AIOR/ Looking for ways to set strong, healthy boundaries..
Don’t get me wrong — my mother-in-law is a good hearted person and we generally get along unless I (27F) disagree with her. She is a happy, God-fearing woman.
But….my fiancé (34M) and I have Mondays and Tuesdays off together, which are essentially our weekends because he owns a restaurant, and they are obviously busy on actual weekends.
This woman calls every single Monday and/or Tuesday to see if we are free and how she can insert herself into our days. He has told her very bluntly before that he does not feel the need to see her every single free moment he has. Considering he is 34 years old, every free moment is not something he desires to spend with his mother — and honestly, I don’t really either. She seems to receive this message initially, but it always wears off eventually or gets twisted into a huge emotional thing for her. That “her family doesn’t love her”, etc..
I want to continue spending time with my fiancé, especially while I am pregnant with our first child together. Sometimes she can be a bit overbearing when talking about how we should live our lives regarding God, relationships, money, and so on.
This last “weekend” we had together, she called on Monday to see what our plans were. We explained that we were pretty busy, and that he was probably going to head into work and work overtime. He also said he wasn’t sure about Tuesday. Earlier in the week, I had told him that on Tuesday I had to run into town for an appointment, and he needed groceries. We live in a smaller town without all the necessary civilization things like dentists, doctors, larger grocery stores for restaurant or bulk items, etc. so it takes us about an hour to drive into the larger city
I don’t think he ever got back to her explaining that we were busy on Tuesday, but:
A) he shouldn’t have to explain his every move to his mother, and
B) he is a pretty forgetful person.
When we arrived back home from town on Tuesday, there were items for the baby and also for my four-year-old daughter. That is very nice of her, and I’m definitely not a prude or ungrateful by any means, but she does a lot of secondhand shopping. A lot of the stuff she buys for my daughter or the brand-new baby is dingy, tattered, or just plain old and worn out.
It somewhat makes me feel violated that because she didn’t hear back about Tuesday, she decided she was just going to try and show up and interject herself into our time once again. Usually, when she does catch us at home, she is trying to get us to go out to lunch or have us come back over to her house.
I’m just so tired of feeling like I’m guarding or fighting for my personal time with my future husband. 99.9% of the time, he states that he feels the same way, so I believe it is not just me being a terrible daughter-in-law.
What can I do?