Nightmare In-Laws: When Family Ties Turn Sour

CR Staff - JU - September 3, 2023

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

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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.

Mission-Cloud360

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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.

puddle_19

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