Together with their prospective in-laws or mothers-in-law, the women in these tales negotiated choppy seas. These stories illustrate the difficulties of in-law relationships, from calling each other by the names of their boyfriend’s ex to learning that their baby showers weren’t tailored to their requirements.
The difficulties in developing positive connections with in-laws, especially mothers-in-law, are highlighted by these five tales. Stories one through five present people who were forced to set limits because their in-laws appeared determined to undermine them.
Husband continues to prioritize his mother over his wife until she issues an ultimatum.
After her spouse had been away from home for the majority of her pregnancy, a Reddit member questioned if she was being unreasonable in giving him an ultimatum. The woman gave an explanation, saying that she had been seeing her spouse for five years and had only been married for six months.
When she was six months pregnant, she asked other Reddit users for guidance. According to the original poster (OP), her spouse and his mother had an atypically close relationship.
“My spouse and his mother have an exceptionally close relationship. He spends more time with his mother than with me; he will talk to her on the phone for hours on end.
But the incident that ultimately prompted her to write on Reddit was the last straw for her. OP requested her husband to help her prepare for the kid they were expecting when she approached the sixth month of her pregnancy.
He informed her that his time with his mother would be reduced if he were to be around more. OP acknowledged that, but she went on to say that at that point, she needed him more than his mother did. To which he responded,
“My mother comes before you, you know that.”
Although the Redditor was stunned by her husband’s comments, she handled it well when he departed to see his mother. After that, she took care of everything on her own. Her mother-in-law (MIL) called her while she was alone getting ready for her baby and informed her that she had won!
Worse, OP could hear her husband smiling in the background while her MIL boasted about her victory. She was furious, but she carried on with her daily activities. When the couple’s anniversary rolled around a few weeks later, OP sent her husband a gift and made his favorite meal for the occasion, but he had other ideas for how to spend his time.
Her husband came back from work and departed again while she was in the restroom. She assumed he was preparing a surprise for her, but thirty minutes later, he had still not returned, so she called to check out his whereabouts. She informed him that since he was acting as though he was in a relationship with his mother, she could as well be the one bearing his child, even though he had confirmed being at her residence.
Following their phone call, OP’s husband and mother-in-law texted her to let her know that she shouldn’t treat his mother poorly and to stop being resentful and envious. In an attempt to determine whether she was in the wrong.
She updated her tale shortly after publishing it, expressing gratitude to all of the people who had encouraged her and assured her that she wasn’t mistaken. She went on to say, “I think my MIL is competing with me,” and that after reading the comments, she might have to issue him an ultimatum because things might only get worse.
Her spouse said that his mother was a special person in his life when someone suggested she ask him why he loved spending so much time with her. When OP saw that her MIL had no intention of changing, she gave divorce with her husband some serious thought.
If her husband continued to act as though he was still married to his mother, she threatened to divorce him. He cried and pledged to change when he heard this. OP was optimistic but realized she had to speak with her mother-in-law, who merely assured her that she would never succeed.
The Redditor made it clear that there was no such thing as winning or losing and that her MIL would lose access to her granddaughter if she carried on acting in that manner. She verified that since she spoke with her spouse, he had also taken an initiative.
After feeling disrespected by their separate sleeping arrangements, the wife leaves their in-laws’ house.
What’s the connection between a Facebook disaster, a barn, and a crib? These components set the scene for my Christmas horror with my in-laws. I’m Evelyn, and I’m here to tell you a story about lovely twins, spooky barns, and overbearing in-laws.
After two happy years of marriage, my husband Mike and I just welcomed twins into our family. In an effort to commemorate the first Christmas season with our twins, Mike’s parents invited us to spend two weeks at their house.
I imagined a lazy two weeks when the twins were pampered by their grandparents and I got some much-needed sleep. We had not seen them since our wedding, so I was hoping for a heartfelt and affectionate reunion.
Eager for our family get-together, I packed for four, including sweets for the in-laws and wildflower honey for my mother-in-law’s tea. There was no denying their delight at finally meeting the twins, who instantly won them over with a mother’s dream that wasn’t without its complications.
The sleeping arrangements were the source of the shock. I was given a different room from Mike; it was an odd but workable arrangement until I saw my “room,” which was actually a barn. The barn was hardly a cozy place, even with a bed and heater. Talking to Mike about this strange setup didn’t work out; he asked, “What are you complaining about?” as if there was no problem.
When it came to the twins’ sleeping arrangements, things got heated. The separation seemed needless and harsh, even though they knew they would be in a crib in the grandparents’ room. “Our residence, our rules,” they insisted, sparking a heated argument.
Mike disappeared when things got tense, preferring to get back in touch with old pals over helping me. Feeling alone and mistreated, I made the spontaneous decision to leave. I posted pictures of the barn to Facebook, wrote about my experience there, and took the twins back to the safety of my parents’ house.
I now take comfort in my parents’ loving and caring home, amidst a deluge of angry letters and requests for an apology. We’re getting ready for a nice Christmas, so I’m thinking about what to do next and asking for advice—what would you do if you were me?
MIL Pays the Price for Breaking Daughter-in-Law’s House Rules
In response to her husband’s criticism of her approach to dealing with her nosy mother-in-law (MIL), a Reddit user asked whether it was too harsh. The woman described how she tried to draw attention to her mother-in-law’s intrusive actions, which her spouse had at first minimized.
She felt forced to intervene against her MIL’s practice of entering their bedroom without permission, even in the face of her husband’s disapproval. When she saw her mother-in-law going through private papers, she claimed to be confused about where the restroom was in the house, which caused the MIL to backpedal and exacerbate the issue.
As a result, the office and bedroom doors were outfitted with key-operated external doorknobs. However, the MIL continued, using forgetfulness as a justification to try to enter the prohibited locations, which led the wife to come up with a more straightforward fix.
The woman suggested securing the doors in anticipation of her mother-in-law’s visit, but her husband thought this wasn’t necessary. They made a compromise by using a less common approach, which was previously employed to validate the MIL’s spying, to detect unlawful access by adding tiny glitter to the doorknob.
This time, the strategy called for the use of a booby trap—a folder loaded with glitter that was set up to shower the intruder as soon as they opened the door. The MIL entered the bedroom against explicit directions to stay out of the upper area, setting off the glitter bomb and leaving herself covered in sparks. The original poster shared:
“My spouse says I went too far after she lost it and began screaming at me. So I yelled back.”
The fallout was disorganized. After a heated argument, the husband criticized his wife’s level of reprisal. The MIL, meantime, bemoaned the glitter’s tenacity and especially its unwanted presence in her automobile.
The wife went to Reddit in search of affirmation, and there was widespread approval for her conduct. Users concurred that the MIL’s disrespect for boundaries warranted the terrible outcome and expressed confidence that she could have avoided the experience had house rules been followed.
Girlfriend Strikes Back at Boyfriend’s Mother for Demanding to Address Her by the Wrong Name
A 30-year-old lady was seeing a man who, just a year prior to their first date, had broken up with his high school sweetheart. Even though he had moved on from that relationship, his family members did not feel the same way.
The mother of OP’s boyfriend was devastated to learn of the breakup with his childhood sweetheart. Since she had grown up with them, the elder woman believed that her son’s ex-girlfriend was a member of their family. The couple decided it was time to end their romance and broke up amicably as they grew apart with age. This didn’t stop the boyfriend’s mother from venting her frustrations on OP, though.
The Redditor knew going into the relationship that his family might not adjust to him dating someone else right away. Things will get better, she believed; his mother only needed to get to know her. But that wasn’t the situation. For the first year, OP’s boyfriend’s mother referred to her by his ex-name.
Until one day, when [my lover] became enraged and told her to be polite. She shrugged it off, calling it nothing more than a habit.
Even after his mother stopped referring to her by her ex-girlfriend’s name, she continued to use Janet rather than Jenny. The older woman was corrected by OP the first several times this occurred.
She stopped correcting her, though, as she soon understood that it appeared the older woman relished inflicting pain on her. OP attended a barbecue hosted by her boyfriend’s sister a few weeks prior to Thanksgiving. She was in the kitchen with her husband, one of her boyfriend’s two sisters, and his mother.
While they stood there, the boyfriend’s sister mentioned to her brother-in-law how well he had spoken of OP’s cooking. As the boyfriend’s mother listened, she jokingly proposed that OP prepare the Thanksgiving turkey. But once more, she referred to the woman incorrectly—calling her Janet rather than Jenny. The Redditor noted that the offer from their mother made the sisters of her boyfriend giggle, but said:
“What a fantastic idea!”
She was aware of the next move to ensure that her boyfriend’s mother could no longer refer to her incorrectly. Thanksgiving a few weeks later, things reached a breaking point at her boyfriend’s mother’s place.
Everyone was surprised when OP and her boyfriend showed up with the customary wine and dessert and didn’t bring the turkey that was agreed upon weeks prior to the occasion. OP claimed that because the older woman had mentioned the ex’s name in conversation weeks prior, she assumed Janet was bringing the turkey. However, she later admitted:
“There was crying and yelling, and then we were expelled.”
She thought their relationship might be ended because her partner hadn’t spoken to her since that evening, but she was curious if readers thought she was wrong for what she had done. Many praised her for her bravery in handling the crisis and remarked that her retaliation against her boyfriend’s mother paled in comparison.
While some said that OP ought to have spoken to the elder woman, others pointed out that she had tried in vain and that what she did was the only significant enough to persuade her boyfriend’s mother to change her ways.
A woman asked whether it was wrong for her to deny her mother-in-law access to her granddaughter on Reddit. The Redditor found it off-putting that the OP’s mother was excited about being a grandma, even though she and her husband were expecting their first child together.
First of all, according to OP, her MIL frequently referred to her unborn child as her own. “I can’t wait for my baby to be born,” she would add. My child will have a lot of affection.
It was the MIL’s idea to host a baby shower for her daughter-in-law (DIL). As OP and her husband eloped, the thrilled soon-to-be grandma claimed that she and her friends had vowed to attend their children’s weddings and baby showers, and she felt that the Reddit user owed her the chance to host a baby shower.
When OP inquired whether her friends may come, her mother-in-law declined. The elder woman informed the expectant mother that she could have a different baby shower with her friends, and this one was exclusively for her friends. The Redditor agreed, but she wasn’t sure.
The MIL and her friends were to get the register, so the couple took a long time to put it together and follow her instructions. Everything was focused on the prospective parents’ nursery motif, which was to be a garden.
In response to a question about what she wanted on her cake, OP mentioned flowers to match her garden theme. Still, she was taken aback by the baby shower’s circus animal motif. OP believed it could have been difficult to carry out her garden concept but did not make a big deal out of it. She was even more taken aback to discover that each of her gifts was a different circus animal. Since none of the presents she had given her MIL’s friends were on the list, OP was perplexed and even checked the registry again to see if she had made a mistake.
Her spouse was perplexed also and inquired, “What’s up with all the circus animals?” when he arrived. After glancing at the gifts, he continued, “This isn’t what we asked for.” Without delay, he inquired about his mother’s actions.
The MIL expressed her disapproval of the motif his wife selected. “I made a registry for myself because I’m going to use circus animals to decorate my baby’s nursery at home,” she said. The husband was speechless, but his mother persisted and reiterated:
“I had a shower for myself because my baby will need a room at my house.”
The husband and his wife were incensed by her remarks. The elder woman broke down in tears and informed the couple that they were keeping her away from her child when OP made it obvious that her MIL would never see her child.
The rest of the family began texting the Reddit user and her spouse, accusing them of being egotistical and causing the MIL’s experience of becoming a grandma to be ruined. People who left comments, on the other hand, felt that the OP was correct to take the appropriate safety measures against her MIL. Many readers were concerned about the MIL’s actions, and some were relieved that the OP’s husband supported her.
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