I really don't know if my MIL is being passive aggressive/controlling or if she really is clueless.

MIL comes over while Im' gone and takes the kids clothes over to her house and washes them. She has even taken my husbands clothes as well! She used to do this before I came along, and my husband has supposedly talked to her multiple times and told her to stop. I take it as two things: 1. She is insulting me that I can't manage the house on my own. and 2. She is enabling the kids to not take care of themselves. (And even possibly teaching them how to manipulate people to do what they want.)

The kids have said to me before, "I don't have any clean jeans!"
My response? "Well you should have done laundry last night then. I guess you will not be wearing jeans to school today."

Not to mention that then we don't have things here! "I don't have any socks!" The kids will say, "Grandma took ALL of them to her house to wash and rematch all my mismatches." --So the boy literally does not have any socks in the house and I end up having to give him a pair of DH's socks to wear to school!
Or I will go to do laundry and I can't find and baskets. "Grandma took them when she took SD12's clothes Tuesday."
WTF???!!! Now I don't have any laundry baskets to carry MY clothes in MY house to do my own F-ing laundry!

She makes me feel like I'm not doing enough.

So controlling? Passive aggressive? Clueless Empty Nest? I don't know, but it's annoying and it needs to stop.

My DH and I used to work shift work, a 24 hour shift so we would need MIL to come on the morning we were heading to work to get SS on the bus because he is incompetent to do it himself. So she would need to gget there about 6am for us to leave on time.

MIL would arrive at.... wait for it.... 4:30am. To clean the kitchen. She would do it in a dramatic fashion and all hurried and would mutter passive aggressive things like "well SOMEONE has to do it".

DH would shrug and let her do it and tell me I should focus on the fact that she was "helping us".

Um, NO.

I finally told her that she was to stop cleaning the kitchen. She said she was helping. I said it is not your place. She said the kitchen was too dirty to cook in. I told her if she genuinely thought our kitchen was too dirty to cook in, she could stop at McDonalds and bring the kid a McMuffin.

The early morning cleaning fests ended.

I did find out, however, that at some point she told my father (DH and my parents attend the same church) that she did not approve of how I keep the house. LOL my father said "Well she doesn't live there alone, I guess you should talk to your son about that. I guess it is a good thing it isn't your house and that you don't need to worry about it." Go Dad!

Oh yeah!! We havent spoken to my DHs family in 3 years. My SD 21 has turned them completely
against me DH and our 2 girls. They are a huge family that used to get together a couple of
times a week to play cards or dinner. We moved a couple of hours away for financial reasons
and for our sanity from a controlling high conflict BM that wouldnt leave us alone after 15 years.

My MIL and SILs never liked BM knew she cheated on my DH and married his best friend. She tried
everything to get them to like her AFTER the divorce. Bringing them cookies and pies, calling and
saying SD misses you can she come over? SD would tell me she was bored at MIL house and didnt want
to go but BM made her. We took SD to MIL every time when we had her too. So it was all manipulation.

The difference is they all loved my girls. Alot. And BM would get so pissed that her snowflake wasnt number 1. Dont get me wrong they loved her too but SD wasnt treated special enough for BM. Then we moved and when we did that we actually saw
SD more because she stayed with us for a month in the summer and a couple of weeks during the year.
We also visited them every 6 to 8 weeks in between. When we lived near them we had SD 1 night
every other week and sometimes it was cancelled. BM never like her with us too much or she
couldnt control SD.

There has been such severe brainwashing and PAS from when SD was 3 until 18 that it all finally worked after we moved. I figured it we didnt talk bad about BM and just ignored a lot SD would see
we were always around for her.NO. BM went on a huge campaign WITH SD to tell my inlaws that
we abandoned SD and we only care about my girls. And she had no money for SD but we had plenty
to buy for my children. My DH has paid over 200000 in child support since she was 18 months old.

Well they bought it after watching us fight with BM to have SD and watching us treat them as
fairly as possible and seeing SD as much as possible for 15 years. SOme have not spoken to us
in 3 years. All for over a year. They unfriended my kids on Facebook.

My MIL and one SIL are at the head of it all with BM and SD. They have destroyed my DH and my
children have no extended family and all I see is my SD arrogant face in my head and I just
want to confront her so bad. UGH

my FIL is terrific. MIL was too but has unfortunately passed away.

the wives of BIL's, however, are annoying in that they are still on team BM even tho she was a bitch (still is) for 20+ years to all of them, particularly MIL. but then again the two of them are bitches too so i guess that makes sense! we dont see BIL's all that frequently so i just deal with it but even my fiance feels out of place with them so he and i are kinda together in teh same boat.

How true that when skids are involved, the in-laws automatically reject the new step. I was treated as an intruder. The moment I met FIL, he spent every moment sizing me up and analyzing how I will be as a parent to SD. Instead of trying to get to know me, he was obsessed with my every move with SD. FIL never once asked me about my job, my family, my life. He even sent a long email to DH before we got married to warn him not to marry someone who isn't interested in putting HIS child first. He told DH that he observed how "indifferent" I was toward SD. Well, no shit, FIL!! Indifference was only the beginning! I straight up can't stand her now }:)

To this day (7 yrs later), FIL really doesn't know who I am as a person. He only believes I'm not a very good "mom" to SD because I don't start singing like Mary Poppins every time SD is around. I sent him ONE picture that just happened to be a day when SD wasn't with us and wasn't in the picture. He didn't give a shit about the pic of DH & I--all he had to say was, "Where is SD? You know I have 3 grandchildren, including her." He is still pissed that I don't send him happy family pictures with SD. It's BS because SD scowls in every picture and is a complete jerk to everyone around her anyway.

I completely disengaged from my in-laws too. They don't care about BD3 that I had with DH. They are obsessed with SD even though SD won't talk or interact with them. SD is a nasty mean child while BD is craving grandparents but the in-laws are denying her the opportunity.

My MIL is very controlling. DH drops SD off with her before he goes to work in the morning (she only lives 15 mins from us) and MIL gets SD on and off the school bus (she's retired), then DH picks her back up after work.

Getting her on and off the bus is the only thing DH has asked her to do, but every day she feeds her dinner and does her homework with her. Seems like a nice gesture, except the fact that DH never gets to sit down and eat a meal with his child and it kind of implies we don't sit down to eat dinner at home, which we do. I cook every night and DH & I sit down and eat but of course SD already ate with MIL. We also don't really know what SD is doing in school because MIL helps her with homework every day, even though DH has asked her not to (sometimes is ok but not every day) because he wants to be involved.

She even buys SD clothes and toys for her to keep at her house as if she is her child rather than her grandchild.

It's all very strange to me..

I posted a thread about in-laws just a few days ago, but I never told the story of my second Disney Dad. His mother was the reason that I left him!!!

He had 50/50 custody. His kids had issues, but they were not hellions. BM wasn't a crazy person. She had a fiance, a job and her own life. I never felt like she nor he hadn't moved on from each other. He is a computer programmer, so BM called him one night to fix her computer. He was smart enough to know that it was inappropriate to do favors for his ex-wife and that she is no longer his responsibility, so he just ignored her. She got the hint.

Anyway, MIL didn't get the hint. She had it out for me since day one. She would constantly refer to BM as "his wife". She didn't hesitate to bring out the "family photo album" when I visited her, which happened to be ALL pictures of BM. "Oh, I have to save these photos of my grandkids!!" There was ONE photo of her granddaughter. MIL called (even called me at my job!) and emailed non-stop, always having an issue with BM or the kids. When we deflected her, she then went to BM to complain about us, establishing a new-found relationship with her (she couldn't stand BM when she was married to her son), and giving her the false impression that she was more important to the family than I was.

My ex admitted that his mother has always tried to sabotage his relationships. No, honey, your mother DOES sabotage your relationships. Until he learns how to detach from her, he'll never have a serious relationship.

del.