My husbands mother is coming into town for a few days this week. She is a lovely woman but has a lot of energy and different values than I have. I am also 8 months pregnant and not feeling up for socializing with even my close friends at the moment. But I get that we don’t get to see her very often so when my husband and I agreed to the visit, I was very clear that I didn’t want to be put in the position of having to entertain anyone while he was at work. He agreed to take a few days off in order to spend time with her.

This morning he called me and said she is actually coming in 8 hours earlier than he had originally told me, and that she had insisted that he not interrupt his work schedule during the week because she could just hang out with me and our daughter while he is working. Basically the exact thing I was hoping to avoid. So now I feel like the “bad guy” for pointing out that I didn’t agree to this scenario.

Here is the unintentional model I am working with but not sure to go with the intentional one

C: mother in law visiting
T: I will have to entertain her and don’t want to. I am already so tired and don’t want anyone else in my space
F: annoyed, dreading visit
A: get upset with husband
R: create tension around the visit