Should I confront my MIL or let it be?

[u/DifficultyNo3686]

Hi everyone, so I’ve been living with my in-laws for the past four years and my husband and I just had our first child. I had some issues with her before we had a child and now those issues are growing even more. she has always been passive aggressive and made certain comments (she does this with everyone) but has moments where she makes very kind comments that are selfless however, I’m starti no to think those kind comments are more so to benefit her than anything else. She seems narcissistic & expects everything to go her way and truly cannot stand that I don’t follow her rules- despite it being with stuff that are mind. she expects me to clean the way she does do my laundry the way she does, but the thing is I am extremely type a she is extremely type b but she thinks she’s type a. She continuously make passive aggressive comments for example, the other day I woke up earlier with my baby and while she was asleep, I took out everything from the fridge and cleaned it and re-organized it and later on that day when she looked at the fridge. She made a comment saying I don’t know why she thinks she organizes better. She pretty much half asses everything that she does, but she believes that she goes above and beyond. I wanna confront her when she makes these comments, but I’m not sure if I should do that because at the end of the day I’m in her home but I feel like I’m being taking advantage of it. It’s like she expects me to do everything but her way.
I will add some of the passive aggressive comments she has made through our marriage below just to for people a few to get a glimpse of the type of things that she says to me:

“(Husband name) had a chance with an engineer, a doctor, a nurse, but said he got you (starts laughing). But that’s OK that’s fate.”

Few years ago her sister was here for Thanksgiving, and the ladies and I were in a room and she mentioned a past woman that she wanted to hook up my husband with, but she made it seem that he was obsessed with her. And she basically just had a 20 minute conversation with us about how amazing she was my sister-in-law tried to shut it down, but she just kept going later on that day as I was cleaning up after we ate she mentioned her name and said no she was amazing and looked at me and just gave me a face.

I bought a bottle washer for my daughter, so I wouldn’t have to deal with sanitizing disinfecting it and cleaning it just to make my life easier, especially when I go back to work. There’s a feature where it has something to take out the moisture, but it stays on for a long time she continuously shuts the power off the machine because she can’t stand the noise.

She washes all of her clothes on normal cycle whereas depending on what I wash, I changed the cycle because there’s a reason there’s different cycles in the machine. But she continuously makes comments on why I’m doing it this way. It’s been four years move on. I’m clearly not going to listen to you. Let me do my laundry how I want to do my laundry.

She thinks my cleaning is extreme. I like to be clean. I don’t even do the extreme stuff I wanna do.

When I was not on maternity leave and when I was on maternity leave, she would wait for me to come home for work to start on the dinner yet she’s home every single day and did not want to make any meals on her own. She would even wait to unload the dishwasher until I came home to help her. She basically can’t do anything on her own. She literally one day needed help making pasta. How do you need help boiling water???

My cousins came over our house to after I had my daughter out of respect for me and my mother-in-law to see her and me and the baby. the next day I went to my mom’s house and she made the comment. I don’t know why they came over last night when they could’ve just gone over your mom’s house instead. They came out of respect for you and me to congratulate us on having the baby??

My husband and her a few months ago got into a huge argument regarding painting our daughter’s nursery over something very small that he bought for paint. After that argument ended the next day she came up to me and she said things that she tells me and things that she tells my husband we shouldn’t tell each other. I thought that was a very weird comment cause that just seems like she’s gonna try to control the narrative if we don’t tell each other what she said me and my husband tell each other everything.

There’s been more comments she says she really on a daily basis. My husband is getting very annoyed because he’s basically the scapegoat of the family. He’s the only one that puts her in place and I think she can’t stand neither of us because we’re the only ones that do not listen to her.

So basically, my dilemma is one living with them, which my husband and I are talking about moving out especially because now we have her daughter and it’s just clearly gonna get worse. And two, when she does make these passive aggressive comments, I don’t know if I should confront her with it or not. I feel like if I say something she’ll have something to use against me versus if I were to just not say anything and continued to ignore her. She can’t basically say, I said so-and-so.

How would you handle this situation (other than moving out which we are talking about). Also, I should mention that she has told me and my husband if we want her own place she and her husband would help us help financially as she has helped out her other two daughters in regards to that situation however, I feel like if we were to take up that help she would kind of use it against us so I’m not sure if I should take advantage of it or we just go to an apartment and figure it out on our own

[u/botinlaw]

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[u/rjtnrva]

So many of the posts to this sub and r/MILfromHell involve boundary stomping MILs where the OP and their family are living with the in-laws. I mean, the answer is obvious - get the hell out and into your own place.

[u/caroleenabeana]

So…….
I feel for you. I’m in this situation currently. She’s a boomer and or a narcissist. She sees you only as an extension of herself, not as your own individual person. You either continue living with her and keep communication at a minimum- like almost nothing. Or you move. She will never, ever change and more than likely will get worse over time.

She will 100% dangle “helping you out” over your heads any and every time you need something. That’s the catch. It’s hard holding boundaries with people like this, they just don’t believe in them. So take that “help” with extreme caution and be prepared to have it smack you in the face when you say “no” to her.

[u/hypnoticimager]

Clearly you need to get your own place. If she helps financially and you’re not in her house you can set boundaries with her. Living in her house seems to be your immediate big problem.