Boundaries. Some people respect them. Others—like my mother-in-law Monica—trample them like they’re invisible.
For half a decade, every visit from Monica followed the same exhausting routine: she’d arrive, ignore the perfectly good guest room, and immediately colonize my bedroom. She’d light candles, rearrange my perfume bottles, and generally behave like she was checking into a spa. My husband, Jake, thought I was overreacting. “She’s just comfortable with us,” he’d say.
This time, I decided to make her very uncomfortable.
After Monica once again bulldozed past my request to use the guest room, I put my plan into action. That night, when Jake and I “retired” to the guest room, our actual bedroom had been transformed into something that would make a sailor blush. Let’s just say it was very, very clear what kind of activities normally happened in that space.
The next morning, Monica looked like she’d rather sleep on the porch than spend another minute in our room. “The guest room is fine,” she said stiffly.
Jake, torn between horror and admiration, shook his head. “That was diabolical.”
Sometimes, the best way to enforce boundaries is to make crossing them extremely awkward.
