Perspective | Carolyn Hax: How to deal with mother-in-law's 'overwhelming' lack of boundaries? - The Washington Post
Dear Carolyn: My mother-in-law is an incredibly generous person and I love her, but she has been overwhelming as of late. She lives within walking distance of us, and until the pandemic, this was never a problem, because she has so much family and many friends. Now, because of the pandemic, she has to be careful and her world has shrunk. While we’re working, she shows up and insists on cleaning our house, which probably sounds wonderful but is incredibly uncomfortable for me. Especially when she makes our bed or does things like scold my husband for leaving a mess in the bathroom.
On my birthday, she showed up with an already prepared three-course meal for the three of us. It was delicious but not what we had planned.
She came over shortly after we found out I’m expecting, and she practically knocked my husband out of the way to get to me and hug and kiss me and tell me that she’ll do everything for me now.
My husband doesn’t see the problem here, so is it me? Am I making a problem out of having a wonderful mother-in-law because my own mother is kind of distant?
Maybe we could argue that it’s on the better-problems-to-have end of the scale, because it’s an excess of warmth vs. hostility, but it’s still a problem.
No one likes to have their autonomy taken away. That, too, is on a scale; some people take comfort in their ability to decide almost everything for themselves, and others are much more comfortable handing most things over and just showing up for whatever comes of it. Both of these natures can be taken to unhealthy extremes of control and passivity, but within a healthy range, it’s perfectly valid to want to live within your comfortable part of the scale. It’s not you.
Same goes for your mother-in-law, though, who also had her comfort zone erased. Having a bunch of different people to fuss over — probably still crossing boundaries, but spread out widely enough to outrun people’s objections — probably gave her purpose.
But she is entitled to her comfort zone, not to co-opt yours for her purposes. That’s where your discomfort comes in.
You have a few choices. You could bar the door to your mother-in-law, certainly, and I might have myself. Full disclosure.
You could also decide to treat this as dragging on but still temporary, and be “incredibly uncomfortable” (or selectively so, in certain ways) for as long as it takes for life to get back to normal-ish. Your kind words for her suggest you’re open to this, or I wouldn’t so much have hinted at it.
Try looking at this like a puzzle, where the object is to find an arrangement you can bear, that honors your affection for your mother-in-law and that your husband can grasp. Maybe identify a few things in your daily life to hand over to your mother-in-law: “We’d love your help with this. Interested?” Explain to your husband what you’re doing and why it’s so important to you to retain fundamental control of your home life.
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source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/advice/2022/01/04/carolyn-hax-mother-in-law-no-boundaries/
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