What would you do if your partner gave the keys to your house to their mother without discussing it with you? What if your mother-in-law was randomly letting herself into your home and doing her offspring's half of the house cleaning for them?
These and other relationship-related questions are picked over by the expert team of Psychologist Allison Keating and Psychotherapist Ray O'Neill on The Ray D’Arcy Show with Kathryn Thomas.
A listener contacted the show to say that she came home one day to find her husband's mother doing the house cleaning. The couple has only been living in the house for a short time and the listener says she had no idea that her mother-in-law had a set of keys:
"I walked in the other day to my mother-in-law cleaning the kitchen. There she was, spritzing the counters with Flash, like they were her own. I was so taken aback and said something like 'Oh, I didn’t know you were coming over!.’ To which she replied that she’s been over a lot like this since she got the keys."
The listener learned that her husband's mother has been dropping in a couple of times a week for the past two months to do a spot of cleaning. As well as the surprise, she says she was disappointed to find that it wasn't her husband doing the cleaning all along:
"I thought my husband had discovered the Hoover in the same time frame, but no - his Mammy had been cleaning our house. I feel so uneasy about the whole thing."
Three things annoy her about the situation - firstly, there was no discussion about it with her husband; secondly, she's worried that her mother-in-law will judge her cleaning standards and think they're not up to scratch; thirdly, she feels it's an invasion of their privacy.
She spoke to her husband about it, but he doesn't think it's a problem: "I’d like to get the keys back or have her have them only for emergencies. My husband doesn’t see this as a big deal, and has said that we are lucky that she’s willing to help out."
This last comment led to gasps from the experts in studio, followed by Ray and Katherine joking that they would be up for an arrangement like that, if their Mammies were willing, as Katherine says;
"Work away with the Flash, let me know when it runs out."
Ray and Alison get to work to try and solve this knotty relationship issue. Ray thinks it all goes back to the hubby:
"It’s the husband that’s the problem, not the mother-in-law. It’s the husband who hasn’t had the conversation, who’s taken it for granted that this kind of, reliance on his mother, over-familiarity – he’s the one who has no boundaries. It just needs to be abundantly clear: you need to address this."
Ray says the listener’s husband created the problem and he needs to sort it out:
"Whatever excuse he needs to make, he needs to get the keys back so that he’s showing prioritisation of his wife in their home."
Kathryn suggests the husband could be motivated by two things – fear of upsetting his mother and a feeling of gratitude that she is helping out with the household chores. Alison agrees, but says that the wife’s feelings of discomfort have to be taken into account here too:
"It’s a big deal, it’s their new house and there’s a feeling that someone has come in; so there’s a sense of intrusion with that. And for her husband or her partner not to include her in that. Like, it’s not very nice. There is a real sense of being undermined here, even though the intention is good."
If the conversation had taken place between the couple at the outset, everything could have been different, Alison says. Ray thinks that the wife’s feelings of unease shouldn’t be ignored:
"What’s awful is that it’s uncomfortable and he’s denying the fact that it’s uncomfortable; which is even more frustrating. I get, that you, Husby dear, have a problem with this, but I have a problem with this, therefore we have a problem with this."
The advice from the experts is to start talking about this now, to avoid it becoming a bigger problem down the line.
Kathryn, Alison and Ray also addressed the problem of another listener, who is struggling with adapting to being her husband’s carer in the full relationship segment of the Ray D’Arcy Show, which you can listen back to above.
