I’ve banned my mum from my house

[Starrmix]

My mum doesn’t respect me or my wishes. For example, she thinks all clothes go on a 40c wash and won’t listen when I repeatedly tell her that’s not the case. Some of my clothes (and DH and DC) are hand wash only. Some go on a 30c wash, or a cold wash, etc. My mum shoves them all in a 40c wash and destroys them. Then she hangs them on the line and clumsily catches them on a bush and rips a hole. Or she irons them and burns them, or melts the print off the front.

These are usually the expensive items which need special care, so she’s ruining hundreds of pounds worth of clothes, over and over, even after repeatedly being told to keep her hands off and leave my fucking laundry alone. I received an expensive designer sweater for my birthday, I wore it once and my mum shoved it in a 40c wash and destroyed it. When I complained she said “well you shouldn’t have put it in the laundry basket”. It’s my fucking laundry basket, in my own house, and I’ll put my sweater where I like! It belongs in the laundry basket until I decide to hand wash it!

I’ve told her to leave my laundry alone but she won’t listen. She’s putting it in the machine when I pop out to walk the dog, or when I jump in the shower, or when I’m sitting on the sofa with the iPad and I think she’s just in the kitchen making herself a cup of tea.

I asked her why she keeps doing it, and she said “well it needs doing, you aren’t going to have any clothes for work next week, DC won’t have any clean school jumpers”. And I say “But that’s MY problem, it’s none of your business whether we have clean clothes or not!”

Anyway I’ve asked for a replacement designer sweater for Christmas and DH has refused, because he said it’s a waste of money as my mum will destroy it after one wear. So basically I’m now not allowed to have nice clothes because she won’t fucking leave them alone.

Yesterday (my day off, my mum had come over and was having a cuppa) I filled the washer with clothes for a delicate wash then the doorbell rang. So I answered the door and forgot to go back and put the washer on. My mum “helpfully” put the washer on for me. On a 40c wash. I realised a couple of hours later… £250 of clothes totally destroyed. So I have banned my mum from my house. She isn’t allowed to come here any more. It’s the only way I can stop her from doing my laundry. Needless to say she’s crying and isn’t speaking to me. But what else can I do to stop her?

Completely agree.

It would only happen in a lot of homes once.

I cannot fathom this happening on a regular basis.

35 years later I still recall my blouse being accidentally ruined! For it to be tolerated on a regular basis is madness.

Mother or not, she wouldn't be given the opportunity to DELIBERATELY damage my property.

Because it absolutely is DELIBERATELY.

Absolutely.

100%

I know so many people who think like this and they're all women.

I think it's called codependency. Where someone cannot do direct communication and hold their own boundaries and then tries to dance around other people and do all weird strategies and passive aggressions to get what they hope instead of just saying hey I'm not OK with this, here's what I need.

It's very bizarre and I can't be around people who do it because I'm on the spectrum and it makes me feel ill.

My Mum has similar tendencies. We are very low contact and she absolutely isn't allowed to visit my home. She'd do similar, stick my clothes in the machine and ruin them. Always the clothes I loved the most. Thats how it started.

If I bought DCs nice outfits which they liked, they'd mysteriously disappear after a while. In the meantime she'd buy them outfits and be annoyed if they didnt like them. One day I went to hers and had an inkling to search; so many of the DC's outfits I'd bought were in a bags hidden in the bottom of her wardrobe.

Certain rubbish food I didnt want DC to have when they were little such as tinned ravioli which I hate & so do they - she'd buy, and hide in back of cupboard then try to feed it to them when I was out. I run a business and if she stayed over sometimes she'd purposely wake me early - say, 5am when my alarm was for 7am, in a really disgruntled tone. She just wanted me to be tired but pretended it was because 'oh I thought you were supposed to get up at 5am'. Many other things too.

I don't think many people understand the angst of having an arrogantly disruptive mother with a horrible compulsion to come into your home and focus on repeatedly doing things that don't make you feel good. Nor do they care, they just want to patronisingly say 'but she's your mum' and then later get off on drama, nosily asking you 'how's things?' Only a few people know I don't have much to do with my mum. I don't say why but I've had to tell them firmly to mind their own business. My home is peaceful without her, DCs are grown now so they go to hers sometimes and thats fine.

Anyway I guess I found your thread triggering and it brought back some thoughts hence long reply. Your mum wants to purposely upset you by destroying clothes that you like. & your husband is right, its not worth replacing your stuff as she'll only ruin it again. I know, I've been there. Sorry you're feeling upset. I hope you find a good way to deal with this as I don’t believe she'll stop. She'll just do something else, the compulsion is just too strong. You've taken away her fix so of course she's crying. I know someone else who's been thru similar