A MIL one- but this time it's me, not her

[Thistledew]

I'm having problems getting on with my MIL, but I know the issue lies with me not her. She is a perfectly nice person and does an awful lot for us, but I'm just finding it increasingly difficult to be in her presence and I know that I am not being a pleasant person as a result. I would like to change this if possible.

We spend a lot of time together. From when DS was about 11 months old she offered to help look after him so that I could return to work. She offered three days per week, every fortnight. I am self employed so could arrange my work however I want. She lives at some distance from us so this means that she comes to stay from Monday afternoon to Friday morning. Now DS is three, this has gone down to two days a week as he is in nursery three day, so she come now from Tuesday evening to Friday morning.

I just find her presence really irritating. There is nothing awful that she does but we just have quite different ways of communicating that are not particularly compatible.

Things started to break down properly last winter when I had a period of getting a series of illnesses. I find that when I am not feeling well I have a tendency to withdraw into myself and I don't have energy for interacting with other people. She on the other hand is far more social and doesn't really understand the introverted personality. Things did improve a bit when DS started 3 days a week at nursery as I found it much easier that she was coming for the shorter time, but they have again deteriorated as I am now pregnant and battling first trimester fatigue so am again short of energy.

I am grateful for all she does for us. I love it that DS has such a close relationship with her and it is for that reason that I don't want to stop her coming (affording paid child care is not the issue).

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can get myself to appreciate her more and not be so irritated?

That's a lot of time to have her in your house even if she is nice. I would find that annoying too!

I think that's the trouble - it's just sharing my space and time with another adult that I haven't really chosen to share my life with.

You need to find alternative childcare. Failing that, what is it about her you find so irritating? Is it that you work from home so she’s there all the time during the day when she’s looking after DS?

Is it going to go back up to all week when you go back to work after this baby?

I couldn't stick it myself, it's too much, I need my space, however nice she is. Just seems a mad arrangement to me.

She may not be doing herself any favours for the future either, as her social network must be affected by her being away so much. You're going to end up with her having nothing there.

Not sure how you change things without hurting anyone. Keep a game face and crush your irritation down is all.

Is she going to increase the amount of child care offered, once your new baby arrives ? I can only see that you're happy to accept her ( very generous) offer of child care, but you don't much like her . It's up to you what you do - either go along with it or tell her that you're getting alternative child care.

I think most people would find this really difficult OP so don't be too hard on yourself. Rather than working from home, could you pay for a desk space somewhere to get you outside the home? Also I would not hesitate to cut down her hours and use other childcare in its place. Eg so she's staying 2 nights a week rather than 3.

I agree with perhaps cutting hours so that she perhaps does two days with one overnight stay.

And if you alternate weeks, so one week she travels to you, the other week the child goes for a sleepover to her?

And would it help if you got out of the house on 1 evening when she is there? Maybe do some swimming, or yoga or something that helps you relax.

What kind of childcare do you plan to have once your baby is here?

I'm not sure what will happen when I go back to work after DS2. I might need to work more frequently than I did when DS1 was small so he/she might have to go to nursery from younger. I don't want to stop MIL coming now as DS would really miss her.

She seems to manage the social side of it really well- but then she is much more gregarious than I am. She has a full diary of seeing her friends when she is at home so I'm not concerned about her becoming dependent on us in that way.

Things I find irritating-

• as mentioned, she is far more gregarious and chatty, but will fill conversation with anecdotes she has hatters from random people that she has got talking to when she took DS to the park/playgroup etc. I am just not gregarious in that way, and although my job involves a lot of interacting with all sorts of people, when I am on my down time I don't have any desire to chat about the lives of strangers.

• I've often found her quite judgmental. How she talks about people she has observed at the park/ soft play etc. And in particular when her oldest friend's first grandchild arrived, they were horrendously judgmental about the DIL, who ended up with awful PND. I know that MIL is a real gossip, so this streak of being judgmental has made me not want to confide in her.

• she is a retired HV, and for the first couple of years of DS's life she seemed determined to diagnose something wrong with him, coming up with a whole series of issues that turned out to be completely baseless. It made me distrust her judgment and question a lot of the things that she says.

• she has a real tendency to catastrophise and will then start telling you about this half way through her train of thought, which I find really hard to respond to other than saying "no, that's not right", which I can tell she then perceives as me being unfriendly. She is particularly like this in relation to illness.

• she seems to have a weird destructive force field around her. After every visit I now play a little game to. Find what small thing has been broken. It's never anything important, but it's usually something that will require me to mend it. It's really bizarre.

That is tricky as you are saving a fortune on childcare but I would struggle to have another adult in my house for most of the week as well. What does your DH think?

So if she's there for 3 nights per week about you and DH arrange a weekly date night on Wed / Thurs evening? Presumably if she's in the house she'll be happy to babysit and it would give you a bit of time together.

Then I would plan to spend one evening being sociable with her and explain that you need some down time the other evening and read or watch TV in your room so you get some time alone.

Due to the distance she has to come down the night before she looks after DS, and it's not practical for her to go back on Thursday evening. So 2 days looking after DS means a stay from Tuesday evening to Friday morning. She does take herself off to her room after dinner to give DH and I space in the evenings (which is lovely and considerate of her) and because she is usually quite tired.

You say money isn’t an issue. Why not rent some office space so you can “go out to work” rather than working from home?

I'm not always working from home. Often my work takes me out for all or part of the day anyway, but sometimes I do need to do a full day at home. Because it is irregular in this way it's not really feasible for me to work elsewhere.

I think you really only have two options: alternative childcare (but that comes at a cost of the relationship between your DV and her) or finding external desk space to work from. I would probably go for external desk space. As she leaves you and DH alone in the evenings, that should limit your contact time considerably. She seems nice but just has a different personality and style. As to anything you don’t agree with (health comments, practice your best ‘thank you, I will take that on board’ while in fact ignoring it in practice). Good luck.

And some desk space these days is flexible- look into that.

Can you identify a time of day when you find her most irritating?

She does take herself off to her room after dinner to give DH and I space in the evenings (which is lovely and considerate of her) and because she is usually quite tired.

This changes everything! I would absolutely suck it up in that case. You are saving hundreds of pounds every month and you only need to chat to her over dinner for 3 nights a week.

You’ve got at least another three years of her in your home if you decide she is looking after your baby when they arrive. Is this something you can cope with for three more years? If not dc2 needs to go to nursery.

I’m not surprised you’re finding her irritating; I would find anyone staying at my house that much irritating.

My mother (who really is toxic, so. It like your MIL from what I can see) used to do this thing of breaking small things of mine every time she visited. Usually something that would be irritating but expensive to mend (eg, once she pulled a knob off the cooker; I managed to put it back on but it never worked properly again so I was never sure what temperature I was cooking at...). I’ve nver worked out why she did this but I think it was an extension of the constant put downs and other ways of trying to drag me down, and stemmed from resentment and jealousy. I no longer have contact with her.

I’m not suggesting your MIL is doing the same, but if you notice a pattern of breakages there’s probably something behind it, and if you find her so difficult I wonder if there’s some underlying resentment or a dynamic neither of you wants to confront?

*not like your MIL

(Sorry. Correction to first line of above post)

Mine is like this too. Perfectly lovely but different attitudes and have to breathe and count to ten . A lot

It’s too much time frankly . Find other childcare , and faciliate them spending time

Or as others suggest get yourself out when she is there

What does your husband think about all this?. I think you made a rod for your own back in accepting this in the first place. How assertive are you around MIL: do you perhaps defer to her or even fear her in some ways?. Does she make you feel somehow inferior?. She certainly seems to have way more power than you do here in this relationship.

Decide asap what sort of childcare you want going forward for both children . TBH I would not want this woman in your house for all these days now for your eldest let alone a newborn. Would you have tolerated this from her from a friend or a childminder?. No.

What have you found that is broken; is it "your" possessions?. What has been her explanation for this, have you asked her?. For that reason too I would look into cutting back the amount of time she is spending with you all during the week and she needs a life outside your eldest (as does he). What happens too when he starts school?.

I would look also at reframing your boundaries between your MIL and you. These have become blurred to your overall detriment so I would start looking at paid childcare now.

I think anyone would find that hard. It’s far too much time in your home.

OP- be careful- we have some “all mils are toxic horrors by definition ” posters on here. Read with caution!