What do you do when people outstay their welcome?

[katkinn]

In particular, your mother. :brainache:

I love having my mother come to see us but she is trying to say the least (and that's a WHOLE other raft of threads for another day :cry: ) and we get one very well in small doses.

Now she IS very good in that she will come and babysit Hettie (only about once a month/once every two months) and will come for the day occasionally in between. I do invite her more, but "she's very busy" :rolleyes:

Now she lives ONE hour away. I live in central London and she lives in North West London. She always chooses to take the longest train route here, even though every time I offer to get her a cab to the overland train station really near her house (literally half a mile away) and pay again for a cab at the other end. This would take her only 30 mins on the train but no, she has a real :loco: about overland trains and thinks that the tube is quicker and better (which clearly it isn't - she has to drive miles to the tube station, can only come at stupid times as "it's cheaper" and the tube stop is at the nether regions of the line so it takes her ages. (well an hour as opposed to half an hour)

At the weekends she likes to drive which again takes an hour. Fine.

But when she comes she just stays forever. Mostly she says "it's not worth coming for just the day" (wtf??) (although she's quite able to go to the theatre in town which she does regularly just for the evening :yeahright: ) and so comes overnight.

I always invite her to stay "for lunch" the next day or we take her out for lunch if she's babysat. But then she DOESN'T LEAVE. Sometimes it can be 9 or 10 o'clock at night before she'll actually go.

By which point I am ready to KILL her :hissyfit: ie all she does is "suggest" things that I should do with /for Hettie, if we watch something on tv, all she does is talk ALL the way through it, she talks non stop about people we don't know (oooh Kathryn do you remember so and so. "er no mum, I was 2, or err no mum, I only met them once when I was 7" and she then continues for 40 mins to tell me some totally irrelevant story about them :loco: ) or SHE FALLS ASLEEP!!!!! :faint: :hissyfit: (errrr mum do you think maybe you should go home - "oh no, I'm not asleep, I'm just resting my eyes")

I just don't know what to do to get her to leave earlier so that we actually have some of our weekend/evening to ourselves (she will have been there since about 11 the day before and my blood pressure will be absolutely sky high by this time)

I've tried lying to her and saying we're going out :oops: but I STILL end up having to say "sorry mum but we've got to go and get ready" as I've told her earlier what time we're "leaving" but she still just doesn't move on her own.

I've tried saying that the traffic will be bad, I've tried being really blunt asking if she's got a home to go to :oops: (that was after a particularly trying 4 days I think :hissyfit: ) I've tried explaining that I don't see much of DH during the week as he works really late so every opportunity that we have to spend some time together is really valuable.

And every time I get the whole sniffy "oh you're trying to get rid of me - charming, thank you Kathryn. Sniff sniff" :hissyfit:

Even the last time after gently explaining why it bugged me so much and being really frank with her, it STILL didn't work and I had to end up "offending" her.

Writing this down, I appreciate that people may think she's lonely and wants to spend time with us. mmmm well I'd love that to be the case but believe me, she "fits us in" round her social life (which is about a billion times more exciting and active than mine :rolleyes: ) and when here the majority of the time she just watches repeats of Millionaire on Challenge TV or sleeps (:zombie: which I FECKING HATE but "she doesn't have it on her cable tv" :huh: )

God I am so sorry for the mammoth post but I've got Hettie's party in a couple of weeks and I know it's just going to be ruined for me as I'll just be wondering what time she'll fecking leave and how stressed I'll get about it :oops: :oops: :oops:

Does anyone have any advice at all.....(if you've got this far you're a total angel!!!)

Thank you!!

katkinn
xxxxx

[parkejm]

:higgies: I've been talking to my (very wise) acupuncturist and my counsellor about my mother and similar things. The advice she is giving me, and I think she would give you is to grasp the bull by the horns and next time you invite her over is just to say that you would appreciate it if she could go by a certain time to give you some time on your own. I know it will be hard but you've got to set some boundaries. She will probably get upset and sniffy every time you do it but eventually she will start to get the message. My Acupuncturist has told me that it's not for me and you to change the way we live our lives to accomodate other people but for us to slowly amend the ways that other people treat us and how THEY behave, not us. I know it's going to be hard, but it's the only way. A precedent has been set and until you consistently challenge that and 'retrain' your mum, she will continue to do it and you will continue to be frustrated and annoyed and to feel guilty.

God knows how I am going to follow my own advice but I CAN see that it needs to be done. Sorry if it seems harsh, but that's just my thoughts based on what I have been counselled. It's about accepting that you have the right to your own life and that other people can look after themselves. If you have to offend your mum a few times in order to gain control of your own life, then you might just have to do it

Janice x

[natacha]

I think you're going to have to find yourself another babysitter. It's perfectly fair to tell your mother to bug off if, say, you've invited her to lunch* (lunch; not lunch, dinner, bed and breakfast) and quite another if you've asked a favour (ie free babysitting).

At the risk of sounding cynical, I'm extremely wary of asking people for favours (with a few exceptions) because I've learnt the hard way that you end up paying a far higher price than if you had paid for it in the first place...:doh:

In a nutshell and IMHO of course:wink:

love natacha

*to avoid hard feelings, preferably wait until AFTER lunch though.

[guinness]

Sorry no advice from here, but I wanted to say grrrr on your behalf - my God I think I'd go mad too.
I agree with Janice about being honest, but also I know it can be so so hard.. good luck whatever!
s xx

[littlepinkpiglet]

Are you setting really really clear boundaries though? I mean when you invite her for lunch could you not say "I'd love you to come for lunch, but I'm afraid that's all it can be today because we've got x/y to do afterwards and I really need to get out by xo'clock?" That way she knows that you need her to go by a certain time.

Or you could tell her that you and your OH have a date at a set time that night and you would appreciate some time alone with him.

If she doesn't think it's worth coming just for that short a time then you're going to have to be totally honest with her like Janice said.

[*kate*]

she talks non stop about people we don't know (oooh Kathryn do you remember so and so. "er no mum, I was 2, or err no mum, I only met them once when I was 7" and she then continues for 40 mins to tell me some totally irrelevant story about them :loco: ) OMG my mother does this all the time, and I find it horrendously annoying. I'm SOO dismissive when she does this, to the point of rudeness but she's so flippin' thick skinned she never notices. :scratchchin: perhaps you grow a thicker skin when getting older?

Absolutely no advice except actually booking her the cab and telling her she's got to go by x o'clock. I think brutal and blunt is the way to go. Especially with bubba Jack on the way, you need all the time and space alone you can get.

[Minky]

Honey, I have no idea how to help you with this.

Other than taking her by the arm and showing her the door :teehee:.

But when you figure it out, can you please let me know?

Minky xxx

[Soreya]

:lol: oh..god, sorry I just wanted to laugh :lol: and say I m so glad my mum lives abroad...sorry about the situation :teehee:

[~Twiggy~]

Is there more to this tham meets the eye? Sounds very strange and can totally see the stress it causes all the same.

[Princess Fiona]

I'm sorry i couldn't help but laugh at this thread i'm so sorry Katkinn. I don't really have any advice, i have sort of the opposite problem, whenever we visit anywhere we can't seem to get away!!

[Blonde Girl]

As you know my love I have NO advice whatsoever for you. Other than to stop answering her calls and not tell her when you move :wink: .

I do think Parkejm's advice re actually setting boundaries and sticking to them is probably the way forward. I KNOW she will get all sniffy and offended, but at the end of the day it needs doing, hopefully over time it will sink in and she will start getting in the habit.


all she does is "suggest" things that I should do with /for Hettie, if we watch something on tv, all she does is talk ALL the way through it,

This is my MIL to a T! She does both of these things and they both drive me bonkers!

[bisy backson]

hmm, sorry to sound unsympathetic but she probably enjoys visiting you & doesn't actually get to see as much of you as she'd like (hard though it may be for you to imagine :tongue: ).

it might seem annoying & irritating to you but can you imagine if hettie started doing this sort of thing to you how upset you'd be? (sorry, playing devils advocate here)

alternatively you could suggest that instead of her coming to visit you maybe you could go visit her and then you'd be more in control.

i do sympathise with you (i mean i moved to the other side of the world to escape my family after all) but i also sympathise with her, sorry blossom!

bbxx

[tigurr]

To be honest, she sounds like my mum.. and I just think it's one of those things with mums. When we were still in the UK mum would phone me a couple of times a day to tell me things - normally the same things she'd told me the previous day. It used to drive me nuts and then I just decided not to stress over it and just let her get on with it - it's not doing me any harm and it keeps her happy :smile: And when she talks about someone I don't know ("but of course you do, you met them when you were 3") I just say "oh yes..." as if I DO remember them.

Also, if she's staying longer than you want, it could be she's a bit lonely or just wants to spend time with you and your little one.

[Roo]

Can you not go and visit her instead? That way you can leave when YOU want - if you're off out and she's babysitting then Hettie can stay there overnight, and if it's just lunch etc then you get to leave when you want to. My inlaws never come to us, which sometimes gets on my goat but at the end of the day it means we get to come and go as WE want, which is better than sitting there wanting them to go!!

[Lois Lane]

If I knew the answer to this question Kat I wouldn't still have my inlaws living with me FIVE WEEKS after they moved in!!!!!!!!:faint: :lol:

[book_lover]

oh poor you sweetie. no real advice, just a :hug:

xxxxx

[Franny]

No one here has mentioned good old-fashioned deviousness and lying! Get a neighbour to knock on the door and invite you out for a drink. I doubt she'd want to sit with your DH for the rest of the night if she's anything like my mother. :wink:

Or, you could stop inviting her for lunch and just do dinner instead. That way, at least you have the day to yourselves.

[Rez]

I don't have any advice but you do have my sympathy! I have family members who are exactly the same.

DH has 2 brothers, both of which are masters at outstaying their welcomes and will often not leave until at least 10 at night. One of these brothers has a 2 year old boy too who is knackered, trashing the house, and bad tempered unsurprisingly. I just get to the stage where I think they're going to leave then they announce they're going to make a cup of tea and I know it's going to be at least another hour.

I think the only real solution is to lay cards on the table and say "Yes great but we're kicking you out at x pm as we have a lot to do." I suppose if it's done in a jokey way it could be done easily enough but it's worrying as you obviously don't want to fall out. I'll do it if you will!