Mother in law

[Markor]

Family/inlaw issue.
Hi ,
I have been with my wife for almost 20 years and over that time we have spent a lot of time with her mother & step dad - often they would come to our house once every two weeks and stay over the weekend .
we do an awful lot for them and I always make them feel welcome.
many times over the years the mother in law will refer to our home just as her daughters ( it is my wife and myselfs home jointly) . I have corrected her on many occasions and she simply brushes it away. I always find it a sleight of hand and to be honest, disrespectful.
this weekend just gone our pet dog had gone upstairs and my wife said to her Mum that he had been in our bedroom hiding from our tortoise ( he’s a silly dog!)
in front of me the mother in law laughs that the dog was hiding and says to the hard of hearing father in law that the dog was in her daughters bedroom - I corrected her and said I think it might be mine also , she then repeated to the father in law that the dog was on her daughters floor in there. I corrected her again that I think she means “our” floor.
The mother in law then replied “ Yeah whatever”.
I was fuming and told this to my wife when out the room . She’s been doing it years and if put on the spot always says “I don’t mean anything” .
after my wife having words with her mum in the kitchen , about half an hour later the mother in law said “ I’m sorry , I didn’t mean anything about it’ . I was still angry/upset and told her how it’s not on, that she’s been doing it for years and that I always make them welcome in our home and that I personally put home jobs on hold when they stop over . That I find the comments disrespectful , particularly the “yeah whatever” when challenged about it.
in typical mother in law fashion, she then got all defensive and sat in another room.
The atmosphere was terrible , the mother and father in law had a cooked meal my wife made, stayed a couple of hours after that ( I just wanted her to leave) .
my wife agrees her mother is being disrespectful but there is a degree of “ you know what she’s like”.
right now I want to keep her away from our home for several weeks or so, so she can realise snd understand it is my home also and she needs to respect it.
am I being petty or out of line? . Thoughts please. Thank you

You’re being ridiculous. I’ve lived with my partner for 19 years and even he calls it my room sometimes. For eg my laundry basket will need bringing up and he’ll say ‘do you want me to put this in your room’? I’ll do the same to him sometimes. You sound bloody exhausting

It is also the house of Ddog and Dtortoise, and should be referred to at every mention.

My MIL does this all the time. Despite the fact I put the best part of £80k in as a deposit and earned significantly more for the first 10 years of our mortgage (still earn slightly more now).

Try not to let it get to you. It's been 20 years you won't change her.

my daughter always calls my parents house "nanny's" house when my mum never bought the home, my dad did my mum had no financial input whatsoever, all the grandchildren refer to it as 'nannys" and I'm sure when my GM was alive she said she was going to "her daughter's" home when telling people she was visiting.
It's a turn of phrase and I understand why your feeling pissed about it and disrespectful but it's a drop in the ocean when it comes to in-laws.

You've made your feelings clear to her, your wife seems to back you. I don't think there's much you can do now unless you ban her from your home until she comes around to your way of thinking - which may never happen
Let it go

Is there a wider issue of you feeling like she doesn’t accept you as family? So although this seems like a small non issue to most people- within a framework of you not being accepted or not being good enough I can see it would grate.

my mil was avidly waiting for my husband to come to his senses and leave me and be with someone she felt more suitable ( she also was convinced her daughter should have married the then Prince Andrew but that’s another story). She’s dead now and our 30th wedding anniversary is coming up :-)

Yanbu.

My assumption is not about what she said its about how you believe she views you and that you feel you arent valued and respected by your inlaws.

I think if they demonstrated in other ways that they appreciated ,/ loved / cared for you then you wouldn't care about this turn of phrase. Sound fair?

The fact mil doubled down is a bit of a dick move on her part.

The fact is your mil is NOT going to change and if possible you shouldn't damage your marriage by locking horns with mil.
Its a fools errand.

Ideally you want to just side step this and give it less space.
So its a pricess thing of managing her not an emotional thing.

You anf your wife to agree a path going forward.
I think your wife visiting them at theirs for foreseable is perfectly reasonable actually. No one needs to say "you cant come round" she just goes to them.
I personally also wouldnt care if they were at my house as long as I was out but its fair enough to want space.

Fine. But if you were asked to stop would you not just stop. If she has been in his life for 20 years and he is kind to her surely she can just stop when its highlighted it bothers him.
Continuing when you know you are causing offence to someone you should respect and care about is rude. And the yeah whatever comment not needed.
I would be upset by it. Would get over it but I see op point.

Wow. I’m afraid that you’re ’fuming’ about this is a huge red flag for me. What else do you fume about?
this is an absolutely standard way of parents speaking and it’s never crossed my mind to be upset about it.

Having a conversation saying that ahe is always made to feel welcome isn't 'kicking off.' Men can have a constructive conversation and 1, be upset and 2, it doesn't mean they're 'kicking off.' 😂

The easiest and most effective thing in this, is for the mother in law to just simply stop. After being asked a thousand times.

lol, indeed, every single time. Not ‘let’s pop over to Sandra’s house’ but, ‘let’s pop over to Sandra, Bob, Tim, Catherine, Poppy and betsies house’ . Utterly ridiculous.

I think when you said “In typical mother in law fashion” you devalued any point you may have had.
Apart from that, it’s a mountain out of a molehill. She’s explained she means nothing by it, your father in law is deaf so having to have things repeated so she’s perhaps in the habit of shortening/summarising information for him.

How is telling his MIL how he feels 'kicking off?'😂

Just say you hate men. It'll be easier for you.

Yr a Weirdo 😂

I refer to "our"bedroom and my room. My house, my garden, my garden etc. But in reality its all "ours"

Well we've been married for 35 years. Our second house was joint, the equity mostly mine. Since we bought it in 1992, MIL has referred to our house as DS's house, our DC as DS's children. I know better. She doesn't know the house is entirely in my name for business reasons.

I don't give two hoots. Why does it bother you so?

Stop trying to turn this in to a man/woman thing. It’s a ridiculous thing to be fuming about regardless of sex.

What a baby. My daughter and SIL both pay their mortgage. I’ll still say ‘I’m visiting Jane’s house’. The kids say they’re coming to ‘Mums’. My step kids are visiting their ‘Dads’.

Completely agree with you, this behaviour is deliberately hurtful and just feels spiteful.

You're annoyed and uncomfortable by how she speaks to you, it's up to you how you you go forward, but I would not put up with a mil who disrespects me, she would not be welcome in my home as many pp say you should, why is it different for a woman not to tolerate her DH's mother's poor behaviour but you should get over yourself!

I thought we were all for men talking and expressing their emotions rather than bottling it up.

Are we now saying they can only do it on our terms?

This so reminds me of my childhood where men used to talk about my mum and aunt getting all worked up over nothing...

Well, I can't get my kids' names right - half the time my son gets the cat's name - so being expected to remember to add 'and BIL's' every time I mentioned the house / car etc would be a big ask. I'd try, but in all honesty I'd feel like he was being petty, which I'm guessing is how the mother-in-law feels.

But if she's got form for being mean & this is part of a wider issue, then that's different.