Hellish MIL visit... how to respond?!

[cwoffeee]

Wow, what a novel theme for a thread.

Anyway. Try to keep it short. My MIL is here for three weeks. Which is already a bonkers amount of time. I thought my partner was taking the full three weeks off to spend with her, but he's just gone back to work, halfway through. I am self-employed but took last week off to spend loads of time with her. She knew I would need to work the rest of the time.

Problem is, she is utterly negative about everything, extremely passive-aggressive and seems to find a reason to have a massive strop every couple of days. I had no idea she was like this. She seemed nice and cheerful on the phone! I expected her to come here, enjoy the lovely small city we live in, pitch in to help with the odd bit of washing up and just generally enjoy all the fun things we had planned.

The current strop is that I didn't talk to her yesterday while I was working at home (tucked away in my little office). I am on a very pressurised job this week, it's stressful and I have actually been through a lot lately. My father almost died three weeks ago, which she knows. But I have been cheerful, welcoming and relaxed. Because I was looking forward to her visit.

There's loads I could write but she seems to take everything extremely personally (like me going for a short walk after work to decompress), everything is a big drama (literally things like forgetting milk and popping to the corner shop) and every day is full of snide little remarks and sulking, if not actual tears. She cannot seem to understand that anyone else has needs or responsibilities. She also seems to be upset that my house/tastes are not like hers.

It's not solely aimed at me. She accused my partner of not spending time with her. He had spent all day with her, and was simply cooking in the kitchen for an hour.

I'm trying to be kind but it's getting hard to be kind. I'm not used to this level of drama and don't know how to deal with it. My response is to ignore – because I don't want things to go nuclear.

She had chemotherapy last year and my partner is saying it seems to have triggered personality changes – but I know that her own mother was just like this.

Argh.

Not sure. It was presented to me as a fait acompli and now I know I should have said 'uhh, no that's insane'.

Yeah, you have it right, I think. And she was very strict as a mother.

She announced last week 'I'm so glad I didn't have a daughter, I would have slapped her silly!'

Don't think she likes other women much...

The only reply to that would have been "oh, agreed
I'm glad you didn't have a daughter too. You clearly hate other women".

@Jhgdsd
This appears to happen quite a lot in Mumsnet land! Why do men do this??!!

Really pissed off with DP now.

I actually feel very sorry for her, despite her taking it out on me. She's bored out of her mind, worried about her elderly dog at home (who seems to have deteriorated without her) and has now gone out in torrential rain, just to have something to do.

Selfish and thoughtless of him to just think he could leave her on her own for a week and a half, in a foreign country, where she lacks confidence getting herself around.

Bloody selfish twat. He fucks off to work, while I'm here feeling really quite guilty that she's miserable in my house – yet also stressed because I have a new client and a lot of pressure and it's pretty hard to concentrate knowing that she is bored and lonely.

DP said he would leave work early today but suddenly he's too busy and breezily saying 'well, she knew what it would be like and said she would entertain herself'. A contrast from yesterday when he asked me to stop mentioning it because the guilt was too much for him.

This is the longest week ever.

Honestly, OP, I am glad you are angry at your DP.

MIL doesn’t seem like an easy character, but he’s certainly exacerbated things!

I would not personally feel all that sorry for either of them, they’ve both put you through the wringer these past couple of weeks and neither have apologised nor have admitted any responsibility for their actions.

Your partner was certainly economical with the truth re his mother and is now further using you as a buffer. It would make me question the relationship as a whole going forward. He certainly needs therapy re his mother to deal with his fear, obligation and guilt.

Yeah, chalk it down to experience and don't 'let' 'D'H do this to you again.

60? Crikey! She sounds not only much older than that (several decades older) but marooned in a much earlier generation. I think some people never properly differentiate from their own parents’ generational mores. If we assume her world is stuck somewhere in possibly the early 1960s, her bewilderment at your way of doing things makes some sense (though it’s still very much not ok). Your chap’s job when she has conniptions about a few pots left on the side is to look puzzled and say ‘come home to what, mum?!’. Gosh, but her approach would tempt me to offer her a very spicy curry with a sweet smile. I know you won’t do that, but I’d eat the food I liked. And remind her it’s your home and it’s 2024.

You likely have a tough road ahead of you now that you have married this selfish twat who deliberately mislead you.
Think long and hard about your future.
I have no doubt that NOW he has shown you WHO HE REALLY IS, you will reflect on this thread in the future and realise just how willing he was to lie, to mislead, to dump you in it, all the while "breezily" going along his merry way, caring not a whit for your elevated stress level.

I would think long and hard about having children and being vulnerable with such a twat.

You deserve so much better.

Just grit your teeth and get through the week. I had similar with a family member. I had always seen them as fun and good company but a week abroad without a massive group to dilute the person's selfishness, I have never gone on a trip with them since and never will. They've gotten worse in the intervening years, to the point where they deliberately create or invent offence so that they can storm off or create a scene at important family occasions of others.

My tactic now is to avoid them where possible, and spend no more than a few hours in their presence if I can't possibly avoid them.

For her next trip, DP needs to book the entire duration of the stay off. You need to make yourself scarce - either with a trip yourself or decamp your work to a different location. You agree to no more than 48 hours in her company and that's it.

There will never be a "next time", I hope. Your DH needs to visit her on his own.

@Jhgdsd

You likely have a tough road ahead of you now that you have married this selfish twat who deliberately mislead you.

OP refers to "partner" and "DP" so it looks like they're not married.

I do agree with the rest of your post though, and can only think he'll get worse if/when they had children and she became a grandmother, asserting her 'rights'. 🌹

Plus some grouching about a single pot left on the stove overnight.

It's your house: you can leave anything wherever you wish.

What kind of relationship do you have where your husband tells you his mum is staying for 3 weeks without discussing it with you, that you don't veto this and that he returns to work half way through without you knowing he was going to do that? Your communication is atrocious and that's half the problem.

I will be delighted to read they are not married.....narrow escape if true!

How's it going OP? When does she leave?