Mum just barged in to home

[Rookiemama1]

Long story short - I come from a pretty dysfunctional family as in co-dependent bordering on narcissistic. I am mid 20s, getting married next year and have a baby on the way. My mum didn't take to my partner too kindly after we started to get serious (accused him of ruining her life because him and I moved together) and has had to apologise to him for things but there continues to be a very awkward relationship and I feel like we are always dancing on a volcano i.e. if you give them an inch they'll take a mile. I've been to a lot of therapy over it and trying my best to put in boundaries.

My DP and I bought a house together about 30 mins away from my parents last year and with jobs, life, work and now baby on the way I don't go down to my parent's house as much as they would like.

I had invited my mum to my house today for lunch and she said yes and then text earlier to say that she had a sore head and wouldn't be up so that was fine. I work from home anyway and took my lunch hour as normal. She knew I was going to be really busy today outside of my lunch hour as I text her this. My partner had to come home early because of the weather (admittedly took a break to spend some time with him in the bedroom) and whilst we're finishing lets say i hear a 'hello!!' from downstairs - my mum walked in through the back door.

I came down awkwardly and was like eh why did you not tell me you were coming you know I'm working to which she said she didn't have to tell me if i wasn't here she would've just driven on but she made a decision to drive 30 mins to my house out the way without telling me when she knew I was busy. My partner is annoyed too because he's like there's literally no boundaries and she just thinks because its her daughter's house she can pop by any time she wants.

I'm so angry at her just coming in and flicking the kettle on as if this is just her home and then just talking to me as if everything is ok and fine to do.

AIBU to be this upset at this? like I'm on the verge of tears with anger.

I would say that made their relationship closer not the other way round. You have some really strange views. Are you in the 'once they are 18 you should kick them out as they are adults' camp that you often see on here?

I’m still trying to work out if you genuinely don’t get it, or if you’re just being obtuse for the craic, ‘cos it’s AIBU, or whatever.

Your set up is not ‘outlandishly unreasonable’. It’s perfectly normal. It’s how my family operates.

But - once again - different people do things differently.

And neither you nor I have a PITA mother, for whom we’ve had to put in place different sorts of boundaries for our own wellbeing.

Lucky us (well, I’m not as lucky as you since my parents are both dead). Probably best not to bang on about how lucky we are and how nice we have it on a thread where the OP doesn’t have our blessings.

I think it's possibly a generational thing. My parents were always rally kind and loved us to visit without warning, helped out with childcare when I had my own kids etc... but that was in the days before mobiles and they wouldn't have dreamed that anyone would have sex during the day. Now we wfh, they have no concept that we are actually busy and it may possibly be inconvenient to drop everything upon their arrival. Keys were exchanged during childminding days and to ask for the keys back and to refuse to see them would cause massive offence. It's so hard as they're kind and friendly people at the heart of it all.

Oh, give it a rest. I hadn't posted for days and the only reason I did was because Loveleyveg82 asked me direct questions about my children and I answered them. How is that banging on?

How is it that you think I'm not allowed to say I'm surprised, but others are allowed to say they're shocked? Why is it that you think I should shut up because no one cares what I think, but when someone posts me direct questions so they obviously do care, you think I should value your opinion above theirs and say nothing? What makes you so important?

I get that you're a judgy person but that doesn't mean you get to dictate to other people who they're allowed to respond to.

It was 10 years ago

you use an example of how you have an open house from…. A decade ago??

😂

I've got home and one of them, having travelled a distance, was watching TV, having dumped his stuff in the bedroom and had a shower. It was a lovely surprise.
it was a “lovely surprise”
your example of your open house is from a decade ago

so I am going to take a punt that despite you having an open house. It’s actually very very rare for it to be used as an open house. I don’t think anyone would think twice about their son dropping in unannounced to stay over once in a decade!! I think people are more thinking of very regular turn ups from people you won’t just put their bits down and chill out in front of the tv but rather expect lunch and company

I only spoke about my children because you asked specifically about them.

My son lives a distance away. He wouldn't be passing by on a regular basis. So if he was making a special journey to see us, obviously, he'd ring to make sure we're going to be around. That's common sense. But he does come up to see friends at the weekend and sometimes says, if he can, he'll pop by. He can't give a time because he doesn't know what they'll be doing. But clearly, while he lives a distance away, he's not going to be popping in regularly.

My daughter lives locally and she bobs round regularly - as I stated above. She has a key and can let herself in if we're not here. I have keys to hers, my sisters, and my parents. I'd go into any of those if they weren't there if I really needed to. I'd let them know I'd been in obviously. My sister lives 5 mins from me. My parents house is 15 mins from me. My in-laws are a bit further away. (But I dont go into their houses if they're not there.) We all just call in on each other on the off-chance. As friends and I do.

You seem to be saying that it's OK to just drop round to people's houses as long as they watch telly rather than interacting. That seems strange to me but if you're happy with that, that's fine. But I don't think that other people actually would be ok with that because I was definitely told by posters that it's rude to call in on anyone without messaging first.

OP, obviously you should lock your doors in future, and be clear with your mother about advance warning if that’s what you prefer, but I think this occasion was slightly muddled by you having originally invited her for lunch — she may have felt bad to have refused, and thought a slightly later unannounced call was ok in case you’d been disappointed.

I think you are also partly so cross about it because you’d told your mother you were terribly busy all day apart from your lunch hour, but she walked in on you pulling your clothes back on after an unscheduled sex break, which may have reinforced her (possible) notion that WFH is a pretty free and easy, unpressured thing.

I get what you mean, I love seeing my kids but it is nice if I know they are coming, maybe air bedroom, get something nice in for dinner etc so I'm sort of half and half on it. Mine do tend to let me know as they like having their favourite mum cooked meal so a bit of self interest there. They don't live locally though so it is a bit different to having them pop in for half an hour or something.

I would love them to be more local but they all went off to uni and didn't come back as not great opportunities here compared to the cities they ended up in.

That sounds like a good way to deal with it. Although I can imagine if that had been my late MIL she'd have just said, "Well you carry on, I'll just make some tea while I'm waiting." Not many would have her cheek though - I hope.

all very odd!

When my mum was alive I felt able to walk into her home and put the kettle on as she did mine. Given that you had invited her for lunch and she knew you were WFH, I don't think it's massively unreasonable for her to feel better and decide last minute to come round.

Surely if you were shagging your DH upstairs, you would've locked the front door?

I'm sorry but this is on you.

I am entertaining the idea of telling you Mum, we were not expecting you to come in, in fact we were just having sex upstairs so it really wasnt convenient :D

Jokes aside, she needs to be told you expect her to knock/ring the bell and not let herself in. If it doesnt work after a couple of time than you'll need to think about what to do more but it needs to be spelled out first. Its so difficult to keep your boundaries sometimes!

Zombie thread alert.