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Do We Tackle this One?
DH and I are not sure if we should address this with MIL (DH's Mom) or not.
DH just moved offices for work and now shares space with a couple of other professionals in his field. His landlord (she holds the lease, everyone leases from her) and MIL have a mutual friend. MIL finds out about mutual friend, is very excited, all three go to lunch (MIL, landlord, and mutual friend).
At lunch, MIL tells/asks landlord to remind DH to stop hunching over and watch his posture. We're not sure how this came up or in what tone it was delivered, but MIL has a habit of over-worrying about DH (he is 30, in good health, not a risk-taker, etc) and over-sharing.
DH is po'ed. Before the lunch he asked MIL to respect his professional boundaries - basically we cannot stop with whom MIL associates (nor do we want to, it's her life), but it would be nice if she did not baby DH to landlord or others of a professional context. I cannot tell you how many times I have cringed when she tells the story about how DH urinated on her when he was born to someone outside the family - not quite the professional impression DH wants to make. So then when landlord tells him after the lunch what MIL said (about the hunching) he was a tad embarrassed.
Anyhoo - we're not sure if we should address this one or let it go. We have no idea if MIL and landlord will continue to lunch. If they don't then we can blow off this incident a lot easier. We're all about picking our battles, but sometimes there are so many battles it's hard to ascertain which are the really important ones to tackle.
Re: Do We Tackle this One?
I'm amazed that the landlord is relaying this information back to your husband. I would think that most adults would keep this to themselves.
MIL is out of line as well, but it sounds like she was always this way so there's probably no changing her. I think your H should say to her, "Mom, please remember that I'm trying to build my professional reputation, Please don't tell personal stories about me to people I work with."
But if she's always done this then I doubt your H can convince her to stop. At this point, I think his best bet might be to say to the landlord, "What you discuss with my mom is between you and her. Even if she asks you to relay a message to me, please don't. She has my cell phone number if she really needs to get in touch with me." And if the landlord still starts off a conversation with, "Your mom said ..." your H should cut her off and say politely but firmly, "Please. Don't involve me. If she wants to talk to me then she can call me herself" and then he should walk away from her.
Honestly? You can't change your MIL, but you can deal with the landlord.
"Landlord, if I knew that I was paying you to relay advice from my mother, I would never have signed the lease. Please stop, or when it comes time to renew my contract, I will move my business to another venue."
As a paying customer (who is not getting any discount, I would assume), your H is entitled to privacy. I don't think HE should worry about his professional image, as much as he should take the landlord to task for being less than professional.
I don't believe for one minute that the landlord was seriously relaying a message from the MIL to your dh to stop slumping, like he was a message carrier firm or something. I cant imagine his landlord cares if he slumps. I'm sure it was more like a "UH your MOM told me to tell you to quit slumping" to express the MIL's inappropriate 'mommyness' at the luncheon. All your dh had to say was "Yeah, my mom's pretty controlling, watch out or she'll be checking YOUR posture too".
I agree with this. I think both you and your H are way over thinking this.
This is more how the conversation with the landlord went rather than her actually relaying the message to my DH. Apparently landlord's response to MIL was "I'm not his Mom". I get the feeling landlord was telling DH either because (a) landlord thought it was amusing or (b) she thought it was weird and thought DH would want to know what his Mom is saying. Not sure - DH was going to ask today how the conversation arose.
DH's relationship with the landlord is not strict landlord-tenant. They have worked together on projects before and continue to do so - they're kind of coworkers, but not really. It's an office of self-employed individuals - much less expensive to rent a suite together and have access to a conference room, reception area, etc.
Thanks, I think this is going to be the general action we take.
You're right, MIL is pretty bad with boundaries. Actually, bad is really a huge understatement. We continue to work on this issue. Gives me heartburn. My MIL sometimes treats her grown siblings (she is the youngest) like children, it's not just my DH.
He stands up to her quite frequently and they have definitely argued. Most recently a week ago when she told him (a) we are lending her a car (her car broke down and I was traveling for work with a rental) and (b) she was going to borrow my car despite DH saying she could borrow his. MIL got pretty mad when DH said we're not continuing this conversation.
DH and I are interviewing counselors to come up with new strategies because what we're doing does not work all the time. His boundaries are pretty strong, but he could do better. The main problem is the frequency of the issues (we've had three in the last seven days) and having to respond appropriately.