So I posted earlier today about how MIL plays games with the laundry to control when I can do it and make me look lazy. I ended up taking that post down for personal reasons, but guess what just happened.
She hasn’t done a single load of laundry all week. Nothing. The machines have been sitting there empty. So I finally said screw it and went to do laundry while she was asleep. I’m literally putting my toddlers’ bedsheets and blankets in the washer.
As soon as I start to unscrew the detergent cap, she comes downstairs like she’s on cue and says, “I need to do laundry, what do you have in there?”
I told her I was washing the kids’ bedding. And she goes, “Oh, after can you wash a load of towels while I run to work quick to pick something up?”
I just stared at her.
Like girl… you haven’t touched the machines all week, and now I finally use it and you want me to wash your towels for you? While you run out real quick? Not only trying to reclaim the machines but trying to assign me your chores too?
I told her “sure,” but let me be clear. I’m absolutely not doing it. I’m going to finish the loads I need to do and then she can come down and wash the towels when she feels like it. I am not the laundry gremlin she sends to do her bidding.
The control. The timing. The nerve.
I genuinely cannot believe how calculated and petty this whole thing is. She really cannot stand not having her hands on every little thing, even if it means inserting herself into laundry she wasn’t doing in the first place.
I will be taking the advice you all gave me in the last post and just going straight to the laundromat from now on. I’d rather drag baskets and toddlers out the door than deal with this weird game she’s playing.
I’m still in disbelief. You cannot make this up.
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Grey rock. Grey rock. Be non-committal and uninterested. Do not offer reasons or explanations. Just, “I can’t do that but you can have it when I’m done”. And just don’t interact further. Be a broken record.
I’m not shocked in the slightest. Exactly something my MIL would do.
Grey rock is the way to go “you can put them there and I might remember” would be my go to. The. Just do nothing. If she then brings it up “I did say I would do it if I remembered”.
Just don’t follow through. This is what I would do to avoid a direct conflict.
I read your other post. I was going to tell you that I thought you ought to just go to the laundromat from now on. I’m glad that‘s what you’re going to do.
You’re not wrong about MIL. It’s just so odd that she fixates on laundry. What a control freak. It’s pitiful that that’s all she has to exert control over. The woman needs some hobbies or to do volunteer work or something productive.