Help me! I'm being a right cow

[Jux]

SIL came to live with us in October for 2 weeks . She is driving me potty.

I have been doing a degree with the OU and it's hard work - I have to concentrate and work pretty hard. I don't really have anywhere I can get all my stuff out except the kitchen table, but it is obvious when I am working, when I am in the middle of it, when I am concentrating. It's really not hard to tell.

SIL walks in and talks at me. She doesn't wait for me to get to the end of a thought, a word, a sentence, a sum, she just starts. None of it is important, it could all wait, but it's like she thinks I am empty until she comes along to fill me up with her inconsequential babble.

There's no preliminary, nothing. It's as if she thinks she is the only person in the world who has any sort of inner life and she must give me things to think about or something.

I am at the end of my tether. I have tried talking to dh about it, he has said to her that I'm studying and she shouldn't disturb me, but it has no effect.

She's been staying with friends for the last week and it's been bliss! She came back yesterday and it all started up again. I am so far behind on my course now and I just don't know what to do. DH doesn't want me to say anything to her in case she starts drinking again (she's an alcoholic), but I have to put a stop to it or that'll be my degree down the drain (I only have a fixed time in which to do it in, can't afford to do this course again both because of time and because of money!).

The truth is I just want to tell her to f* off the next time she does it, which will be later to day unless I can hide away from her, but it'll happen tomorrow for sure.

Talk me down. Please. Or give me something cutting but less obviously rude to say. I know I'm being a cow.

Because she's a thoroughly chaotic idiot who has (dis)organised her life in such a way that her bloody trailer still isn't ready

Or, looked at another way, she's had five months of being looked after in your nice warm home with a fridge full of food and the freedom to do whatever the hell she wants with zero responsibilities.

By contrast going to live in a trailer by herself where she'll be the one having to deal with organising bills and going out shopping. That can't be a particularly attractive prospect compared to the sweet life she's got right now.

And so she's not quite managed to get things organised enough so she can move out. Of course she hasn't. What's in it for her? She knows your DH will continue to tiptoe around her and so allow her to get away with this kind of bullshit pretty much indefinitely.

Hang on, your DH is upstairs reading a book knowing that SIL is barging about the kitchen bothering you when you desperately have to study? Why on earth isn't he marching downstairs to tell her to stop bothering you and find something else to do?

I know. DH is immoveable atm. I do have to tell you that SIL has been admitted and will be operated on tonight (it's not a boil, it's an abscess).

No, our home is not our own any more, but in many ways it never was, not fully. Mum helped us buy the place so she could live with us, so both my brothers lost - without qualm - any possible claim on her spacious London flat as the dosh went into this house. Therefore, I feel that - along with the monthly 'allowance' he has been giving me for years - that my one surviving brother has a large claim on sanctuary here. We would not have been able to keep the house on after mum died without him.

This is why I say SIL will have to go whether her trailer is ready for her or not, when my brother needs to come. She will have to b&b it or find a short term rental. DH agrees, and I will make no bones about reminding him of this if he weakens.

There will be problems when bro moves in, inevitably. I can't envisage what they might be atm.

The last time I looked it up in the book of karma, the come uppance for disturbing people while they are studying is a bum abscess. You need to get those headphones on before her arse is covered in them, think of it as an act of kindness.

Whereabouts are you, OP? I have a spare room that would be ideal for you. Not her, though!

She's still in hospital and they'll do the op tomorrow now. I am nastily hoping that they'll keep her until Sunday, possibly Monday, but that's a forlorn hope I know. Poor dd has a friend coming for a sleepover on Saturday and will be so much happier if SIL is not here. Oh, poor woman. No one wants her around.

I have not had to use the headphones, I'm happy to say, whethergirl, but they shall be pressed into service soon, I know.

Blether, can I bring dd? We don't mind sharing. I make nice cakes too....