u/pencilneck4

I have been with my boyfriend for about 5 and a half years. We have moved in and out of a property his mom owns. She inherited it from my boyfriend's paternal grandmother, because she cared for her at the end of her life, and her own son died. There is a MIL house on the property she stays at on the weekends. But she is always coming in and out of our house, and now has ripped out her ceiling to get the roof redone and has weasled her way into staying inside our house.

MIL is an obsessive micromanager. She has cameras all over the property and her passtime is watching said cameras. She also constantly checks the airtag on our cat, who barely leaves our house. She has put cameras facing in our kitchen and doesnt hide the fact that she is spying, because she will call my boyfriend and bitch at him for something she heard him say on the camera. (Boyfriend immediately moved the camera when he realized.) She sets the security alarm off to get our attention, on one instance calling my boyfriend lazy for not responding to her texts, when he couldnt have answered due to having been in a work meeting (wfh) for an hour. She thought someone who was parked in our driveway was messing with the electric meter, and was not satisfied with the fact that he was parked there waiting for someone to bring him a spare tire (he had just had a collision in front of our house.)

Earlier this year, my boyfriend told me we need to pack up our stuff in case we need to move out quickly. Apparently, MIL was so toxic he went NC with her for 3 months. I was thinking, hallelujah! I don't have to convince him myself! She also stopped coming to the property on the weekends for a while. Cut to february, I had wished her a happy birthday even though my boyfriend said he wasnt going to. I fear she may have thought this was an olive branch.

Now, I do not hate this woman. She was effectively a single mother and chose to give up her career to take care of an elderly woman who wasn't her own mother. I just do not want to live under her control. I don't want her to have a key to where I live. I can deal with her at dinners for courtesy but she is truly the only negative influence in my life right now.

My boyfriend hides how toxic she is from me. I believe he does this because he doesn't want me to want to leave, since he's thinking he will inherit the house and she cant afford the insurance/tax on her own. But last week he opened up to me about how she's been physical with him, breaking things because she is so mad. She is fake nice and I have heard how their arguments escalate when they didnt realize I had a window open.

Last weekend, I requested through my boyfriend that she not come into our house during working hours (we both wfh). She was so nasty to him he in the heat of argument used a box of cat treats as a metaphor for how she was treating him by stomping on it. He said, this is how you are treating me. How could you talk to me like that?

Her reply: You are my son.

I don't even know where to begin negotiation with this woman. I don't want to fuck her over by leaving but she is genuinely one of the worst people to have dominion over where you live. My boyfriend is on board for buying our own house, but I just don't want him to get manipulated back into her grasp. I hate the rollercoaster of him going NC and then being like, oh, it isnt so bad.

Sorry for how long this is. I really needed to vent and hear some other stories from you all. Hope you're all safe and happy and laugh today.