Reply to I finally set a boundary with in laws and they made me feel bad

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If my ILs showed up hours early, or asked/insisted on showing up hours early even after I explained I needed time to prepare, I’d open the door and then leave them and DH to it. Oh, the sheets for your bed? They’re in the dryer—I needed extra time to get ready, but you insisted on coming earlier than we had agreed. So feel free to make up your bed with those sheets. Oh what’s for dinner? I don’t know—ask Kevin what he plans to cook for you.[/quote]

This right here. If they show up earlier than the agreed-upon time, your preparation work stops when the doorbell rings. “Oh, I was planning on doing laundry to get fresh towels for you, but you’re here early and I guess you can help with all there is left to do. Go ahead and switch the towels from the washer to the dryer. Thanks.”[/quote]

This would probably backfire spectacularly. MIL would probably love to help. It's like people here are upping the ante with who can give worse advice. [/quote]

I wouldn’t assume the MIL’s “help” would actually be helpful.  I love my MIL, but when she is over and offers to “help” with laundry it is actually more work for me because she asks me questions at every single step about what to do.  “I found this laundry detergent above the washing machine, is this what you like to use or is there something else?”  “How much soap should I put in the machine?”  “Can you come double check that I put in the right amount of soap?”  “Can you check that I’ve sorted the laundry the right way?”  “The washer finished, is it okay to move it to the dryer now?”  “The dryer is done and everything feels dry but do you think it needs to be run some more?”  And then after she sorts and folds, she insists on putting everything away even when I ask her not to, and ends up putting stuff into the wrong closets so I have to hunt for everything and move it to the right room.  And we’re not talking reasonable mistakes between people who are close in size, she will put my clothes into the six-year-old’s closet.

It’s the same thing if she offers to wash dishes, a running stream of questions that mean I can’t go do something else, and then everything put in the wrong place if I don’t immediately take over drying and putting stuff away before she gets a chance.  She means well, but her “help” does not make her visits less work for me.[/quote]

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