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

This seems insanely dramatic, I will also refer to it as “my room” even though my husband half owns the house and also shares the bedroom.

OP might be a woman.

But whatever sex they are my response would be the same.

I don’t get the first few posters taking issue with your post, what she is doing sounds on purpose because anyone else would say ‘oh sorry I’m used to calling it her room’. I think it was bothering more than it should but now it sounds like a war between ye (which must be tough for your wife!)

I think the reverse happens quite a lot where parents of the man in the relationship assume he earns more and therefore the house is more his

I agree with the majority of others on here. I refer to my mum and step dad's house as mum's, even though it's jointly theirs. My dad and step mum's house is called Dad's, even though he doesn't own it at all. It's step mum's. Brother and SILs house is referred to as Bob's not Bob and Sarah's, even though neither of them own it.
DS2 went to his friends house recently, he messaged me to let me know he was going to Steve's for a few hours. It's not Steve's house. It's not even Steve's Mum's house, it's HA.

Surely using one name is just a shorthand version of the facts in this case, and most people use the name of the person they are closest to.

I expect a lot of these replies would be different if it was a woman and her husband's mother doing this for 20 years.

The point that sticks out to me, is the fact that your MIL keeps referring to the house as her daughters even after being asked not to do this.

Just drop the rope.

Don’t do anything for them. Just be polite and say hi when they are there. Don’t pay, or do anything for them.

If they don’t like or respect you they’ll either be glad you aren’t around, and you are no longer obliged to be there for them, or change their behaviour when they see the consequences.

After 20 years of disrespect most people would’ve stepped back and stopped trying to appease them with that attitude.

I really think it’s not an intentional slight. & I doubt making a stance is going to help your relationship with your MIL, it will put your Dd in a difficult situation, they will gave discussed this now on the phone …
I’d not hang around when they come, just continue with your day as you would have if they’d not come.
They are coming because they want to see their daughter !

The point that sticks out to me is that s/he asked the MIL to stop referring to the house as her daughter's. The OP sounds very controlling over such a minor issue that most people would just ignore.

Sorry OP, but in terms of MIL trouble, this is seriously small potatoes.

But it bothers him and he's allowed to tell her it does. Personally I wouldn't care unless they were saying it with spite to get a reaction but it doesn't mean everyone is the same

I agree with the above, she is doing it deliberately, she knows it wind's you up. Just busy yourself when she is around.

@CanSeeClearlyNowTheRainHasGone and @UniquePinkSwan . Yeah I would say it to a woman . Non argument. And asked for an opinion, well that's my opinion. Big baby . You don't have to like every answer .

I’m with you. She’s clearly doing it on purpose, she’s jealous of your relationship.

It reminds me of my mother when I was a teenager always referring to my closest friend as ‘that girl’ - ‘are you going out with that girl again?’ rather than using her name.

She was jealous, I think something must have happened in her past that I will never understand as years later when I got engaged she said she was relieved I’d be getting married as she didn’t believe in ‘friends’ and if I didn’t just stick to family I’d get hurt. (I’ll never get to the bottom of it, she died 30 years ago).

I get it, OP. These type of micro aggressions seem really trivial individually, but over 20 years they mount up and show a pattern of disrespect. I'm not sure why PPs are being so dismissive.

You've made your point so hopefully they will correct themselves and you can move on. Your wife should be backing you on this too.

There are certainly some double standards going on here.

I get it Markor - it's those little snarks that individually mean nothing, but over 20 years build up to a whole heap of irritation. And I wouldn't accept a "Yeah whatever" from anyone, it's dismissive and rude. People react to irritations in different ways - some don't find them irritating at all, others do. Both are fine - we are allowed to feel how we feel, so although others have dismissed your irritation, I accept it's what you feel and that's OK.

For what it's worth I do refer to houses and bedrooms by the couples' names, and sometimes for brevity, by their joint surname if they share one. So 'We're off to Joan and Jim's this weekend' or 'the Smith's are having a new kitchen'. It's certainly just as quick to say "The dog's in their bedroom" as the "The dog's in Joan's bedroom".

One thing I would say - your wife needs to pick up some slack here - it's not good enough to say "You know whats she's like". I know she's spoken to her DM about it, but she probably said to her "You know what he's like".

How to manage the situation going forward. This has to be in conjunction with your wife. Tell her her DM's snarks, although individually small, mount up and are now at the point where they are starting to adversely effect your relationship with your MIL. Ask her to help reset the relationship, eg meet on neutral ground, no staying overnight, stay at PIL's (and resist the tempation to assign ownership to just FIL!). Ask if she can explain your feelings to her DM in this way and to resist the "That's the way she / he is" reason, as it's not a reason, it's a cop out. At the end of the day, you can't change her or her behaviour, only how you react, so if a reset doen't work, you could step away, stop helping out so much, etc

Grow up. Calling an adult a big baby with silly emojis makes you sound pathetic and very stupid.

Which is exactly what I said. Almost word for word!

I would think it depends on your setup/dynamics. If, for example, your wife is the breadwinner or you are a SAHD then yeah, she’s definitely being snide. Or if you are also a woman I’d think she might be making a point about the relationship. Or if your wife bought the house but it’s a marital asset. Any of those things would make me think she’s being a twat.

Otherwise though she might just be referring to it as her daughter’s out of habit but doesn’t like being pulled up by you so she gets prickly.

I think it’s the fact you’ve explained to her how you feel and she has dismissed it. That’s rude of her.

I didn't. I explicitly said people will assume - but I didn't.

However, I still think it is useful if people have assumed.

Not a mountain you need to die on.

OP your pettiness is ridiculous. Your MIL said it once and you feel the compulsion to continually correct her each additional time she does it and have got your wife involved to be appealed at this disrespect.

This is more about your ego than your MiL.

The fact you are willing to create tension, awkwardness and conflict with your wife’s family over such a minor offence is on you.

YABVVVVU

I was in agreement until you said "typical mother-in-law". There's too many sexist and ageist assumptions-simply having a child that grew up and got married does not mean you're going to be like another person whose child grew up and got married.
It shouldn't matter, but if you are a woman (I'm not guessing gender from usernames), could this be homophobia (as in she wanted her daughter to marry a man)? If so, challenge this. It's not ok.
Unless she has early dementia/cognitive issues, once you've told her something bothers you, she should respect it, so while it wouldn't be a big deal saying it's Cally's house once, she should then realise it's important to you and change.

I regularly say "mums house" or "im visiting mum" but my dad lives there and I am visiting him too.
Your weird. I think you should show your wife this thread as she may want to start her own one!