Nightmare In-Laws: When Family Ties Turn Sour

The Gift of Silence

My Mother-in-law is a bitter woman who tries to make everyone around her miserable. Three Decembers ago, we were preparing to move out of state because we finally found jobs. This was not acceptable to her. We were to remain there.

As we were packing, she came over to “help” which actually meant ordering everyone around and making sure her precious kitchen utensils were properly cleaned and put away. She also let the two kids know that they were to move all of their toys from the yard into the garage in fifteen minutes or suffer a spanking. This is when I finally lost my sh*t.

With my heart pounding in my head, I ran outside after slamming the door and yelled something to the effect of “I’ve had enough! Your help is appreciated but no longer needed!” After saying that, I thought “What the heck was that? I’m supposed to let her have it after years of dealing with her sh*t. WHAT DID I JUST SAY?!” My quickly rehearsed verbal evisceration never happened. While still reeling from my overly polite outburst, she demanded someone take her home.

That evening, she sent us a message through someone else that she didn’t care to speak to us anymore. This will be the third Christmas when she refuses to accept cards, text messages or any attempt to speak to her. My family is awesome and we spend our Holidays with them.

ProjectorEPG

Family Ties vs. Life Goals

When my husband and I were just engaged we were making plans for our life which included moving out of state. One day he goes out to dinner with his mom and meets me at his place after. He walks in, lets out a sad sigh and says “We can’t move out of state…”

I asked him what he was talking about and apparently, he told her about our plans and she just denied them like they were a request. She gave him new instructions about where he was allowed to move, how many kids he could have, and when we could have them.

Lucky for me my husband is very level-headed and when I explained that this was our life, and we could take her rules as suggestions or choose to do our own thing, he was totally in agreement with me. We are correctly on track to move out of state.

Accusations and Blame-Shifting

My soon-to-be MIL and FIL have dogged me our entire relationship without even really getting to know me (they lost that privilege in the beginning after I realized who they are and stopped coming around). They’ve insinuated I’m a gold digger in many ways without even saying I’m a gold digger even though I do so much for my man and at a point did more than with no complaints at all because he went through a tight financial phase. Not to compare who does what but we make sure each other are straight. They don’t see that so they automatically assume I use him and never fail to bring it up whenever he comes around. Cool.

They also blamed me for a rear-end collision he had even though I wasn’t even in the car with him, his mother just thought it would be cool to blame me because he was on his way to get me 😀 Cool.

Fashion Police?

My mother-in-law gave me a big lecture about how cross-dressing is morally and sexually wrong and then told me to never cross-dress in front of anybody she knew “Out of respect for her.”

Thanks, but I’ll wear what I please.

A Match Made In…Disapproval?

I’m Jewish. My husband is Chinese. His parents have told him (in Chinese, which I don’t speak) that it’s sad that he wasn’t good enough to get a nice Asian girl and that I’m not good enough for him. They weren’t joking.

missmayonasty

Grandpa’s Kiss of Death

My Little one is 4.5 months old and my top two main rules with handling a baby from day one have been no kissing and washing hands before holding. My FIL consistently made fun of my no-kissing rule and any time he wanted to hold the baby he would say “I’ve washed my hands!” and proceed to reach for the baby. That was just annoying.

I have had to reiterate my no-kissing rule and defend it and have caught him kissing baby while my back was turned. Later that day he makes another joke and says “(my name) didn’t let us touch LO for a month”. Today I saw him kiss baby AGAIN and it is driving me insane.

Mom-in-Law

One day when me and my husband were in the kitchen talking about our wedding plans, she walks in and starts telling my husband she was back from having lunch with Lisa (his high school girlfriend) and how beautiful she is and how fit she looks etc. Not only that but we had been also discussing moving to a different city in order for me to go to school. Well, that same day we told her that we were planning on moving to a different city for me to go to school but NO! She is not having it. She starts saying how I am really selfish for wanting to take her son away from her and told him while I was standing there that he was making a mistake by marrying me. Wait, it gets better, she tells him that he should let me go and to think about it. Mind you, we had been together for 5 years at the time. The best part is that my husband loves me and didn’t care about what she thought or said. He always reminded me that I was marrying him, not his mom. Needless to say, I rarely visit and when I do, it is very fake smiles and hugs and how you’ve been the type of deal.

Baby’s Birth On Facebook

I had a planned c-section and FIL was aware of the date. While in pre-op at the hospital, I was scrolling through Facebook to realize that HE had made a post announcing the birth of his grandchild!!!! Before she was even actually born and before I had the chance to announce my own child’s birth. My husband immediately texted him and asked him to remove the post, to which FIL complied. I know that he was just excited but I was livid… I thought it would be common sense for parents to be able to announce first.

Optimal-Impression52

Setting Boundaries

They started to tell my husband awful things that “I told them” about my husband and about awful things I did to him which were 100% not true. (Example: our first year of marriage I did a big birthday surprise for him, to which my inlaws told him that “I told them” that I only did the surprise to try to catch him cheating. It made no sense especially since I never mentioned anything to them about his birthday and the surprise. (BTW they live abroad thankfully).

So since then they’ve completely ignored me even when I tried to reach out to them, and would always try to start some drama with me whenever we went to visit them. I told myself I’d continue to be polite when confronted but that I’d keep my boundaries from them because I’ve realized they’re not good people, however, my husband is nothing like them.

I’ve recently gotten pregnant and suddenly my MIL and SILs are flooding me with messages as if they care so much about me. I stayed polite by replying but still kept my boundaries. Suddenly now my MIL is always asking my husband about how I’m doing.

Yesterday they were all arguing with my husband about how whenever they try to talk to me, I only reply with the usual, like how are you and how’s your family and that I don’t know how to engage with them and have “meaningful” conversations with them. My husband defended me.

I’m afraid of the things they might do after having the baby, and honestly don’t want them around at all but I understand I can’t really do that.

Baby First, In-Laws Second

My FIL asked us last week if we could come down for Easter but my husband and I talked about it and we thought that four hours in the car with our four-month-old teething is just too much for her right now. So we told him no when we did our weekly video call but that they were welcome to come here and FIL was like “So you guys just won’t ever come here” and “He’ll have to think about if they want to drive.” I asked my husband if he was like this growing up and he was like oh yeah, everything had to be his way. Too bad, so sad, I’m not going to center the wants of a 73-year-old man baby over the actual needs of my actual baby.

Eliotlady87

Caught In a Family Feud

My partner and I have been together now for going on 6 years. We got engaged in November and I always knew I would be coming into a family that would ALWAYS be complicated. Basically, my partner’s father’s health is not good and his mother has to work to pay the bills and they have a young kid to take care of as well. But they are very inconsiderate and are always asking so much of us. Every weekend it is something new and we live like 1.5 hours away from them. If we don’t do the task exactly as they – want they get mad at us, if we try to avoid them – they b*tch and whine to the point we cannot take it anymore and we end up back in this never-ending loop. It’s gotten to the point where it’s causing tension between my Fiancée and me as this causes him a lot of stress and frustration which naturally ends up in my house which leads to more arguments, shorter patience on his part etc. I don’t know how to distance ourselves from them because they always seem to be able to guilt my partner back into the toxic family loop. It’s just so frustrating that they think just because he is their son that he is a work mule for them. Ugh.

Baby Name Drama

I (f26) am 30 weeks pregnant with my husband (m28) and my first baby. It’s a little girl and a couple of days ago my husband and I finally set on a name, which is Parker. It is my husband’s middle name and a name I always loved and thought would be super cute for a little girl. Her middle name is my Mom’s name who passed away when I was a teenager.

When we told my father and mother-in-law, MIL’s face dropped and she looked like she was about to cry. My husband asked what was wrong, she said she can’t believe we gave her granddaughter a boy’s name and that she thought we would name our daughter after her. I explained that Parker is a gender-neutral name and it’s common between both boys and girls. I also told her it was bold of her to assume we would name our daughter after her.

She said well what if this is your only daughter and you’re wasting it on a boy’s name. Then she said she just can’t get over that her son wouldn’t name his daughter after his mom.

My husband said that he likes our daughter’s name and he’s glad we incorporated my mom’s name in hers. MIL started crying saying I’m evil and brainwashed her son.

Later that night my BIL called saying we should have just added his mom’s name because she’s mad at everyone now. My husband and I both agreed we aren’t changing the name for her. BIL called us AH for making the rest of the family go through this.

Adoption and Triumph

“My son is your children’s father and there’s nothing you can do about that.”

This is the exact quote my former MIL screamed at me in my own driveway back in 2006. While her worthless, meth-addict son literally hid behind her. My girls were 3 and 6 and my fiancée had already taken them into the house. What set her off was hearing my kids call him “dad”. We hadn’t taught them, they had just started doing it because her precious son only saw my girls 4 or 5 times a year.

So here I have this garbage human that literally had his mommy fighting his battles, who didn’t answer his phone when I called, didn’t work or pay child support, and didn’t even know our youngest daughter’s birthday or how to spell our oldest child’s middle name.

And then I have this fiancée, this sweet, kind-hearted man who fell in love with me and my girls, who said to me when he proposed, “Those girls deserve a dad and I want to be it.” This guy wanted the job, so why should I be dealing with this fool and his jacka** mother anymore?

I replied to her, “Nothing I can do about it, huh? I guess we’ll see about that.”

That was the last time she saw my kids. I never called her son again and I stopped answering her phone calls. It’s amazing how quickly he disappeared when I stopped forcing him to do his job.

My fiancée and I married that fall. We filed adoption papers after Christmas. My ex didn’t contest it. He didn’t show up to court. His mother showed up on my doorstep on Easter but my husband told her to take a hike.

A Door Left Open

Last Christmas I was at my wife’s parent’s house for the obligatory dinner/family crap. While we were there, nature decided that it was time for me to have the worst case of diarrhea I have ever had. I’m talking Harry in Dumb & Dumber explosive sh*ts. Well, while I was in the bathroom expelling my innards, my wife’s dad decides it’s a good time to retrieve his stashed liquor from under the bathroom sink. Of course, I didn’t think to lock the door as I was too concerned about making it to the toilet in time. Instead of an “Oops, sorry” when he opened the door and politely left, he just walks on in, grabs his bottle and walks out LEAVING THE DOOR WIDE OPEN. So now I am violently sh*tting where my wife’s entire family can see/hear. Dinner was awkward. It has become an often-told family story of theirs.

No kids? No inheritance!

My MIL wants us to have children, and we won’t. Hubs finally told her about his vasectomy, which seemed to shut her up, and all further interactions with her have been of the annoying BEC type.

MIL told us all that she had purchased a burial plot for her and FiL, and how she’s pre-planned a funeral and wanted to start working on their long-term medical requests and power of attorney docs. All good things! Then she starts to tell us about her estate. FiL tries to change the subject, but no no, we have to talk about this as a faaaamily.

Well, MIL gets this smug look on her face and then goes on about how their estate will be divided up, which basically gives my husband almost nothing because we “don’t have children, and the money is to support their family line”. Her face when hubs and I both nod approvingly at this and confirm that this seems like a smart plan. I’m fairly certain that she wanted us to either fight back or cry and make a scene or beg her for money.

She controls two of her children with money but not us and it drives her batty. She sent hubs an email last night “apologizing” for her decision and giving him a “method of communication” about this without me involved. 100%, she was Trying to get him to beg her for money or change her mind.

So, he popped me on the email and responded, “Mom, OP and I want you to enjoy your money and have a happy and secure retirement. This is your money, you can do whatever you want with it, and we’ll never critize you for your decision about this.”

Ha. The rest of her kids are already fighting over their bones, but not us. I’m using good manners as an insult.

DeeplyBison

When ‘Just A Joke’ Isn’t Funny

Sitting on my FIL’s couch breastfeeding my youngest having a pleasant conversation with DH and FIL about what we were watching on the tv. I felt a tug on my hair and before I could pull completely away, I heard the scissors close. There’s my MIL and my 4 yr old standing behind the couch, both laughing as she holds a large portion of what was my bun.

The three of us turned and stared at her. It was like looking at a cartoon villain. I’m f*cking devastated and trying not to cry in front of my children. DH starts yelling asking her if she is insane. My 4yr old starts to cry, which is followed by MIL who tearfully claims “It’s just a joke, it’ll grow back. We thought y’all would laugh”. The whole situation falls apart with DH arguing on my behalf, my 3 children and I crying, MIL snot bubble sobbing, and FIL trying to get us all to calm down. We end up leaving with DH telling his Dad to divorce his wife because being married to an overgrown 8-year-old is probably illegal. Which I would have giggled at if I wasn’t so upset.

DH drives us around looking for a stylist that will take a walk-in, and I call my SIL to come to sit with me. She meets us at her stylist’s workplace. She was off work but came back as a favor (thank god). Looking at my tattered hair was horrible. Large chunks were gone, and the length was all over the place. It was awful. I felt like I lost a body part.

Luckily the stylist was very talented and salvaged my hair to right above my shoulders. It looks nice, but I’m still sad looking at it. I don’t know how long it’ll take to get over this. MIL sent me a couple of half-a**ed apology texts, like “Sorry but don’t be a baby hair does grow ya know” type sh*t.

thatsahardpass

American Or Not

Indian food is what I was raised eating and I love it to this day. Due to stay-at-home orders, I suddenly have a lot more time to cook than I did before. I stocked my kitchen with rice, different spices and whatever else I would need to make what I wanted.

My husband doesn’t mind and enjoys the food. My MIL, on the other hand, does not. She’s never liked me. Some stuff she says includes “What kind of people use their hands to eat? Just use a knife and spoon like normal people”. My husband has stuck up for me on all those occasions before, but having to live with her 24/7 is wearing him down.

After she moved in, she immediately started complaining. “Why does that smell so strong?

It’ll cling to the walls. Stop that.” or “God, are you really feeding my son that crap? Just eat normal American food.”

I know quarantine is taking its toll on everyone, so I decided to stay quiet. My husband did try to talk to her once, but that fell on deaf ears. Like always.

I woke up yesterday morning, and go downstairs. Chat with husband and MIL for a while. Go into the kitchen, open my pantry, and there. is. nothing. My rice, spices, flour everything has been cleaned out. I had a rice dispensing machine that I got a few years back and that was missing too.

I go to the fridge, and besides milk, bread, butter, jam and eggs there was nothing. I get my husband and ask him what happened to the food. He looks in confusion until MIL pipes up and says that she threw everything out. When asked why, she simply says “My child isn’t used to eating your types of food. Just make him what Americans eat” And heck did that piss me off. She has this insane thing about not acknowledging that I am American, or when she does she tells people that I got my citizenship through marriage.

Wrong on all accounts. I was born here and so were the last 4 generations of my family. I go grocery shopping and they were out of stock on basically everything. I come home and she still has the audacity to ask why I’m not cooking like I usually do.

Unthinkable Suggestion

Take our son to see our family for the first time, he’s 4 years old.

Father-in-law: “Terrible idea to have a baby. You should drown him.”

Aaannnnnddd you’re cut off. Period. Forever.

MIL Goes Too Far

This morning I came home after a night shift and was taking a nap and my boyfriend was downstairs watching TV. I didn’t hear the doorbell ring but then my boyfriend woke me up and told me that there’s a police officer outside our door but he thinks it was not a real police officer. I asked him why does he think it was not a real officer and my boyfriend said he doesn’t look like one.

I got dressed, went to the door and asked who’s there. The person outside said ” Police “. And it was enough for me to realize that my boyfriend is right. I don’t know what the rules for police visits are in the US but here, if you’re on duty and you come to visit someone at their house, you must tell them your last name, announce that you are an officer of the law and state your purpose for being there. That’s how officers present themselves and there’s no way around it. You don’t just say ” police “.

We let him in, I asked to see his ID and he said no. I was like – what do you mean – no? If someone asks to see your ID because they want to make sure you’re a real cop, you can’t refuse. A police officer should have no problem with it. Then I looked down where his duty belt should be and there was just a regular belt you use to keep your pants together. Where’s the gun, the taser, handcuffs, and baton? Did you forget it all at home or what?

At first, I didn’t think MIL has something to do with it but then the guy asked for my name and said he was here to arrest me because I have illegally married another man. That’s when my boyfriend and I both understood she has found another way to try and mess with us. So I was like – do you have the warrant to arrest me? You don’t. Have you personally observed me illegally marrying someone? You haven’t. Are you even a real police officer? You’re not, so hands off.

The guy said ” You have a wedding band on your finger. “

I can wear any ring I want on any finger I want, it’s not proof of any kind. So I did what I had to do as an officer. Impersonating a police officer is a crime and I arrested him. My boyfriend called the police station for someone to come and take him away and this guy was terrified. He told us that there was a woman who paid him to dress up as a police officer and come to my house to scare me. He needed money, so he agreed. He described what she looked like and we were like – yep, it’s MIL. But what he didn’t know was that I’m a police officer myself. MIL didn’t tell him that.

So it looks like MIL didn’t have the balls to dress up as a cop herself so she sent someone naive to do it for her. The guy is in the police station and he’s going to face charges. Hopefully, that’ll teach him to not listen to what old, dumb hags tell him to do. No idea what was the end goal, what was he going to do after “arresting” me, but MIL has really outdone herself on this one. I have been a police officer for nearly 9 years and still, she obviously thought I won’t be able to tell a real cop from an impersonator.

Inappropriate In-Law

So I’m 24f, my sister is 35 and my FIL is 49. He’s never been a great dad to my SO, abusive to him when he was a child, walked out on them when my SO was about 13 and chose his new wife over his family. He’s made an effort with my SO over the last few years and has a much better relationship as an adult.

In September our only child was stillborn, and at the funeral, FIL met all of my family for the first time. Since then he’s been chatting with my sister. They both have mental health problems and she likes to ‘fix’ people. Apparently, he took this as she was interested, he’s been commenting on all of her Facebook posts, messaging her daily and making inappropriate comments to her. Things like how beautiful she looks and if they were together he’d spoil her. He’ll share memes that are a bit vulgar and tag my sister in them. He got drunk a couple of weeks ago and made a big Facebook post about her and messaged her telling her how he feels about her. She 100% do not feel the same way. She told him this a couple of times but he hasn’t relented. My SO hasn’t done anything or talked to him about it and I’m getting close to talking to him myself, I’m just concerned he’s going to pull everyone’s ganging up on my card and leave again.

Cherry1996blossom

“Find A New Dream”

During her MOH speech, my best friend referenced how I wanted to have four kids and start a family.

My MIL scoffed loudly, then went on a rant about how I’d be lucky if I could have one with “all of my issues.” And that I should “find a new dream” Then chugged her wine. I heard her, and so did my whole wedding party. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she later got drunk and told me it’s a shame that her only biological son picked a girl who can’t reproduce, so she’ll be stuck with her STEPgrandkids only, who don’t count in her opinion.

Backstory: I’ve had four tumors removed from my ovaries and almost had both ovaries removed in the process. It’s still a fear of mine that I’ll lose them.

I haven’t spoken to her since; neither has my husband. FIL is blowing up my phone that I am just being too sensitive, and his wife has great character. He’s saying that he doesn’t believe me, his wife is a classy woman. Also says that she has a drinking problem so it’s not her fault if she did say it.

Meanwhile, the whole wedding party, including his other son, admits they heard it. My in-laws still won’t admit it or apologize, blaming me for being too reactive instead.

That is one of the lowest things anyone has ever done to me, so I am done with them unless an apology and true offer to change behavior is given. This is not the first time she’s made jokes/horrible comments about my health issues.

At a baby shower for SIL, she said “Enjoy hosting this one, isn’t it sad that you’ll probably never have one for yourself?” Then she walked away like it was nothing.

I hate that she left such a stain on my big day and is making jokes that I aspire to have a family. I don’t see a future in making it work with them.

Meat-Loving MIL

My 9yo daughter became a vegetarian about 8 months ago (her friend’s older sister’s influence) and takes it surprisingly seriously, given her age. For some bizarre reason, my MIL has a serious bug up her a** about it and hates that my husband and I allow it. We had a small confrontation about it a few months ago, but she seemed to back off after I made it clear I wasn’t interested in her input.

On Friday night we had dinner with my husband’s parents and she served spaghetti. It was a meat sauce for the rest of us, but when she gave my daughter her bowl, she said “And a special veggie sauce just for you” all sweetly. Halfway through her bowl, the daughter started to panic and asked MIL if she was sure there was no meat in the sauce. MIL insisted there was none. I took her plate to inspect and sure enough, there was beef in her sauce. When I stated there was indeed meat in it, my daughter immediately began to cry.

I took her into the living room to calm her down while my husband confronted his mom. She at first insisted it was an accident, but after he established he didn’t buy that for a second, she admitted it was intentional. She said she thought by reminding her how delicious meat was, she would “give up that vegetarian nonsense”. She said she couldn’t see what the big deal was and suggested we get daughter therapy because the fact she cried over it was “very troubling and a sign something is wrong with her”.

At that point, I insisted we leave. I was starting to seriously consider throwing the spaghetti in the b*tch’s face, but knew it would traumatize the kids. In the car, we obviously explained to my daughter that there was nothing wrong with her and grandma was 100% in the wrong. She seemed to have already come to that conclusion on her own, though.

reddituser

Dirty Dishes, Clean Conscience

Hubby and I have been together for 15 years we both work full-time and share the chores at home, I cook, and he does the dishes. MIL adores her son and in her eyes, no one is good enough for him. We have never lived in the same city. The first time she visited our home I cooked my best dinner, 4 courses, nice wine, and the whole fireworks to impress MIL. After dessert and coffee, my husband started taking the dishes to the sink and started washing, them while still making small conversations with MIL and myself ( I was exhausted after a day of work and cooking).

The moment husband’s hands touched the water MIL’s face changed. Her mouth twisted and she started mumbling and breathing weirdly. She apologized and walked out, I thought she went for a smoke, so I just went to lie down in my bed. I was just touching my bed when I heard my husband consoling her mom, she was crying. She didn’t know I went to my bed and I could hear them.

She started sobbing about all the sacrifices she made to give him a good life, that she never thought she would see him washing dishes. That she had raised him better than this. That I broke her heart for making him do house chores. My husband is the best man ever, he has an incredible sense of humor, and he found the whole situation risible. He started laughing very loudly and asked her to stop the drama. He told her that they had just had one of the best home-cooked dinners of their lives, that I had worked very hard to have a nice dinner, and that crying over some dishes was infantile. He went as far as tickling his mom to stop her crying.

Mission-Cloud360

Breaking and Baking

MIL broke into our house. I wasn’t there this time, since DH has started bringing me with him to his jobs. She tore the pictures we had hanging off the wall and smashed them. She went through our kitchen and found all of my baking supplies and stuffed them in a trash bag. She went into our room and left it in my jewelry box. She dropped the jewelry box before she left though, no clue why.

We know this because the cameras we installed sent everything to our phones. One in the front hallway, one in the kitchen by our back door, and one in the front door. We started driving home as soon as we got the camera footage. We called the police as soon as we got there and showed them the footage from our cameras. Another long story short, she was arrested, and then bailed out by FIL, because she had to go to work. Don’t know when we’re getting a court date for her trashing our house, but we’ve been assured we’re getting one.

I’m pissed about MIL breaking in, but I’m more pissed that she stole my f*cking cake pans. And she didn’t take them and sell them, she threw them in the dumpster down the road.

I told DH that I didn’t feel safe in our house anymore and that I wanted us to move. He agreed, and we’re looking at places a few hours down the road. We’ve already started packing up. We’re looking to buy instead of rent this time, as not many rentals down here like people digging up the yard to garden, and not many allow pets.

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