Ohdear11
You sound so kind and like the sort of person who wants to keep the peace. E.g. I'll just quote one of your generous messages:
"Apologies for taking up your time with all my added posts. Hopefully it can make some sense."
Because the thread has been all over the place, I need to add that I simply answer the text from the OP as it is written and observe their additional remarks throughout the current thread. However, sometimes the remarks throughout a thread may be said in self-defence for something that came up here, more than clarifying the OP's situation about which she asked our opinion or help.
Ohdear11, I'm going to suggest you have a behaviour style, please forgive me. It has a name and having learned that I am one, and having learned the hard lesson as to why, and that it does not make your life go smoothly, I am going to suggest that I see signs of it in you. It's called a "People Pleaser". We want everyone to feel happy, to like you/us, and you apologise a lot, explain a lot and rather than say you are hurt when somebody is rather sarcastic or critical, you praise their remark. I am not being critical! i have been there and still have to learn to not do it. I'm just pointing it out. I was like it. I was like it because I did not have enough self-esteem. I was very easily crushed. I wanted people to like me. Having been bullied throughout my childhood, I married a bully, knowing no different. I had always been pushed around, mocked, spoken about as if I were stupid/ugly and I had a very low expectation of how people would treat me. If someone said thank you to e I thought they were wonderful. I would be so relieved and able to cope for another day if my husband just made a cup of instant coffee for me - he was making his own and he was not talking to me, but the coffee make me feel as though I existed. It took many years to learn that I did not have to be metaphorically "beaten up" all the time. I did not have to smile while they made cruel "jokes" about me.
If you are like this you cannot set boundaries. If you are trying to keep everybody happy you find it hard to know what to ask of them when it comes to how they treat you. When they seem to treat you unfairly and say things against you that are untrue, you become obsessed with trying to get fairness and truth about yourself because you can't afford to let them not like you. You do not think to say to one of their co-gossips, that you don't care about what they think, if they are stupid enough to listen to such a gossipy tell tale then their opinion is not relevant to you. So if her husband thinks you are stand offish that is his problem. The way to gain closure is to decide that you don't need to be involved with this woman because she is unreasonable and that she simply needs managing, like a recalcitrant teenager. You don't need to bother about her apology. It wouldn't mean anything. You don't need to bother with her understanding why her letting herself enter freely into your home without your agreement is rude, unpleasant and has been upsetting the early days of settling your baby into a routine. Just give her plain simple rules. A few words. Do not come in unless I have said you can and agreed the time. Do not touch/disturb the baby without asking me first, unless it is an emergency.
Please give up bothering to get her to like you. She will probably be more respectful to you when you become like an assertive school-marm from the 1800s!
You have to know how you expect people to treat you before you set boundaries. You have to know that you are worthy of being treated decently, you have to have self-love enough to say "I do not allow you to walk all over me like that." You can only say this with meaning when you believe it in your heart. You need to believe that it's alright to stop someone treating you however they like whenever they like and not listening to your "house-rules". You must not feel apologetic for asking for reasonable boundaries and you do not need to give explanations for having them.
My own daughter had a situation where her MiL had a key to her home and even showed her friends around the house - my DD's home - without asking my DD first! DD had trouble getting breast feeding started. MiL would just walk in. My DGS might at last be asleep and MiL would come in and whisk him out of his basket and wake him up. He would cry. She would say he needs feeding, my DD would say he's just been fed, MiL would say he's hungry and before long MiL was saying my DD couldn't manage! Even to me she said it! My DD had to stay in hospital for the first week of her baby's life while he was tube fed in SCBU. Of course they had a difficult time!
Now, I hope you know whose 'side' I am on Ohdear11!!! I think you are a much too kind, really sweet, scared to upset your DH and thus find it hard to explain what you mean by your boundaries to his MiL. Yes - I know that's a lot to infer from this thread... of course I know I am "reading things in" to the situation. But it is a method we all use and because there are lots of us, you can choose which of us might be a bit helpful with what you are experiencing. I don't mind if I'm wrong. I'm not competing to be the clever one. If I say anything helpful then I and very glad. If what I say isn't for you, just leave it to one side and move on. Most of all, if my approach isn't the one for you, do not be upset by it. Just ignore it. I send it in good faith and I know it might not be the way things are for you. I only want you to be ok. So please do not worry if hat I say isn't the way you want to go. I understand that.
The thing about boundaries is that you need to come across as someone who has them. You need to gain people's respect and seem confident, in control and assertive. In a nice calm self-assured way. No need to be loud and bossy. Best not to in fact. If you don't feel self-assured, just act like you are! This is a kind of whole new attitude. It's a great time for you to demonstrate you are in charge and that you expect people to treat you and yours decently. You are a new mum! A brilliant time to become assertive and show people that what you say and do goes. If MiL doesn't say she's sorry she constantly invaded your privacy and interrupted and there is a conversation going on do not feel bothered by saying calmly and firmly that you have noticed she has never addressed the facts of the situation and how she repeatedly entered your home without invitation and invaded your privacy in the early days of your baby's life when you both needed peace and rest and that she has never apologised for doing this.
Maybe, though, your boundary explanations haven't been understood by brick-wall MiL. Sorry, but someone who lets herself in when a new baby is in the house is as insensitive as a brick wall and she seems to listen like a brick wall. (not the kind that has ears) is probably not capable of understanding about boundaries. Maybe she needs an easier word or phrase such as 'common decency' or 'simple respect' or 'basic understanding' for a person'd home and privacy and as a mother, she ought to have a 'natural understanding' and 'remember how mother and baby need time yo be left in peace together'. When setting your boundaries, usually one doesn't even use the word "boundary". I would love you to say firmly to her "Nobody except (Baby's name)'s Dad comes into this house without asking first!" "We will not be disturbed by anyone while Baby is settling and I need rest! I shall set the phone on vibrate and only attend to emergencies."
I would use the sign on the door idea. After my husband died, people were coming to the house all the time. It was exhausting. I said to my GP that we (children and I) didn't have a minute to ourselves and were so tired. He said to put a sign on the door, "Please do not disturb we are sleeping." Or whatever we wanted it to say.
I have a low opinion of your MiL because of her desire to say you need to "get better", extracting that from one small thing you tried to explain to her.
I don't think you need to see your Doctor to "get better" but I do think it's a good idea to ask for a bit of Counselling. You don't need to be ill to ask for counselling, but when you are in a situation that keeps bothering you it can really help.
For Boundaries and learning what they are etc, I found Stephanie Lyn on YouTube very good. She produces a talk every week so there are many! Don't give up if the first one seems not to hit the mark but try a few out just to see if they might help. She is a professional, from the USA and has a lot of experience. One of her talks helped me a lot but annoyingly it had a titled not related exactly to the boundaries issue! I will try to find it. Meanwhile try:
youtu.be/0ZbVI5zmrKA Teach people how you want to be treated. Looks at your self-image, do you really have self-respect? Do there respect you or manipulate you (e.g. turn one comment you made into saying she wants you to get better) and walk all over you?
youtu.be/My9XGFRCJyk. explains how being a People Pleaser (a 'giving' person) is one reason we don't have boundaries.
youtu.be/Cb1kyqCO_58. I Think this is the one I found earlier on and was most pleased with.
This one may not sound as though it is relevant but some of what she says rang a bell with me.
It is: youtu.be/3VVFYcaD8wk
The way your MiL speaks to you is not that of helpful friendly person who actually cares about having a good relationship with you. However, you may not get any sympathy from anyone else. The only people who would understand your distress would be those she has treated as she has treated you. People she does not do this to, or who don't mind her intrusiveness, will not understand. This talk by Stephanie Lyn might have some clues as to how you might proceed. As I said before, if it doesn't sound relevant just try some others.
I'll wish you every success and really, I would try and build up your life with your own friends and not be bothered about a relationship with this MiL. Lots of love to you, Elle x
