I just do not know how to deal with this.
I have known her for seven years, and our relationship has been very odd. She's behaved really nastily to me at times, but always subtle or seemingly innocuous enough that I've never felt able to call her on it.
Some examples. When we moved from a flat to a house we invited them for Christmas, she made a huge deal in the run up of how she may not be able to come with her then 6mo DS as it would break his routine. On the day BIL (DH;s brother) came with their DS and she stayed at home. BIL later told DH that it was because she was jealous of our house (they still lived in a flat and later bought a house twice the size of ours).
I had a 30th birthday party with a vague James Bond theme, cocktails and stuff. She is usually very well groomed, full makeup every day kind of thing. She came to my party in a tracksuit with unwashed hair and wearing a hat. Completely different to how she usually dresses, amd totally at odds with the type of party (I was not remotely partyzilla about it by the way and have never mentioned it)
Then there was all the oddness around our wedding. And i've just found out that the reason BIL (her DH) didn't do a Best Man speech despite weeks of him planning it, asking us for anecdotes and getting book on speeches out of the library was because she told him on the day that DH had asked him not to do one. So he literally thanked the bridesmaids, SIL shouted across the room that he'd forgotten one (he hadn't) and that was his speech.
There is more, but it's all very petty and made me feel like I was going mad for years as she was always so pleasant to my face.
Anyway, these days we get on really well, although we've never really spoken about all this. But she;s gone into massive overdrive with the friendship and it's exhausting and embarrassing.
I enjoy spending time with her but I've had to cut it right back (I was seeingher once a week) because every single time I see her she buys stuff for me and the DC.
Last week I met her in town and she had bought and outfit for each of my three children. She then took DS2 off while I was in a shop and came back with a book each, marked at £5 each but she made a big deal of saying they weren't the marked price. She then went into Next and bought me a top.
She is a SAHM, and I know their finances are not up to this. We earn twice their wage and have a smaller mortgage, for example.
I have TRIED saying no thankyou, but she gets really quite forceful, and gets quite upset.
We had a party yesterday at home and she spent the entire time cleaning and clearing and washing up, despite my DH being quite assertive about it. She was drunk and ended up smashing two glasses in her cleaning frenzy.
She comes round and does things like weeds the garden, or goes upstairs to see the kids and tidies their rooms.
I feel really suffocated by her, and although I'm glad our relationship is friendly now, I can't deal with it.
I have literally no idea how to handle this. I don't want her to go back to hating me because that was awful, but this level of 'help' is exhausting me.
I've asked DH to talk to his brother but they aren't the most involved of families and he doens't want to interfere 
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Sorry it's such an essay but I really am at my wits end.