PIL live in the same village as my DM, and about 10 mins drive from us.
MIL makes a point of calling/texting/mentioning every time she sees my DM walking in the village, and telling me that I should worry about a ‘woman of her age’ walking alone and stop her doing this. For reference, DM is very fit, healthy and in her early 60s. MIL makes a lot of comments about DM’s age and that she is single. I feel protective of DM and eventually got fed up and shut this down by saying ‘MIL, you are only a year younger than DM - do you think we should be worrying about you?’ This stopped the age comments but not the alerts that my mother had been spotted outside the house. MIL seems to have a fixation with DM and what she wears/drives/cooks/does with her life in general. MIL has also spotted DM and I in town and texted to say that we should both be wearing coats 🙄
We don’t have them round very much as MIL in particular can be critical. PIL no longer have a key to the house as they were letting themselves in unannounced - that’s another story. She can be interfering and unkind in general, with a particular habit of providing a running commentary on everything I do. Small example: last time she was here I was in the midst of fairly severe hyperemesis and made a slice of toast (one of the things I could periodically get down) and she started saying ‘oooh you’re having toast, mind you don’t burn it’ and ‘someone’s burnt the toast!’ ‘Oh PF’s just enjoying her burnt toast’ tinkly laugh - it went on. I was bemused more than anything as it’s such a non issue (like the time I accidentally killed a house plant and she told me thank god I didn’t have children if I can’t even look after a plant) but it’s just part of a wider pattern of anything and everything DP and I do being up for debate/comment. Recently we have been doing work in the garden and MIL been quite unpleasant to DP over the phone for not sending her pictures quickly enough.
So, the plan for now (mid pregnancy and having some pregnancy complications) is to ease back on the contact and for DP to work on ability/willingness to put in healthy boundaries. He says he understands but that this is the way she’s always been and that covid has given her ‘cabin fever’, making the behaviour worse. Since becoming pregnant her behaviour has had a greater effect on me, I’m not sure why.
DP has mentioned in passing today that FIL texted him to say that he has driven past and seen me walking the dogs in our village. An older person had fallen further down the road; when I passed there was a large group of people offering assistance with first responders attending to the injured person. FIL wanted to know from DP whether I stopped, what happened, what I did I do about it. I know this is irrational but for some reason the idea of FIL rushing home to report back to MIL has really irked me? Normally I wouldn’t care but on top of everything else the idea of yet more comments when I wasn’t expecting them, makes me want to tell them to go away and get a life? AIB completely U over such a small thing?