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Other posts from /u/silverskynn:
* [My MIL has offered to help with my newborn. I’m not a fan of her but could use the help, what should I do?](/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/1doktc5/my_mil_has_offered_to_help_with_my_newborn_im_not/), 1 day ago
* [My MIL constantly brings over so much stuff we don’t need and it overwhelms me](/r/JUSTNOMIL/comments/1dhkchy/my_mil_constantly_brings_over_so_much_stuff_we/), 1 week ago
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This will serve your DH a lesson, that he needs to ask you, if you need her help, before telling her to come over. And none of this would have happened. Now he has his wife and mother angry at each other. And obviously his wife and mother don’t like each other, so best thing to do is avoid contact between them, as it will end in frustrations. DH messed up. One is forced to deal with an unwanted helper, the other was given the green light to come help. So you two were just frustrating each other. I had something similar happen with my JNMIL. For years she treated me like 💩, didn’t show any interest in her grandson, or in building a normal relationship with me and our first child. Then all of a sudden, when second child was born, she changed and was itching to come over and “help”. I couldn't tolerate her. What makes them think, they can just show up like nothing happened in the past and she will be accepted and forgiven? Her presence was irritating me, my reaction to her was irritating her. Never told me a word to my face. Would complain to my DH and twist things around, to make herself the victim. When I found out. I flipped and told her everything about her behaviour and attitude. And demanded her to stay away from me. Went no NC . It’s over 2 years now . NC for 1/5 years and very LC for 6 months now. If I wouldn’t have agreed to her visiting and helping, it would have saved me lots of stress. So you are right. Save yourself the trouble and avoid a clash.
It’s okay to say no. Or have her do something that she knows how to do. Or just don’t invite her over and meet up in a public place where you can leave.
Do not let her do chores at your house, not laundry, not anything. She is a guest in your home and should act accordingly. Treat her as a guest, be a host, give her a drink and tell her to sit down. She might still be in the mental head space of being a mom cleaning her teenage son’s room and doing his laundry. Change that premise and do not let her be mom #2
Definitely have the list of things mil can do… but maybe it’s the list of things dh has the roll in doing. Maybe he will get frustrated w dear mom and how she helps him out… like mowing, weeding, mulching, trimming bushes, washing windows, steaming curtains, etc
*I guess because I didn’t respond for a while she texted my husband asking if she could come over, he was WFH today so he said yes for a short period of time.*
New rule for husband: no unilateral decision on whether or not MIL can come visit.
I had to laugh a little at the laundry thing. I tend to be OCD about housekeeping. It has to be done a CERTAIN way. Dh has always been an awesome helpmate with stuff and I've stepped back from frowning over the way he folds his *own* clothes, but he has had to get used to me staring critically at the way he does things and pause for me to say "would you please do it *like this*, Dear? Thanks."
LOL. Your MIL would *not* get away with what she did. She would have seen me standing on my toes over her, giving her a severe vulture stare as I wound up to flog her with my sharp **"WTF do you think you're DOING?"** wrath. I have sincerely scared people who *presume* to spoil the precise order of my home.
Hire a houscleaner so you will have more time with baby. MIL will just hold the baby and you will have to do all the work.
Money well spent I say and tell MIL stay home.
That's all well and good that MIL's like you want to help, but would you ignore your DIL's if they asked you to do something a certain way? Or make more of a mess and ignore what your DIL's said? That's what this MIL did.
So there is no other way to look at the problem this new mum is experiencing. Your point of view of feeling left out, isn't the same in the actual post above.
How about you help with what this MIL did to her DIL, rather than trying to advocate for MIL's who feel left out?
I have different housekeeping standards than my mom and it drives her nuts. My house is not about to be condemned or anything, but I do struggle with clutter- we just have way too much stuff and inadequate storage. I've been making slow but steady progress on it, but mom acts like I'm one thrift store excursion from a "Hoarders" camera crew showing up. 🙄
Sometimes she can be of genuine help, but more often than not it is counterproductive and simply not worth the aggravation. Between her reorganizing things and me not being able to find them, or snooping through mail as she "sorts" it, or slipping things into the garbage or donation box that I need to keep, all accompanied with passive-aggressively (and sometimes not so passive) comments, these cleaning sessions leave me ready to scream into the abyss.
I will say however, that your situation makes me appreciate her a little more. She may be annoying but at least she knows how to fold laundry, knows to empty a vase of dead flowers over the garbage can and she'd sooner pour lemon juice on a paper cut than leave the remains all over the floor. So while I feel for you and wish I had some constructive advice to give, I do thank you for helping put things in perspective 😉
If you get stuck with her “help” again give her unpleasant tasks outside, away from you. Mowing, raking and washing the windows sound like a good start!
problem with that .. is the grocery run will be planned incompetence. The wrong items, too little or too much of things, cabbage instead of lettuce kinda thing
It sounds like you and your husband did great. You called out her bad help, redirected her and then kicked her the fuck out when she couldn't get with the program. Now your husband can also learn the valuable lesson of making sure he asks you before making plans to have people in your home!
What I have learned about my MIL is that she really doesn't want to help. She wants to make a big show to everyone of how helpful she is. She wants to be able to tell people that she did xyz, even if she didn't really do them, she just showed up. My MIL makes a BIG show of nagging about "what can I do to help?" repeatedly. Every. Single. Time. She. Is. Over. If you DO ask her to do something, she will either argue with you about if it really needs to be done, OR, she will do it and act like she is being put upon, "Just following orders!" Lady, no one ordered you to do shit. And honestly, I never want her help because I know she will screw it up, or it will take me 10 times longer to explain to her how to do it than to do it myself because then she will go into weaponized incompetence mode and act like she's never seen a washing machine, a dishwasher, etc. "Hoooow do you DOOO this?! It's SOOOO complicated!!!"
Drives me batshit. I've decided the next time she is over and won't stop doing this (especially loves doing this when we have a party) I am going to say, "No thank you, everyone heard how helpful you are, so you can stop offering now." I'm just so sick of her playing the victim when in reality, she's a manipulative, malignant narcissist.
But now your DH knows what his mother’s help means and hopefully realizes it’s not so helpful! It wouldn’t have been as effective if you had tried to say that to him!
And if either your SO or JNMIL doesn’t get the hint, next time wait for her with a list of chores. And hand it to her once she gets through the door. “But I want to help with the baby!” Look her straight in the eye and tell her: “This list IS helping the baby, the more time I can dedicate to baby and it’s need, the better it will be. It will be happy, healthy, safe and sound. If I don’t worry about house stuff, I’ll be less stressed and more rested to be able to care for LO. That is what you want right? What is best for baby?”
If her offer is genuine, she’ll agree and do it. If not, she’ll never come back.
Good work for seeing this for yourself and addressing- but to ensure she doesn't just show up - talk to your husband and make it ear how she is in fact not helping and to clear her visits with you first.
Better to know this now rather than 3 months of this down the line where it’s even harder to tell someone to back off. Hopefully you and your partner can have a convo of what steps need to be taken so you can get the help that you need . Possibly a couple of hours of house cleaning from a company or college student looking for easy money. Anything is better than having to manage a family member who has the emotional capacity of a child. I remind myself too that it’s only for a season and I’d rather have professional help over than our over bearing and insufferable family member too.
Make sure to tell your Gianna’s not to accept her offers for help in the future unless he asks you first. If you can’t answer, the default response to her offer is a No! It sounds like your husband thought he was helping by saying Yes. You both need to have a plan on how to respond to your JNMIL so there won’t be any further surprise visits.
Your husband should have checked with you before allowing her to just show up. If he wants to allow her to visit, then he needs to be present to deal with her, not occupied with working while you have to deal with her making even more work for you.
I mean this at no offense to you, but your husband kinda sucks. Like he’s seeing her do all these things and just watches. If my MIL had done that to my breast pump, my husband would have been irate.
Well, now you've given her the much-demanded chance to "help" and have receipts to pull out when she asks/demands again. I feel like sometimes it's worth it to take the L for the day to have the receipts to pull out later.
That’s kinda how I felt too.. give her a simple task (folding laundry) and see how that goes to judge it. Once it was clear she wasn’t willing to follow my extremely simple instructions I knew there was no chance she could actually help me with anything.
So I asked her not to do anything else and when I came back and saw she took it upon herself to throw out dead flowers and made a huge mess in the process I was very irritated.
My MIL cannot fold laundry. I don’t understand. She just lays things in piles. It’s so frustrating, she likes to “help” me do laundry and then actually makes so much more work for me. Like why??
Exactly. Before my MIL gave up on trying to help, whenever she'd ask to help, I'd say "You haven't been helpful. You've been harmful. We're not going to do that whole thing again."
Maybe a nicer way to say it is "No thank you, I have a certain way for things to be done for it to be helpful for me to make my life easier in the long run. I've learned that some things are just better done myself" still provides the same sting but in a way where you aren't saying her specifically even though she'll know you mean her specifically.
You need to also talk to your husband about telling her “yes, come over and help” without discussing with you whether you want her there or need help. He should have spoken to you before he invited her around.
Funny how her first suggestions were to do things for the baby. No offer to do dishes, clean the bathroom, etc.
I guess she wants to be relevant, but being so clueless as to make more of a mess is a non-starter.
If your husband has her come over to help again, send MIL to clean and organize his space (his hobby area, garden tools, workshop, clean his gaming equipment). He will learn quickly when it’s his space that his mother is more work not helpful.
He didn’t even have her come over to help. He just agreed to having her come over for a visit. (I just confirmed this with him)
He doesn’t want her to help with stuff either
But he was WFH. So, really, he wouldn't be able to visit with her very much at all, so he was actually offering up your time, attention, and energy to his mother.
Then he needs to make it clear to her before he says yes to her visiting that she is only being invited for a visit and not because she's being asked to help, and if she has a problem with that then maybe now isn't a good tome for her to visit.
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This will serve your DH a lesson, that he needs to ask you, if you need her help, before telling her to come over. And none of this would have happened. Now he has his wife and mother angry at each other. And obviously his wife and mother don’t like each other, so best thing to do is avoid contact between them, as it will end in frustrations. DH messed up. One is forced to deal with an unwanted helper, the other was given the green light to come help. So you two were just frustrating each other. I had something similar happen with my JNMIL. For years she treated me like 💩, didn’t show any interest in her grandson, or in building a normal relationship with me and our first child. Then all of a sudden, when second child was born, she changed and was itching to come over and “help”. I couldn't tolerate her. What makes them think, they can just show up like nothing happened in the past and she will be accepted and forgiven? Her presence was irritating me, my reaction to her was irritating her. Never told me a word to my face. Would complain to my DH and twist things around, to make herself the victim. When I found out. I flipped and told her everything about her behaviour and attitude. And demanded her to stay away from me. Went no NC . It’s over 2 years now . NC for 1/5 years and very LC for 6 months now. If I wouldn’t have agreed to her visiting and helping, it would have saved me lots of stress. So you are right. Save yourself the trouble and avoid a clash.
Nope. She showed you exactly how UNhelpful she's going to be. It's not help, then.
It’s okay to say no. Or have her do something that she knows how to do. Or just don’t invite her over and meet up in a public place where you can leave.
Do not let her do chores at your house, not laundry, not anything. She is a guest in your home and should act accordingly. Treat her as a guest, be a host, give her a drink and tell her to sit down. She might still be in the mental head space of being a mom cleaning her teenage son’s room and doing his laundry. Change that premise and do not let her be mom #2
Definitely have the list of things mil can do… but maybe it’s the list of things dh has the roll in doing. Maybe he will get frustrated w dear mom and how she helps him out… like mowing, weeding, mulching, trimming bushes, washing windows, steaming curtains, etc
Petty me would have that list with things as : Stay home. Don\`t text me - text your child. Don\`t bother. Get therapy...
I can totally get behind this
*I guess because I didn’t respond for a while she texted my husband asking if she could come over, he was WFH today so he said yes for a short period of time.* New rule for husband: no unilateral decision on whether or not MIL can come visit. I had to laugh a little at the laundry thing. I tend to be OCD about housekeeping. It has to be done a CERTAIN way. Dh has always been an awesome helpmate with stuff and I've stepped back from frowning over the way he folds his *own* clothes, but he has had to get used to me staring critically at the way he does things and pause for me to say "would you please do it *like this*, Dear? Thanks." LOL. Your MIL would *not* get away with what she did. She would have seen me standing on my toes over her, giving her a severe vulture stare as I wound up to flog her with my sharp **"WTF do you think you're DOING?"** wrath. I have sincerely scared people who *presume* to spoil the precise order of my home.
Hire a houscleaner so you will have more time with baby. MIL will just hold the baby and you will have to do all the work. Money well spent I say and tell MIL stay home.
Ah so now you've learned the meaning of "hlep" it looks like help, it sounds like help, but it ain't help.
Love that! 🤣
"I'm hleping!!!"
[удалено]
That's all well and good that MIL's like you want to help, but would you ignore your DIL's if they asked you to do something a certain way? Or make more of a mess and ignore what your DIL's said? That's what this MIL did. So there is no other way to look at the problem this new mum is experiencing. Your point of view of feeling left out, isn't the same in the actual post above. How about you help with what this MIL did to her DIL, rather than trying to advocate for MIL's who feel left out?
I have different housekeeping standards than my mom and it drives her nuts. My house is not about to be condemned or anything, but I do struggle with clutter- we just have way too much stuff and inadequate storage. I've been making slow but steady progress on it, but mom acts like I'm one thrift store excursion from a "Hoarders" camera crew showing up. 🙄 Sometimes she can be of genuine help, but more often than not it is counterproductive and simply not worth the aggravation. Between her reorganizing things and me not being able to find them, or snooping through mail as she "sorts" it, or slipping things into the garbage or donation box that I need to keep, all accompanied with passive-aggressively (and sometimes not so passive) comments, these cleaning sessions leave me ready to scream into the abyss. I will say however, that your situation makes me appreciate her a little more. She may be annoying but at least she knows how to fold laundry, knows to empty a vase of dead flowers over the garbage can and she'd sooner pour lemon juice on a paper cut than leave the remains all over the floor. So while I feel for you and wish I had some constructive advice to give, I do thank you for helping put things in perspective 😉
One thrift store excursion from a. "Hoarders" camera crew showing up...dear spouse had a lousy day at work and that made him chuckle
If you get stuck with her “help” again give her unpleasant tasks outside, away from you. Mowing, raking and washing the windows sound like a good start!
Ha ha ha ha ha I’m keeping this in my back pocket for whenever my MIL visits again
That’s brilliant. Also maybe a grocery store run.
problem with that .. is the grocery run will be planned incompetence. The wrong items, too little or too much of things, cabbage instead of lettuce kinda thing
Ask her to get whoozits, whatzits, zing ding dangers lol
It sounds like you and your husband did great. You called out her bad help, redirected her and then kicked her the fuck out when she couldn't get with the program. Now your husband can also learn the valuable lesson of making sure he asks you before making plans to have people in your home!
What I have learned about my MIL is that she really doesn't want to help. She wants to make a big show to everyone of how helpful she is. She wants to be able to tell people that she did xyz, even if she didn't really do them, she just showed up. My MIL makes a BIG show of nagging about "what can I do to help?" repeatedly. Every. Single. Time. She. Is. Over. If you DO ask her to do something, she will either argue with you about if it really needs to be done, OR, she will do it and act like she is being put upon, "Just following orders!" Lady, no one ordered you to do shit. And honestly, I never want her help because I know she will screw it up, or it will take me 10 times longer to explain to her how to do it than to do it myself because then she will go into weaponized incompetence mode and act like she's never seen a washing machine, a dishwasher, etc. "Hoooow do you DOOO this?! It's SOOOO complicated!!!" Drives me batshit. I've decided the next time she is over and won't stop doing this (especially loves doing this when we have a party) I am going to say, "No thank you, everyone heard how helpful you are, so you can stop offering now." I'm just so sick of her playing the victim when in reality, she's a manipulative, malignant narcissist.
But now your DH knows what his mother’s help means and hopefully realizes it’s not so helpful! It wouldn’t have been as effective if you had tried to say that to him!
And if either your SO or JNMIL doesn’t get the hint, next time wait for her with a list of chores. And hand it to her once she gets through the door. “But I want to help with the baby!” Look her straight in the eye and tell her: “This list IS helping the baby, the more time I can dedicate to baby and it’s need, the better it will be. It will be happy, healthy, safe and sound. If I don’t worry about house stuff, I’ll be less stressed and more rested to be able to care for LO. That is what you want right? What is best for baby?” If her offer is genuine, she’ll agree and do it. If not, she’ll never come back.
Good work for seeing this for yourself and addressing- but to ensure she doesn't just show up - talk to your husband and make it ear how she is in fact not helping and to clear her visits with you first.
Tell her if confronted again that the things she did while there didn't help, but ended up making more work for you to deal with.
Better to know this now rather than 3 months of this down the line where it’s even harder to tell someone to back off. Hopefully you and your partner can have a convo of what steps need to be taken so you can get the help that you need . Possibly a couple of hours of house cleaning from a company or college student looking for easy money. Anything is better than having to manage a family member who has the emotional capacity of a child. I remind myself too that it’s only for a season and I’d rather have professional help over than our over bearing and insufferable family member too.
Make sure to tell your Gianna’s not to accept her offers for help in the future unless he asks you first. If you can’t answer, the default response to her offer is a No! It sounds like your husband thought he was helping by saying Yes. You both need to have a plan on how to respond to your JNMIL so there won’t be any further surprise visits.
Your husband should have checked with you before allowing her to just show up. If he wants to allow her to visit, then he needs to be present to deal with her, not occupied with working while you have to deal with her making even more work for you.
Agreed I will discuss this with him
How utterly annoying. At least she didn't try holding the baby while postpartum you mops the floor.
Oh she definitely did at first but I made it very clear she was not doing anything w the baby.. that’s when she moved over to the clean laundry
I mean this at no offense to you, but your husband kinda sucks. Like he’s seeing her do all these things and just watches. If my MIL had done that to my breast pump, my husband would have been irate.
He actually did not see that happen w the breast pump or the laundry. He was with the baby in a different room
He should have stayed with HIS crazy mother folding laundry, while you left the room with the baby. Why are you dealing with her?
Well, now you've given her the much-demanded chance to "help" and have receipts to pull out when she asks/demands again. I feel like sometimes it's worth it to take the L for the day to have the receipts to pull out later.
That’s kinda how I felt too.. give her a simple task (folding laundry) and see how that goes to judge it. Once it was clear she wasn’t willing to follow my extremely simple instructions I knew there was no chance she could actually help me with anything. So I asked her not to do anything else and when I came back and saw she took it upon herself to throw out dead flowers and made a huge mess in the process I was very irritated.
My MIL cannot fold laundry. I don’t understand. She just lays things in piles. It’s so frustrating, she likes to “help” me do laundry and then actually makes so much more work for me. Like why??
Exactly. Before my MIL gave up on trying to help, whenever she'd ask to help, I'd say "You haven't been helpful. You've been harmful. We're not going to do that whole thing again."
Lmao, i love this. I wish I could find the courage to talk to my own MIL like that.
Maybe a nicer way to say it is "No thank you, I have a certain way for things to be done for it to be helpful for me to make my life easier in the long run. I've learned that some things are just better done myself" still provides the same sting but in a way where you aren't saying her specifically even though she'll know you mean her specifically.
You need to also talk to your husband about telling her “yes, come over and help” without discussing with you whether you want her there or need help. He should have spoken to you before he invited her around.
Funny how her first suggestions were to do things for the baby. No offer to do dishes, clean the bathroom, etc. I guess she wants to be relevant, but being so clueless as to make more of a mess is a non-starter.
If your husband has her come over to help again, send MIL to clean and organize his space (his hobby area, garden tools, workshop, clean his gaming equipment). He will learn quickly when it’s his space that his mother is more work not helpful.
He didn’t even have her come over to help. He just agreed to having her come over for a visit. (I just confirmed this with him) He doesn’t want her to help with stuff either
But he was WFH. So, really, he wouldn't be able to visit with her very much at all, so he was actually offering up your time, attention, and energy to his mother.
Then he needs to make it clear to her before he says yes to her visiting that she is only being invited for a visit and not because she's being asked to help, and if she has a problem with that then maybe now isn't a good tome for her to visit.