Mother-In-Law Advice!

Hello everyone! I specifically joined this forum because I need some advice about living with my mother-in-law (or boyfriend's mom, because we are not married.. no advice on the not being married thing, please.. we're happy that way). Anyway, my boyfriend is from South America and moved here to the U.S. when he was in high school. He has a sister who is a few years older than him that he moved in with. Having grown up without his dad in is life, his sister and him are very close to their mom. She comes to visit at least once a year for at least six months (required of her permenant residency). Since living here, they have always lived together because that is how their culture is, and they are very close as well. When I started dating him, I was 19 and he was 21. We didn't decide to move in together until three years ago when I was 24 and he was 26. At the time, he lived in his mother's home with her and his sister. They agreed that I could move in, as long as we had a plan. Things were fine.. I was a guest in the home and I acted like it. Less than a year later, my boyfriend bought his first home. The four of us moved in (mom, bf, bf's mom, bf's sister). Almost a week later, my MIL went back to South America. So the 3 of us lived there for almost five months until she came back. My sister-in-law is a little lazy, and doesn't do anything around the house. This is fine with me as I like to be the woman of the house. I did all the organizing, cleaning, etc and my boyfriend helped. When my MIL came back, this is when I realized we are NOT good living together. She also likes to be in control. She hated the way I did things, but never said so. She is very sweet and we do get along well, but in a passive-agressive way she will show you that she doesn't like what you do. She changed everything I do (including little things like moving dishes around, getting mad that I use kitchen trash bags for the garbage and not grocery bags, etc etc.). And I feel so useless living with her. She wants to do all the cooking and main tain the garden and everything around the home because she is retired and has nothing else to do.. but I want to maintain my home! I just realized that in order for our relationship to be good, we need to not live together. Not to mention I never had privacy with my boyfriend, and she went everywhere with us (grocery store, etc. etc.). I just knew it was time for my boyfriend and I to move on and be on our own. It's a difficult situation though, considering she doesn't speak much English, is older, and is single. Her kids are what she has here, and I respect that, but I also know that there comes a time when she needs to let her son go and live on his own. Anyway, we lived in his home for about a year until I decided I would try to buy my first home. Within three days I found a house to put an offer on, and it worked out! We decided to rent out his home, because his mom was going back to South America, and his sister was moving in with her new boyfriend. I talked to my boyfriend about how I wanted to live alone in our new home, and he agreed that he wanted that, too. I knew that the situation with his mom was sensitive, and he said that he understood and she would not live with us. Now we've been living in my home since October of 2012. His mom is coming this week and yep... will be living with us. When he told me she was coming, I knew we had to have this conversation again, and I was nervous because he gets very sensitive about his mom. Her townhome has a yearly rental contract that is not up, and his mom has renters in it until the fall. Basically, his mom has nowhere to go and I understand that they don't want her to go find an apartment as she'll only be here five months (the 6th month will be with relatives in NY). Regardless, I feel like this is going to go on forever. Every year will be the same, "Well... we don't have a place for my mom and I feel bad." I told him this. He says that when the rental is up this fall in his home, she will live there. But I fear that he hasn't discussed this with her. He says she understands and knows, but I wonder if she's just saying that and then when the time comes that won't happen. Anyway... things may be different this time around because it's MY home, and maybe she won't redo things or take control, but we'll see.. if you read all this, thanks for that! I really just wanted to vent, so if no one did that's OK too. Any advice would be awesome... I'm trying to figure out how to keep a good relationship with her without getting annoyed... and how to proceed in the future about the living arrangements. /whew!

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