The Vine: January 5, 2011
Dear Sars,
My partner and I wouldn’t win any awards for housekeeping, but our house is clean enough — it’s not filthy, unhygienic, or unsafe. We’re not going to be ambushed on any house-cleaning reality shows any time soon. My mother’s standards for housekeeping are higher than ours. We live overseas, and whenever she visits, she takes it upon herself to spot-clean various bits: scrubbing the stovetop, for example.
It’s pretty trivial, I know, but this is problematic to me for two broad reasons. One, it’s insulting — I would be offended by any guest who did more than the normal clean-up-after-yourself stuff because it comes across as a judgment on the level of cleanliness of the house. This feeling is compounded by the fact that my mother complains to me that my sister-in-law’s house is “filthy” and she “has to” do housework when she visits (all the blame goes on my working-mother-of-three SIL, not my brother); I can’t help but wonder if she says the same about me.
Second, it’s self-degrading — this is a woman who doesn’t actually like doing housework and yet spends her scant holiday time doing unnecessary housework for other people. I admit it’s me who thinks her actions are degrading, not her, but there’s certainly a touch of martyrdom about it.
In the past, I’ve not reacted well to her cleaning; in fact, I’ve dropped straight back into long-ago teenage patterns of behaviour, which of course has no positive result (and yet she never makes the connection between her cleaning and my negative reaction…). After the last visit, I swore I would behave like an adult, bite my tongue on the initial flash of irritation, and then calmly and clearly explain why I would prefer that she didn’t do housework for us (without reference to the self-degrading stuff; I know that’s me, not her).
Unfortunately, on the most recent visit, I got home after waiting over an hour for my OB appointment, hot, hungry, and thirsty, to discover she had blocked access to the kitchen because she was mopping floors I had mopped less than a week before. I guarantee not even she mops her floors that often. I barely managed to turn an enraged outburst into a weak “this is silly, you’re on holiday” before I had to retreat to the bedroom for a pregnancy-hormone-induced cry.
(I know you’re thinking, poor woman, just trying to do something nice for her heavily pregnant daughter, but this is a well-established pattern of behaviour; my pregnancy just gives her the excuse to go whole hog and attempt to clean the whole house instead of spot-cleaning.)
Her next visit is in about six months. I want to be able to relax and look forward to it without us having to go over the house with a fine-toothed comb trying to spot anything that could trigger a cleaning jag, and also I want her to relax too. I’d like some advice on how to approach this — phone call or email beforehand, quiet word when she arrives, original plan of calmly addressing it when it happens (if I can manage it), hiding the cleaning products — and what wording to use that might get through to her without triggering her defences. I know there’s an option along the lines of “hooray, thanks for cleaning for me,” but I know myself well enough to know that that’s not going to happen; nor do I want to hire a cleaning service to come in and detail the house to her exacting standards (I don’t like the harsh chemicals they use and she is fairly likely to find something to clean anyway).
Bear in mind that: she seems to either ignore or fail to hear things I tell her over the phone (as evidenced by her surprise when I repeat things in person that I’ve told her half a dozen times on the phone); she doesn’t do much better with emails; she has a habit of disregarding specific requests if she thinks what she’s doing is for the best; she is likely to react negatively/defensively no matter how I bring it up and it could sour the whole visit; and I’m not the world’s best communicator myself, especially in person.
When she stays in hotels, she makes the bed in the morning; I wonder if the maids feel insulted
Dear Insulted,
I have to point out that you’ve listed every possible solution I might suggest, and shot each one down. “Could you get a cleaning servi–” “Nope!” “Maybe if you talked to her beforeh–” “Nope!” “You need to stop caring about th–” “Can’t!”
I’m pretty sure you don’t even know you’re doing it, but it suggests to me that, unconsciously, you don’t want a solution to this problem, because it symbolizes or taps into some other, larger problem or question in your relationship with your mother. Consciously, you’re annoyed, but unconsciously, you need it somehow. You get something out of it, feel some safety from it.
You do have some options here; you just don’t like any of them. I’d go with this one: clean the house as you normally would before having any houseguest; remind her when she arrives, not apropos of anything in particular, that she’s there to visit and relax; if/when she starts cleaning, tell her that she doesn’t need to do that, but if she wants to go to the trouble, you thank her and you won’t stop her; go into another room and stop caring. Because, you know, you’re not the only one who gets something out of this pas de dust. It can’t have escaped her notice that it makes you uncomfortable and angry, so maybe it’s a power trip, or the only way she knows to get your full attention, or maybe she’s uncomfortable away from home and this is a compulsion for her.
So, think about why this happens, from both sides, and then stop engaging with it. You’ve decided that this is a major irritation; you can in fact decide that it isn’t. Try it.
I need a little advice about a mildly awkward situation. The backstory, as briefly as possible, begins with my boyfriend. We were introduced through a mutual friend and have been dating for a bit more than a year. My boyfriend is in our university’s Corps of Cadets. Since all his close friends live on-campus they’ve kind of adopted my apartment as the go-to place for parties, gun-cleaning, whining about girls, movie nights, and the like. I don’t mind at all, and his friends have become some of my best friends, too.
Over the summer, a few of them took summer classes, including my boyfriend and his best friend. Boyfriend was trying to maintain his GPA to get into an even harder major, and was generally stressed about how his GPA affects his military contract, whether he was going to get into this major, and the burden of several summer classes that were pretty hard. I understood, and realized that he needed to spend the majority of his time studying. To make a story that took up five paragraphs when I typed it out MUCH shorter: We had a huge fight when one of my best friends was visiting because we could not make “I can’t hang out because I plan to spend the next hour procrastinating before actually working on my assignments” and “Yes but I live 3/4 of a mile from you and haven’t seen you in three days” mesh together. We managed to come up with a solution that works, and have not had a problem with it since.
HOWEVER. During the time when I was feeling neglected and he was feeling put-upon, I spent a lot of time with his best friend. Best Friend was in summer classes, too, but way easier ones. He hung out with my visiting friend, took her to buy cowboy boots and to ice cream factories and such, and was generally just an absolute joy to hang around. He and I would rant about how long it had been since either of us had seen Boyfriend, and he was there for me when I needed him to be.
Sing it with me if you know the words: I developed a big crush on him. I had no desire to leave Boyfriend, Best Friend was probably not entirely clueless but studiously ignored the issue, and all that happened was some drunken texts I was able to explain away the next morning with nary a problem. Oh, and a lot of angsting about how I was practically cheating by being attracted to this guy. The mutual friend that introduced us gave me a swift kick in the ass by asking me to imagine being in a relationship with Best Friend, which made me realize that it was entirely a coping mechanism to deal with the fact that I was feeling neglected by my boyfriend, with a little bit of spite mixed in since it was HIS best friend I developed a crush on.
So the issue was swiftly resolved, I fixed the root of the problem by expressing my feelings of neglect to my boyfriend and coming up with a solution, and everything has been fine and dandy ever since. Except with Best Friend. I’m pretty sure he knew something was up, but after I teased him mercilessly about the fact that Visiting Friend had a crush on him (greatly exaggerated on my part, but with her permission), I think he wasn’t as certain that it was ME that had the big crush, and (I thought) attributed all the awkwardness to an ill-advised crush on Visiting Friend’s part. At least, I was pretty certain of that until I noticed that he never hung out with me solo anymore, had markedly cut back on the amount which we texted/internet chatted/talked altogether, and generally distanced himself from me. He still comes to all the parties and wants to clean guns at my apartment, but he never comes without at least one other person there. So, not that awkward and exactly what I would have done if one of my friends’ SOs had shown signs of being more than friendly.
I had totally resigned myself to having things be just so slightly awkward with unspoken “Well let’s not go down that road again”-type things between us. And it was like that, for about six months. But very recently, it’s changed back to normal. I touched him for probably the first time since then last weekend (which, we’re all pretty touchy-feely people, so the fact that we didn’t was kind of unusual), slinging my arm around him to whisper a secret about some girl he needed to chat up, a “Boyfriend said to tell you” kind of thing. We bought each other Christmas presents. We went shopping for Boyfriend’s present together because it was some he-man thing I knew nothing about and Best Friend is an expert. And this renewed sense of friendship and camaraderie has reminded me of the whole situation, and that has saddled me with this horrible sense of guilt.
So the fact is that yes, I developed a short-lived crush on Best Friend because he was there and Boyfriend wasn’t. Now Boyfriend and I both have put in enough time and effort and established clear enough lines of communication that it will never be an issue again. It wasn’t about Best Friend at all, he was just a convenient scapegoat for my frustrations with Boyfriend.
I am just guilty because this is the one thing I have ever kept a secret from Boyfriend. On the one hand, in the interest of full disclosure, I just want to spit it out. On the other hand, I feel like I can’t justify alleviating my guilt at the needless expense of my boyfriend’s peace of mind. On the third hand (hee), I feel like I’m using that as an excuse to keep being dishonest to my boyfriend to avoid confrontation.
So what say you, Sars? Should I say, “Oh by the way you know how you jokingly accuse me at least once a week of having an affair with Best Friend? Well I contemplated it briefly,” or should I just let sleeping dogs lie?
Emotional Cheater
Dear Em,
Let sleeping dogs lie. Something almost happened, but didn’t. You could have gone there, but didn’t. It sucks to have to carry guilt around by yourself, but you didn’t do anything that horrible, first of all, and second of all, you’ll live. Confessing your sins does usually make you feel better, but should not always be about that, if you know what I mean. Boyfriend doesn’t benefit at all from knowing about “almost” or “could have,” so don’t create drama where there isn’t any.
And while I’m up, having a few secrets in a relationship is not the worst thing in the world. In fact, I think it’s a bit healthier than 24/7 sharing. Not every secret is a betrayal; it’s all right to have some things that only you know, even if those things are about him.
Tags: boys (and girls) the fam
I love finding thru-lines in Sars’ selection of letters, and for me a big one in this Vine is “I need to feel something about this, so here’s what I came up with.”
Insulted has a perfectly sound grasp on the What: Mom cleans, and, more importantly, tends to tune out her daughter’s actual requests. She also sees the results: she gets angry and wound up, even though she’s reasoned through what shouldn’t be a big deal.
Em also has a very sound idea of what actually happened: she was feeling a little neglected and projected that onto a convenient/psychologically reasonable target. Things didn’t happen and everything settled back down. She also sees the results: the useless guilt over having feelings she didn’t plan on, even though she understands the roots of those feelings, and the weird urge to drag the drama that didn’t happen into her relationship now so that it has some tangible raison d’etre.
One of the harder things to deal with, mentally, are feelings that won’t be reasoned away, even though you can follow a perfectly logical path to how they got there in your brain. You’ve done the work, you’ve thought this through, and now the anger or guilt or whatever is supposed to go away and leave you alone, damnit! But emotions can be like a hair on your cheek-you brush and brush and brush it away but can still feel it brushing your cheek, driving you to madness.
And, as usual, Sars is spot on: you and mom getting something out of this bizarre dusting dance? Bow out and leave the floor, even if you have to deep breathe and think of puppies and you feel ridiculous and like mom is winning. Sudden need to confess random desires that have already passed? Eat some cheese, read the Vine, ask him how to spell some latin term: just keep your mouth busy for a few seconds.
I use this Geneen Roth quote a lot, because it’s true. No feeling, once felt, ever lasted forever, or even six months. They can be weeded out, no matter what fortress of need you’ve built around them.
Insulted – I am in your boat too or was until I realized that I could not change my mother only how I reacted to her. My reaction is the only thing I can control about her. The only time I didn’t mind her cleaning was when she came to help out after I had my wisdom teeth out but that was due to the percoset – not a route that will work for every visit so you are just going to have to find a way to deal.
Insulted, my mother-in-law used to do a thing I called “judgmental cleaning.” When she would visit I would come home to find that she had gone out, bought oven cleaner and field-stripped my stove. Or that she had washed, ironed, folded and put away all of my husband’s laundry (the laundry itself was at the middle of an issue he & I were having, but I digress). It used to drive me INSANE. I mean foaming-at-the-mouth, driven-to-drink insane. For years. Then one day, I just decided to stop caring. Whatever her reasons, innocent or not, whatever the implied opinion of me, I couldn’t change any of it. An amazing thing happened. When I stopped caring, she stopped cleaning. Mothers need to create drama sometimes. And just like with children and immature co-workers, if you refuse to give in to it, it usually goes away. For most martyrs, there’s no point in nailing oneself to the cross if no one’s there to watch. So don’t watch.
Insulted, I don’t mean to minimise your annoyance, because it would drive me absolutely bananas too. But: your mom will never stop doing the cleaning. Changing your reaction to it will be much, much, much easier than getting her to stop doing it. (My guess is this is the way she convinces herself you still need her, but who knows.)
Even if you’re fuming inside, even if you have to lock yourself in the bathroom so you don’t go back out and yell at her, please do try calmly saying, “Mom, you don’t have to do that. But if you’re going to, I’ll be in the other room until you’re done.” And then you’ll be in the other room, trying to read a book and getting distracted by FUME!, and then beating yourself up because you’re not supposed to care, so you try to distract yourself with thoughts of puppies, and then you get a mental image of a troupe of puppies cleaning your kitchen and one of them can’t hold the mop handle properly with its teeth, and you’ll get through it.
And if you stop being annoyed, she might actually stop cleaning (I also bet one of the main things she gets out of it is she knows it drives you insane). Either way, you win.
Oh, and Em? Sars is right. No relationship needs total honesty. Stop looking for drama, congratulate yourself on resolving the issues, and move on. Crushes are not cheating.
Insulted:
Oh boy, have I ever been in your boat, except that my mother would be berating me on what a lousy housekeeper I was while she was cleaning, and insisting that I help. No matter how well I cleaned, there was always a spot I missed: the spot between the stove and the counters, the edges of the carpet… When I reminded her that she was here to relax, she’d retort that she couldn’t relax in a place that was as “messy” as mine. We had the same arguments about this all throughout each visit, and the only thing that resolved it at all is that, due to an unrelated blowup, she now no longer visits me … and rarely ever talks to me.
I think – no, I know – that my mother had issues that make my situation different from yours. However, I thought I’d share my situation with you to let you know that your mom isn’t the only one to do things like this, and that your situation could have been worse.
Yes, it’s irritating that she won’t respect your feelings on this issue and that she won’t listen, but hey, at the end of the day, she’s ostensibly happy cleaning, she’s not heaping abuse on you while she’s doing it, she’s not forcing you to join her on her cleaning binge, and you end up with a cleaner house. All in all, I’ll bet she feels that she’s doing you a favour.
Incidentally, if you ever do want to pursue the professional house cleaning option, there are cleaners out there who will use the products you supply them. The one I have at my place now is that type. I buy (mostly) environmentally friendly products, and leave a whack-load of rags for them to use, and they use them. You may need to do a little hunting to find one, but they do exist.
Insulted, my mom is also a judgmental cleaner, and when I got to the point where I couldn’t handle it anymore, I booked her a hotel room in advance of her visit and told her that she seemed like she was uncomfortable staying in my house (as evinced by the cleaning) so I wanted her to have a place available to her that she didn’t feel compelled to clean. I think she actually did enjoy having a place to stay where she didn’t have to stress that maybe somewhere the top of a ceiling fan was undusted, and now I always give her the option of staying with me or elsewhere when she comes to visit; 90% of the time she stays with me and does not stress about the house, which is what I wanted all along. Also, I am always super careful to give the house a really serious cleaning before she comes, just so I can avoid stressing about her being stressed.
Insulted, I feel you. I do. And I’m wondering if you’re pregnant with your first child? I’m going to assume that this is the case, because if you’ve had a kid already, this letter wouldn’t exist. Because you think it’s bad/annoying now, wait until you pop that kid out and Mom starts in on your parenting skills while you’re dealing with post-partum recovery and newborn-having. You will be begging her to clean something after the 50th “are you sure you’re doing that right?” “MA! GO CLEAN SOMETHING.”
Trust me.
Could all of you with the cleaning mothers/mothers-in-law please send them over to my house? I will totally not care in the least that they want to clean. In fact, I will welcome them with open arms. I’m not discounting your feelings. Just… I hate cleaning.
I left my parents alone in my house for half a day when they were visiting once and returned to find them washing my windows. Then again, they were doing it because they were bored and not because they were insulting my housekeeping skills. It makes it easier to be amused rather than offended.
My aunt is one of those visiting cleaners. I do feel insulted, but leaving the room and doing something else helps. She’s not mean about it, but there is a sense of “How gross is this place!” Her visit from this weekend was the same. I didn’t mind that she did the dishes. Sure, I usually wait until the end of the day and do them all at once, but I don’t object to someone else doing it. Though I had to bite my tongue on how she loaded the dishwasher. Still, it was overkill on the cleaning. She scoured the sink, the drainboard, the area around the sink, and the area between the sink and the microwave. Everyone else was either watching TCU win (Yay!) or playing with the kids. I didn’t respond in any way, but it still bugs me some.
Also this time, she told an anecdote about a friend who manages a daycare and all the mold they find on sippy cups. So, of course, she had to pull down all the cups. I think she was disappointed that she only found a spot to clean on one of them.
Where, oh where, can I hire a gaggle of puppies to clean my kitchen!? This must happen!
Sorry, back to business.
PUPPIES!
I don’t think Insulted preempted your responses. She asks for this:
I’d like some advice on how to approach this — phone call or email beforehand, quiet word when she arrives, original plan of calmly addressing it when it happens (if I can manage it), hiding the cleaning products — and what wording to use that might get through to her without triggering her defences.
And then she acknowledges that her words haven’t worked in the past.
Maybe your advice would be the same either way, but it seems like she’s asking for a conversational strategy that will get through to her mother, especially since she’s not always good at articulating her feelings and needs.
In that case I would recommend that she give it one more shot and write down what she wants to say over the course of a few days. Write an initial draft, set it aside, come back to it, add more things, delete defensive hostile things, etc. Then call up mother, tell her she’s been thinking over the dynamic of the visit and has some thoughts and would appreciate getting to say her piece before facing any objections and go ahead and either read the letter/speech or use it as notes to make sure everything is being said that needs saying.
If that doesn’t work, then your choices are either make peace with it, or discourage mother from staying in your home.
Insulted: In my case, it’s my MIL. My house is extremely sanitary. But she is a woman who cannot sit still. Seriously, if she sits still she just falls asleep. So she tends to spend a lot of time cleaning. I *hate* the way she cleans a lot of things (my dishwasher was manufactured in the last 5 years, quit wasting my precious desert water rinsing off every molecule before you load the plates and running the washer half full. I can’t breath for bleach fumes. That floor was mopped yesterday. Etc)
Because it’s fairly obvious that my house doesn’t actually need such a going over, she say *outrageously* stupid things to justify her buzzing around like, “I changed those sheets on the bed, for the first time since you moved in.” WTF – we moved in six months ago. “You don’t have a single dishtowel in this house”. Well, except for this entire drawer full of them. I’ve learned what to ignore (open the windows, the bleach smell will fade), what to barely comment on (like, ‘well of course they’ve been changed many times since we moved but thank you’) and what to put my foot down about (no, rearranging my entire kitchen is not a appropriate activity for you but you’re welcome to help me now put everything back where it goes – and she never did it again).
My biggest mistake was ever letting her cook in my house. When they came for the first visit after my daughter was born, I was happy to let her cook. But now she just assumes my kitchen is hers, plans to cook every meal when she’s here, and acts completely put out when I assert control of my own kitchen. Since they only visit about 4-5 times a year, I’ve decided that there are worse things than a MIL who wants to cook for you. And frankly, my MIL *does* much worse things (examples too numerous to list) and I have to pick my battles.
Like I said, she’s not aware of it, but I think you’re splitting hairs as far as what constitutes a pre-emption. I don’t think she’s insincere about wanting suggestions, but what I’m seeing here is, “I’d like a strategy on how to approach this, but here’s a list of strategies I’ve already decided probably won’t work: all of them.”
On some level, she’s determined not to see a workable plan, for whatever reason — she gets something out of this dialogue; she’s afraid she’ll try something and it’ll fail — and it doesn’t make her a jerk, but she’s still doing it. And acknowledging to herself that she’s doing that will itself be a big help, probably.
“I could talk to her beforehand, but she’ll just pretend she didn’t hear me” is a good example — why does it have to be Insulted’s problem after that? She talks to Mom, Mom forgets (or “forgets”), and then Mom cleans, that’s on Mom.
Easier said than felt, but that’s baseball.
@insulted this is not to suggest how you personally should respond, but I just thought I’d share my experience. Well into my late 20s it would drive me nuts when my mum would come to stay and clean my house, because I felt it was a personal slight on my status as a grown-up. In retrospect, I don’t think she meant to be judgemental as such, even though that’s how I interpreted it, but just an acknowledgement that I work long and hard and she thought she was lending a hand, which she was. (I could have lived without jokes like “I hope don’t find any used condoms under the bed!”, but I think that was her trying to pretend she was more down with the idea of me have sex than she probably was)
Still, I remember fuming on the phone to my sister all “how dare she defrost my freezer, she has offended my honour, etc.”
And then it all changed, because you guessed it, I had a baby (like others I’m assuming this is your first, so sorry if I’m just being one of those patronising parents) and suddenly it’s not important why something gets done, just that it gets done and preferably by someone who isn’t me, because somehow working part-time means doing a full-time job in four days as well as the full on work of being a parent and you know what, my bloody freezer in the fridge in the shed is so in need of defrosting and I so wish someone would come and do it without asking.
I have the same problem as Felisd, EXACT same problem. I get three hours of being yelled at to “help” and being lectured about everything I do wrong and how horrible I am as a woman and I get told to do every single stupid old wives’ tale my mother read on the Internet about how to clean, every damn time my mom is in my house for over 8 hours. I consider myself lucky that this year at Christmas she was there for 3 days and held off on the screaming cleaning spree until the 26th.
I know Sars said “you already ruled out everything, so you must get something out of it,” but hell, I’ve tried that stuff and nothing helped. My mom ignores/forgets/”forgets” every darn thing I tell her because she DOES NOT WANT TO HEAR IT, and that’s probably what the LW has going on too. The only thing I haven’t tried is a professional cleaning service, but I am sure that my mother would do the exact same thing even if I had one. Why? Because it’s not about the cleaning so much as it’s about HER and her needs. In my mom’s case, to be a mommy martyr, because she never got any attention in her life unless she was “serving” someone and slaving away. Also, my mom’s house is a disaster (hoarder), but she finds it a billion times easier to clean someone else’s house rather than her own, so she can be perfectionistic on me rather than herself.
After the last 3-hour scream spree, she said proudly, “Now aren’t you pleased to have a clean house?” and I said, “I would rather have a messy house and have you not scream at me for the last 3 hours.” Unfortunately that made no difference. Why? Because it’s about HER. And she will do what she wants, GODDAMMIT. It makes her feel good to do it, even if it makes me feel horrible (and hell, maybe that’s part of the pleasure too for her for all I know). It pleases her to do it on some weird level, and thus she has no incentive to stop, regardless of how you feel.
If you aren’t being screamed at the entire time, hell, enjoy the free cleaning service. You’re getting it whether you like it or not. You might as well not waste your time trying to clean ahead of her, because she wants to find mess and will do so anyway.
I’d speculate maybe it’s a generational thing but my stepmother is the visiting cleaner and my mother–not so much. I will say that I’ve learned to give my stepmother a “project” such as rearranging my cupboards, putting photos in an album, alphabetizing my books, etc. Not that I say “here’s a project” more of “Oh, dear! I can’t find anything in my cupboards and I wish they were more organized.” It usually takes her a couple of hours and seems to fill the cleaning need.
Emotional Cheater: Sars is spot on.
Oh and I meant to add to @insulted, that she should stop focusing on how people judge her housekeeping, because now it’s time for everyone to judge her parenting instead. ;-)
I can’t tell you how much I loved it when a woman in the pharmacy told me, unasked, that my baby was crying because it was hungry. When I figured out a bit later that the baby was no longer content to lie in the pram and was much happier sitting up, I wanted to go back and say “See, you opinionated fucking bitch, she wasn’t hungry and you know how I know that? Because I’m the one that feeds her”
Jen S 1.0… Puppies? House cleaning PUPPIES??? What did I miss? Do they clean out the kitty litter box, too? Sounds like a bargain at any price!
Insulted: I told my mom, God bless her, about how the new cat freaked out when I ran the vacuum. She said, with much snark, “It’s probably never heard one before!!” At the time, I’d had the cat for four months… though she was right!! ;) Good luck!!
@mctwin, read sarahnova’s reply and dream of the coming puppy paradise.
My dad does something similar: he’s a compulsive fixer. It makes him crazy to sit still for very long, so I keep a running list of things that need fixing for when he comes over, even if they are things that I’m perfectly capable of fixing myself. Squeaky hinges, plumbing issues, loose woodwork, you name it. About 50% of the time, it is something he can fix. The other 50% of the time he’ll spend 4-6 hours figuring out that he can’t fix it, and that yes, if the wiring is messed up, we should probably call an electrician. That said, that’s 4-6 hours when my mom and I can have a conversation.
That, and games. Card games, Rummikub, things like that. He can’t stand to not be “doing” something.
Insulted:
When I read that your mother makes beds in hotel rooms, I thought, “Oh boy, this poor woman’s got it bad.” But I think the fact that she does make hotel room beds without getting a wage — and possible tip — is a reason why you shouldn’t be insulted. It’s pretty clear that something that goes beyond you is occurring. What is it?
Simple compulsion? Maybe. A need for order and control? Possibly.
On her next visit, I’d clean to your standard (maybe your standard +), then more or less forbid cleaning. Thank her for past KP duty, but this time explain that it troubles you that she’s putting all her energy into tidiness when she’s visiting. That probably won’t be enough, though — you’re going to need other activities and distractions. You’ll think of something.
Insulted – I once hid my cleaning stuff before my mother’s visit. She said that she was taking a walk, and she ended up walking a mile and a half to the nearest grocery store to buy cleaning supplies (“Since you obviously don’t have any of your own”). It used to drive me nuts. Finally though I just let it go and gave in – she wants to clean. She wants to feel useful (in my mother’s case she wants to complain to my sister that I have a dirty house, and she wants to complain to me that my sister’s kids are out of control). Now when she is about to come I clean the same way that I always do. If Mom wants to scrub the grout in my shower with a toothbrush she can have at it – more power to her. I seriously no longer care. Last time she was here she was taking apart my heater ducts to get the dust out of the pipes. Whatever – it’s one less thing that I have to do. You just need to accept that she is going to find stuff anyway, no matter how spotless your house is in reality.
Count me in as another one with a passive-aggressive cleaning mom. There seems to be an epidemic. When I was younger it really bothered me and I too would regress into teenaged snippishness, but I finally let it go. I think I had the same thing as Soylent, where I thought it was a reflection on my status as an adult, as well as a direct comment on my housekeeping abilities, and…it probably was all those things.
I learned to let it go by (1) acknowledging to myself that, really, I am not in fact the most conscientious housekeeper; (2) learning not to care that my mother thinks I’m slovenly; (3) even if the cleaning comes with a healthy side of martyred passive-aggression, it’s still someone else cleaning; and (4) creating a list of tasks for my parents to do when they visit. Hey, that basement’s not going to clean itself and I’m sure as hell not going to do it, so…have at it, Mom. In other words, I redirect her passive-aggression to benefit myself and now snicker to myself that they have fallen victim to yet another Machiavellian plot of mine that results in my windows getting power-washed.
Insulted – my mom has pulled similar stunts and after years of therapy I’m able to set emotional boundaries for myself that allow me to say, “This is not a reflection of anything but her need to act like a martyr,” and go in the other room. It’s hard to get there, and it’s enraging to have someone treat you as if you can’t or won’t care for your own house or like it’s theirs to clean. It’s hard not to get roped in to the drama my mom creates, but, in the end, it’s the only thing I’ve found that works. Well, that, and living far enough away that my parents can’t just stop by.
My mom also has much better cleaning habits. The state of my house doesn’t bother me, but I do feel bad when she notices it and/or insists on cleaning it. I’ve coped with it by cleaning like a mad woman before she gets to my house and then just let have at it.
There would be certain things that I avoid just because I hate doing them (I’m looking at you kitchen floors) and they would be pretty bad when my mom would see them, so I make sure they are clean right before that.
Sars, I think your advice to Insulted was spot-on, and here’s the sentence that hammers it home for me: “I know there’s an option along the lines of “hooray, thanks for cleaning for me,” but I know myself well enough to know that that’s not going to happen[.]” That’s just stubbornness disguised as self-awareness. Maybe if Insulted didn’t know herself so well and could look at the situation objectively, she could get over it.
Insulted, I’m with Sars here–you have solutions to this situation. You actually listed them in your letter…and then promptly shot them all down as things you “can’t” do. The thing is, I don’t see any reason why any of those solutions (cleaning service, talking to your mom, not caring) can’t be done. What I read are reasons why you would prefer not to do them, or why they would cause you discomfort. And if you’re looking for a solution that causes you no discomfort, please let me know if you find one, because I sure as hell haven’t.
A cleaning service would be a pain–but there are steps you can take to minimize the pain, e.g., finding one that will use organic chemicals. Talking to your mom would make you uncomfortable, but it wouldn’t kill you. Not caring would be tough, but it is possible. And doing nothing makes your head want to fly off your body. Frankly, those are your options. I, personally, would go with sucking it up and having the uncomfortable conversation over the phone, with one in-person follow-up if needed, and then further sucking it up by deciding not to care if/when the conversations don’t work. But that’s the combo I’d choose–you pick the one that’s best for you.
I get that it feels unfair that you should have to deal with additional discomfort to address a situation that you feel is so unfair in the first place, and it is unfair, but…it is what it is. There is no way to force your mom to stop cleaning without any discomfort to you, so you might as well stop looking for one.
If it makes you feel any better, imagine your mom happily passive-agressively seething away while she cleans, while you sit on the couch with your feet up, drinking ice-cold OJ and listening to your iPod relaxed and guilt-free, because hey: you asked her, nicely, multiple times, not to do this. Now she’s choosing to do it anyway, so you’re off the hook and bonus: free maid service!
@Insulted–and since I just noticed that you asked for wording suggestions, may I propose: “Ma, you may not be aware of this, but when you spot-clean my apartment, it really bothers me. It makes me feel like I’m being judged. I know you don’t mean it that way, but that’s how it feels to me, and it makes me angry. It would help me out a lot if you wouldn’t do it any more. I know we have a visit coming up, so I’d really appreciate it if you could just relax and visit with me.” “Ma, remember how we talked on the phone before you came up here about the cleaning? This is what I meant by that–when you do this, it really bothers me. Please, stop.”
Lather, rinse, repeat as needed. The main theme here: I know you don’t intend it to piss me off, but that’s what the effect is, so please stop.
I’ve found that telling my mom I have a cleaning person has worked wonders. Note, I say *telling* her about it. I do, on occasion, have a cleaning person. Who comes something like once every six weeks. Nonetheless, now every time my parents come–even if it’s on week five-and-a-half, and all I’ve done lately is run the vacuum and square off the magazine piles, Mom seems infinitely less inclined to nitpick or start doing dishes.
@Soylent, the only thing worse than being told your crying baby is hungry is when, in an attempt to “appease” (or prove wrong) the non-parent, you feed the baby and it eats. Obviously not strangers but I swear that used to be my mother’s favorite line. We’ve now moved on to “he’s tired.”
I do agree if you can get past the way the cleaning irritates you, it can be helpful to have someone else tend to that while you tend to a starving baby ;)
@Insulted: I second JS – just revel in the fact that her inability to deal is making your life easier and hers harder. Otherwise, my only suggestion would be to suggest a concrete alternative whenever she starts to clean, like, “oh, you don’t have to do that! Come watch the bachelor with us!” or whatever.
And if you’re worried about her bad-mouthing you to your SIL…your SIL knows your mom, and probably knows to take what she says with a grain of salt.
Hello, Insulted here – thanks for the insight, Sars (you’re not wrong), and thanks everyone for sharing their experiences too. I will say, @MEP, I hadn’t actually identified “not caring” as such as a solution – my “hoorah” line was to do with learning to be happy about it…just getting as far as not caring/neutrality is a much more doable goal.
And thanks, too @JS, that was the kind of wording I was looking for; I will practise that, try it pre-visit, deploy secret weapon (would you rather mop the floor or play with your grandson?), and use @Sarahnova distraction/fume method to get to the don’t-care point eventually.
@Rachel, @Soylent, @Katherine: laughing over here. Oh, yes, I hear you. Except it wasn’t a lady in the pharmacy, it was a teenage boy at a party. And then, sure enough, my boy did feed when I tried it a few minutes later despite having fed half an hour ago.
I also have a visting-cleaning mother. But like some of you I picked the “don’t care” approach. Just don’t see the point on arguing about it… seriously, the last few times she came to visit I got a professional cleaning service, but she always finds something… and even if everything is clean, she finds something to organize… or clothes to wash, or furniture/bedsheets to buy. I think she only wants to help, so I don’t see it as an insult, she’s basically just being mom. And the nagging (which only happens sometimes – and when it does, it is extremely annoying) is also part of her motherly duties I guess – but those usually lead to a fight.
To Em: do everyone in this situation a favor and keep your mouth shut (this includes not telling best friend about said crush either). Let’s just try to imagine what could come of this:
– you and your bf won’t break up, but might have a dumb fight about it (it’s a crush you used to have that you never acted on)
– he’ll get jealous of you and best friend
– you’ll hurt your boyfriend for no reason
So yeah… there is such a thing as too honest.
Btw, for those who are recommending ways of talking to her mother to get her to stop cleaning: I strongly discourage this. First, because she already said she wanted her to stop (probably several times now since it bugs her so much) but the mom chose not to listen. Therefore, the actual getting her to listen will a)take effort b)offend her quite a bit. I’m all for standing up to your parents when necessary (like say, she wants to give you a curfew at 25, or tell you how to raise your child – heh, she might need that one) but if you’re gonna pick your battles, really, cleaning shouldn’t be the one that creates all this drama. Unless her mom is the type to let things go easily… it’s probably just going to create more drama.
My dad is the cleaner-upper when the parents visit, but I think for him it’s much more about trying to provide for his kids. There is no accompanying insults or anything, more like I’ve cooked breakfast and he takes his plate in and he cleans it and the rest of the plates and starts up the dishwasher and wipes down the counter and scours the sink and stuff. It’s like he doesn’t want to make a negative impact on my kitchen, and it’s just a little thing he can do to help out. He’ll also tend to fix things if they need it. Again, without insulting my ability to fix things or any of that. Just this little “Oo, something I can do to help my son! Yay!” in his head. So, the first time he ever did it, I was very mildly offended and then I saw it for what it was and I stopped thinking that way. He also, even though I’m 39 years old, will tend to pay for my meals when I visit them, and tend to offer me gas money for the drive back home. It’s really not that he thinks I can’t afford it, it’s just a little Dad thing to do, to make sure I’m always OK.
If I was in the letter writer’s position, I kind of think I’d ask visiting mother if there were any particular cleaning supplies she needed and go out and get them for her. Ride the wave, so to speak. As long as she’s not insulting you about it, if it’s just the behavior then it could be a “I want to provide for you, but you’re grown so I don’t really know how and this is a little way I can” sort of thing. If there are insults mixed in, then it’s a sit down and talk about it, or even sit down and invite her to stay at a hotel kind of moment.
@Insulted: Have you tried addressing this next time she complains about your sister-in-law’s house? Something like “Do you also dis my house to her?” or “Do actually HAVE TO do housework, or are you forcing it on her like you do to me?” might help.
This is painfully close to home for me Insulted, I really sympathise! Not so long ago I was boarding at my parent’s place after living overseas. I went away one weekend and returned to find my room cleaned from ceiling to floor and my clothes and possessions rearranged. I was so upset by this I couldn’t sleep in my room that night. My parents viewed my reaction with detached bemusement. I asked them in very clear language please to NEVER to do this again, at LEAST without asking first. And guess what? They did it again.
They were unable to process the fact that a person in their 30s might want privacy or a modicum of control over their environment, however small that environment might be. It’s an overreaction I know, but it felt somewhat like being burgled. But it mostly felt like being judged.
Sars is probably right, there really isn’t anything I can do. Some people resist communication. I can’t get inside their heads and reconfigure their sense of parental boundaries. I’ve moved out now and I just try to not care when they come over and criticize how I do things. I don’t think they do it to be deliberately upsetting – I doubt they are enough in tune with me to even do that anyway. I think they are caught up in themselves and aren’t aware of causing offense. It’s not the worst thing in the world.
In any case, it is comforting to know others are experiencing this as well. Thanks for sharing. I hope you find a way to cope.
@L – I see your point, but I think I will feel better if I am able to state my objection coherently and rationally, and deal calmly with her hurt feelings. That would be a big step for me. And then when I try to not care, I won’t have to fight off guilt as well as resentment, because as others have said, I asked her not to so it’s on her if she does.
@IS – I have, but it depending on phrasing, it seems a little passive-agressive and I try to avoid that tendency in myself. But, yeah, when she says she “had to” clean SIL’s house, something neutral like “are you sure you ‘had to’, mum?” at least catches her on her wording.
I know it sounds silly to say it never occured to me to not care, but it always felt like I should either force her to stop or force myself to like it, and I couldn’t see any way to do either. Didn’t occur to me I could do neither.
My mom does the same thing. I? Don’t clean my house for about a month before she shows up. Win. Win. My sister even dirties hers up on purpose. Who cares if she thinks your a slob? You know you’re not. My mom is just a clean freak and we make fun of, and make her pay for, it.
Perhaps something about staying at your place makes her uncomfortable and awkward-feeling so she feels like she needs something to do. Do you know what she actually would be doing if she wasn’t cleaning? Why didn’t your mom come to your OB appointment with you? That kind of seems like a mom/daughter thing (I don’t have kids, so I am going to by exhaustive research conducted by watching a season of “I’m 16 & Pregnant”).
Hope things work out for you.
And the boyfriend deal: word, Sars. Nothing to add to that.
Well, if you think it might stop your Mom, Wendy, you could always leave sex toys where she’d find them while she was cleaning. If nothing else, it might change the topic of her conversation!
“He still comes to all the parties and wants to clean guns at my apartment” has officially replaced “They lived happily ever after” as my favourite story ending!
@ Jules “He still comes to all the parties and wants to clean guns at my apartment” has officially replaced “They lived happily ever after” as my favourite story ending!
:) I’m glad the gun-cleaning stood out to someone else as well. I know they’re cadets, and I’m all for responsible gun-ownership, but somehow I feel that gun-cleaning should be private. People clean their guns at other people’s homes? Really? It just seems so weird to me…
Also, I clean my mother’s kitchen for her when I visit but I am 99% sure she is grateful. Maybe I should check up on that 1%? Time to call Mom…
@Wendy/Insulted – go one step further than neutral. Try to be amused. My mother in law was the queen of passive aggressive and I found that rather than foam at the mouth, I would frame it as “how ridiculous is this” and it really helped me cope. It didn’t solve the issue of how horribly she treated her family, but at least I didn’t punch her in the face.
Wendy – has your mother’s hearing been checked lately? It may be that she doesn’t register what you tell her on the phone because she actually can’t hear, rather than because she’s being difficult. I know communicating with my father got a *lot* easier after he got a telephone with an adjustable amplifier in the receiver.
Wehalf: the guns thing stood out to me too. I get that they’re cadets and all that, but the idea that their fave party house and their go-to gun-cleaning pit stop is the same residence? Would make me uneasy. But I’m not comfortable with guns anyway.
Regarding Em’s situation — it might help to really, really boil down those nine paragraphs to their essence: 1) Had a rough patch with Boyfriend. 2) BF’s Best Friend was helpful and kind through rough patch. 3) Developed wicked crush on Best Friend but did nothing about it. 4) Fixed things up with Boyfriend. 5) Things were awkward for awhile with Best Friend but aren’t so much anymore. 6) Now feel kind of guilty and embarrassed about the whole thing — should I tell boyfriend? Answer: NO. Because nobody did anything wrong here really. It was a bit of a tough emotional time all around but in the end everyone acted honorably. Dragging it further than that is just adding drama and needlessly hurting Boyfriend.
Insulted: I feel for you in this situation. My MIL doesn’t do quite the same thing anymore; now she leaves religious books around our house because we need to be saved or something. Grrr.
I recommend that you just ask her to do something you actually want done. Don’t bother being coy with the “gosh I wish I knew how to organize this kitchen” kind of thing. If there’s something you hate to do that she’s good at, just ask her to do it when she’s there. That way, you’re giving her credit for her talents, and you’re getting something done that you need to have done (rather than her re-mopping a clean floor). Here’s a scenario:
Hey MIL: I’d really like to reorganize the pantry (or sort out the hall closet, or whatever), but honestly I don’t even know where to start. What do you think? Want to take a shot at it while you’re here?
Or: MIL, I’m headed out to the grocery store to pick up the lasagna ingredients for dinner. Would you be willing to put away the dishes and reload the dishwasher while I’m out? You are awesome, thanks so much! Want anything else while I’m at the store?
Anyway, good luck — if all else fails, a glass of wine helps with the “not caring.”
Oh, Wendy your letter resonated with me, but replace mother with MIL.
The 2nd time I met my MIL was when she flew across the country for a visit with us. I was already nervous about getting to know her and knew that she was a “cleaner” (just like her son) and wanted to make sure everything was tidy when she got there…less than 6 hrs after her arrival, I came home from work to find our fridge in the middle of the floor bleached from top to bottom (including all jars/containers on the counter – also newly bleached) and my MIL on hands and knees pulling hoses out of the back of the fridge to find the “strange smell”.
It was all I could do not to flip out right there in the middle of the room. I simply smiled sweetly, gritted my teeth and muttered something about changing out of my work clothes and shut myself in the bedroom. The hubs couldn’t understand why I was upset, and that that was what his mum did for a living so what’s the big deal? My ranting behind closed doors about how she thought we “lived in a stinking cesspool and WHO DOES THAT on the first day of coming to someones house DAMMIT?” only made things worse.
Anyway, 3 visits later and I have had to come to terms with the fact that she is the way she is and she doesn’t mean anything by it and wants to do it (she also another one who can’t bear to relax and has to be constantly doing something). I have had to just learn to let it go.
It has also become very clear that she and my other half are cleaners, and her husband and I are very much in the ‘we’ll be over here on the couch watching TV/playing Wii let us know if you need any help’ camp, so it all works out!
@ Wendy – my mad, I failed to realize through the letter that you hadn’t tried a more direct approach. Yeah, go for it, you never know, could work. Just keeping in mind that if it doesn’t letting it go might be better than pressing the issue…
oops, I meant to say “my bad” in the first sentence hehehe… typos… sorry.
Sars, do you consciously choose a theme when you select Vine letters? Because both of these have a theme of what the letter writer needs to do is stop creating drama.
Well, insulted, I pretty much agree with what everyone else has said will minimize the drama: stop reacting. Your mom does this because it feeds into her martyr complex. If you don’t have any reaction other than “thanks” she won’t be getting what she needs and it will probably stop.
However, if you know you absolutely won’t be able to keep control (and I totally sympathize, I can see how this would be completely MADDENING) my suggestion is simply tell her she will have to stay in a hotel, and structure any time she is actually at your house with an activity that won’t allow her time to start cleaning. “I’m sorry; it won’t be possible for you to stay with me. I’ve repeatedly explained how it makes me feel when you clean my house, namely belittled, judged, and disrepected. You’ve repeatedly ignored my wishes. Since you’ve shown you can’t respect the rules of my home, it won’t be possible for you to stay here anymore.” Lather, rinse, repeat.
@Em: Grow up. You don’t want to “be honest”-you want to create drama where there is none. You had an attraction you didn’t act on. Happens to just about everyone and it’s not cheating. And if you do tell him, you’re going to hurt him, and destroy his relationship with his best friend. My question is what are you getting out of this-do you have a subconscious need to sabotage your relationships or are you jealous of boyfriend’s friends, so you want to screw up his friendships?