How often do you see your MIL?

[Susemyoli]

Might be a cultural background issue. I see mine usually once a week for the past 14 years of marriage. But after my DD was born she turns up at my place 3 to 5 times a week. I am going mad

I think you can tell your MIL to keep away whilst your brother stays with you. Whilst he is staying with you your house is his house. She however has her own home to go to. Just because you have a lodger it doesn't follow that you also want to be permanently entertaining guests. Has the idea that you can't tell your MIL to keep away whilst your brother is living with you come from your husband as it seems a strange connection to make?
Do you have friends you can visit/ toddler groups to go to so you aren't in when she comes round? I think I'd find lots of daytrips for a few days so she gets out of the habit of popping round.
Does she have other family over here? Why does she stay in the UK, she sounds lonely and as though she values her trips back to China. I presume she is past retirement age as getting a job would solve her loneliness and needing to feel needed problems.

Not atall anymore, big pain in the butt when we did though not sure why at first, she had issues with all her children in the past and for some reason i became her latest problem for not looking after my children the way she thought best (like i will pick them up if they cry she thinks they should learn the hardway, lots more but i'd be here all night), i later found (after their family argument) her way of parenting is to beat your child untill your child bleeds, disgusting women comes across all snotty and miss perfect untill i got the grief off her and realised how nasty she is

Daily.

cazm2 so we're in the same boat. My hubby occassionally pretends it's nothing, hoping things get resolved.
2rebecca she is a pensioner, 66 years old, she could have continued working as we begged her to do, but then she made the decision for us and said she is stopping work to stay home looking after the kids. It was our mistake to let this happen and not to go ahead with our original plans of me staying home or getting DD1 to nursery.
She used to live with a nephew of her, but he moved out because they can't stand each other. He couldn't be happier now.
She has a boyfriend 13 years her junior. Dodgy guy, but that's another long story. They meet only on a saturday as he is refusing to have sunday with her as he is playing football with the local boys team.

I've got toddler's group once a week. All of my friends are in in the city or have left the country. Most of them don't have kids anyway. Difficult thing to drag a 3 year old and a 4 month old baby out there on a regular basis on top of rushing home to pick DD from school. All of them are working anyway.

em222 I hope she is a nice person.

Are you in a position to say that you've changed your mind and you want to stay at home with your DC? That would solve your childcare problem. It will be much better for your children if you look after them as MIL sounds somewhat unstable. Think about what is best for your family here rather than worrying about upsetting MIL.

I think you need to make it clear to MIL that she can't visit without letting you know first. I had to to this with my ex-MIL (she also produced tears at the time, which I ignored!) but it worked.

At the moment you are letting MIL dictate what happens in your home, which is wrong. My ex-h was also scared to stand up to his mother so I realised that I had to take a deep breath and do it for him as I was not prepared to let unannouced visits continue.

You will only need to tell her once if you are firm about it. I know it isn't easy but you have to be assertive in order to improve things here.

Depends, usually once a month but sometimes weekly if I need her to help out with taking or collecting the children from school. I can cope with her in small doses

Susemyoli, i hoped so too but was very disapointed as she is not, especially when you don't do as she sais

Mouldyironingboard -love the name! - Thank you so much! I really admire your confidence. Wish I could be just a little bit more like you :-)
We'll see what happens in the next few weeks/months.

For me, as little as possible .

For you, I understand that you can't hide, but I'd suggest getting a social life - so when MIL pops round, you could say hello and 'sorry I'm not able to stop - just off to mum and tots' or whatever intolerable activity would be better than enduring your MIL