To be p****d of with DH for helping MIL 3 days running ???

[cjones2979]

My MIL lives just down the road from us, but has never really been interested in seeing much of us or our kids. My DH is one of 3 and really suffers from middle child syndrome.

His mum is all for his elder brother and younger sister and their kids, but has no time for us or ours.........

..........until she wants something !!!!

She called on Saturday to ask DH to go down to help her DP move their TV because they wanted to paint their TV stand before their new TV arrives. Bearing in mind my DH works 6 days a week and had only been home half an hour when she called, he then disappeared to hers for an hour and a half as they then collared him into helping with a few other things.

Anyway, yesterday she called again to see if she could pop down as she wanted to talk to DH about something.

She asked him if he would paint her woodwork for her after work and weekends (her DP is pretty useless !!!). She said she would pay him to do it, but thats not the point, with the hours he works, we don't see a lot of him as it is.
(On top of this, we have 2 DS's, one is 5, the other 10 months and the eldest is Autistic and can be a handful a lot of the time so it's nice to share the responsibility when DH gets home instead of having to deal with it all myself).
As she was leaving, she then asked DH if he could pop back home with her & help her DP put the TV back on the stand. He was then gone another hour and a half !!!

And now, today, she called again at 6pm to ask him if he could pop round again to help them set up their new TV which was delivered today !!!!! So of course, he disappeared again (with me letting him know I was not happy as it is the kids tea & bedtime), and came home over an hour later.

MIL seems to have no regard for me or our family life. It's all about her, yet DH says "how high" when she says "jump" !!

AIBU ???

(sorry this post is sooooo long, rant over now !!! ).

But because we're now on the doorstep, it's expected that we can drop everything to nip round when she wants help.

perhaps you need to move house .....

I wish !!!!!!

tbh cjones you DH needs to say no sometimes..not all the time..but sometimes..and have you invited her around for dinner?...

Yeah they've been round to dinner at ours loads. Not so much recently because I got fed up of it always being one-sided (and because they don't seem to know when to leave !!!), but they used to be invited a lot.

I don't know if you say one of my previous posts further up, but I said in it that I invited her round for dinner for Mothers Day a couple of years ago and they said yes originally. Then DH phoned her on the day to say Happy Mothers Day & find out what time they were coming round for her to say that they weren't going to bother (can't remember the reason they gave, but we were sure its because they are heavy smokers and don't like the fact that they can't smoke in our house). We found out later on that they went round to SIL's instead !!!

But you're right, DH does need to say no sometimes, but he can't seem to and thats what pisses me off because she then takes advantage of the fact that if she wants help, he'll be there straight away.

Its hard for your DH when you feel obligated to your parent..but just talking to him about sometimes thinking about his own family and their needs.. will maybe help him think before dropping everything and going to his mum..

Sounds scarily like my DH who is also a middle child. His bro's don't live locally so he is the one who MIL calls on all the time (FIL had a major op recently so can't do much at the mo).

In fairness she does help out with DD and obviously with FIL recovering she does need him, but perhaps not 4 or 5 weekends in a row, and then all we hear about is how wonderfully the other 2 are doing and how fabulous they are which really pisses me off, even though I get on v. well with younger BIL and have nothing against older one.

If your hubby won't front up to her would you consider saying something yourself?
I've had to do this recently (over a slightly different issue) and thought it would cause WW3 but seems to have had the desired effect so far !

Could you put arsenic in her tea? She sounds like an absolute pain in the backside. Why do you live near her anyway? BIG mistake. I have a sea between both sets of parents and it's great.