Woman has on-point response to mom who invaded her privacy and wreaked havoc by ‘cleaning’ her home
People need to set boundaries for themselves and others to respect privacy. Even parents and family members need to stay within a spectrum regarding behavior and communication. Though they may consider certain gestures as expressions of love, they need to respect the feelings and boundaries set by a person. u/hhhhhhd5 shared a post on Reddit, revealing the dire action she took when her mother invaded her space and overstepped her boundaries. The mom claimed to have "helped" her daughter by cleaning their apartment despite being asked to refrain from doing so, which ended up creating a worse mess. The woman knew what she had to do.
The woman mentioned that she lived with her boyfriend and had a cat in their small apartment. Since the place is a few minutes away from her parents', she obliged when her mom offered to check on the cat while the duo were away. The woman was dissatisfied to notice that her mom ended up doing more than she offered. She went on to clean the apartment, including the bedroom and other spaces. While cleaning, she made a mess of the system which enraged the woman. “We got back and noticed that my mom had cleaned the apartment and there was a strange fishy smell. Turns out, she had decided to wash out the litterbox in the spare bathroom tub, which we never use. The smell was coming from the pipes,” the woman wrote.
She added that her mom had done such antics several times before and even pushed herself to clean the bedrooms and put away clothes and other items. “I find this to be a huge invasion of privacy and have told her in no uncertain terms not to do it,” the woman remarked. Unfortunately, the mom refused to listen and went about getting her way. Additionally, the mom had an appalling “lifelong habit of snooping (through my purse, my car), telling my business to everyone and general overbearing mom things.” As an adult, this repeated manipulation and invasion in the form of “love” was getting exhausting.
On account of the many unacceptable inconveniences, the woman decided to ban her mother from their apartment. “My mom, however, doesn’t seem to register that she’s done anything wrong and just rolls her eyes about being ‘punished for being helpful.’ I’m at my wit's end,” she noted. The woman acknowledged that her mom was trying to help but was going way overboard to a disturbing level. She even made a note that their apartment is not even that untidy and the “messiest thing is a laundry chair.”
“She is trying to be helpful and it comes from a place of love but I am absolutely furious with her and feel like I need to set some sort of boundary. So, she is no longer welcome in our home for any reason,” she concluded. Several people agreed with the woman’s decision and pointed out the need for people, even if they’re parents, to respect boundaries. u/Sea-Independant3825 wrote, “Even if she means well, she is doing it wrong. I mean, she could stumble upon very private strings, especially in your bedroom.” u/firstname_m_lastname urged, “You need to set all of the boundaries.”