I’d like to preface this by saying that my MIL is very sweet and loves me a lot but she doesn’t always have a firm grasp on boundaries.

Me and my husband rent a small family house from my MIL as it’s a family home and she wanted family in it until she was ready to let go of it and sell it as she grew up there.

This is how I found out that she has a habit of barging into her kids homes unannounced.

This includes her other adult children’s homes that they have with their partners (she didn’t grow up in those houses but since her kids live there she just feels comfortable doing so).

Anyway she apparently barges in all of their homes without a call, text, or even knocking. So if she’d get a key or the door is unlocked she'd just let herself in.

I had no idea of this habit but not long after we moved in she'd almost walked in on me and my husband during spicy time, almost walked in while I was changing, then when I was in pajamas that showed way too much skin for company.

I mentioned this to my husband and when he talked to her about it her defense was "well i grew up in this house and I walk into all of my kids homes!” Granted my husband’s brother and his wife HATED this habit and later firmly told her not to do it again which upset her but she got over it. But we couldn’t get her to understand why this wasn’t ok for our house since she did grow up there and still owned it.

Until one day when I was about to hop into the bath and decided to get scissors to open a face mask. So before hopping in the tub I walk out of the bathroom completely naked and there she was sitting in our living room. I yelp and jump into the adjacent room and hobbled together some clothes from some dirty laundry that had been left in there before scurrying out. By then she then was sitting on the opposite side of the room with her back facing where I’d been, clearly embarrassed.

I grab the scissors and she left after getting something from my husband. I then scolded my husband for not warning me. But he didn’t think I’d come out of the bathroom and she’d be quick so he didn’t bother warning me. The bath after that was less than relaxing but she’s never popped over unannounced again after that.

So I guess me getting spotted naked once was a worthy price to pay for us both having uninterrupted privacy for the rest of our lives. Now I have a funny story on top of privacy and we’re still close, we just don’t bring that one incident up.