It's a MIL one…..

[cosmobrown]

background - I am autistic and pretty set in my ways. Everyone knows this.

MIL likes to "help" when she comes to visit. I find this very difficult and everyone also knows this. Because of where she lives she visits for multiple days at a time. I have said to DH I can only cope for max 5 days!
She arrived yesterday and announced she will be staying until the New Year!!!!!
I said to DH did he know this, and he said yes, but she will go to other relatives for a few days. He hadn't explained this to me before so it was a shock.
Today MIL has "helped" by taking my washing out of the machine for me and leaving it (folded up) wet, in the basket.

AIBU to not want MIL going through my washing - which includes underwear?
I'm already set on edge now and she's only been here a matter of hours.

Simple solution...ask for her help with jobs that you can cope with her doing. She wants to feel useful, you dont want her help. You can create stuff for her to do if needs be.

She is your husband's mum. Its Christmas. She wants to be with her son and family, and I expect he quite likes spending time with her too.

Sorry autism or not, somethings we all have to work through and find a way.

You are autistic and set in your ways and everyone knows. Your mother in law might be autistic, not diagnosed and no one knows. It may be harder for her than you realise. She is perhaps naturally active and needs to be doing things or maybe she feels valued if she is useful.
it is easy to be annoyed by people but honestly she could be an awful woman rather than a kind helpful one.
I think you are being a bit unreasonable. I fold my wet washing as I get it out of the machine, it helps the creases drop and make it easier to peg out and less ironing. Most of us wear underwear, it is not a secret! As for peeling spuds doesn’t everyone use the sink? I have no idea what an oxo peeler is. But does it matter?

You aren’t unreasonable.

Can you take yourself away for a few days so you don’t have to deal with her ?

Most people I know have either ADHD or Asd (including myself). Your mother in law sounds a tad annoying, but she’s actually just trying to be helpful, don’t worry I’m guessing your clean underwear didn’t shock her that much. If you work in your resilience you might find that you can manage to enjoy her company a little more. Definitely chat with your husband, he should have kept you informed. However he obviously wanted her there and felt he found talk to you about it because of your reaction. It’s his Mum, they don’t stay around forever.

It is not on that DH didn’t tell you long she was staying, waiting until she arrives makes
is worse as you don’t have time to prepare.

I don’t understand why you would fold wet washing, seems a total waste of time! Hang it to dry or put it in the dryer, yes! Fold wet washing - why?!?!?!?!?!

My MiL is annoying in the totally opposite way in that she will sit on the sofa and ask other people to do stuff for her like make a cup of tea, several times a day and do nothing to help at all. She manages to dysregulated my ASD son frequently then acts like it’s his fault and shouts at him! She lets them use her tablet so they’ll sit quietly despite us having screen time limits for them so that they don’t spend all day on their screens!

If she and FiL do decide to unload the dishwasher they pile it all up on the workshop and says ‘we didn’t know where it all went’ but oddly they can manage to find the drawer/cupboard with the spoons, mugs, plates, pans etc when they need to use them but seemingly ‘forget’ once they need to put them away again!

I also struggle when I have them here for too long as I can’t relax and am constantly on edge and trying to keep DS regulated.

Why do you have her over? I wouldn't.

You can't last til NY Day. I think you need to have a real full on argument with her and read her the riot act and tell her if she does one more thing she will need to leave.

Your husband is an arsehole who doesn't understand or empathise with you. You need to do more than vent to him, you need to read him the fucking riot act, in front of her, preferably.

I get you. My MIL does this & I don’t find it helping. I’ve often hosted at mine & when I accept her help she somehow makes it so I feel like I’m helping her. She once tried to shoo me out my own kitchen when I was prepping food. She doesn’t want to help but take over. I thought by giving her tasks would be better but she’ll actually say I don’t want to do that. I’d rather do what you’re doing. Which would be making the food, which as I’m hosting think it’s something I should be doing. She also has no qualms in emptying a kitchen cupboard and doing a mini spring clean in the middle of a family bbq. Where I’ve laid out salads, homemade burger sauces. Chopped peppers & salads for the burger topping etc. she’ll dump the contents of my cupboard amongst it all.

she’s cleaned my bath with toilet tissue meaning I’m running a bath & having to fish out bog roll bits, she’s bleached my red towels (20y ago they where fashionable) leaving me with no clean bath towel & no way of transporting these wet towels downstairs to put in the wash without getting bleach on myself or carpets. She had a key to take in a delivery for us came home to all my laundry done folded wet on the work top. No place to dry them & had damp washing smell on the clothes after & had to throw away some of the items. When we moved we’d have her over & she said she’d vacuum whilst I took the kids to school. Came back to my furniture all in the middle of the room with a massive scratch along my wood flooring from a heavy real wood cabinet. Again just vacuum don’t move furniture. If she decided to iron she’d just iron over pictures on Tshirt’s where it ruined the top & took ages to clean the iron. She’d make dramatic gasps if there happened to be bin juice if she emptied the bin etc. I ask her not to do it & she would literally ignore me. She’d just do it anyway. She was the same with SIL who eloquently put it as it’s my moms way of asserting a dominance over you. She doesn’t want to help but if she was a dog she’d take a big steaming shit in the middle of a room to say it’s hers.

she has said that our home is also hers as it’s her sons money that’s paid for it. She’s also made these comments about SIL house. She has an entitlement over her kids things. I’m lucky because both H & SIL do reassert boundaries & like a dog (SIL analogy not mine) needs constant reinforcement

I don’t think she’s unreasonable either. I think MIL is taking over & not respecting boundaries. Just doing jobs is rude. Offering to help & only doing the task given is being polite anything else in encroaching into someone else’s personal space

Can you go visit your family during MIL visit

Your husband sounds selfish and like his mother chooses not to listen to you.
No way would I tolerate someone coming for a week with no conversation and 5 days is far too much too.
Pack a bag and go away for a few days.
Book into a hotel or visit someone yourself.

I have a small holiday home on the coast and a friend of mine had a husband who thought it was reasonable to ask his brother and two children and mother to come to their home without discussion for all of Christmasand NY. She doesn't have children.
She was furious. It wasn't the first time either.
Her last remaining parent had died some months earlier and she wanted a quiet Christmas at home and had told him this.

I offered her my cottage and despite it being cold and un lived in for about 3 months, she headed off with an electric blanket, stuff for a fire and all the nice bits of food she had bought.
She had a really love week and her single sister joined her for a few days.

Her husband was furious and quite nasty when she said she wouldn't be back for new year. The time away gave her the space she needed to not go along with putting half her inheritance into buying a new home which would automatically become a marital asset despite them being married only 3 years.

She decided to take her time and went into counselling. She realised he was very controlling, a bit of a bully, and by the summer she had told him she wanted a divorce.
She never regretted it.
She met someone else a couple of years later and has been very happy for the past 15 years with him.

My MIL is nice but she stays regularly as she helps with childcare (we don’t need her to but it’s nice for our kids so I go with it). I hate that she stays over, I find it too much but she lives far away. She ‘helps’ too which usually means hand wash only stuff gets ruined as it’s all thrown in the dishwasher 😭

I thought my MIL was coming for a couple of weeks over Christmas but is staying for six.

She is British but lives in another country. She is elderly so likes to make the most of the trip.

She only stays for as long as you let her.

I'd be off seeing friends. Dh can deal with her.

I don't necessarily think it is a 'you problem'. An adult of sound mind should be able to hold themselves back from 'helping' when you've specifically told her you're set in your ways and don't want any help. Folding a wet blanket is something an adult should know not to do, as well.

After this visit, I'd be having a talk with DH about how unfair it was of him to not discuss the length of time his mother was staying. You deserve some say in this, too, and he has to recognise that.

For now, I'd try to find things she can do that will be the least annoying and ask her to help with that instead. She'll probably still find ways of 'helping' that are anything but helpful, but maybe you can distract her some of the time with manufactured jobs that will be easy to correct or won't bother you as much if she does them her way instead of yours.

For things like worrying about her seeing your underwear, I get it, but you're best off letting it go.

If my MIL folded my wet washing she’d be right out of the order. My MIL likes to wash up dishes even though we have a dishwasher. She then shoves them all in together on the draining board with bits of food still stuck on.

😂 or get her to retile the roof

I think i must be the only person who thinks YABU. My in laws used to come to stay and FIL would take over the kitchen, cooking. I loved it as I didn't have to cook (lazy ex DH never cooked) and a few dishes put back in the wrong cupboard is not that big a deal. MIL would do all sorts without me asking. She was trying to lighten our load I loved her for it. Missed them staying when I got divorced but keep in touch

Wowzers this thread helps me feel seen. I hate it when my MIL stays. And since we have recently moved a bit closer she is now coming more frequently and I have 5 nights over new year. I'm dreading it. I dont want her to touch ANYTHING of mine or do ANYTHING, because everything is accompanied by non-stop commentary which always includes telling me that her way of doing something is better than the way I do it, in subtle ways which sadly my DH can't detect and thinks I'm completely out of order. So if I try to cook something I know she likes she will tell me her way of doing it. If I cook something she doesn't like she will tell me that and say she'll just have the vegetables and refuse to eat it. She constantly clears the kitchen which drives me bananas. So after about 24 hours I am so angry I can barely look at her, and that makes her worse because she realises I'm stressed with her and then she is stressed.

The first time I met her, we were engaged and she commented on the size of my thighs and that the wedding dress on the magazine page open at that moment wouldn't suit me. And then commented that I wouldn't fit in my wedding dress if I had second helpings of crumble.

She told various extended family members that we jad had IVF even though it wasn't something we wanted anyone else to know, and had the cheek to ask if the baby was DHs when I was pregnant with firstborn.

I've had 21 years of her and it just gets worse and worse.

Thanks for listening to my rant 😅

You’re not at all unreasonable. If MIL touched my underwear it would freak me out! It would feel like a huge invasion of my privacy. Fortunately my MIL and FIL live too close to need to stay over but I do empathise.

Unfortunately MIL lives a long way away so I understand why she has to stay over. DH is her only child, but she does have siblings who live about an hour away from us.

My own parents are now here as well, and DH and both DC (age 20+ yrs) are all working pretty much non stop now until New Year so it's up to me to entertain all the oldies.
I've managed to get MIL to go to her brothers house until NYD now, so she is leaving tomorrow and coming back for a night on Friday.

I'm still fuming with DH though. His mum annoys him as well, but he's mostly out at work so he doesn't actually see that much of his mum.
and to all those struggling with their "helpful" relatives.

Actually, I've just realised that this morning DH asked his mum if she would take the washing out of the machine and hang it up on the airer in the utility room.
It was only jumpers, so I didn't mind. thought I'd cope with that, but I've realised she's forgotten to do it! So I'm off to do that now.

No, I actually feel sorry for the mil.

My mil used to iron everything we owned. Even flannels. Dh's work shirts would be ironed and folded to the size of a folded (ironed) hanky. Absolutely waste of time. It was a complete mess...
And we had a lady who came and did our ironing - paid....
Mil just liked to faff. Ime fil insisted on doing the washing up when we had a dishwasher.. I just left them to it.

I let her wash up the stuff r=that wouldn't fit in the dishwasher last night and she broke a wine glass.