I have befriended my MIL’s niece, and it’s so nice to have someone on my side.
She messaged me yesterday: “I was talking to my uncle and he mentioned that they are planning to visit you guys in May”.
- they live 7 hours away so when they come visit it’s always for a few days (thankfully they always get a hotel)
- they haven’t said anything to us yet (why are we the last one told?)
I am at a point where I am starting to doubt myself and I no longer know if my feelings are justified. Because it enrages me so much that she always TELLS us she’ll come visit at those dates instead of asking us when we are available. She behaves like it’s totally normal, and my husband doesn’t blink an eye.
Is it so unreasonable of me to want to be asked? If you want to visit us, just tell us and we can decide on dates that suit both of our families. Why do I have to make myself available whenever she wants? When it was only my husband and I, I was annoyed but understood that we were more flexible because we had fewer commitments (besides, work, hobbies and social life I guess…)
However I am now 15 weeks pregnant, and I no longer want to make myself available whenever she feels like visiting. She’s also retired so why the visits are always on her terms?
I want to message her to tell her to stop coming to our house without checking with us first, but I’m honestly tired of being the bad guy, so I need you guys to put the wind back in my sails.
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“This is the first I’ve heard of it. May doesn’t work for us”
I have a sister like this. She asked our other sister if she wanted to come with the 6 relatives visiting me in March last year. My eldest sister asked if she talked to me about it first, which she didn’t.
I’m a SAHM and I can receive guests at any point, but I really didn’t want a larger group visiting. I didn’t want this sister visiting with her kids because they’re always sick and poorly behaved. They came sick and with fresh pink-eye and broke something very sentimental.
I learned boundaries since then. Decide if it works for your outside of wanting to say no because she is inconsiderate. If the time works, you can just go with it. If the timing is bad just tell her, “that doesn’t work for us, how about next month instead?” And if she tries to argue or push back about already buying the tickets, just say, “It would have made me sense for you to check our avaliablity first, we still can’t make it work.” And let her deal with the consequences.
But your husband should be the one communicating. If he allows this, then you just don’t participate when it’s not convenient.
If you really want to be petty. Plan your own trip when you know they are coming so you really can’t even sacrifice time for dinner or anything. This will get worse when you have the baby, so put your foot down when you need to.
Just be the bad guy. Who cares? If you don’t do it now, she’s going to stomp all over your boundaries after baby is born.
“Hi MIL. I think we need to clear up some confusion that you have about visiting us. Going forward, any trips you may want to take to visit us need to be planned in advance with me. We can discuss possible dates, but any trips that you plan without my input will be cancelled. That means asking when would work for me for you to visit, and not just telling me dates. I’ve been in the habit of clearing schedules for you even when it’s very inconvenient for me. Now that husband and I are bringing this new baby into the world, I can’t accommodate your schedule in the same way anymore. Thank you for your understanding.”
>I want to message her to tell her to stop coming to our house without checking with us first, but I’m honestly tired of being the bad guy, so I need you guys to put the wind back in my sails.
Why do you need to be the ‘bad guy’? This is not your mother. DH needs to tell his mom that while you all may have let it go in the past when it was just the two of you (although it was still hella rude), life is different now. You’re pregnant, you’re tired, and your family has other things going on, you’re not going to drop everything because they’ve announced they’re coming. They can no longer make the plan to visit and tell you after the plan is in place, that no longer works. He can tell her to please touch base with HIM going forward to ensure that visiting works for you both at the time they want to come, to ensure they have time to spend with them. Otherwise they may end up staying at their hotel themselves since you may both be busy with other responsibilities.
When you get the call telling you they are coming, tell them, unfortunately, those dates don’t work for you and they will have to be changed as you have other commitments. Then tell her you will speak with your husband and work out when would be convenient for you. My mother thought I should drop everything to cater to people who were coming to visit me. She called me one day and caught me just as DH, our two kids and I were leaving the house for an event that would keep us away from home till at least 10pm. She told me her nephew was coming for the night as he had an early flight the next morning. She was quite upset with me when I wouldn’t change our plans so he could have a free place to eat and sleep that night. He wasn’t coming to see us. He had a habit of showing up unannounced and expecting people to cater to him.
Hopefully once you don’t agree to the dates, they will be more considerate of your time.
Be conveniently unavailable when they visit.
Could it be that someone has said they are thinking of visiting you in May and she has run with it and believes it is set in stone.
I’d also check with your husband. If he’s anything like mine then he has been asked said it’s fine but forgotten to talk about it.
If you have the dates then book a small get away for the dates. A baby moon for you & hubby.
You know the dates now. Plan a vacation at the same time