Hi all,
just wanted to see what you guys think of my current situation with my MIL.
She’s a strong personality.. and my husband and I had a toe to toe with her 20 odd years ago due to her making relentless snide comments. When my husband confronted her, she caused a huge family rift involving his sister (who at that time took their mums side) resulting in our children and my SIL’s children not really growing up together..MIL screamed at my husband for daring to question her motives at that time.
Things simmered down between us all.. my DH and his sister get along ok and we know his sister now realises their mother is a bit of a cow at times.
There is history of difficult behaviour with MiL.. my FIL (who was lovely) passed away 8 years ago.
I appreciate my MIL can get lonely at times even though she keeps relatively busy so she spends time with our family having dinners and my husband pops down to see her every weekend.. I can’t actually do every weekend as she does my head in.. but hubby helps her with her insurances etc and odd jobs around her house.. to be honest the jobs are ridiculous things such as re setting her digital clock… things I know she is more than capable of doing herself… but she’ll call him to help her just to get him to pop by.
About a year ago she started turning up at our house unannounced bringing with her cakes and treats for us all.. sounds nice right? But I found it was her way of coming over.. and in all honesty a bit intrusive.
2 weeks ago, we were all up upstairs getting ready and playing with our new kitten when our dog starts barking and we realised MiL had let herself into our house and was wondering around our kitchen. I tried not to think too much of it as maybe we hadn’t heard the front door knocking..
On Thursday I got home from work and noticed there were some sausage rolls I hadn’t bought in our fridge. Thought my hubby had bought them so again didn’t think about it until yesterday we took MIL for lunch and she asked my children if they had enjoyed the sausage rolls she’d left in our fridge. As it turns out, she had popped over (my husband works from home) had let herself in, played with our kitten and left the food behind in our fridge.. hubby hadn’t even realised she had been in the house as he had been on a call .. but she boldly declares her intrusion over lunch like it’s normal.
I mentioned to my husband that I feel she is over stepping a boundary and that she has no right to just walk into our home like that. His response was that we do that at her home.. but I pointed out that that is his family home and I would never just let myself into her home without him being there.. for me it’s a woman thing and respect.. she’s never lived here and therefore doesn’t have the right to just let herself in..in truth I know he probably agrees with me but is too scared to confront her as she is not a woman you can talk to without her going mad.
AIBU or is this normal for families to just walk in to each others homes?
She didn’t used to do this to my knowledge so not sure what is going on?
I feel like she’s trying to exert her place within our family... she does present herself in a grandiose way anyway and I’ve always felt like she is expects to be no1 in my husbands life.. it has caused many problems within our marriage over the years..
What can we do other than lock our door all the time?