To be furious at my MIL for cleaning our living room

[GelatinousDynamo]

My MIL and I do not have the easiest relationship, I find her overbearing and "helpful" in a way that totally irritates me. She does whatever she wants and expects to be thanked for it.

It happened again today- FIL wanted to come over to borrow some tools and look at the garage roof with DH (they live about an hour's drive away). She called DH yesterday that she's coming along and will help clean and iron his shirts (he's in his 40s ffs, he's perfectly capable of ironing his own shirts). DH told her that she's welcome to come over, but she won't be cleaning. What happened? While my husband was outside with FIL and on a work call, she "tidied up" our living room. Ultimately, this means that it looks like a tornado swept through it. NOTHING is where it should be, even the furniture has been moved (eg the armchair for "better afternoon light", apparently).

This is not the first time and we've been turning down her "help" for years. Politely at first, then with a categorical no. She used to listen, but since we got married and bought a house, it's like she doesn't give a shit anymore, just comes over and does what she wants. Examples: last summer, she mowed my wildflower meadow in the front garden, because "you don't want those ugly weeds in front". She knew that it was supposed to stay, but she didn't like it, we would not bend when she complained about it being ugly, so she went and killed it. Just before Christmas, she " organised" our kitchen drawers and cupboards. She has form for ironing my clothes (destroying them in the process). Each and every time she's been told not to beforehand.

Every such incident is followed by a conversation with DH and (sometimes) FIL. Every such conversation ends in tears and with statements like "but I only want to help" and "I didn't want to do anything wrong". If DH is really angry (like when she secretly fed our dog to make him like her), it's "but I just want to feel needed". She then tells her sob story to her brothers, who then call my husband complaining that he's not treating his mother right (we're talking about people in their late 60s).

Today, as I came home from work, she welcomed me with "I hope you're not angry with me". I said nothing. They were already leaving as I came in. I'm fucking FURIOUS. I have better things to do than arrange my living room back to the way it should be. Now she's blasting me with text messages all saying "I hope you're not angry with me" and "I've just tidied up a bit". I've ignored her so far, don't even know what I should answer so it it doesn't turn into a huge drama with her in the leading role of Victim. She still doesn't understand that she did something wrong, it's like talking to a teenager.

Excellent! Lesson learned! 🌹

My MIL used to do this sort of thing. She hasn’t been in my house for the last 15 years!

@Emotionalsupportviper I was furious! I'd been purposefully training it to cover the fence and I came home to it completely chopped and dead.

Especially when these same females are also mothers…..

Her reply is infuriating. She has no intention of making any effort to stop her behavior. She didn’t even acknowledge that she purposely and knowingly did exactly what you didn’t like. I would put my foot down with DH and let him know that if she does it again, she is no longer welcome in your home. It is his responsibility to keep her in line and if he fails to do so, he must enforce consequences.

She isn’t a confused old lady. She isn’t being nice. She knows her behavior is hurtful to the OP and she continues it because she gets something out of it. She enjoys being the victim for “trying to help” and “loving too much”. One thing she is doing is sewing seeds of strife in OP’s marriage. She is counting on OP being upset and DH feeling “put in the middle”. The best way to shut this down is for DH to put his foot down hard. Tell her that if she does it again, he will no longer be welcoming her into his home and not budge an inch.

It can be difficult for people whose families are supportive and loving to understand how what on the surface seems like a nice, but misguided gesture, can actually be anything but. When someone repeatedly and purposefully disregards your boundaries, you begin to feel violated. When someone continuously ruins your belongings, snoops and violates your privacy and causes you extra work, you stop believing the “good intentions” they claim and start seeing them as someone who wants to cause harm.

It's such a terrible habit that some parents get into in that they cannot understand why their offspring want to do things differently, ranging from the trivial to the life changing. I think it's such an important part of being a parent to accept that your children will make their own choices in life (yes, even the way they arrange their cutlery draw) and generally its best to shut up about it.

Just be blunt "mil you are a menace to my mental health and so going forwards I will be poking you in the face with a hot metal skewer every time you touch something that does not belong to you" - failing that just ban her from the house. 😁

She's not like a teenager, she's like a toddler. Never allow her to be unsupervised in your house. Ever. Just no. If FIL is doing DIY with DH, she either stays at home or sits with them.

I live in slight organised chaos. If anything gets moved around I would be lost and livid and not able to relax until all was put back as it was

My mum is like this. Talking to her was so frustrating. It’s as you say: like talking to a child. The only thing that worked for me was setting firm boundaries. We just make sure she is never alone in my house. If we have to leave her alone for 5 minutes we lock all cleaning products behind a locked door. I kid you not. At one point it got so bad she was not allowed to stay when she visited, they had to go to a hotel.

I’d take this. If my IL’s came over while I was out DH would have stopped everything he was trying to get done to make them tea and sit around and chat so I would come home to none of the jobs done and the house in a worse mess, would take cleaning over that anyday!

Whole heartily agree agree MIL is cracked in the head but what is bathroom clothes and why couldn't they go in the washing machine if they touched the toilet instead of binning them ?

Cloths sorry I have different cleaning cloths for the bathroom and kitchen that I replace weekly one wipes down the bathroom sink and bath and one wipes down the toilet seat and lid and sits in bleach, I then have one in the kitchen for wiping down counters and sink. I had to reclean my whole kitchen because I obviously didn’t know if she’d used the toilet cloth all over my kitchen.

ah get ya. makes sense now would kill her
I actually have colour coded clothes blue is bathroom pink is kitchen etc. helps ensure everyone knows what one to use

Oh my god this behaviour would make my head explode! First of all, if she has a key please change the locks, no more coming over and doing what she wants. You’ve asked her, told her and even had arguments about and she doesn't care to listen and instead emotionally manipulates everyone to bend her will. These messages of “I hope you’re not angry with me” are baiting you, so you could reply with “ I’ve been thinking about what you did, and I’m not angry just disappointed that even though we’ve asked you not to rearrange our living room, you ignored our request or forgot? Do you think so little of us that you will ignore our wishes? You say are only trying to help, but it’s not help if it’s against our wishes. For example you mowed down my wildflower meadow without my permission, I would never do that to you.” It sounds like MIL loves a guilt trip so let her have one of own. Or say “we’ve said many times the help is not required and in fact is quite unhelpful, so are you deliberately ignoring our wishes or did you forget? I’m worried that we might need to get you some help for your memory.” I hope it’s not memory issues and is in fact MIL being a pain in the arse. X I wish you luck 💐

Ahh reminds me of the time my MIL was feeding our cat whilst we were on holiday, a simple once a day job really and at the time she lived a few roads away...

For some reason unbeknownst to us she decided to strip just our bed whilst we were away, but then hid the bedding at her house, I wish I was joking. That was a great discovery after over 24hrs travelling!

She also said she missed the bin collection whilst we were away, no biggie I thought, but it turned out she had proceeded to go through the entire contents of the wheelie bin as in literally taking everything out of the bin bags and re bagged everything including the contents of the bathroom bins. Wtaf!

I imagine she had a blast going through all of our stuff uninterrupted for 2 whole weeks.

Oh and she used to take down notes/dates from our family calendar and school stuff on the fridge and opened two letters on the side. I shit you not.

Unsurprisingly, we don't have a lot to do with her anymore and thinking about it, I'm not sure we ever got that bedding back

I'm impressed at the tolerance of all those posters saying they'd reply 'I'm not angry with you'. I could not do that.

I'd have had to say straight to her 'Yes I am angry with you. Of course I am, and you know it. You've had the nerve to come into my home and re-arrange my furniture, remove a photo of my parents and replace it with one of you. Of course I'm angry. It's an utterly disgraceful way to behave and you know it. Now go away and cry to whoever you like, but you and I both know that you would be furious if someone came round to your house and pulled this kind of silly stunt. It's fucking ridiculous. You won't be allowed into my home again because you are intrusive, rude and you don't listen. The only excuse would be if you are developing dementia - which is of course a possibility, but I suspect you are just doing it on purpose'.

I can't be doing with tip toeing round narcs.

she still aruging the point -she didnt movestuff she was just helping you

someone like tat wont ever change

So she marked her territory and you said thank you?! She didn’t mean well. You both know it. Her reply shows it. She just won.

god speed OP. This won’t get better.

I'd go for photoshopping the picture, but replace MIL with you. It's what she's fighting against, anyway, so you might as well fight fire with fire. And put the photo of your parents beside it.

I can't find "thank you" in the OP's text any more than I can find "sorry" in the one from the MiL.

OK, I'm refreshing this post because you all have helped me lots back then and I could use some more MN common sense.

My ILs are coming over on Friday for dinner (it's DHs birthday). We've been pretty LC since exchanging those messages after the "cleaning" incident, she's tried to contact me multiple times, but I've always kept it short and focused. Thing is, I KNOW she will want to address our issues, in front of everyone, and it stresses me out. I don't even know why I'm so stressed and worried about it, I just know that she will make me look bad in front of DHs entire family.
So, when the topic inevitably comes up (she will definitely try and make herself look accommodating and heartbroken and so so sad because she's only tried to help, the poor darling), how do I act?
My first instinct would be to tell her that I consider everything cleared and that there's nothing else left to be said. But I know her, she will push the issue. What do I do?

Seriously, I'm a grown up woman with a stressful, successful professional career where I handle entitled assholes all day long, I don't understand myself here, why does the idea of speaking to her again worry me so much?

And btw, this is the dog photo that has replaced the picture she put up last time, I'm very proud of it 😂

What I do is write a script, learn it and then deliver my lines when the cue arrives. It helps a lot.

Gorgeous dog!! 😀

When she says something just say you've already asked her to leave your things alone and maybe she needs a Dr's appt for her hearing problems.

agreed with the script
"with respect MIL that is not true, you know you are not helping as you have been told multiple times that it is not, and asked multiple times not to" Calm and factual
, then a breezy 'more potatoes anyone?".