MIL annoying as hell!

[20thCenturyBoy]

My MIL has been staying with us over Xmas. She is loved by her friends, and her grandchildren, but I find her very annoying! I accept that I am not perfect and will probably come across badly here but need to vent.

My wife drinks red wine (as does my MIL). Sometimes more than she should but she is a grown woman and it's up to her. My MIL deemed that she had too much to drink a couple of nights ago and has a drink problem. Perhaps is an alcoholic and should seek help. And that I have enabled that. And that as we have a 10 month old baby (who is breast fed a bit but is eating now) she may have to 'report it to the health service'!

This was on Boxing Day. My MIL had had too much red wine the night before. My wife accepts that sometimes she drinks too much. Fair enough. However to accuse your daughter of being an alcoholic (she absolutely isn't) and saying she'll report her is an awful thing to say at Xmas.

There was obviously a heated exchange after this accusation and it has really affected my wife over the last few days. I haven't said anything to my MIL about this but found myself getting increasingly annoyed by her. We are very different people. She talks from the minute she wakes up until she goes to sleep. Mainly waffle, or repeating the same stories again and again. I try to be civil and converse with her but she really doesn't want a conversation just wants to talk at me.

After 5 days of this I get pretty techy and this morning I lost it as she was deciding whether to eat Weetabix for breakfast. We'd already had about 10 minutes of talk about whether she should have Weetabix or not and my wife asked me to hold our baby. My MIL said she would but I kind of took our baby away from her because I just wanted her to eat the f##kin Weetabix!

My MIL got all upset about this and it lead to another heated discussion between MIL and wife about what my wife was doing wrong, the drinking, how I enable her to drink, how my MIL has 'taken her eye off the ball' with regards to her daughter's life.

My MIL has gone now but my wife is really upset with me for what I did. I am really pi##ed off as really my MIL is to blame I think. Yes I should be the better person and suck it up but I was so annoyed at what my MIL had said that this came out in my behaviour.

Am I am in the wrong? I feel like I always have to be the rational, logical one when everyone else gets to shout and
argue it out!

Very late with this but thanks for all of the responses.

My wife and I discussed this at length once my MIL had gone home. It's accepted in her family that my MIL definitely has untreated mental health issues so when these outbursts happen they're never really dealt with. My MIL just pretends they didn't happen! Then we all wait for the next outburst.

I just don't really want to be round my MIL for a while so have said I won't visit her house this year as can't promise not to be annoyed by her. My wife isn't particularly happy about this as it means she has to travel a long way with the kids by herself. She is also unhappy that I don't like her mother that much. Despite my wife acknowledging she can be hard work a lot of the time. Obviously she loves her but I don't see why I have to put up with her.

My MIL is actually staying with us again right now! Another 4 night stay. I'm just keeping out her way and trying not to get annoyed. Even when she scrapes toppings off the homemade pizza that she said she wanted.....

I feel for you! My mother is our problem relative and DH is a saint about it. However it helps that we all muck in together to manage her.

Maybe the trick is to recognise it, assist and support your wife, but don’t engage with the MiL? So DH wouldn’t dream of telling DM off or being irritable with her because it doesn’t help the situation. He goes and does something in a different room if she’s getting too much. But he also engages her so I can get a bit of space, too!

Importantly, we taught our DC how to manage her, too. We weren’t critical of her around them, we’d give them strategies for managing things that were likely to crop up.

Basically you can’t change anyone, you can only engineer the situation to make it easier.

Thanks for the advice. I suppose that's what I'm trying to do - disengage from the problem. The issue is that MIL lives so far away it's always a 4/5 day stay either at her house or ours. We've done that for almost a decade now and I've just had my fill. TBH I think it's too much for my wife also.

During every visit there is almost always some kind of outburst from MIL. Which leads to friction with my wife. It's never me involved in this friction but since the issue at Christmas the problem is now characterised as 'I don't get on with MIL' and that is causing the tension. Which I think is unfair. My wife finds my MIL s annoying as I do most of the time but she can react and push back as its her mother and I can't.

My wife is upset that I don't like/love her mother as much as she does. Which I think is strange. Why do I have to really like her?! All my MILs extended family find her annoying/ exasperating but they don't spend 5 days at a time with her, in the same house, 3 times a year! My MIL own son does 1 night about 4 times a year and that's enough for him.

I know I should rise above the annoyances and be the better man but it's so hard :(

Its all about perspective OP.
You wife is living in a FOG, (fear, obligation, guilt) in a deeply unhealthy relationship with her mother.
She is also doing it in front of your children.
So fxxked up and unhealthy for children to witness.
It sounds as if your wife wants you also to be dishonest in your marriage about how difficult her mother is.
So unhealthy.

I think you need to push back and start reading up on deeply toxic in laws and the damage they do to marriages.

Start telling your wife just how much you are resenting your MIL and her and how unhappy you are that your children are exposed to her batshit behaviour.

My friend had a MIL a bit like yours, rude and bossy and giving opinions on childcare that she wasn't asked about, so she absent herself from the home when her MIL insisted on visiting the next time she decided she was visiting.

She packed up and went to her mothers leaving him with their two children.
She didn't shop nor clean and enjoyed a lovely visit with her mother.

She told her husband this was life going forward as she wasn't tolerating it anymore.

All it took was one visit and he saw his future clearly.
He had a very frank conversation with his mother and agreed to visit her with the children instead....to protect his marriage.

I would tell your wife going forward she visits her mother without you, as you are now officially done.