Mother in law

[chloesl1808]

My MIL lives down in England and we are in Scotland.

She told us she was coming up on 23rd December but when I say she is the WORST person at organising her life, I would be underestimating. Her organisation and planning skills are non-existent. Anyway my husband never heard from her in the run up to Christmas and on her last trip up here, he explained that this Christmas we were just going to have it as just the 3 of us - me, my husband and our 1 year old daughter. So he never hears from here until early hours of Christmas Day!!! And she says she will be driving up on Christmas morning and she will be staying with us. My blood BOILS. First of all, the audacity to just assume you're coming here for Xmas but also to be staying here! Also, she is vegan and we are not so we didn't have much exciting foods in the house for her. I would usually feel bad about this but I didn't as she made me so mad just showing up like that.

I eventually got over this rude and disrespectful behaviour until today!!!! It continues... we had my husbands friend over to catch up with us as he lives in London now. He came with his girlfriend who is lovely. Anyway, try and cut a long story short, the girlfriend was explaining how she uses certain CBD items and my MIL (!!) then goes on to say she has certain illegal (in the UK anyway) items in her car. The girlfriend asks if they can go and try some and off they go. 2 woman, one in her 40s and the other in her 60's with children and grandchildren run off like 2 little kids going to a sweetie shop and disappear for around 2 hours to go and smoke said substance in MIL's car. Honestly I'm furious.

I am a very chilled laidback person and not stuck up when it comes to people using these substances but the thing that boiled my blood the most was that first of all they were in our house visiting us then running off to do that, we had ordered pizza so they then returned when my husband went out to look for them to wave them that the pizza had arrived. My house is now filled with the smell of the substance and my poor little girl was in the living room when they came in and filled the room with the stench.

To top this all off, I have just enjoyed the best year of my life on maternity leave raising our daughter and I go back to work on 6th jan so I was so excited for our Xmas day together and having a chill couple of weeks before I go back as it is going to be so hard for me.

Honestly I feel disrespected but may be overreacting. Like I say, I'm such a chill person but this really has hit a nerve with me. I told my husband already I'm so mad and he said he is to. He says he will speak to his mum but unsure.

Anyway just looking for any words of wisdom or for people to tell me to get a grip if I'm being ridiculous! Lol.

I think you're being quite pearl clutchy about 2 adults choosing to smoke weed away from your house, TBH.

She was a dick to turn up as she did, though. There's no way in hell I'd accept her being there til Jan 2nd.

I’m afraid this is a false equivalency. The goat in both sceneries is being harmed/taken advantage of. Where as the weed only does harm in one.

The biggest factor in global warming is capitalism. Likewise, people are killed every day for money - much more so than drugs. Do you refuse to participate in society and never have a bank or touch cash? No. Every good vegan knows the best they can do is minimise their impact and live as green as possible, despite the many horrors.

Ethically sourcing something that can otherwise be unethically sourced is a much better and more accurate equivalence. For example, being against taxidermy because of the cruelty and disrespect to the living creature and all the harm hunting for sport has done. This however is very different to collecting deer antlers that naturally fall off every year, or finding bones from an animal that happened to pass of natural causes. This is ethical taxidermy, Something you’ll find a fair few vegans do take an interest in.

Children may very well stab each other over football matches too. This doesn’t make the entire sport an abomination, just the toxic culture that surrounds it. Something you can choose not to support or participate in, while still watching a game, supporting a team or in fact playing football or yourself.

I think I’d say I had guests coming to stay for Hogmanay and she would need to vacate the spare room.

I will add that while I don’t personally participate I do know many vegans who grow their own. They tend to yield far more than they can personally smoke and sell to friends. It never involves children or gangs or anyone being murdered Fgs.

Do you know about the Caballeros Templarios cartel? Just one of the many mafias involved with the blood avocado industry. I’m sure you’re not happy to spread it on your toast in the morning, are you!? Just one example, but people do die for it. People somewhere are being killed for everything that’s big business, even your vegan favourites.

Options - Leave and visit a friend/family member until she leaves. DH can host her.

Report her car anonymously to the police and she might get put away for a night in the cells (risky one though as the car could be impounded then you'll be stuck with her 🤣).

Fake an illness and live in your bedroom until she leaves.

Start cooking bacon, maybe the smell will scunner her?

Book the cheapest hotel room you can find and pretend you actually had plans for the festive limbo period and she needs to leave tomorrow.

Five magic words:

You need to leave. Now.

Oh FFS, stop acting as if she can do what she wants in YOUR house!

'No Gladys, you will not be here until the 2nd. I am going back to work on the 6th and I need time to chill before then. I need you to be on the road by lunchtime tomorrow at the latest.'

Don't fart around waiting for your husband to talk to her. Do it yourself. ASAP.

wildly inappropriate behaviour.

I was feeling sympathetic to MIL at first but that is actually really annoying.

Would she have been alone for Christmas or would she have other family or friends to be with?

I don’t think she’s disorganised in this instance. She planned it all, message at 3am when DH was sleeping, and then just turn up so you couldn’t turn her away.

Next year you need to tell her early on that you have other plans. Don’t wait for her to contact you, tell her in October / November what your plans are.

And this. Tell DH she needs to leave this weekend.

Mil and friend would have been told to leave. No way would they come back in my house around my child, stoned and stinking of drugs.

MIL sounds kinda fun.
Tell her when you want her to leave.

"Mum - it was lovely having you for Christmas but you need to leave today. We have plans and we're not going to be here and no, you can't stay in our home while we're away."

Even if your plans are to sit in your home with the curtains drawn and watch movies, it's just not going to be with her too.

DH should have spoken to his mum when she suggested coming in the first place and stood up to her. His friend's gf is the person I would be unhappy with regarding the cannabis smoking - I would have said it stinks and I don't want them taking drugs on my property, particularly not with my children around.

I think at this point I would be feigning illness and asking MIL to leave. It doesn't sound like she was ever invited but she is going to be pissed off. He should have set her straight in the first place then a lot of this wouldn't have happened.

Is there any chance you can try to see the funny side of this, @chloesl1808 ? I think if my MiL skulked off with some rando ring-in Christmas guest to sit in her car getting stoned for several hours I'd never be able to look at her again without falling off my chair laughing.

I'd have loved my MIL to have been stoned over chrismas.

Many thanks for all your interesting words of wisdom.

Update: she's staying elsewhere from today, hallelujah!

The twist on the weed chat really was a great surprise.

It at DH's friend's house, puffing away? Glad you're off the hook.

Have you not seen Gentlemen?

Why? There are no animal products involved. Marijuana is 100% plant.

Most vegans I had known in the past are about animal cruelty not people, they preach about it all the time to whoever will listen. Although I agree that animals are nicer than people in general.

But where I am you can get pot from a chemist with a script so not all weed is this murderous drug trade that everyone throws their arms up about any time drugs are mentioned on here.. The "think of the children.. Murder murder murder" posts come out. But this is an odd place and many can't see past the clickbait article they read on one of the least reliable tabloids years ago when they start spouting off, it's the in thing to get offended that someone else partakes and therefore must be a child murderer.... 🙄 huge stretch but by blasting that on these threads they think they've done their part in the fight on drugs... 😂

I’m afraid your husband needs to step up and control the situation. It would appear that he didn’t contact her at all in the run up to Xmas and just assumed no news was good news. If she has form for this kind of think he needs to manage her better. As for getting stoned……it’s a bit rude to bugger off outside for 2 hours.

With experience working with vulnerable teens for the past 20 years, and seeing the impact of "just a bit of pot" on their lives and futures, it is absolutely disgusting that you can think it's funny.

Think you misinterpret the part of this that is funny....
But I know people need to find reasons to be offended over everything so carry on 😀

Can we at least all agree that the effects of weed on mental health can be quite critical?

Before MIL left our house yesterday, she broke down and said she has been thinking about killing herself and so on and so on. She also believes that by 2030 the governments are going to be locking us all down in our cities to control the population. The list goes on including the latest which was 'mankind was complete vegetarian 10,000 years ago'

So, yeah... do I really trust her to be using that around my 1 year old when this is her mental state? Absolutely not. I'd be more than happy if, by her smoking weed, is a benefit and improving her life in some way but all I can see is that it is detrimental to her mental and physical wellbeing.