#in-law hell

[alinaandalion]

mother-in-law reached out asking if we were thinking about getting a second fridge because she wants to buy ones for us. which we are looking at bar fridges so sure, happy to let her pay for what we pick out

and now I'm listening to her arguing with my husband about what we should buy instead. and this is why we never want to accept our help because only her way is correct. hopefully she won't just buy something and have it sent to our house

[alinaandalion]

pretty sure my mother-in-law is mad at me now because I 1. wouldn't agree to let her stay in our house during our visit because neither of our spare rooms are cleared out enough to fit a bed and we also don't have a guest bed yet and 2. I won't pull baby boy out of childcare for the duration of her visit and let her take care of him.

for the first, we will eventually have a study/guest bedroom but we're still unpacking all of our boxes and I am not going to rush out to get the daybed we want before we're ready. plus, we're not going to allow her to stay for two weeks (or worse, however long she's planning on manipulating us into letting her visit but we're holding firm to the two weeks timeline). in fact, we're never going to let anyone stay with us for longer than a week outside of emergencies. a week is more than long enough for guests, especially ones that drive me a bit crazy at the best of times.

and for the second, she won't accept that it's not good for baby boy to massively disrupt his routine. I've offered to keep him out two days a week so she can take care of him. I am also a little concerned that she won't be able to pick him up anymore. he's grown a lot and even though I carry him around every single day, he's heavy for me. so I am a bit concerned about her ability to take care of him but mostly, he just won't understand why things are suddenly very different. he's just not old enough yet

and it's just so frustrating because it would be nice if one of her visits didn't cause me and my husband extreme amounts of stress. but every "no" is just an apparent invitation for negotiation and it's so. fucking. exhausting.

[alinaandalion]

got an email from father-in-law last night with links to YouTube videos on how to help baby boy learn to walk

a totally normal response to seeing a video I sent showing baby boy laughing and crawling down the hallway

meanwhile, mother-in-law is convinced baby boy would like organic chicken better than non-organic chicken

I just don't need this bullshit. my job is currently making me miserable enough

[alinaandalion]

well, the apartment definitely won't be ready to be listed in time for easter weekend because of his parents

they also fucked up the painting touch-ups because they used a brush and not a roller (even though we explained, TWICE, that it needed to be a roller to match the rest of the wall) so it looks different from the rest of the wall. might have also not done enough coats

plus they messed up something in the shower. luckily my husband was able to fix it. and there is now a light pink stain on the carpet from where father-in-law stamped (?) on a plum and I didn't have carpet cleaner when I found it so the stain was allowed to set (I know it was a plum or plum juice because I accidentally smeared some plum on our floors in our new house and it was the same color. I did clean up my mess immediately and amazingly, it left no stain)

all in all, a net fucking loss and two weeks of stress and we're a week behind our set timeline. totally helpful. not at all irritating

it's going to be awhile before I get over this

[alinaandalion]

that woman is still in our apartment and had the audacity to try to demand my husband return the key to her so she can stay longer

anyway, I am going by tomorrow so I know what to tell the cleaning service we're engaging and I will be taking a garbage bag. she's leaving one way or another tomorrow. i've had fucking enough

[alinaandalion]

ooh, MIL seems to be determined to just make me cut her off completely at this point

she is still at that fucking apartment today, somehow, without a key. she wants to buy the apartment but only if she doesn't have to pay stamp duty (it's a property tax that you pay all upfront when you purchase property in Australia and then you're good; it's a stupid as fuck system but it's what we have to deal with). so her grand idea is that we should lease the apartment back to the hotel for three months so it'll stop being classified as residential and then she can buy it with no stamp duty

this would involve us carrying two mortgages for three months. plus the costs of getting the apartment to the hotel's standard so they can rent it out as a hotel room (replacing the carpet, repainting, replacing appliances, etc).

we have told her from the fucking beginning that we aren't going to do that. she is welcome to purchase the apartment like anyone else as is. hell, we'll even deduct the stamp duty cost from the price and she can pay us that amount. and yet here we are again.

the real kicker is the text she sent me saying that she wants to buy the apartment so that when she dies, it's baby boy's apartment. meanwhile, i'm like, well, that day can come sooner than you think if you keep it up

she even talked to the fucking building manager! about this stupid plan that we aren't doing and have never even hinted that we would ever agree to doing! a plan we have rejected over and over and over again!

anyway, if she's lucky, she'll get to see baby boy for a little bit this weekend at a secondary location because like hell am I letting her step foot in our house now. and she's not allowed back for at least two months and if she shows up, we're going to pretend like she's not in the city.

i'm fucking done with her and the way she tries to manipulate us and the way she makes my husband feel. and she wonders why her other son barely spoke to her for years and her other daughter-in-law refused to have anything to do for her for years

[alinaandalion]

we told the in-laws that we needed them out of the apartment by saturday

guess who is still fucking there

and they're insisting that they should be allowed to come over the house and like, we are still trying to unpack along with everything else we have to do! please leave us the fuck alone!

[alinaandalion]

update from in-law hell:

husband apparently got into a fight with them because they seem to have continued to do nothing in the apartment so he's frustrated because again, there's no fucking point of them staying there if they're just hanging out.

and it all ended with MIL standing behind the fucking car to keep him from driving away while she insisted that he had to take the soup that she had cooked for baby boy even though we have food at home for him because amazingly, we are capable of cooking for our son

anyway, I'll be by the place tomorrow to spackle the holes in the walls. hopefully it won't end with murder