My MIL is a snoop!

Could you get his sister to help out, either having a word with your H and giving him some ideas on how to stand up to his mother or maybe get her to talk to MIL?

Wow, what a awful situation you're in. I can't imagine having to go to these extremes to get a little privacy, of which most of us take for granted. Haven't any advice really, but just wanted to offer you a hug ? - oh, and lainie's idea is a really really really good one!

I'm not sure why your H thinks this is a reason to not act about her behaviour - just because she thinks stealing veg is ok doesn't make that right either. ?

Anjumanji, you have the patience of a saint. I'd have flipped long before now although I appreciate there are cultural differences involved.

Have you suggested the alarm system to your husband? It's perfectly reasonable and there's no way she'll be able to bully the code out of you. (She can't do it behind your back lkike the key cutting!) Even better than just a noisy one to upset your neighbours if she tried would be one that has someone called out every time it goes off! You could then charge her their call out fee if she persists! ?

AS Chicken said, how come your H's sister doesn't have to hand her keys over too? Can't he learn from her?

H's sister has a spare set at her inlaws. However the keys are there for emergency use only. Her inlaws have never come over unannounced to let themselves in. Her mum did try to bully keys off her but she held firm and said that her husband only trusted the two of them to lock up properly and set the alarm.

As to speaking to my SIL, while she knows just how awful her mum is, she's also very loyal. When I tried speaking to her previously, she just said that as her son my H's house is also her house, and that maybe I should make her feel a bit more welcome and invite her over to stay or to come over for dinner instead of being put out when she comes around. I felt like telling her that she makes herself welcome whether I like it or not. When she wants to come over for dinner she'll say she's coming over and will tell me what to make.

All I can say is you must really love your husband to put up with all of that!

Your SIL's attitude smacks of hypocrisy if you don't mind me saying.......

Aha, so the alarm route could work, as it does for his sister?

Is it remotely in the realms of vaguely possible that you could get the new door/locks, get an alarm, use the sil's excuse for her not having access, and have set days when she can come over for dinner? Hmm, even as I type this I realise she;s never going to accept it.

Is there any way you can have a rational conversation, the three of you, where you say you love having her over, but would like to actually see her and not have her be there when you're not, so could you make a regular thing of (eg) Saturdays and Wednesdays and I'll take my keys back, thanks?

L
xx

No I don't mind you saying that, because it's very true.

She's married to an only son, so on marriage moved into the inlaws house for good. 6 months later they'd moved out and bought their own place. Her reasons were that her FIL was a nightmare and her husband wasn't willing to live with his behaviour so he had made the decision to move out. I suspect that she made her H's life a misery until he agreed to move out. My H's thoughts on this are that by giving in to his wife and abandoning his duty as an only son that makes SIL's H weak.

And therein lies the problem.?

WHBS - I think that the staunch beliefs held by your MIL are upheld, albeit to a lesser degree, by your H but sounds as if he's trying to keep the peace by sitting on the fence IMO.

So 'traditiional beliefs' means that your MIL can complete ignore you and your feelings? I think that sounds like an excuse. I'm sure the bliefs include care and consderation for your family members ....

Also, you said in one of your posts that your H thought that confronting her and asking for the keys back would 'make thins worse'. Worse how? Worse than having a wife who's upset, frustrated and unhappy, not only with a MIL who seems so uncaring of her DIL's feelings, but also with an H who seems unwilling to stand up for his wife's needs.

The fact that his sister manages to have a house where MIL has no 'unsupervised' access proves it can be done, and that life can go on.

Flippin heck, i'm only just getting into the ins and outs of this thread. This behaviour and having a third person in the marriage must cause all sorts of arguments between you and your H. I'm amazed you get any time together where MIL doesn't come into conversation or an argument starts about her and her behaviour if for her, this is normal.

You must be extremely laid back because I think i'd have gone off my rocker before now if i'd have been you.

My understanding of your culture is that the duty of care of parents' lies with the son(s) not the daughter(s), is that right? If so, that's presumably why your SIL feels less beholden to them than your H does.

I remember vividly the time you changed the locks and it worked, for what, about a week? I fear that you're going to spunk a whole load of cash on a new door that will only give you another week's reprive. The story held water last time, but it was your H that caved and gave her the keys wasn't it? So what will be different this time?

I'd get the CCTV put in but not tell her. Then I would just save footage of her snooping and her lying about the snooping until you have enough to put together on video/DVD and then sit down with ehr and your H and put it on, to make the point that you are aware that she snoops and that you are aware that she lies about the snooping. Then I would tell her that the CCTV is staying in place and that if there is one more example on it of her snooping then you will change the locks and not give her a key.

A few of my mum's friends and a lot of her pupils have this very traditional asian society expectation at home. am i right to say that the idea is that when you marry into a family (as a woman) your mil is basically the boss of you? in which case is there any way you could suck up to her like no tomorrow and get her more on side? might take months of annoyance but work out ok in the long run...

have to say you have my admiration. i'm more in the way of 'strop now, repair later'. i told my h in the early days of our relationship that as it was me in his bed it was me he could bother about, and his mother would have to come second. in retrospect i'm fortunate it went in my favour!

edited to remove multiple 'basically's - am well into my cups!

I wouldn't be getting a bells and whistles alarm, I'd be getting a nice silent one that notifies the police when someone is in and hasn't deactivated it. Then I'd sit and watch while the police turned up and scared the sh!t out of her.

The thing is that she isn't malicious and she doesn't hate me. She just knows that she is the boss of me and she doesn't see anything wrong in what she does. Aside from when she's telling me what to do and snooping around my house I don't actually hate her either. She really isn't a bad person and she really could be far worse. She just thinks she can do a better job of running everyone's lives and will make sure she tells you how to do it. She can however be manipulative and childish and will twist things to suit her. I can suck up all I like to her and in her mind she'll think 'Great, Anj finally understands my way is best' so any deviation from that will be seen as disagreeing with her and won't be tolerated. So it's best not to go there.

I did try saying something similar to what you said to my H once, and he said to remember my background and the way we've been bought up. It's always family first.