My MIL recently moved to our town. I actually helped with her move, finding an apartment, drove her to get groceries etc when she first arrived.
The problem is that both my husband and his mother do not hold a driver’s license, so I am the only driver around. Since moving here, my husband immediately offers his mom a ride whenever she has some kind of issue (today she called saying she couldn’t find certain items while unpacking, so he said “oh, OP and I can come get you and take you shopping today!”
I do not enjoy shopping and his mom takes a long time to find anything (think 1+ hours in a grocery store). It is not how I want to spend my Sunday when I have to work the next day. He also told her when she first moved “if you ever need to do a larger shopping trip, just let us know and we’ll take you”. There is a bus stop literally 20 feet in front of her apartment door, so she can definitely get around if she needs to (she’s only in her late 50s). I work full time and she is early retired.
I’m over here thinking to myself…I really don’t want to feel obligated to spend several days of the week doing that. By “we will help”, he means that I will have to drive both of them. I’m just not comfortable with him promising things like that. She also sometimes says she’ll handle something herself and then a few days later she calls and says “so when can you guys come get me?”. I honestly just don’t want to be responsible for her or really for giving anyone a ride.
She is a nice lady and always sweet to me, it’s just that she says things that are triggering like how we should be grateful for the place we live in (a house that I bought with my own money BEFORE we got married). And how we should eat healthier and take better care of ourselves. I am the main breadwinner and the reason we have this house. I am also normal weight while my husband is slightly obese. I eat healthy and exercise 2x per week while he eats fast food all the time. I just don’t want to hear her “advice” because I actually got my shit together. Certainly not while I am giving a ride to her and my husband. My husband by the way is also annoyed with the things she says but he has gotten used to tuning her out. Apparently she has been trying to give him advice like this for 15+ years. And she always goes on and on about it every time he sees her. Now she has just extended the advice giving to me.
So my husband obviously wants to help her because she is his mom. For me, I got my own (sometimes annoying) parents to deal with – so I simply don’t care to deal with additional parents (my parents live in another country and I visit them without my husband, so he has minimal interaction with them).
I also have very strong boundaries with my parents. For example, I only call my mom once a week and on a day/time we agree on. I work a lot and do not take unannounced phone calls. She can text me but I won’t take a call unless it’s an emergency. I also take her on one vacation per year and visit 2 weeks in our home country per year. She’s happy with that. I am not used to someone calling and demanding my time randomly. Now that I write all this, maybe I am autistic 🤣