How would you feel about this MIL taking over kitchen thing? Am I being petty?

[Anonymous]

Is her kitchen subpar? I’ll so, I would gracefully give her the gift of playing in a lovely kitchen. But then, I like my MIL and cleaning isn’t a huge deal. You’re cleaning dishes, wiping counters and the floor; it’s just not a huge deal. I throw on a podcast and some headphones and it’s not a huge problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is her kitchen subpar? I’ll so, I would gracefully give her the gift of playing in a lovely kitchen. But then, I like my MIL and cleaning isn’t a huge deal. You’re cleaning dishes, wiping counters and the floor; it’s just not a huge deal. I throw on a podcast and some headphones and it’s not a huge problem.

You’re also cleaning up all the food used, packing up food, sweeping, vacuuming, washing the floor, clearing the table. It’s like a 2 hour thing. I don’t feel like doing it every night.

[Anonymous]

Book a cleaning service now for the day after Thanksgiving. Honestly I’m a neat freak too and just knowing it will be professionally cleaned if DH and his mom don’t do a good job would help to calm me down.

[Anonymous]

This would make me very annoyed. My MIL would never do something like this (she is an extremely deferential house guest) but my mom is somewhat similar and it drives me up the wall. She is just very possessive of it and even though she only visits once a year, she'll show up and start messing around in the kitchen like she lives here. She also does this thing where she insists on going to the store "for" us when she arrives and stocking our fridge. It's like she thinks I'm 18 and need help with this basic stuff. She doesn't buy things that she wants to eat, she'll buy staples for the pantry and like a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. Which I guess would be great if we needed those things but we never do. Plus she'll buy the wrong stuff -- whole milk instead of skim, white bread, sugary cereal we don't eat, etc.

I hate it. And she's really condescending about it, too. Like "Oh, silly, I'll show you how to feed your family." I'm 44. My kids are 9 and 7. They eat a million times better than I did growing up. She's just being tiresome and can't let go of the idea of being the matriarch and being in charge of everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Oh, I think you misunderstood. Dan and I are hosting Thanksgiving so we'll be doing all the cooking. We just want you to relax and enjoy the meal. If you really want to bring something, a bottle of wine or some flowers would be great, but don't feel obligated."

And then when she tries to "break in your kitchen" you say "Carol, why are you ignoring what I said in the email/text/call on November 15th? Dan and I are hosting and we're handling everything kitchen related. I don't want other people cooking in my kitchen. Please feel free to mingle and chat with everyone."

+1000 I love yo cook for Thanksgiving in my kitchen. Especially if it was new. We all work together snd it’s so much fun. Someone MIL muscling in and messing up my kitchen snd depriving me of cooking would upset me. But I love to cook.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would tell her that you need the kitchen because you're preparing Thanksgiving. If she wants to make a pie or something on Wednesday, carve out some time for her. If she wants to pick a different day that week to make dinner, set the timeline in advance. But you have to do some expectation setting here, you can't just sign for all her deliveries and say nothing to her announcements about how much she's looking forward to cooking all week and then just fume about it when it happens.

Agreed. You need to deal with this now. Or DH is in charge of resetting the kitchen to its prior state by Weds night for you to cook on Tgiving.

I would do this. Just tell her the fridge is full already, plus you’ll need to be in the kitchen prepping, etc. But you do need to say something now if she’s made her expectations clear.

But OP, I get it, I really do. It’s not just about dirty dishes. It’s about having her piles of crap stacked up around the kitchen for a week. It’s about the drawer of tea towels completely upended because instead of reaching in and grabbing one, she rifled through them and then just shoved them back in. It’s about flour caked around the crevices of a brand new faucet. Cooking sherry dribbled down the face of a cabinet; grease splattered against the stove back splash. And the odds that she or your DH are actually going to clean it to anywhere close to the way it was when they showed up are less than zero.

And not only that, but it sounds like she’s doing it for the specific purpose of “breaking in the kitchen.” Not because she wants to cook family favorites or because she’s helping with thanksigivng. But because there is a new pristine kitchen that she wants to … what? Put her mark on? Make it less pristine? How else do you interpret “break in”? Breaking something in is literally about taking the polish off, making it less new, etc.And if you are not the owner of whatever this new thing is, then it’s rude to expect that you get to break it in. The owner is the one that gets to enjoy using it in its new and completely untarnished condition.

This !! In my new kitchen that I suffered through renovating or saved for years to buy. It would be overstepped a boundary for me. I remember when I got my first new car and took a friend for a drive. His kids banged their filthy feet all over the back of the front seats. Not cool !!

[Anonymous]

Why not go with it and let her or dh clean up, and you only clean until after she leaves. Take a break and chill.

[Anonymous]

I would refuse to enter the kitchen until my DH put it back in the conditioner she found it.

I’d be way beyond annoyed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"We look forward to hosting you and making you some delicious meals in our new home! The kitchen in all yours on 'x day' for you to break it in."

Your husband gets clean up duty on x day.

This exactly. She gets ONE night for ONE dinner, and husband is on clean-up duty, and is her sous chef for the day. You read a magazine, drink wine, and refer all questions or comments to him—you’ll be in another room, so this won’t be a problem.

[Anonymous]

I have beautiful polished walnut countertops that I love, and no one is allowed to scratch them.

So mess - OK, but if she's the sort to bang pots and pans and damage things, that's a resounding no.

And I would have my husband tell her she can't cook in the kitchen because she's not careful enough and will damage it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That would annoy me if I didn’t like my MIL. I’d just have some wine around and let her do all the work. She might expect you to clean because she’s cooking but I’d probably just do that since I didn’t have to cook (and I don’t like to cook).

But this is an epic mess. I am talking things that take many many steps.

I would hope that you're a better person than your thread indicates.

This is the woman who loves your husband unconditionally. Surely you can grin and bear it for a couple of hours. Right? Just think how many people dislike you but don't let you know it. Try to do the same thing for your MIL.

[Anonymous]

"Oh, I think you misunderstood. Dan and I are hosting Thanksgiving so we'll be doing all the cooking. We just want you to relax and enjoy the meal. If you really want to bring something, a bottle of wine or some flowers would be great, but don't feel obligated."

And then when she tries to "break in your kitchen" you say "Carol, why are you ignoring what I said in the email/text/call on November 15th? Dan and I are hosting and we're handling everything kitchen related. I don't want other people cooking in my kitchen. Please feel free to mingle and chat with everyone."

This. Set the boundary NOW. Just be clear. It's YOUR kitchen. Not hers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That would annoy me if I didn’t like my MIL. I’d just have some wine around and let her do all the work. She might expect you to clean because she’s cooking but I’d probably just do that since I didn’t have to cook (and I don’t like to cook).

But this is an epic mess. I am talking things that take many many steps.

I would hope that you're a better person than your thread indicates.

This is the woman who loves your husband unconditionally. Surely you can grin and bear it for a couple of hours. Right? Just think how many people dislike you but don't let you know it. Try to do the same thing for your MIL.

You sound fun. Its not a couple hours, its a week, and its a week of intense family time. Trust me, I am being extremely kind allowing this, at all, given past events. I am doing it for my husband and kids.

[Anonymous]

You pick up the phone and call her and tell her you already have Thanksgiving planned, but she is welcome to cook at home and bring a few dishes with her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That would annoy me if I didn’t like my MIL. I’d just have some wine around and let her do all the work. She might expect you to clean because she’s cooking but I’d probably just do that since I didn’t have to cook (and I don’t like to cook).

But this is an epic mess. I am talking things that take many many steps.

I would hope that you're a better person than your thread indicates.

This is the woman who loves your husband unconditionally. Surely you can grin and bear it for a couple of hours. Right? Just think how many people dislike you but don't let you know it. Try to do the same thing for your MIL.

WTF? Its OP's kitchen. Mommy can go cook for her special dearest sweetest son in her own damn kitchen.

*I Totally understand OP, my MIL comes over and takes over my kitchen, at first it pissed me off, but now I literally leave the house when she is cooking and told DH I expect it to be clean when I come home.