I have a mother who also has boundary issues. My mother is very neat, organized and tidy and doesn't keep anything that doesn't have a specific function for her at that time.

I am pretty much the opposite. Maybe because so much of my stuff was given away throughout my childhood without me knowing. My mother was both nosy and determined that I wouldn't have clutter so she routinely went through everything in my room and did as she wished it with (throw out, give away, tidy up). As a teen, this drove me mad and I ended up doing two things - one hiding things in very secretive places and making my room such a mess that it drove her mad and as soon as she would clean it, I would just make it a chaotic mess.

As an adult I moved home for a bit in my twenties and after I left, I left a couple boxes of my stuff in their basement temporarily as I had almost no storage. This was my wrong decision as I know my mother and should have rented a storage unit. She went though my boxes and threw out things. In addition, I had a smaller box of really personal letters and notes from people over the years (friends, love notes, notes from a stalker that I had kept). She took all my letters and notes, cut them in to pieces and scrapbooked them and then gave the album to me as a gift for my birthday! Opening that gift was probably one of the most shocked moments of my life!

Anyways, when she comes to my house, we have actually had very direct conversations about what she is allowed to touch and not touch and what room she can go into and not go into. She gets very hurt by these conversations but I want to be sure the boundaries are explicitly clear. Once she stayed with me for a couple days and while I was at work, she went through the whole house (including the bedrooms) and picked up all the clothes and did all our laundry. For some people, this would be great, for me this led to her not being allowed in my house for almost two years unless I was home as it broke all trust for me given our history. She still doesn't understand why I was so mad but the good outcome was that fro a couple years after that she would exaggerates her requests to touch anything or go in any room. She will say is it okay if I use your bathroom or can I get a glass of water. I would just tell her yes even though I know what she desperately wanted was for me to say, you don't need to ask me that! Eventually it settled into a happy medium. She is pretty careful now and we haven't had an incident in 7 years.

So I can see Ops view if there is sufficient history. I am still fine with my mother cleaning my kitchen or tidying up the living room but we have had very explicit conversations about what rooms she can be in while in my house and what tasks she can take on.

MIL - I would be fine as intentions would be good. My Mom on the other hand....just no.

She knows you have a weekly cleaner?

I'm PP 22:58 - just saw OP's comment about it being about control. 100% OP. That's what it is.

OP - I feel you. I have a MIL with boundary issues. She doesn't ask whether she can help. She does things and does them in a way that makes you feel like the assumption is you can't do it yourself. And the help is never what is actually overly helpful, it's what she wants to do, not what you need. A very small example that I'm sure will set some people off but that you will get ... we were staying with MIL once and explicitly asked her not to do our laundry (I didn't want MIL washing my undies) - we try to let her be helpful in ways that allow her to feed her need to care for others but feel like there are some boundaries for us. She waited until we went out and did all of our laundry. Was it a nice gesture in some regards? Yes. Was it the ONE thing we had explicitly asked her not to do? Yes.

The people who are saying you need therapy or are overreacting have not been in your shoes. Unfortunately you need DH to talk to her. I finally got my DH to talk to his mom. It was hard, but he finally got it and talked to her. I then followed up saying that I knew her intention was not to undermine me, but that it felt like the implication was the she felt I could not care for my own family without her assistance.

Is there something you are comfortable with her doing so that she can feed that need but then you don't feel disempowered or judged? Then you'd have something to concede in the conversation. Hey MIL, instead of coming over in secret without permission and cleaning our house, which was very generous but made us feel a little judged, we love and appreciate when you do XYZ. Is there a way that we can communicate better about our appreciation for your generosity as well as our desire to have some privacy/personal space?

Anonymous wrote:I'd thank her and be thrilled.

+1. Chill OP.

I agree with OP. She cleaned without asking you because you didn't want her to do it. OPs DH needs to set her straight.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My MIL is like yours and we did have to cut her off for a year when she was at her most abusive towards us. She also once snuck into our house and cleaned it. There are a few great books about dealing with mothers who are abusive or narcissistic and I’d suggest reading those since it gave me a great map for dealing with my MIL.

I’d suggest not focusing on the cleaning and more on the big-picture boundaries that you’d like to establish. The cleaning can be an unhelpful distraction—if she’s like my MIl, if you focus on the cleaning she’ll launch into her rant about how none of us appreciate her and how she’s sacrificed so much for her kids.

This is such a great point. I’m having a hard time convincing dcum that this isn’t about helping me. Never has she asked 7-months-pregnant with #4 me if she could run an errand or something. It’s about control, and making my environment hers.

And our point is that no one is bad 100% of the time, and you can use her foibles to your advantage.

But you are determined to read bad intentions in everything she does. Oh well.

And my point is that these aren’t foibles. They are psychoses. She was recently expelled from the church choir because she is too difficult to deal with. And yes, she can sing — I’ll grant her that!

Proved my point.

Send your MIL here. More than enough mess to go around and she's welcome to deal with it! Hopefully the piles that bug her are the ones I don't want to deal with.

Anonymous wrote:I'd be thrilled. Well, I'd probably feel judged, but I'm willing to put up with that.
But I love my MIL.

Same. My MIL watches my kids a couple day per week and she picks them up and leaves after I do. She washes whatever dishes are in the sink, picks up toys that are around and brings dinner over when she drops them off in the evening. She is a saint.

I totally get it OP. It gave her the opportunity to snoop around your house (look in cabinets and drawers and closets.)
She should have asked you before she did it.
It’s time your SIL moved out. Seriously. You’ve been too kind and she’s taken advantage of that. Enough is enough.
Time for you husband to reel in his relatives. And tell him, if he won’t deal with them, you will.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP,

You are not thinking straight.

My patents are control freaks that insist on dictating what time house guests go to bed, wake-up, eat, etc. They are certifiably NUTS.

And yet I would love it if they cleaned my house. My father has actually done that. It was so helpful!

If they find something “embarrassing”, they would be embarrassed, not me. I don’t care.

Again, just because your MIL is a control freak doesn't mean she can’t be useful for once!!!



So, please calm down.

But wait — these aren’t my parents! I’d be fine with my own mom cleaning my house. And if I was deathly ill you can bet I’d be on my mom’s couch, not my sister in law’s!

You’d be ok with your mom but not MIL? But if your mom comes to clean, wouldn’t that make your spouse not ok with it? And how is it different that their mother came in to clean?

We have a housekeeper now but back when I had 4 small kids under the age of 5, both my mom and my MIL, when she was alive, would swing by my house while I was at work. They would hit is the laundry room to throw in a load or fold clothes from the dryer and then they swung into the kitchen to load/unload the dishwasher. After that they circle around doing a general pickup. Sometimes they changed bedlinens and sometimes they started dinner. Then they would leave.

I loved the help. Sure there was a little loss of privacy but it was totally worth it to me and my husband. I don't think we would have made it through the early years without their help. Of course, we're pretty staid people so we don't have anything in the bedroom that would startle even a kid.

I guess I would advise you to appreciate the help and at least she's trying. Best wishes for a healthy new baby!