My mother is similar to your FMIL. In fact, I almost thought you might be my current SIL until I read further into your post. ;)

Yes, you and your fiance need to set boundaries ASAP. However, I do wonder if there might be another issue at hand. My mother is not nearly as bad about this kind of stuff with me as she is with my brother. The difference is mainly that I go ahead and tell her details about stuff up front, and then when/if she asks about it later, I remind her of our prior conversation and she shuts up. He does that whole not telling her/avoiding her calls thing and it just ratchets things up with her.

I'm sure all that stuff as annoying as it is she does comes from love. If you haven't tried my method of upfront communication, I highly recommend it. It's like a vaccination for confrontation, bad feelings, etc. Of course, YMMV.

OMG - my brother left the shirt for his suit at home for his destination wedding because he "had it under control." He figured it out approx 1 hour before the ceremony, when we were approx 30 minutes away from any kind of store. That's just one of many times such things have happened. Sometimes moms just know what kind of details their kids have a hard time remembering.

ETA: Just read your post about your SIL a couple of pages back. Sorry that you have to deal with that insanity, but I love your method of dealing with her! :)

I have had this convo with MommyCG several times over the course of several years. Nothin' doin'. I have a lateness problem so even on days when I was not running late, my mom repeatedly call out to me what time it was. If it got close to the time I was supposed to leave, she would follow me around the house, packing up my stuff and exasperatedly pointing at the clock. For the record, this was not helpful. This continued until I moved out.

Now, she calls on me test and meeting days around the time she thinks I need to get up just to say, "I'm making sure you're out of the bed. Have a good day and don't go back to sleep."

Hell, I think your mother in laws should be featured on Monster In Laws on A&E. I am like holy shit :eek:

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I re-read my post and feel a little silly. Yes, it's annoying, but it's certainly not the worse thing that could be happening. As amIblue mentioned, it is just how she shows she cares.

I did bring it up to my guy. I asked if he thought it would be like this when we gets married and he said no. Why he thinks that, I'm not sure. He offered to talk to her about it, but I told him let's wait on it for now; we'll see how it continues to go.

Dear SIL -
He is my baby brother. He will always be my baby brother. You do not get to decide what I call him. Yes, he now goes by a nickname, but I am grandfathered in and will continue to call him by his Christian name. I will also refer to him as my baby brother even if he is 41 years old. If you don't like it you can lump it. Sincerely, ME

So...my (probable) future dil called last night. She wants to go shopping with me...and the girls, if possible. (!) We are going Sunday. Why? To quote her, "I like your taste. You find nice clothes and you see possibilities in stuff."

She is also joining us for the Day After Thanksgiving...which in our house is national holiday (along with January 1st).

Sigh...........(with joy). She wants to bond.

That's really sweet.

Wonderful, yay, yay, yay!!! What fun! She's a smart girl. Hope you find some smashing deals and have a great time in your shopping forays! I was so very lucky to have a wonderful, wonderful mother-in-law (and grandmama to my girls), whom I absolutely adored. I would have done just about anything for her. I miss her. I wish you a strong and loving relationship with your possible dil, if it comes to be.

Ugh. I had the Thanksgiving From Hell with the in-laws.

A bit of background: To be fair to MIL, she is going through a very rough patch. GMIL (MIL's M) is 95 years old, and despite being healthy all her life (until recently, she was hospitalized only twice, and it was for the birth of her two children), age has caught up with her. She's been in and out of hospital for congestive heart failure, and she recently had an episode that I believe is the beginning of the end. It is possible that we will not see her again before she passes on. :( MIL's brother is useless - he fled to California long ago, leaving all "taking care of Mom" responsibilities" to his sister. GMIL is also my husband's last surviving grandparent. All my grandparents passed on long ago.

The ILs were scheduled to come to us on Saturday 11/26. Knowing everything that was going on, we had offered to host. Well, my husband and I had a huge row that morning, and we called them asking to postpone to Sunday so we could sort things out between us. MIL ***INFORMED*** us that they were coming on Saturday whether we wanted them there that day or not. (There was no reason they couldn't have come on Sunday instead.)

So they turned up and proceeded to spend the next EIGHT AND A HALF HOURS whingeing about everything going on.

I know they needed to vent about GMIL's medical situation, and that's fine, and I listened patiently and advised as I could. (I'm not in the medical profession, but when you're the daughter of two doctors, you pick up a few things.)

But it went downhill from there. When we got to the point where MIL was whining because her bridge scores weren't as good as they could be, I wanted to toss her off the balcony. Your mother has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel and you're worried about your bridge game???

They arrived at 3 and stayed until 11:30. FIL downed most of a handle of Tanqueray. MIL had several drinks of Bailey's (it doesn't take much to get her drunk). And there was wine. So, on top of everything, they were sloshed. I should have cut them off, but that's easier said than done.

AAAAAAAAAAAAUGH.

They need to go to Florida. And stay there.

"I am so sorry that you are going through such turmoil. What do you think that you can do to make your life easier?" "I know that you are in such pain. What one thing can you do for yourself everyday that will make you happy?"

"Will you help me with......? I love the way you....."

Trust me. I works. Well...most of the time. The worst thing is that you become a hero. At least your husband will think you're a hero.

I have suffered through many a bad holiday with the in laws. The good news is we stopped having holidays very early on. Now that my mil lives with the bil and his wife the mil wants us "together" again. I said that we would be DELIGHTED to come...as a party of 15. They don't want that many Jews in their home. Oh well.....

(I use the above quotes when they come to my home."

You guys. Live-in's mom is getting married today. It was supposed to be a courthouse wedding.

Last Monday (before Thanksgiving), she tells me (just me! Not live-in!) that the plan has changed, she wants me to help her pick out a wedding dress, and live-in will be walking her down the aisle at 7pm.

WTF?

It's so much worse than that but I've already spent so much time angry and stressing about it that I can't even bring myself to tell the whole story.

She's in her awesome to batshit insane cycle. Over the summer she was awesome, now she's batshit. Hopefully she goes back to awesome after we "give" her a "break" after Christmas.