How it all started.
“I (36F) live with my husband (41M). I have a decent relationship with my MIL compared to many horror stories I hear from friends; she’s pretty sweet and warm. She is, however, a little over-controlling. Overprotective? I’m not sure of the exact word, but she has powerful ideas about things and no sense of boundaries.
For example, when she stays at our house, she takes over the kitchen entirely and insists on cooking all our meals. She cooks wonderfully, but she won’t let me help her at all, and she puts everything away in the wrong places — and then insists that her way is more logical. However, she only really comes for holidays, and I immensely like her. So I don’t mind putting up with these mild annoyances.”
“I’m pregnant with our little girl, who will be born in a few months. This is a miracle. I didn’t think it would happen, incredibly late, but we got lucky. When my MIL heard, she was super excited and said she would come over to help us get ready for the baby.
She offered to stay for the next 6 months to help out because my husband and I both work long hours, and it will be hard to handle the baby. She is also emotionally invested in this because she genuinely sees herself as part of our family. She arrived a few days ago and set herself up, then she started with the cleaning.”
“I like collecting things from garage sales and such. Many people would consider Things like little sculptures, books, baskets, and stuff utter junk. Our house is overstuffed, but it’s reasonably tidy and doesn’t seem like a hoarder’s house or anything. My MIL, on the other hand, likes everything surgically clean.
Yesterday, I came home from work to find the house like a fight zone. She went through my cabinets, cleared out everything she considered junk, and made several trips to Goodwill before I got home. I was furious and asked her why she would ever do this. She said the house has to be tidy for the baby and that it would be ‘dangerous’ for the baby to be in my cluttered house.”
“Then she took the next huge bag of stuff and tried to walk out the door. I lost it and told her she could get out right now. She was shocked that I was serious, and she said she didn’t have anywhere to go, and it was so late. It was about 9:30. I booked her a hotel room and called a taxi.
My husband came home an hour later, and when I told him what happened, he was furious with me. He says I disrespected his mom and was ungrateful for everything she’s trying to do for us.”
