WWYD - my mother uses my house like a free hotel...
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Anonymous
| You either talk to her and deal with the consequences or stop complaining. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot dictate her response only Respectfully and lovingly voice your concerns and feelings. You are grownup. |
Anonymous
| Do ‘date nights’ on Fridays since you have a free babysitter. |
Anonymous
| When she is at your house, go to her house. |
Anonymous
| You tell her she cannot come anymore. You work through the fallout. If you’re not willing to do that, then you forfeit your right to complain about her visiting. |
Anonymous
this! |
Anonymous
I bet OP allowed it all this while because of the bolded. I bet OP's kids are older now, and the benefits are much reduced so OP wants out of the deal. |
Anonymous
| This has been going on for years? How has your husband put up with this? You think you’re frustrated? I can’t imagine how he feels. |
Anonymous
New poster. All these ideas sound good on the surface and would give mom a big hint, but frankly, all the above ideas are game-playing that would mean OP would have to go to a LOT of effort -- plan a weekend away (haul the kids...where, and for how much $ out of OP's pocket, just to avoid mom?); paint something (because if OP just lies about a painter coming, it's a pretty obvious lie when mom next visits and sees....nothing was painted) and so on. Instead of playing games, OP, use your words. This post from above put it very well: "This. Unfortunately, you will have to have uncomfortable conversations with your mom if you want it to change. I had to do this with my parents and brother after years of abusive treatment. Once I told them they will not be able to see my kids unless they change their behavior, things have been very different. I’m not saying your mom is abusive but you mentioned she could get angry if you are honest with her. You may have to see what happens if you want it to change. Try in the gentlest of terms initially and if that doesn’t work, just be brutally honest, that you need that time as just your family. She may be angry but eventually will get over it. I guess the first step is deciding what you can tolerate and than communicating that to her. Good luck." I think a big complicating factor, OP, is whether these appointments are-- as some have guessed above -- AA or other "anonymous" meetings? Or possibly appointments with a therapist--? You do NOT have to tell us whether either is the case, but be aware that if this is true, your mom likely is very attached to her routine of keeping her same AA group/sponsor or same therapist and having the added routine of staying with you etc. That's likely why she didn't make an effort to find a new group or therapist when she moved. She knows this group/sponsor/therapist and is comfortable with them. But that does not mean you have to be her hotel, especially in your smaller home, OP. You're going to have to have the uncomfortable conversation like the PP above describes. You could consider setting up a very specific overnight visit, say, once a month, but the weekly stuff sounds invasive. I'd get a real bed for the guest room, tell her that the couch isn't for sleeping any more (and stick to that), and she's welcome once a month and the kids will love it. I'd even have her maybe for dinner when she comes into town weekly. But the overnights sound like just too much. |
Anonymous
OK...and what specific ideas do you have to offer OP to make a positive change? We'll wait. Oh, you're just venting or projecting? Fine. Nothing to offer, then. |
Anonymous
"I bet" you used "I bet" twice because you know you're making gigantic assumptions based on nothing OP actually said. |
Anonymous
Can she schedule both appointments on the same day? One morning, one afternoon? Or find a dr closer to her? Is this temporary like physical therapy or permanent? Ask her to move the appointment so the last one is not Friday afternoon and then she won’t be there Saturday. Regardless of the above you need to get better about boundaries. I don’t let anyone mess with my kids food. She can spoil them with attention. If she’s judgey about your house call her out on it. “Just because you say something hurtful with a smile that doesn’t make it any less hurtful.” Get boundaries. Get blunt. “If you keep saying things like that, I won’t want to welcome you into my home. In this home we’re kind to each other. If you’re going to continue talking to me that way you can get a hotel. I’m not putting up with this in my home anymore. So you have a choice to make.” |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
Sorry, I hit submit too soon. The lines I bolded are all the places where you have failed to set boundaries. The problem as I see it is that your Mom has trained you that you are not allowed to have any boundaries with her. Every time you try to set or enforce boundaries, she responds by throwing tantrums and you have shifted to just never bothering to attempt to set any boundaries to begin with. Sounds like you are finally fed up with this dynamic and you are using this one huge boundary (you can’t stay here anymore) as a proxy for fixing the overall dynamic. My advice is for you to seek individual therapy specifically around setting boundaries with your mom and start pushing back on all the little stuff. For starters, tell her that it does not work for your family to have a guest on the couch. If she stays at your home she needs to stay on the air mattress. If that’s not comfortable, she is welcome to stay at a hotel. If she attempts to re-organize things in your home, explain that she is welcome here as a guest but that guests do not have control over your organization system. If she’s not able to resist changing your home, she is welcome to stay in a hotel. If she makes rude or judgmental comments, you need to find the words to call that out in the moment. You haven’t given examples of the specific things she’s saying, but this may involve asking her to repeat it and then calmly telling her that what she said is rude, or even asking for an apology. This is an area where a therapist can help you come up with some good strategies. If she is pushing back on wanting time alone with your kids, you need to figure out what your policy is on that (how often and under what circumstances do you want your mom to have time alone with your kids) and communicate that clearly, then reply to all follow-up requests by restating your clear policy and telling her that if she can’t stop pestering you, she is welcome to stay in a hotel. For the food, that can be a great area because if she is in fact providing you with free childcare, one of the downsides of free childcare is that you can’t control all the choices that she makes as the babysitter. But if you don’t actually want her to be the child care and would prefer that she simply act as a guest and spend time with the children while you go about caring for them but she is undermining that while you were also there, then I think it falls in line with the rest of what I’ve said: “mom, I have a right to feed my children what I think is appropriate and if you can’t support me in that then maybe you need to stay in a hotel.” Finally, a little food for thought: You said in your post that if your mom doesn’t get her way one of the tactics you predict is that she will cut off contact with the kids to punish you. I want you to think about that for a moment. Right now you are encouraging your kids to have a strong bond with someone who will happily cut off that bond instantaneously if anyone crosses her. You are setting up your kids to have her punish them in that exact same way when they get old enough to say and do things that she doesn’t like. It sounds like they are still relatively young, but by the time they are teenagers they are not going to want to do everything the way grandma wants to do it, including hanging out with grandma all day every weekend. Do you want your kids to be stuck dealing with this boundary issue because you never set a precedent that we can say no to grandma? |
Anonymous
Getting blunt is how I got my mom to dial down her habit of mean, mocking comments. This is the norm in the large family she grew up in, and the standard response to anyone who takes exception to the judgement and the teasing is, "you're too sensitive. you're too thin-skinned. toughen up". I just started getting off the phone if she started the mean comments. just gotta go, bye. i also usually make sure our phone calls are group calls with my sister once a week. that way, if she teases me, my sister or my dad will speak up. or i can. example, a video call i inadvertently held the phone for a moment so they could only see my neck. my mom said, "why are you showing us your wattles?" my sister said, "oh no mom, that's mean. my dad affirmed. but now, I don't want to show my neck on video calls, or anything about my house or person that could be criticized or judged or commented on. I also never ever tell her info. She will 100% share with her siblings after promising not to, who then share with their kids, suddenly it's as if I posted my not-good biopsy results on FB (as a recent example). Boundaries, even though it hurt her feelings. |
Anonymous
| So you're complaining about free weekly babysitting? You know she's coming by but you're giving a senior citizen an air mattress every time? Sounds like you hate your own mother. |