{{{{ DDH }}}}

Do your son, and his future life companion, a BIG favour: please, please, please quit doing everything for him. He needs to learn to contribute to the household.

And if the socks are not folded (or rolled) exactly as you like, so what?

If there is once in a while a little speck of dried food on a plate, so what? Yeah, it's a bit gross, but scratch it off, forget about it, and eat.

If he dries the dishes with the rag you think is supposed to be the hand towel, so what?

I can tell you (from experience) that it won't kill you, nor will it ruin your house. Learn to make the difference between what matters and what doesn't.

I'm not always good at that. I am known to frown at my husband when he operates the espresso machine in a way that is only slightly different than me, and I'm really grossed out when he uses the wrong rag to dry the dishes. But, hey, he does it, and nobody's going to die or even to be sick from it.



Now, forgive the crackerjack-box psychology here, but... Maybe you are feeling that you don't have a lot of control over things that matter to you, like your weight and your time to exercise and perhaps other things, too. Perhaps you then are trying to control other things - that maybe don't matter that much... - to compensate?

And good luck with the mother-in-law. I'm sure this is a difficult and touchy issue...