AITA
I've been dealing with my fiance's overbearing, disrespectful family for a few years now. Before I moved in, the family (his mom, dad, brother and his brother's gf) would come over to my fiance's place, cook, clean, do his laundry, basically treat his house like it was theirs. It was such a weird dynamic but because I didn't live there yet, I kept my mouth shut. Eventually I moved in, but before I did, his mother was cleaning and said, "I'll stop cleaning when you move in. I do it because he's my son". I just laughed it off at the time and didn't think much of it, but secretly dreading when the day came. I had a MIL like that before and let's just say that marriage didn't even last 6 months.
My fiance is understanding and sweet and I told him I didn't want her cleaning when I moved in. He said oh she will stop. In the pit of my stomach I knew better.
The day I moved in, she cooked a meal for everyone and took over the kitchen. I resented it. I refused to sit down and eat with them because I thought, "oh ffs, here we go..." I went to our bedroom and my fiance came in and I told him everything, how it made me feel seeing his mom take over the kitchen, the house....he said he would talk to her. He did and she got upset with him, told him he's disrespectful. I knew she would get angry because she's a control freak. When I came out to do the dishes, she acted all wounded. She said, "I'm just trying to help..." I just smiled and kept doing dishes. In my head I'm thinking, "no, you just want to control and dominate like you always have, but now you can't".
They haven't been back since and it's been really nice not having them take over the house. However, the last time I saw them (the first time we saw them since we got engaged), I caught his mother glaring at me, of course when my fiance wasn't looking. And his dad also greeted me very strangely. They barely talked about our engagement and kept going on about their other son. I've been reading up on this and I think they think they I'm preventing them from coming to the house, but I'm not. I just need my home to feel like my home and not have to worry about my space being invaded. I told my fiance I don't want them being alone in our home because of things they've done to the animals like feed them chocolate, and baking, and one of the cats got diabetes. I don't trust them alone in our house with our animals or our stuff. I'm scared to think what could happen to them or our home. I don't want to come home to my laundry being done...like how invasive?! I'm a middle aged woman. Don't touch my clothing. I'm not a helpless child who needs you doing things for me.
My fiance is supportive of me and my boundaries, which I'm so grateful for. But given his parents last treatment of me, I get the feeling that they don't like me even though I've done absolutely nothing to them. I've always been nothing but polite and respectful to them. I've tried being close to his mother but she's been pretty cruel to me when I tried to grieve a baby that we lost together with her, and she cut me off, yelled at me and said I wasn't the only one who lost the baby. Plus she compares me to the other DIL, which I'm not a fan of. How gross to be compared to someone that I can't stand and who I'm nothing like, thankfully.
Could it be they've never experienced boundaries and interpret it as disrespect?
So what's the verdict? AITA?