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Since it's not often, I'd just expect DH to be on his best behavior (unless your mom is the one instigating stuff). There are many, many things my DH just keeps his mouth shut about when my parents come visit. Or he will go downstairs and watch tv or have homework. He'll also go to a football game that day.

Grin and bear it. That's what we're going to be doing when we visit DH's parents. I don't get along with my MIL for a number of reasons. We had a huge blowup during my maternity leave around this and how she's treated me for nearly a decade. My DH and I are still working the feelings of hurt, resentment, anger over what happened in marriage counseling.

He desperately wants me to fall in line with his mom's vision of a DIL. I, however, don't want to and want to maintain a civil relationship with her. He's fearful of being the black sheep in this scenario and upsetting the entire extended family since everything seems to revolve around MIL's happiness, no one else's.

We're planning on visiting in the next couple of months. The visit will be much shorter than previous ones because of the situation and work. I can't be away from work for a week or I'll fall two weeks behind, that's how busy I am. It's also a point of contention with my MIL. She didn't respect my maternity leave or how hard I worked leading up to delivery to have all of the PTO I saved up for that last month. I plan to be as nice and civil as I can. I will do nothing to provoke her. So that if she does anything, it's all on her. This is the hardest part for me because my DH glossed over the fact that his mom verbally attacked me, not the other way around. Even when her bad behavior was shown in the forefront, he was in such denial about it. I was made to be the bad guy throughout all of it and still am to some extent despite working really hard on our marriage.

My best advice is to be nice and civil. Don't have high expectations for your DH and parents to get along magically. The higher the expectations, the less that they'll happen. Respect your DH's desire not to have a super close relationship with your parents.

ETA: Don't push and needle for a visit to you guys. My DH did this and the MIL from hell visit happened. You have the foresight to know that it's a bad idea. My DH knew he was tempting something by having his mom stay with me for a week by myself. To this end, I feel that she's not welcome to stay in our house ever again. Even if we move into a bigger house, I still don't think that she's welcome to stay with us after showing such disrespect to our family.