Dear Prudence: I Allowed My Mother-in-Law to Live in Our House. She Just Violated My Privacy in the Wildest Way.

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Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here.

Dear Prudence,

My husband’s mother, “Louise,” came to live with us a couple of months ago after her husband ran off with his assistant. Louise has never been great with boundaries, but the other day she crossed a major red line.

I had a collection of sex toys, and when I went to use one, I found all of them missing! Suspicious, I confronted my MIL who admitted to throwing them in the trash. Her excuse was that I shouldn’t need them because her son “ought to be enough” for me! She threw them out the night before the garbage was picked up, so they’re gone. My husband agrees she did the wrong thing, but has tried to minimize it by saying Louise was “coming from a place of care.” Fuck that! I am outraged that she would not only go through my private things, but think she had a right to dispose of them! I feel an incredible sense of violation and want her to move out. My husband isn’t willing to give her a deadline. What’s the solution?

—Garbage Man

Dear Garbage Man,

First order of business: Install cameras throughout the house. There is no telling what this woman will do, and you have to keep an eye on her. It’s the fact that she wasn’t even ashamed of her ridiculous, invasive action that is most chilling to me. It’s one thing to do it and another thing to admit it! Don’t make the cameras a secret because that’s creepy. But let her know that this is a response to her actions and if she doesn’t like it, she can leave.

I found myself wondering whether Louise’s intense belief that one partner in a marriage should be “enough” for the other is related to an emotional spiral over her ex-husband’s infidelity and her idea that she didn’t meet all his needs. But really, who cares. You shouldn’t have to live with someone who brazenly destroyed your belongings.

The question of whether to kick her out…

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