Dear Prudence: My MIL redecorated my house

[jedikaiti]

And time & travel for Mom & Sis

[cattlekid]

That would be one heck of an invoice because Mom had to fly out to visit me.   

After some pointed questions to those involved, it has been determined that it was my SIL and niece who took it upon themselves to pull up all the periwinkle.  There have been other issues with SIL so this is it.  Until she apologizes and UNDERSTANDS why what she did was so heinous and boundary-crossing, I do not plan on speaking to her.  She doesn't think she can do any wrong, so I think this is going to be a long standoff, but I'm fine with it.

And time & travel for Mom & Sis

[Kiara]

See, this makes me want to go hug my friend.  She came to catsit while I was away for 3 weeks.  When I came home, she said "I was going to try and clean up the front yard, but I have no idea what's a weed and what's not, so I left it because I know your garden is important to you."  Leaving stuff alone isn't that hard!!!

[cattlekid]

Evil Cattlekid wants to go to SIL's house and just randomly start throwing things in the garbage (on trash day, so they can't be retrieved).  Then when SIL protests, I want to say "oh, it looked like trash to me".   Maybe then she'll understand why what she did was so awful. 

See, this makes me want to go hug my friend.  She came to catsit while I was away for 3 weeks.  When I came home, she said "I was going to try and clean up the front yard, but I have no idea what's a weed and what's not, so I left it because I know your garden is important to you."  Leaving stuff alone isn't that hard!!!

[magicdomino]

MIL and FIL purchased a new home and GIL was visiting to help out shortly afterwards. GIL said the basement walls needed to be painted, but FIL didn't want to. So what did she do? She rolled paint once or twice on each wall and stopped, knowing FIL would would be compelled to finish the job.

That wouldn't have worked at my house. My unfinished basement doesn't get beautification projects. If somebody tried that on me, when they were finally allowed to visit again, years later, they'd find the paint swipes they put there and the walls and floor still unpainted.

Same here.  Unfinished = industrial area = I don't care what it looks like as long as I can find stuff.

[TootsNYC]

MIL and FIL purchased a new home and GIL was visiting to help out shortly afterwards. GIL said the basement walls needed to be painted, but FIL didn't want to. So what did she do? She rolled paint once or twice on each wall and stopped, knowing FIL would would be compelled to finish the job.

That wouldn't have worked at my house. My unfinished basement doesn't get beautification projects. If somebody tried that on me, when they were finally allowed to visit again, years later, they'd find the paint swipes they put there and the walls and floor still unpainted.

Same here.  Unfinished = industrial area = I don't care what it looks like as long as I can find stuff.

True.
But it would bug the heck out of me every time I saw it. "general homogenously unfinished" is one look; "random blotchy parts" is another.

So I would probably knock together some storage shelves and set them in front of it!

[VorFemme]

MIL and FIL purchased a new home and GIL was visiting to help out shortly afterwards. GIL said the basement walls needed to be painted, but FIL didn't want to. So what did she do? She rolled paint once or twice on each wall and stopped, knowing FIL would would be compelled to finish the job.

That wouldn't have worked at my house. My unfinished basement doesn't get beautification projects. If somebody tried that on me, when they were finally allowed to visit again, years later, they'd find the paint swipes they put there and the walls and floor still unpainted.

Same here.  Unfinished = industrial area = I don't care what it looks like as long as I can find stuff.

True.
But it would bug the heck out of me every time I saw it. "general homogenously unfinished" is one look; "random blotchy parts" is another.

So I would probably knock together some storage shelves and set them in front of it!

Put an empty frame around it and claim that MIL painted an abstract on each wall?

[Free Range Hippy Chick]

When the Younger Chick was three, we had a simply ghastly three weeks with him in hospital, and not necessarily going to come out again. The Elder Chick was five, and we had no family close by. First my mother and then my MIL came to stay (my FIL came too but he was about as much use as a chocolate teapot), and they ran my household for me, so that DH and I could be at the hospital, the Elder Chick could go to school, there were meals and clean laundry etc. etc. cont page 96. Boundaries simply had to be shifted, or indeed abandoned; if somebody didn't do my laundry for me, I had no clean clothes. If somebody else would make a meal and collect the Elder Chick from school, DH could make an appearance at work and at least tell other people what to do. My MIL eventually said to me, 'dear, I don't know how you do things, so I'm just going to do them the way I normally would rather than asking you all the time, all right?' and I simply nodded. There's a time to worry about somebody else cleaning your lavatory, and this wasn't it.

Afterwards? I could find nothing in my kitchen, because between them, my mother and my MIL had put things where they expected to find them - someone else's kitchen is never laid out precisely the way you would do it yourself. There were several things one or other of them bought because 'well, I know you must have one, but I can't find it, so it was easiest just to get another one.' I don't think I ever found where my MIL had put the potato peeler, but it didn't seem terribly important; I put it on the shopping list.

After it was all over, it wasn't the easiest to reform the boundaries. Easier for my mother - as somebody said upthread, it's different with your own mother to how it is with your MIL. On a visit to my ILs later, I 'helped' my MIL turn out a cupboard, and in retrospect, I think there might have been a degree on my part of... boundary pushiness, shall we say. She didn't hold it against me, but the degree to which either of us was completely 'at home' in the other's house, the things we could do without asking permission, was... odd.

Intent, in our case, was all, I think.

[gmatoy]

Reminds me of an old family story.

This takes place back when coal or wood fires were the more common method of indoor heating/cooking, and ceiling tended to be darkened by soot.

A door to door salesman came by my great however many times grandmother's house, selling a brush to clean the soot off the ceiling. He started his pitch, then took a quick swipe at the ceiling before g-?-g'ma could stop him. It worked - made a distinct clean spot!

She made him stay and finish the job. Don't know if she bought the brush afterwards, or not.

I love this story! In my family we had a lot of strong-willed women and it sounds like something any one of them would have done!

[camlan]

When the Younger Chick was three, we had a simply ghastly three weeks with him in hospital, and not necessarily going to come out again. The Elder Chick was five, and we had no family close by. First my mother and then my MIL came to stay (my FIL came too but he was about as much use as a chocolate teapot), and they ran my household for me, so that DH and I could be at the hospital, the Elder Chick could go to school, there were meals and clean laundry etc. etc. cont page 96. Boundaries simply had to be shifted, or indeed abandoned; if somebody didn't do my laundry for me, I had no clean clothes. If somebody else would make a meal and collect the Elder Chick from school, DH could make an appearance at work and at least tell other people what to do. My MIL eventually said to me, 'dear, I don't know how you do things, so I'm just going to do them the way I normally would rather than asking you all the time, all right?' and I simply nodded. There's a time to worry about somebody else cleaning your lavatory, and this wasn't it.

Afterwards? I could find nothing in my kitchen, because between them, my mother and my MIL had put things where they expected to find them - someone else's kitchen is never laid out precisely the way you would do it yourself. There were several things one or other of them bought because 'well, I know you must have one, but I can't find it, so it was easiest just to get another one.' I don't think I ever found where my MIL had put the potato peeler, but it didn't seem terribly important; I put it on the shopping list.

After it was all over, it wasn't the easiest to reform the boundaries. Easier for my mother - as somebody said upthread, it's different with your own mother to how it is with your MIL. On a visit to my ILs later, I 'helped' my MIL turn out a cupboard, and in retrospect, I think there might have been a degree on my part of... boundary pushiness, shall we say. She didn't hold it against me, but the degree to which either of us was completely 'at home' in the other's house, the things we could do without asking permission, was... odd.

Intent, in our case, was all, I think.

I've been on the other side of this, when my brother ended up in the hospital for a month, leaving my sister-in-law with the three kids--the 5 year old who was on a ventilator, the 3 year old and the one and a half week old newborn.

I drove out the 8 hours to help out. Didn't know where things in the kitchen went, didn't know what the kids were supposed to eat, barely managed to keep the various schedules for nursery school and kindergarten and therapy and music lessons straight. Heck, I didn't know where the nearest supermarket was, or what SIL would like for dinner. Since I live alone, I wasn't at all used to the amount of cooking or cleaning or laundry that needed to be done.

And the kids insisted on watching TV in their parents' bedroom, not the living room, not the family room. Looking back, they probably felt closer to their parents in there, but I was freaking out about being in their bedroom because I didn't belong there. And it was really weird doing SIL's laundry, but she did not have time to think about that sort of thing. I did my best to observe boundaries, but there were times when it was just not possible.

I did the best I could, with the guidance of the 5 year old. And I apologized a lot. And I have a very forgiving SIL. As she put it, we all survived to tell the tale.

[Free Range Hippy Chick]

I've been on the other side of this, when my brother ended up in the hospital for a month, leaving my sister-in-law with the three kids--the 5 year old who was on a ventilator, the 3 year old and the one and a half week old newborn.

I drove out the 8 hours to help out. Didn't know where things in the kitchen went, didn't know what the kids were supposed to eat, barely managed to keep the various schedules for nursery school and kindergarten and therapy and music lessons straight. Heck, I didn't know where the nearest supermarket was, or what SIL would like for dinner. Since I live alone, I wasn't at all used to the amount of cooking or cleaning or laundry that needed to be done.

And the kids insisted on watching TV in their parents' bedroom, not the living room, not the family room. Looking back, they probably felt closer to their parents in there, but I was freaking out about being in their bedroom because I didn't belong there. And it was really weird doing SIL's laundry, but she did not have time to think about that sort of thing. I did my best to observe boundaries, but there were times when it was just not possible.

I did the best I could, with the guidance of the 5 year old. And I apologized a lot. And I have a very forgiving SIL. As she put it, we all survived to tell the tale.

Just so - you get very good at triage. It's more important that something should go on the table than that it be the right thing. So the children are eating fish finger sandwiches again? Fish, that's protein, bread is carb, insist on them eating an apple afterwards and that's close enough to a balanced meal, and if they eat it every day it doesn't matter. So they want that particular cartoon character shirt every day because that's the one daddy bought them? Wash it every evening as it comes off. Not worth the meltdown, which as we all know, is actually nothing to do with the shirt and everything to do with the fact that mummy and daddy are at the hospital. Clean the bathroom, because a family attack of salmonella won't help, and leave the garden because nobody will actually die if the lawn isn't mowed. So you're sitting on my bed watching TV with the children and you don't belong there. Is anybody crying? No? Then put another Fireman Sam DVD in and avert your eyes from the dust on the dressing table. Nobody will die of it.

[Addy]

I've been on the other side of this, when my brother ended up in the hospital for a month, leaving my sister-in-law with the three kids--the 5 year old who was on a ventilator, the 3 year old and the one and a half week old newborn.

I drove out the 8 hours to help out. Didn't know where things in the kitchen went, didn't know what the kids were supposed to eat, barely managed to keep the various schedules for nursery school and kindergarten and therapy and music lessons straight. Heck, I didn't know where the nearest supermarket was, or what SIL would like for dinner. Since I live alone, I wasn't at all used to the amount of cooking or cleaning or laundry that needed to be done.

And the kids insisted on watching TV in their parents' bedroom, not the living room, not the family room. Looking back, they probably felt closer to their parents in there, but I was freaking out about being in their bedroom because I didn't belong there. And it was really weird doing SIL's laundry, but she did not have time to think about that sort of thing. I did my best to observe boundaries, but there were times when it was just not possible.

I did the best I could, with the guidance of the 5 year old. And I apologized a lot. And I have a very forgiving SIL. As she put it, we all survived to tell the tale.

You may have felt that you needed to apologize and that your SIL had to be forgiving, but to me it looks like she should have been thanking you profusely (I'm not saying she didn't) because you sound like an awesome, helpful sister-in-law.

[Outdoor Girl]

Camlan and Free Range Hippy Chick, I think the situations you describe are exceptions.  Crisis going on?  As long as you are being helpful and not aggravating the person you are helping, all bets are off.  Do things as you need to do them, regardless of how they are normally done; organize things to make it most efficient for you and when the crisis is over, or at least under control, help put things back to the way the person you helped would like them to be.

[Free Range Hippy Chick]

Camlan and Free Range Hippy Chick, I think the situations you describe are exceptions.  Crisis going on?  As long as you are being helpful and not aggravating the person you are helping, all bets are off.  Do things as you need to do them, regardless of how they are normally done; organize things to make it most efficient for you and when the crisis is over, or at least under control, help put things back to the way the person you helped would like them to be.

Of course that's true - but nonetheless, despite the crisis, despite the clear understanding that this is how it needs to be, that there is no alternative, there is still an underlying discomfort both for the person intruded upon and for the intruder, if the intruder, like both Camlan and my MIL (whom I loved dearly) has normal social sensitivities. People are territorial. MY kitchen. MY bedroom. It was less uncomfortable for my mother, who had done my laundry until I went away to university and who had given me space in her kitchen.

Although for sheer 'crossing boundaries! not happy!' 'this never happened and we do not speak of it' you have only to look at my DH. When the crisis overcame us, my mother arrived in a panic and at very short notice, having packed her suitcase while suffering from incapacitating fear for her grandson. She admitted later that she had no idea why she packed some of the things she did or why she forgot some of the things she did. While I was at the hospital my DH had to take her shopping for bras. He still shudders at the memory.

[Outdoor Girl]

LOL.  I imagine it was tramatic for your Mom, too.