent most of the time anyway - so actually being one wouldn't be that much different except you'd be without MiL.

Thanks for the additional abuse alongside the fully valid disagreement

I'm not saying that's what I would necessarily do - it was slightly hyperbolic - but can't you tell from what the OP writes that this controlling behaviour is causing her serious mental upset, as well as disrupting the healthy routines of her children?

Pretending to be a neighbour might not be the wisest thing to do, but when a family member is making you feel like a prisoner in your own home and that you have to severely restrict and modify your regular behaviour to accommodate their determined and controlling ways towards you, I'm not convinced that it wouldn't necessarily become a police matter.

Reporting anonymously could also be a self-preservation thing for the OP, as giving her own name could have serious ramifications for her when her husband finds out that she's reported his mum. His aggressive responses to her when she raises the matter with him might be nothing more than bluster, but who knows where it could lead if she stands her ground and no longer allows herself and her children to be ridden roughshod over?

We don't even know if the MIL could turn nasty and abusive if the OP managed to stop her. She isn't willing/capable of respecting a polite request or very strong hints, so she clearly has a sense of entitlement that she likely won't want to yield easily.

There was a time when my MIL used to keep phoning until we answered. We'd told her that there wasn't any point calling us between 8 and 9 pm in the evening because we would be busy getting our DDs to bed. She kept calling us at that time. She would call once and leave a message but instead of waiting for my DH to call back (which he always did), she would call multiple times. Her excuse was that she was concerned that there might be something wrong.

But that was nothing like you're dealing with, OP. At least my MIL lives a 3 hour drive away.

In your situation, I think losing it with your MIL wouldn't be a bad thing. She hasn't responded to your polite requests, so losing it might do the trick.

Yeah look...extrapolating on how a prank call to the police may be applicable in theory, won’t save it.
It was an ill thought out post.

I have seen it in real life. Most mothers do not respect their adult children. They see it as "i gave birth to you, i own you".

If you set any boundary with them, they do not listen, as they see themselves as worth more than you.

My male friend recently told me that if he ever tries to set a boundary with his mother, she glares at him and says "I made you."

What will make women see their children as human beings?

How can we as women, improve for the next generation? And not do the same thing to our children.

I wouldn't worry about upsetting anyone. I would lay down very firm rules with your mother in law. You need to tell her!

I have seen it in real life. Most mothers do not respect their adult children. They see it as "i gave birth to you, i own you".

^This very sadly. My MIL is just annoying, and my DH does maintain boundaries with her now. I've had a very difficult relationship with my DM too. She keeps interfering and trying to take over when my DH or I are in the middle of disciplining one of our DDs. She just couldn't help herself.

But in the end, when I established some boundaries, it actually really did the trick. Because, at the end of the day, it was me who was mum to my DDs.

And the same is true for the OP. If you were to move away and not give your MIL your address, there would be absolutely nothing she could do about it.

The problem here is your spineless DH, not your batshit MIL.

@Woofer18 if we're going on anecdote, while my mother is a complete nightmare, I don't have a single friend who has a mother who doesn't respect their independence and boundaries.

I don't assume that every mother is like mine, and I don't think you should either.

And yes, MN is where people come to vent, not to say how normal or uncomplicated their relationships are.

What would happen if you just answered the door and said "Sorry, it's not a good time right now, love you bye!"

@saraclara I don't assume that every mother is like mine. I said - that of every person that I know - nearly every one of them is having problems with their mothers.

We are all in our thirties.
I have fifteen close friends, male and female.
One - her mother criticises her and calls her fat all the time, wouldn't let her take a job that she wanted, and told her which man to marry. This friend is very unhappy because of her mother

Two - her mother uses her like a slave. This friend has her own flat and her own job. Her mum and dad own a farm. Her mother asks her to come out and visit her every single day, and will not stop phoning her until she gives in. Her mother rings and rings and says "will you not come out and visit your poor old mother, i gave birth to you. " She also makes my friend do farm work for them on top of her own full time job. My friend is very unhappy. But there is a particular brand of mental cruelty and manipulation that mothers use: i gave birth to you so you owe me everything.

Three - male friend - he has a job and partner. His mother lives alone. She calls him and insults him all the time. When he stands up to her, she says "do not talk to me like that i made you".

Mother abuse is one of the biggest problems of this time

Yeah look...extrapolating on how a prank call to the police may be applicable in theory, won’t save it.
It was an ill thought out post.

I've already conceded that maybe presenting as a neighbour might not be the best course of action. She could always call the police as herself and ask them to pretend it was a neighbour. As we know, though, plenty of vulnerable women have to flee to safe houses only to discover that the authorities have inadvertently told their abuser their new address.

To be clear, I am NOT equating the OP's current situation with that of a DV survivor. We only have words on a screen to go by, so she might be hugely exaggerating the situation; personally (and I may well be wrong), if anything, I think she's more likely minimising it and that there's been a long-term element of gaslighting going on. We don't know if MIL is a 6-stone 93yo persistent busybody or a 48yo ex rugby player who holds firm grudges against anybody who criticises her. OP's husband doesn't support her and their children and gets angry/aggressive when she raises it with him and challenges his mum's behaviour - that much we do know.

I'm sad you believe that a person reporting what amounts to typical stalker behaviour to the police is making a 'prank call'. Even though the MIL probably couldn't and/or wouldn't dream of raising a finger to OP, mental manipulation and controlling behaviour frequently has serious long-term consequences for the victims, and also by extension their children.