Should MIL be allowed upstairs in our home?

[DisneyBaby]

I grew up in a house where it was rude to go upstairs in someone else's house and even if the toilet was upstairs and I needed to go, I would say 'is it ok to use your toilet upstairs' etc...

This is the norm for most people isn't it?

My MIL always tries to find an excuse to go upstairs in our house and I'm really uncomfortable with it. Firstly it's messy and secondly I just feel like bedrooms etc are private. Am I alone in thinking this?

She sometimes makes out she's looking for something in my daughters room or says my daughter wanted to go up there etc. But other times she's said things like 'I bet you can see ..... from your bedroom window' and tried to go up to see something from my and DH room.

Would you have a problem with this?
I don't know why she feels it's acceptable...

Oh dear.

I don't think I could cope with living like that.

I think going into a grandchild’s room is fine. I don’t like it when my MIL goes into my bedroom though. She lives far away so it’s not an issue frequently enough to mention and cause a fuss but it does irritate me when she finds a reason to go in my room. Last time I only realised as she had re-made (it was already made!) my bed for me. It’s a loft bedroom up another flight of stairs. No other rooms up there so literally no reason to go up there 🤷‍♀️

Hmm I was brought up the same way but I think family is different than friends etc, however it doesn’t really matter what we think if you are unhappy with it.

oh give over
you can be a close and loving family while still having boundaries and privacy.

unless what you meant was you’re an enmeshed family?

Not being able to go in someone’s bedroom without their permission?

Why would you go in there otherwise if they didn’t say you could?

I don't really know. I haven't ever really thought about it. I suppose I have everything open and available, and if someone wanted to poke around and find my collection of sex toys (which I don't have, btw), they could go ahead. Obviously, one reads the runes, and I wouldn't dream of charging upstairs in someone else's house when it's very clearly a 'downstairs only' house. It's the same with shoes on/shoes off - mine is a 'shoes on' house, but if you visit someone who has a neat shoe rack inside the front door and is wearing their slippers, you instantly work out that you are supposed to take your shoes off, so that's what you do.

That said, I do have several friends whose attitude to upstairs/downstairs is the same as mine, so I would in those cases go upstairs to go to the loo/fetch something/find a child etc without a second thought.

My grandma would always do this when I was a kid - I'd go upstairs and discover her snooping around in my room. She was also big on going through bathroom cabinets. Some people are just nosy.

I think going upstairs to use the toilet is fine, but it's rude to go into someone's bedroom without their permission.

I think you are right.
I have a relative who walks past downstairs loo, walks upstairs, passes the family bathroom and uses my en suite.

They do a number two and look confused when I foam at the mouth in rage.

I feel like they are crossing huge boundaries and essentially sh*tting on my life figuratively when they do this………

Why don't you read what @Garrard was quoting. Goes a bit further than bedrooms...

Using the bathroom, fine. (Although less fine if that includes going through the bathroom/medicine cabinet.)

Going into a child's bedroom, fine if the DC has invited them to show them something, but children also have a right to their own space so uninvited, no.

Going into parents' bedroom? Ok if they NEED to get something from there, or if they're doing you a favour by fetching something for you. But if they don't need to and they're still going in, why? It's for one reason and one reason only, to have a nose around.

There are degrees of nosing, from a quick look around from the door, through going in and looking at the bottles on the dressing table, to going in all the drawers and cupboards. But to whatever degree, by definition the only reason for their going in is to be nosy. What's in there, and however tidy or untidy it is, is none of their business.

I didn't know about the upstairs/uptight rule

Maybe they want privacy?

MIL came round to do something with some curtains. I'd have done it or paid someone but, ok, that's not a battle I was going to fight too hard over.

I'm WFH upstairs and, downstairs, all I can hear all day:

• She rocked up and about 20 mins later did a loud performative crap in the hallway bog.
• Everything being done with maximum crashing around and banging
• My neighbour knocked for something and she answered the door and was loudly gobbing off to her about various things before I got down there
• Apparently the window in the room she was in doesn't open wide enough.
• Lots of muttering. I don't know what about.

Really wasn't in the mood for this today, but that's the way it was. I still feel a big dark cloud in my head about today. I get that sometimes.

They can get this by locking the door on the other loos…
will consider your suggestion when it next arises though… thanks

Im completely with you. I wouldn't go upstairs in anyone else's house unless I had too - and then I would ask before I did. I see downstairs as a communal living space, that I'm happy to share and socialise in, but upstairs is my private space.
My MIL also loves finding a reason to go upstairs in my house - I've never said I hate it but I do. She comes over sometimes when we are at work to take dog out and I'm pretty sure she even pops upstairs then! It's just to be nosey I think.

Spot the weird posters claiming the OP is not weird

And trust me, I'd have absolutely no interest in nosying through someone's pig-sty of a room (not necessarily you, OP!).

I have inlaws who like to root around in my bedroom and who I have discovered napping in my bed while I was out. I’d put an electrified baby gate across the stairs if I could. And this.

I have never been remotely interested in other peoples bedrooms and it’s never occurred to me that my Mum or MIL when they were alive would be ‘nosy’ .

I'd never expect a visitor to ask to use a loo but I can't stand people poking about in my bedroom. What reason does anyone else have to go in there? I would never go into someone's bedroom without being invited, many people would think nothing of hiding around. I suppose we are all different. I just wouldn't want the nosy people in my house.

Does anyone remember the poster with a nosy MIL who got details for emigrating to Australia and put them in her bedside cabinet?

No, but that sounds amazing. What happened??

My parents in law started hinting about me being pregnant after finding a positive test literally hidden at the back of a cupboard in my en-suite bathroom. I had been, but I had lost it, and I could have done without their painfully obvious enquiries, on top of that, on top of sheer rage at the intrusion.

Sorry, I’m merailing. Inlaws are a rich vein of stories for me.

@Angrywife Visitors shouldn't go in any room in a house without being invited in to them.
Regardless of who they are in the family, they're a guest, and should remember that.

No wonder you’re so angry.

Maybe it’s a cultural difference, but surely, your MIL should feel more welcomed in your home. Your post comes across as you wanting to keep your MIL at a distance/ kinda rude imo.

I wouldn’t want my own parents in my bedroom, kids know not to go in our room when they have friends over etc…. It’s a basic rule and it’s not about being unwelcoming - I’ve never been in friends bedrooms or my sisters - none of my business and if you can’t have privacy in your own house - where can you?

Do you go in others bedrooms?

I would consider it odd if a guest went in my bedroom for no reasonable purpose, but it wouldn't really occur to me that anyone would do that tbh. I wouldn't especially think to keep my bedroom door shut. I certainly wouldn't be bothered if they went upstairs, for example to use the bathroom.
Those of you with the 'no guests upstairs' rule, do you never have guests to stay?!