Nightmare In-Laws: When Family Ties Turn Sour

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.

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“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.

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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.

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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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