To document all the ways my MIL does my head in this Christmas?

[LivingInaBuiltSite]

If you get along with your MIL then this is not the thread for you, so no haters please. I will find it helpful for my sanity to vent. And possibly my marriage.

She is here for 6 days.
I work shifts for the NHS so working most of the holidays, often on nights.

1. Got home from a night shift this morning to the sodding dog barking wanting its breakfast (DH blissfully asleep obvs). MIL enters kitchen while I’m trying to have a decaf tea in peace. I let dog out, give it breakfast, let out into garden,
   MIL informs me that I must love the exuberance of a Labrador - having never worked a night shift in her life. I disagree and say it’s embarrassing because she barks so much. MIL then informs me that the dog doesn’t bark because…she doesn’t hear it. Because she doesn’t have her hearing aids in 🤯

2. MIL starts a conversation with DH who then tunes out so it’s left to me to provide a response/attention/engagement. This happens on repeat. ‘D’H will become less D as the days go on.

3. DC - who act all excited for MIL/Gma to arrive - disappear to bedrooms. DH disappears to his office to “do something”. I get left with MIL and have to be the cabaret act - and repeat. Remember, I didn’t actually invite her. (I am now (sadly) parent-free and do not feel like I should have to take on the obligation for someone else’s parent.)

this is only the start…..

My MIL will organise a family meal, and constantly text me asking about times, days, food, drinks etc. and not my husband.. She's not easy to communicate with, she constantly goes around in circles, repeats herself. Sometimes I just ignore her texts because I have a toddler and don't have time.

I agree.

The lack of emotional intelligence on mumsnet re Christmas is shocking at the moment. Do most people not have these moments of irritation with elderly relatives and then think let me be the better person?

I think you are missing who the OP should be irritated with, here...

I don’t put myself in positions like the ones outlined in the OP so I can’t empathise at all.

I hear you OP
Im with you OP

My DH zones out every single time we visit his mother. She’s very overbearing and it’s her way or no way. Last time we visited. I made zero input into thier conversation, it soon ran dry. When we got in the car to go home he asked me why I was so silent. I said I actually wanted him to talk to his mum as she thinks the sun shines out of his backside. He said he had nothing to say to her…… I felt sorry for her TBH. He’s her only child.

I really empathise OP. MIL comes to stay every single sodding Christmas. DH is an only child and his dad isn’t around so it’s always just been him and his mum. Her coming is a non negotiable.

The problem is that she is very benignly irritating. She talks non stop, interrupts me and the DCs all the time, has no appreciation of personal space - she will stand outside the bathroom door and talk to me while I’m on the loo! The DCs also find her irritating because she doesn’t really engage with them and they get annoyed when she asks them the same questions and then interrupts them. She’s been the same for the past twenty years so it’s not a mental decline issue. It is just her personality.

unfortunately my DH does the same as yours. Figuring he’s done his dutiful son bit by inviting her in the first place, he then low-key ignores her by tuning out so she then directs her attention to me and I end up stuck entertaining her while DH and the DCs are AWOL.

She hasn’t done anything wrong as such. But some people are just annoying. And it’s difficult to tolerate for long periods of time - especially when they’re in your personal space 24/7.

I would love a Christmas with just me and DH but I’ve accepted it’s never going to happen while she’s alive.

Vent away!

Vipers are out in force. Vile.

Ah I feel for you, OP.

Agree with PP and you need to outrun DH and the kids!

Your DH should absolutely be doing 99% of chatting/entertaining her, especially as HE invited her and it's HIS mother!

I hear you. I loved my in-laws but also found them exhausting- absolute non stop conversation every single minute led by them on their topics of choice, sometimes for entire days. Dh was pretty good though and would engage so I got a mental break, we did unspoken tag teaming. DP talks to his mum, it’s not rocket science.

This simply isn’t ok. He can’t invite a guest, or fail to uninvite them, and then disappear. (Well, clearly he can but YKWIM.) He needs to check in with you and say to his mum that you’re on nights that week so it will have to be another time, can you all come over for New Year?

As for the dog… well, I’m not a dog person. I’d shove it into the bedroom to wake your Dh.

Exactly. Who would agree to entertaining visitors after a night shift? If my husband suggested having his mum to stay when I’m working nights I’d agree - as long as he was prepared to entertain and feed her, because I wouldn’t be up for it. I have my parents to visit, or I visit them, at a time that suits me and them.

You’re allowed to feel like this OP. I’d suggest you stop trying to have conversations with DH about your feelings and just take action instead. He won’t be able to go to his study as his Mother is there to spend time with him, same with children, ask them what game/film/walk they’d like to do with Grandma and then go to bed because you’re feeling unwell.

This is a case of misdirected anger. MIL does your head in despite doing absolutely nothing wrong yet you make excuses for your lazy, selfish prick of a husband who’s the actual root of the problem.

Nice to know the spirit of Christmas is alive and well in your house!

100% with you OP. Intense and draining having someone who isn’t welcome in your home in your home and it amplifies at this time of year. Not looking forward to MIL being here on Boxing Day - she will never have a seat at the Christmas Day table - keeping my guard up and also protecting DD from her as well 💖

Tbh I think your MIL is getting a lot of annoyance from you when it should be redirected. Point 1, yeh she made a dumb comment about the dog not barking when she actually was but why was she barking?…. Because your DH was asleep and not letting her out. Point 2 is again your DH, MIL is trying to have conversations and he’s ignoring her or not paying attention so you feel like you have to respond. Point 3 again your DH (see a pattern?) and also your DC, although I don’t think it’s the DC role to entertain her.

I'll swap you for mine!

You poor thing op, I feel you. Why don’t you make this the Christmas of dh- when you get home and the dog is barking, go up, put on the light and say your dog is barking and needs letting out and breakfast, I’m having a quick shower and going to bed. Your mum is down there too, wants entertaining but your dog first please!!
talking to mil- you should hear what dh thinks of <related topic> , and go get him out of the study / his phone. Put a notice on his keyboard asking DO WE HAVE ANY GUESTS THAT NEED ENTERTAINING AND ARE YOU LEAVING IT ALL TO YOUR FED UP WIFE??

Vent away lovely, sounds like you need a break!

How long have you been hoping to spew that line, to only sound ridiculous? You sound like you're a miserable pot of sorrow.

Tbh it doesn't sound like she's done anything wrong or annoying and I love a mil bashing post.

As PP walk in the house take dog up and shove in room with DH. Maybe my age but no way I’d put up with his lazy arse laying in bed while I came in from a shift and did his chores. Let alone the MIL issue.

My MIL is always right. But she is tolerable in small doses. It's odd that DH's think it's up wives/partners to entertain their Mothers !

If you don’t want her there, and DH doesn’t really want her there, and the kids aren’t really interested, how has she managed to ‘invite herself’?

six days is ridiculous, but you both seem to be at fault for just allowing it to happen!

not much sympathy from me I’m afraid, it seems to be a.problem of your own making.

@5128gap

Do you mean "egging" on a wife to encourage him to entertain ,chat to and host his own mother.

That's your issue right there.

OP, I have worked in healthcare for 15 years (mental health). People who don't do it don't get how drained you can be after work, and how much it takes out of you to have to do yet more mental load and emotional labour after a full day/night of it. And interacting with your well meaning but clueless MIL is just that - more emotional labour that drains your social battery further.

I cannot host my inlaws any more. In my case it's FIL that incessantly blethers, repeats the same stories, tells me detailed anecdotes about people I've never even met, and gives lots of uninformed opinions about things he knows shite all about. None of it is anything but harmless, but fuck me it's bare irritating, and especially when he's had a drink and he starts at it the minute you come out of the home office/through the door. It makes me want to scream, and of course it's me he beelines for because DC don't want to know and DH will do anything to not spend 1-1 time with him. So honestly, having generally harmless but highly annoying inlaws, I think I know where you're coming from. It doesn't sound that bad on the surface of it, but it's the repeat expectation that you will do the patient listening, the nodding and smiling, the finding things to occupy them.

I highly recommend getting pets your inlaws dislike. MIL self selected out of visiting us when we got the goats, because they broke through the fence and ate the plants she bought for our garden. She took it as a personal affront and hasn't been back. We have since acquired even more goats as an insurance policy!