So, my mother is a difficult person. She suffers from many symptoms of mental illness, which make her challenging to relate to and hard to predict.

Her behaviour bothers my husband acutely. She is a bit of a recluse and generally avoids family interaction. However, she sometimes chooses to attend holiday family gatherings. Easter is coming up and I'm nervous about it.

Her symptoms include many traits of schizophrenia, though she has never been formally diagnosed. She has never been to therapy and refuses to trust doctors.

The following are traits that really bother my husband:

She has false beliefs, remembers things that happened to other people or conflates stories that she's heard from several sources and weaves them into a new story which she will then accept as real. She sometimes has poor hygiene and/or smells. She dresses in whatever is laying on the floor at times (not always, she does care for herself well sometimes). She feels persecuted by people sometimes and can become very upset if she thinks people are trying to hurt her, even when it isn't true.

On the other hand, she also has lots of positives. She's a gentle person, cares very much for her children and tries to do her best by them. She tries to be helpful, and cooperative. She has a kind heart. She can be quite funny.

My husband would never say anything unkind to her, but the last couple of times that my mother has been over, she's done things that really bothered him. She's broken things, told stories about me to our children that weren't true, had a dramatic emotional outburst telling her mother she doesn't understand why she hates her so much, etc.

I am uncertain how to proceed. I am not going to ask my mother not to come, so the only thing I can do is to try and smooth things over with my husband. Your thoughts on how to handle the situation would be appreciated.