To ask MIL to move out...

[pip16]

FIL very suddenly & unexpectedly passed away in January.

MIL was very understandably distraught.

DH suggested she come to stay with us as he didn’t think she would manage being alone.

I of course was on board with this, i was also
still on maternity leave in Jan & thought MIL & me would both benefit from the company.

DH & I didn’t discuss at the time how long she’d stay, but I assumed it would be a few weeks / a month at the most.

Fast forward nearly 5 months, and MIL is still living with us!

She goes back to her house evey so often to check for mail but pretty much all of her clothes are at our house.

I’m now back at work 3 days a week and when I come home MIL has made dinner, she does our washing, and our cleaning, she even does our ironing.
She will wake up early with DC is very hands
on.

All of this is lovely, and of course I’m appreciative, but it’s making me feel redundant as a wife and mother and very much like a guest in my own home.

I can’t remember the last time DH & I had a night to ourselves (whilst DC is in bed) because MIL
is always sat with us, and most of the time we’re watching her soaps with her.

DH has stopped wanted to have sex as often, because MIL is in the next room and he feels weird about it.

DH & I both booked and at off work last week whilst DC was at nursery.
We went out for lunch (just the two of us) I would’ve loved to come home and had the house to ourselves and spent the afternoon in bed to together, but, we couldn’t.

I’ve brought it up with DH several times now, but his response is always that he doesn’t want to upset her and we don’t have a “proper” reason to ask her to leave as she’s so nice to us.

Yes, she is nice, but I want my house back, I want my husband and baby to myself again, I want to have sex with my husband where I / we is allowed to at least heavy breathe 🙄

I’m sure I will sound ungrateful and uncaring for feeling this way; I’m really not.
But I don’t think not wanting to live with my MIL is unreasonable.

Should I bring it up with her myself. AIBU to ask her to go back to her own house?

have a conversation with your MiL, woman to woman. Tell her that you have marital needs that aren't being met because she is there, all the time.

Oh Jeeze no! I world curl up and die every bit as much as I did when my mum tried to tell me about my parents sex life!

Nope. It has to be a positive move. The suggestions about making the house and garden nice ready for her move back, sound good to me. Giving the house some positive feelings. Maybe decorating it together and buying something new for it. Then she can move on with happy memories of the the if you working together on it.

I agree it is time for an honest conversation with her but please put on kid gloves and be gentle. Grief is so terrible and it seems her coping mechanism is caring for your household. That can’t continue and she needs to find something else but would it be possible for you to build up to it? Something like “ we love you being here and all your help - it’s been a great help. But maybe it’s time to spent a night a week back in your own space? To build up a routine there?” And then build up the time she spends in her own place. Maybe eventually mention rescuing a dog if she’s amenable to that. They’re great company and give you things to do in a routine way. Good luck to you all you all sound lovely.

A difficult conversation but one that needs to be had for her as well as you.

Can you help plan ahead. She is probably fearful of being lonely and of no use. You can change that. Would you be happy in the short term for DH to stay over sometimes. What about with your DC, what about your DC alone? Could you plan some day trips.

You might find, carefully planned, she is back at home and you still have some support, for free days and nights with your DH. Win.win

You're making her too comfortable. She's there mainly for company? Go out either with friends or DH. When you're there for the evenings make sure you pick something to watch on TV, announce you're watching it then change the chanel at the necessary time, regardless of what she's watching. Have friends over if lockdown rules permit, take over the living room, TV off and put some music on. At the moment MIL is living her usual life but in your house, while you feel like a guest. Disrupt her life and start living your own. Once she starts feeling like a guest MIL will be happier to move out.

Has anyone mentioned that her home insurance will probably be invalidated if her house is left empty for more than (usually) a month? Could be a conversation starter with her..

I’ve brought it up with DH several times now, but his response is always that he doesn’t want to upset her and we don’t have a “proper” reason to ask her to leave as she’s so nice to us.

There's a reason Mumsnet will so often tell you that, "you have a DH problem, not a MIL problem". He doesn't seem to care that YOU, his wife, are upset by the loss of your hone, privacy, family life, sex life etc. Why is that? Why is it only his mother's (hypothetical) upset that matters to him, not his wife's (real, evident, ongoing, in front of his eyes)? Also, the "proper" reason to ask her to leave is "because this is my home and I don't want her to stay here any longer". It's completely irrelevant how nice she is, I would be worried he wants her to stay forever if he's saying things like that

You need to read him the riot act, OP. His disregard of your feelings and attitude that you don't even get a say in this because your opinions are apparently of no importance/relevance are not acceptable and you don't just have to bow down to him on this.

I've temporarily name changed because the following is about to out me to anyone who knows me. We had my MIL stay for several months as she was widowed last year. It was at my suggestion. She was indeed extremely helpful in the house, and within this I would include points like she often took herself to bed early/went to watch something on her tablet in the other room so we had the main living space to ourselves in the evenings. I was never expected to watch her soaps, if she wished to join us in the living room she either watched what we normally did or we all chose and watched a couple of series together. My husband and I had more sex while she was here (it's a stress reliever!), not less.

MIL seems to have forgotten she is a guest in your home. DH does too! Remind him first, and expect him to (politely, gently) get her gone.

Why don't you have her half the week stay over and the other half at her place. She sounds so lovely and helpful and definitely not taking advantage of your family. The only thing she wants is company it seems. Half and half is a good compromise?

@saraclara

Seriously. She's only 60. I'm 65 and was widowed in my mid-50s. There's absolutely no reason that someone like me should be living with their offspring.

In a way this arrangement has prevented her from moving on in her bereavement. It's going to be even harder for her to live alone in that house because she hasn't needed to for all this time. It was a bad suggestion on your DH's part I'm afraid. But this can't continue. It's not good for her and it's not good for you.

I was just going to say the same as this. It's not going to help her in the long run if she stays with you. She needs to grieve properly and deal with seeing things in their house he would use, books he was reading etc. I'm sure her friends miss her, them both too. Of course life will be different now with regards to going out, but she hopefully has a long life still ahead of her and she shouldn't spend it playing mum at yours.

Do you think you could have a fairly innocent conversation with her where you just ask her what her longer (or even medium) term plans are?

I think that’s a perfectly reasonable question, it might be that she knows she needs to go home but is struggling? Does she need some support getting out and socialising? Starting hobbies, making new friends etc? Things like that might help her realise she needs to have her own life.

Not saying it’s reasonable but I can imagine it being really hard to face having a conversation with your remaining parent about this kind of thing.

You don’t have to say ‘when are you moving out?’.You can be kind, and ultimately, helping her to become more independent will undoubtedly benefit all of you.

She’s only 60, can you help get a life? Social groups, WI , university of the 3rd age etc. Maybe if she was out a couple of evenings a week you wouldn’t feel so stifled

Good ideas but round here things are not yet back up and running. Ymmv of course.

Your DH really needs to recognise that he would be helping her by encouraging her to move back.

I suspect that actually he's too scared to have the conversation. It's not about upsetting her, it's about his own inability to face up to the conversation, I reckon.

Is all this talking about your MIL, just between you and your Husband right now, Your MIL might well be thinking in her own mind, about returning to her own home, but as she seems to help you out a lot, maybe thinks you need her at the moment..

The only way to deal with this, is to talk to her, if she is the kind of person who can discuss things in reality, and then you can judge her feelings about everything,, and hopefully she will get a reality check at some point. Then you won't have to say, It's time for you to leave Mother, see you soon, !!

Perhaps also have a routine for cleaning and cooking so that she doesn't do so much? I'd find it hard to accept, whether or not she was staying. There's something really sad about her caretaker mode.

Definitely a DH problem.

Ask him when she's moving home over the next month, not if - when over the next month?

He can't have imagined she was moving in either and you never sat down and agreed this.

Could you suggest she does it in stages? So start off with a couple of nights at her house, and gradually increase it until she's there permanently. With visits in both directions.

You don't say anything about her state of mind that I can see regarding grief. Has she had any grief counselling? Is she reasonably cheerful? Perhaps she would like to go back to her house at some stage and practically it cannot be left empty for too long. Summer would be a good time to make the move. Perhaps you could all take to going there weekends and sit/work in the garden (if applicable) as a start.

I disagree with the idea of doing it in stages. MIL has to move back properly or or just makes it harder.

I'd suggest that she moves back but you plan things over the first few weeks. If you pop round say every second day, for instance. Fix it so that she cooks for you in her own home and you have at least one family meal there every week for the first month. It's summer so spend time in her garden with her. Put things in the diary so that she has things to look forward to in her own house and garden.

But don't faff about with a few days there and a few days at yours. It won't make it easier. But your regular presence at hers over the first few weeks will. Tapering off obviously so you don't create a different sort of dependency.

My husband died suddenly two years ago and I stayed with my daughter for a month. After that I went back home as I knew I'd have to leave sometime. I cried for a day or two, then had no choice but to get on with my "new" life. You need to ask her when she's going home and find out whats stopping her from doing so.

Book a holiday! Just your family, not her, say you won it if you have to.

Get something done to the house while you are away. This will cause a natural break and she will have to go home for the week.

Move the children’s bedrooms around when you get back so there is no spare room anymore. Turn one into an office if you have to.

I would not say anything but I would do something to make her move home and do something else to ensure she stays away.

Also, if you could plan a holiday or break WITH her for later in the year, this would give her something to look forward to and might ease her moving home.

I agree with the above poster by suggesting going back at six months. She needs to start living her life and let you live yours. Hopefully in another month everything will be more back to normal so clubs etc will have started back. At sixty, she’s hardly geriatric.

Life is too short, YANBU.
60 and only living 30mins away...... hell no to continuing to stay.

But I do need to say that cooking/cleaning isn’t wife work that she’s taken over, it’s responsibility of you and your husband.

Seriously, I have friends who still have primary school children at 60! Most work and wouldn’t consider them old enough to move into a granny annex!

She sounds like a nice MIL (not like mine). That's sweet of her taking care of housework etc.

There are a fair few comments along these lines. She may genuinely be sweet and nice, but she may also have worked out that by trying to make herself indispensable she makes it much harder for you to ask her to leave because she's being nice, and therefore she gets to stay.

We can't tell from here which is which.

Maybe the best way is for your dh to have a gentle chat asking about her plans, with you there? You never know, she might feel she can't say she wants to go so it would be a good place to start working out what everyone wants. You could probably mention how much you've ll loved having her but that you're sure she wants to start seeing people, plus you're excited about being able to have friends round again.. she's have to be pretty tactless to not get the hint

Fwiw I think it's lovely of you to offer her a home for so long, regardless of th benefits to you. I hope I'm as lucky if I'm in your MiLs shoes one day

It's probably not a nice thought for her having to go back to the house alone with her husband gone and lots of memories. I suggest sitting down and talking about how she feels about it and how she thinks you are all going to move forward and as living together has been lovely but isn't a long term solution. Would she like to go back to the house? Would she consider moving to a smaller place nearer to you guys (walking distance) make it clear she's still very much welcome to come over for dinner/company and play a big part in her grandchild's life. Just think of all the ways she could take it badly and offer reassurance before she even has a chance to take it badly. She basically won't want to feel abandoned, rejected, excluded so just make it clear that this is a temporary arrangement and it's time to think about the next step. Maybe she would feel better if your husband stays in the house with her for the first week while she adjusts. Whatever she want in order to get there xxx