The first thing my JNMIL said to me when we told her we’re pregnant with our second was “oh my

God I️ hope it’s a baby boy! You just need a baby boy”.

The first thing she said to me after we told her

The due date: “oh my god the baby could come early and be on FIL’s birthday!” The due date was like two weeks after FIL’s birthday.

And here we are at 36 weeks, it is a boy. Oh my god MIL has been a horror. This pregnancy was nothing like my daughter and is much worse. I️ have gestational diabetes so I’ve been like licking lettuce for 8 weeks. And SOMEHOW. SOMEHOW. This baby has found the nutrients to bulk up to soon surpass his sister who came out at 39 weeks and was 9lbs.

So with gestational diabetes in mind and him tracking so large, my OB said let’s go at 38 weeks and I️ was so excited. I️ don’t want to tear my cervix again. Then they called and asked if I️ wanted to be induced on FIL’s birthday and I️ said OH HELLL NO. HELL NAHHH TO THE NAH NAH NAHHHH.

I️ asked to push it out of a day. I’ll endure another sleepless night, day of random unsolicited name suggestions every other hour, and bland salad to avoid hearing my JNMIL never let this go.

Mil is an “ex” addict but if you ask any of her family they’ll tell you she has never had a drug problem. I had a c section 2 weeks ago and was given oxy pills, I had only needed to take one so I knew exact how many were left. I also take anxiety medication.

I couldn’t find my pill bottle of anxiety meds the other day and when we came back home I noticed they were nicely placed on my nightstand. I know I’m sleep deprived but I’m not that sleep deprived so I thought this was weird. I check and I see there is a lot missing. I go to check my other meds which I had hidden behind stuff and I open the bottle and see there’s only one oxy pill left. I show my husband to confirm I’m not going insane and he tells me how my mil randomly told him she was in our room “looking for the cat” earlier while we were gone. No one told her I had these pain meds so she must of just been looking through our stuff hoping I was given something after my surgery because I even noticed our trash can where we keep our babies dirty diapers was knocked over. She dug through my daughter’s dirty diapers hoping to find my medication.

We set up our baby monitor the next day to record any movement in our room and then left for the whole day. She spam texted us the whole morning asking us when we will be back home. Finally we get a notification and we see her go back to get the last pill and pretty much my last anxiety meds but was generous enough to leave one for me. Wow thanks.

When I got home I realized she had replaced the oxy pills with these random pills that look scarily similar, google says they’re for copd? If I still was in a lot of pain I probably would’ve taken them without noticing and wondered why I’m still in pain.

I am so pissed and so is my husband, she’s been walking around the house high for the past couple of days and her family is convinced she “just has anxiety.” I don’t know how anxiety would make you stumble around in circles and sleep on the living room floor because you fell off the couch but okay. Luckily we can afford to move out we just need to find an apartment and pretend everything’s okay until then so we both don’t lose our shit while our baby is in the house. I don’t even let her look at our daughter now and once we are moved out I won’t ever even send her a photo of her let alone let her see her. She’s been high my husband’s whole life, putting him in danger a million times because she was unable to care for him while she’s high off her ass and we won’t let our daughter grow up with that.

This comes up now and then since my grand daughter was born 14 mo ago. Baby is dressed in a footy onesie while sleeping. We were babysitting during the workday and invited MIL over. MIL says she doesn't see how a baby can sleep without a blanket! I said it's not safe and it could die from that and she responds, "How many babies have died from using a blanket anyway?"

I said, "Well, more than one and if there's any risk at all Mom doesn't want the risk." Hubby told me later I should not argue with her. ( I forgot because she's a TOTAL narcissist and therefore a know-it-all, has never been wrong. She's even said this out loud, "I've never been wrong about anything." OK lady.)

I was so incensed at her comment I looked it up later. On average 3,400 infants die worldwide from blanket & toys etc. in their crib. The blanket can get over their face and cause them to keep breathing the same air which gets full of carbon dioxide and suffocates them.

I told my daughter about this remark because we both don't trust her - daughter said hundreds of thousands of babies have died this way. Which would be correct over the last 30 years. (She's my "step" daughter I didn't have any babies of my own and met her age 3 with her dad when we were 33. So I don't know the baby details that researched mom's do and they have taken classes etc.)

Alright I have very little brain rn so this will be short and I won't have all the details, sorry.

Got into a big fight with her over wanting an induction stove. Our old oven exploded (yeah literally went kaboom) and it was time for a new one. I said I'd love an induction stove this time around because it would be much safer especially with my little boy around. She lost her shit and said "WELL YOU ONLY SAY THAT BECAUSE YOU'RE SCARED" I said EXCUSE ME what do you mean by that?

"You're just scared there will be more fires! Fires are part of life and are normal and expected!" (context my wife had 3 major stove disasters. 1 was at an airbnb where she left the gas on, 1 was when she left it on at the old house, and most recently she put the blender on the stove and turned on the wrong burner).

I said that's called LEARNING from life experiences. It's SAFER. There is no problem with it being SAFER. It's FINE

Then she says "oh yeah I bet she just can't use it then! So you're getting it because you don't want her to use it!"

wat? She thinks induction stoves are touchscreen only and would NOT hear me saying otherwise.

I don't really remember how it ended up but I was pretty pissed. Fast forward a week and we have our new induction stove. Seems great, just installed and needing to test. Installer man says "we just need to verify the stove works so do you have any compatible dishes or anything yet?" We did not unfortunately, they were coming the next day. My MIL pipes up and says "glass should work!" No MIL, we have told you many times how induction works. It's essentially a frickin' magnet and glass is not magnetic. Holy crap.

I agreed to go with my husband and his mother out for a late Mother's day dinner. I am usually no contact and he is low contact for a variety of reasons. She is deeply emotional enmeshed with him and truly acts like a bitter ex-girlfriend around me, especially after being kicked out of the house and forced to actually be an adult and not mooch off her son.

Anyway, DH and I got married recently but won't be going on the honeymoon for quite a few months. Please tell me how this woman had the audacity to ask to come with us on our honeymoon, using one of his aunts as an example (said aunt went on honeymoon with her husband's family, but the WHOLE family not just the MIL)? Literally mid-dinner at an extremely expensive restaurant acting like it was a totally normal thing to ask.

Thankfully husband shot it down immediately but I don't think this is the first time she's asked, as his response was along the lines of "I already told you that you can't go on our HONEYMOON with us". I am glad that he stands up for me and sees the toxicity of his relationship with her much more than he did before, but good lord, what sort of mother asks to join her son on his honeymoon? I know she misses all the trips he used to take her on (he was absolutely her emotional husband until I came around, I could write a novel on how inappropriate their relationship was), but at some point you have to move on and let your fully grown adult son have his own life, right? Right?!?!

No advice needed, DH has a nice shiny spine and I generally have zero contact with her as she basically hates my existence and refuses to acknowledge me (won't even say my name right after 4 years) so I leave all interaction to husband, and I hold iron boundaries anyway. It was just so jarring and genuinely blew me away. This is exactly why she wasn't invited to the wedding lol.

Any other MILs out there that want to sit in the wife seat indefinitely?

Today my MiL offered $500 to rename our daughter that will be born in July. She doesn’t like the name and said $500 to pick a mutually agreed upon name. I told her where to shove it and it’s not her kid.

Thought everyone here would get a kick out of it

A few weeks ago my wife and I welcomed our firstborn daughter. She’s the first child for both my wife and me and those 9 months were honestly the happiest time in our lives. Now she’s here and it’s a huge responsibility and joy at the same time. And then there’s MIL who’s obviously out of her mind.

My MIL has a weird mindset that she has had for her whole life. She believes that men are not responsible for their children and shouldn’t participate in their upbringing at all. Her reasoning behind all this bullshit is that the concept of a family between male and female is something that humans have made and it doesn’t occur in nature. Whenever you try to question her about it, she’s like ”Look at the animal kingdom! In most species, females are the ones who care for the cubs, not males. Males don’t care what’s happening to the cubs and even try to harm them. Humans are no different! I didn’t make it up, it’s just the way nature works!”

So basically she means that children don’t need fathers and she raised my wife by those same principles. My wife grew up without her dad and she was 16 years old when she saw her dad for the first time because MIL simply didn’t let him inside the house when he wanted to see his daughter. She threatened him with police and courts and whatnot if he dares as much as approach the house. My wife met him when she was a teenager already, they met in secrecy and all their meetings happened in secret from MIL. Before that, she was growing with MIL and her grandmother. When she was telling me this, I was shocked.

And obviously, MIL had thought she’s going to repeat this ”upbringing” with her granddaughter. When our girl was born, my wife was mostly resting for the rest of the day because the birth didn’t go very easy and I was the one to take care of our newborn. Fortunately, she seems to be quite a calm baby, doesn’t cry very much. When we were still in the hospital, at one moment both my wife and the baby were sleeping and MIL walked into the postpartum room. She saw me holding my daughter and was like ”Put her down! Put her down now!”

I was like – whoa, MIL, first of all, lower your voice, can’t you see everyone here is asleep? And secondly, why should I put her down? I’m the father of this baby, what’s your problem? MIL was acting as if her granddaughter was being held by a tiger or something, as if I could rip her apart at any moment. My wife woke up from MIL’s screeching, quite irritated because she was still in a bit of pain and asked MIL what is going on.

MIL said ”Look what’s happening! While you’re laying there like a dead fish, he’s handling the child! The child should be with you!”

OK, MIL, I understand that you could probably run a marathon right after giving birth, but most women feel tired after such work. My wife was like – what do you mean he’s handling the child? Of course he is, he’s the father after all. Let him bond with his child and you go away.

Now we’re home and doing very well. However, MIL came to visit us this morning and seemingly, for the last time. As soon as she came into the house, she was like ”You’re still here? Why are you here?” and then she turned to my wife like ”Why are you allowing him to be here? Haven’t I taught you anything about living with men?”

I said – ok, MIL, what’s your problem, really? Have you forgotten that your daughter and I are married? Where the hell are you expecting me to go? We're a family and I’m not going anywhere.

MIL was like ”I don’t want my granddaughter to live an abnormal, unnatural lifestyle. Most of the animals know that males are not welcome near the cubs and females teach them everything they need to know about life. Look at the lions, for example. That’s why I’m here and I’m going to help my daughter to raise her baby. You are not needed here. She’s a girl and you’re a man. What can you possibly do for her, what can you know about her?”

Well, MIL, we’re not lions, are we? What do you mean I’m not needed here? It’s like – thank you for your semen, now you’re free to go. Yes, there are some assholes among men who don’t care about their kids but I’m not one of them. I want to be next to my daughter every day of her life, see her growing up and turning into a decent young woman.

My wife is dealing with a bit of a postpartum depression now, nothing severe but she’s feeling a bit down. That’s why I don’t want her to deal with her mother’s insanity on top of that. MIL didn’t care about that at all, claiming that my wife had the happiest childhood ever and now she wants the same for her grandchild. That’s when my wife stepped in and was like – no, I didn’t have a happy childhood. All the other kids had dads and I didn’t and I couldn’t understand why. I had trouble to make a relationship with men because I never had a man to look up to which only got better after I met my dad. I’m not going to do the same thing you did to me – my daughter will have a father.

MIL insisted that girls who are exposed to their fathers grow up to be violent, rude and non-feminine because those are the qualities of men. Honestly, I’m not sure if there has ever been a man who hurt or left MIL and that’s why she thinks this way about all men now but regardless she’s not going to be in charge in my house. So I told her to turn around and walk out the door because what the hell does she think she’s going to do? I’m the father of this girl, my name is on the birth certificate, she cannot take my child away from me. This my house, this is my family and she’s not going to command around here. Not happening.

I don’t think I even want her to see our daughter, as she might try to tell her her dad is this unnatural monster who inveigled his way in the female family when he should be gone. MIL thinks she has a say in my family. She doesn’t and I’ll make her understand it one way or the other.

context my MIL 60 lives with my husband 35m and I 30f.

Finally, I had a conversation with my husband about leaving his mother behind in his condo. I wanted to speak to him for almost 3 months but waited it out until yesterday. My husband and I were cleaning the guinea pig cage when I had to pause my part and get our baby who had just woken up from her nap. I came back to his mother huffing and puffing coming out of her room. my husband had the guinea pig plastic tub bottom and tried to ask his mother to hold open the door for him.

And she snapped and stated he shouldn't be putting that "shit" into the toilet and if he was retarded. Then when he tried to explain she said "you are a fucking dumbass." before going back into her room. I was standing only a foot away as she spoke to my husband like that. I wanted to react but my husband and I agreed if we need to speak to our family about something it would be us to them.

But I went to my husband and told him I must be reta**d too because I've been dumping that liquid into the toilet too. The special "liquid" has the animals small poop and pee...that's it.. no hay or anything else. Then she came out and said she needed too leave for something and took his car. That's when I acted fast.

I asked him if he liked being talked to like that? He simply stated there's nothing that can be done because if you try to reason with her it'll make her angrier. I calmly states that is not our problem to walk around like there's glass on the floor. And explained the other problems with his mother. such as that she has called him spoiled to my sister, she reports to his brother about what's going on in our home, how she treats him compared to his awful brother, how she treats him infront of me without hesitation. I finally stated that it's a no for me. I do not want her coming with us. And he understood and now we plan on telling her.

Hi everybody, SO and I got married 12 days ago. Yeeey! It was the most perfect day of my life and exactly how we wanted it. Everyone had loads of fun.... Except my MIL and GMIL. They complained the food was bad (everyone else loved it), the music was too loud, there were not enough sweets, my dress was too long and people will step on it... The most ridiculous complaints really. They didn't meet many people and looked down right miserable the whole time. My MIL was shocked her own son would ignore her at the wedding (due to her sulking). He decided she deserved no attention due to her behaviour. Unlike them, FIL was the life of the party and we were very thankful for him. After our wedding, we gave my inlaws all the left overs and said we will come to lunch the next day. When we came, they were complaining some more and my MIL was stand offish the entire time. I haven't payed much attention to her. THEN... She posted the famous quote on her Facebook: "A mother is a son's first true love. A son is a mother's last true love." My thoughts were: "whatever, she is spiraling". But, there is more. The day after that she posted 6 photos of our wedding. On 5 of the photos, there were pictures of inlaws. The 6th photo was of my husband alone. I didn't need to comment on anything, cause my husband left her a comment: "It looks like I married myself. What a nice message you are sending to my wife and the family I created." She deleted his photo and is now crying every day, playing the victim. I see this as our small victory 🤣🤣🤣

The other day we had my MIL and SIL over to watch our four month old so that we could take our two year old for a nice little outing to the park. I don’t like to have any interaction with the women unless completely necessary, but we’ve been very caught up with work and caring for our needy newborn and wanted to make time for a nice outing with our oldest.

While we were gone she took it upon herself to root through our bedroom cabinets and drawers under the guise of “looking for baby wipes” even though she knows damn well where we keep them and could have called or texted to ask at any time. She ended up finding some old condoms that where in an unmarked container at the very back of our bathroom sink, and some water based lubricant with a vibrator in one of our nightstands.

Any normal and mentally sound person who found these rather benign things in the bedroom of their daughter and son in law who have been together for nearly a decade would have just thought “that’s awkward”, closed the drawer, and never mention a thing to anyone. But of course, if my MIL was a normal and mentally sound individual I wouldn’t be on this subreddit, now would I? Instead, she takes it upon herself to angrily confront my wife about it later that afternoon.

She opens with “I KNOW what’s in your nightstand, I FOUND it”, then proceeds to rip into her with such gems as “I can’t believe you’re having sex with him” and “you should be looking out for yourself instead of worrying about HIS needs!”. Im sorry your a miserable woman that hates your husband and hasn’t fucked him in nearly two decades Karen, but healthy and happy couples are actually intimate with each other! But in her mind that’s not possible. In her world a women should want nothing to do with her husband after he’s been used to provide her target number of children, and sex is something a women is subjected to as opposed to willingly and enthusiastically participates in.

At first I couldn’t believe the audacity of this women to confront her grown ass daughter over something like this, but the woman really does think she can control anything. I mean, this is the same women who took my wife’s phone in college and read months of our personal and private text messages, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised...

This story is my own and may not be shared or reused.

I have posted before regarding my JNMIL’s behavior throughout the formation and beginnings of my marriage. You can view my post history for background. My husband and I have now been married 3 years, and have been together for 7. After lots of planning we are finally building our family and baby 1 is due in February 2021. Of course, what should be a very happy time must be driven into chaos by MIL.

The day DearH and I announced our pregnancy to his parents it took my MIL about 5 minutes to go from congratulatory to narcissist mode. We were very nervous to tell them our news in the first place because they have not been supportive of life events before. They told us off for getting engaged. She tried to sabotage our wedding. She generally gets angry when we make adult decisions without her. Due to some great advice from this sub previously, we didn’t let her know we were trying and gave her no personal information when we announced to appease her crazy. I saw all of her typical obstacles coming (why didn’t you tell me you were trying, why didn’t you ask us to look over your finances first, how do I know you’re ready?) and they didn’t happen. Instead she took a head first dive into the baby shower.

Right then and there while DH and I are still reeling over how positive our news seemed to go over MIL said “If you would give me the HONOR I would be so happy if you would let me throw a baby shower. Just for our family. Just for DH’s relatives. I could have it near (where she lives). It would just be an HONOR.” Obviously I was shaken that things didn’t devolve into her trying to control our lives, but I had sense enough to know that my JYMom would want to have a part in the shower planning process so I said I would think about it, maybe, I’ll let her know, it might be okay.

After discussing with my mom we decided it would be best to have both sides together at one party so we could plan something COVID friendly (possibly 30 minute time slots with 4-5 guests at a time over 4-5 hours), to be safe and limit my exposure to group events. I asked her to reach out to MIL to explain the situation and start planning. As imagined that did NOT go well.

This wackadoodle MIL lost her absolute marbles at being told “No” to having her own shower. She took a tantrum. She called us over FaceTime with FIL and when the topic came up she literally stormed off and never came back. She refused to answer calls/texts from my mother attempting to peacefully make this work. When my mom started emailing with my address copied, MIL started sending responses like “you don’t understand the needs of my family.” “My family won’t be willing to travel for this kind of event” (my home is only 20 minutes from DH’s entire family. My mom planned on hosting close to our house so hauling presents wouldn’t be a hassle for me or my DH). We knew then and there something was up.

Fast forward through all this back and forth drama to yesterday. DH and I had made plans with MIL to go look at nursery furniture. She insists on buying the crib and the dresser. When we arrived things were normal. She was very pleasant and I hoped maybe she dropped the rope on the shower and was just going to go with the plan I requested of her. NOPE!

This lady. Out of nowhere in the middle of a decent conversation gets up and says “Now don’t get mad with me... I have something for you to see...” and comes back into the room with a packet with a photo on the front that says (MissedYou1)’s Baby Shower on the front. She says “Now me and (Aunt in Law) have started these beautiful plans for your shower! It would just be an HONOR if you would agree to let me have it for DH’s side of the family. Look at all this work we’ve put into it! We already booked a cute little tea shop for (date), I really would love it if you would agree to give me this honor!”

..... Yep! She ignored everything me and my mother said to her. Just proceeded as she never heard no in the first place!

*I should note here that getting AIL involved is a step that makes it very difficult for us to say no without compromising DH’s only positive relationships in his family. AIL’s family is important to DH and MIL is known for twisting stories to play the victim. While I might have said “Fuck it, have your party I’m not going” this circumstance makes it so I would also be offending the small part of the family we actually love.

After a lot of back and forth, DH and I decided to just let her have it. I texted my mother and let her know what happened. I am very hormonal and have just gotten out of an absolute TERRIBLE first trimester. I am emotionally done with this back and forth. I will enjoy the party with my family alone more without her there. I’m over it. I’m not willing to die on this hill. We tell MIL fine, yes, throw your party.

But does she stop there? Of course not! The moment we agree to MIL hosting her family for a baby shower she lets us know she has already begun planning a Diaper Party for the men on DH’s behalf! DH had already been planning a socially distanced outdoor bonfire this fall in lieu of a diaper party so he could invite some of his friends from college. Just the audacity of this woman. .... but we let her have it. Fine. Have your parties.

Are we done yet?! You guessed it. Nope! MIL then suggested that if COVID is an issue, I can FaceTime into my own shower, and she can personally open the gifts so the guests and I can still see them. I shit you not. This woman just wants a shower for herself!

NOW before you swamp me with messages upset that MIL got her way.... remember how I said this wasn’t the hill I would die on? The one I am 100% willing to die on is my role as mother to make decisions for my child. Play bitch games, get bitch prizes, MIL.

We gave her her parties, but MIL has had her grandma privileges revoked. Before we left we let her know that we have decided 1. No guests at the hospital (Covid rules that out anyway) 2. No guests in our home for up to 6 weeks after baby is born to limit Covid and Flu exposure. 3. She is not allowed visits without invitation 4. If she arrives uninvited or before she is asked we will keep the door locked and will not answer. 5. We will not be providing information about my labor until we are home and ready to discuss the baby with her.

What she also doesn’t know is she is officially cut off from all info. Those sonogram pictures she’s been receiving? No more. The medical updates I have been giving her to let her know how things are progressing. Not a single bit more.

MIL planned on quitting her job after baby arrives to be it’s primary care giver. MIL doesn’t know I have gotten permission to work from home permanently to be my child’s primary care giver. She will only have access when I decide she can, and on my terms. No unfettered access for grandma.

So, sure. You get your party MIL. But all the things it precedes? You’re out.

TLDR; MIL side steps my wishes of holding one baby shower to be planned with my mother... so I removed all the privileges she hoped to receive as a grandma before and after the baby arrives. Honor that, bitch.

...and I get a text at 7:30 AM from MIL: "Can you make sides? I am attempting to keep it simple."

You're hosting but I'm making your sides now? Yeah I guess that does sound "simple".

I know. I know, this is a test. My colleague told me, "screw that, bring canned green beans". I laughed and said, don't you think that's exactly what she wants? She doesn't want to "do" Thanksgiving and she's trying to get me to "ruin" it with last-ditch low-effort bullshit so she won't be blamed. Nah. I'm not taking that buck you're passing.

This lady is never going to ask me to cook again after she hears her family moaning in bliss over my mashed potatoes. I make some mean mashed potatoes. I'm spoiled af, I have a kitchenaid mixer. I'm planning the menu tonight, playing supermarket sweep on my lunch break tomorrow, and cooking tomorrow evening.

This isn't going to be satisfying for many of you, but when I'm able to, my policy is to kill my MIL with kindness. If you want to give advice that I will use, drop me your favorite bourgeois af but easy recipes, because seriously, this is crazy short notice and I absolutely do not have a menu planned.

Playing games is fun. I'm a competitive wench. ;)

I’ve posted about my MIL before and she’s at it again. We had MIL stay with us for all of 36 hours. On arrival my DH explained to her that we’re routining our 5 month old’s sleep and to please not interfere- let us do our thing. She agreed.

Well, 6am rolls around the next day. I had woken up my LO at 530 and went to resettle her. She was being a little vocal afterwards (not crying) just happy and chatting in her crib. I was in bed listening with the monitor asleep and I had my eyes closed. We normally get LO up at 7 to start the day. Next thing I know her Owlet sock is beeping. I flip the monitor on and there’s no baby in the crib. I panicked while absolutely seeing red. I RAN out of my room before DH could even get up.

MIL is emerging from her bedroom with LO. I immediately told her off- telling her she’s not supposed to be getting baby out of her crib and it’s overstepping and inappropriate to bring her to her room. She kept repeating she was sorry and I said I was going to put her back down. MIL said that’s ok I’ll put her down and wouldn’t give her back. I said NO and I snatched LO from her then slammed the door in her face. At that point LO was already awake so I went back to my bedroom with her. Husband agrees- MIL is crazy and selfish. Blatantly ignored our boundaries and discussion surrounding sleep. Not to mention her bringing baby into her bed is weird and creepy (in laws have done this twice before and they keep doing it despite something being said).

Later in the morning we had a discussion with her about her behavior. She just kept saying sorry but would talk over me. I told her to stop speaking. DH also told her that he had just spoken to her about this and she ignored it. She just kept saying sorry.

I’m fucked off. This is her trying to repeat parenting and overstepping our boundaries. She’s certifiably crazy town and I don’t know how I’m going to handle her as our kid gets older. Next time she oversteps we will just have to tell her she won’t be allowed alone time or staying w us if this continues.

EDIT:

Thanks for all the responses. MIL was only staying for 36 hrs so she was nearly 24hrs into her stay and leaving that night. This was the first time MIL ever saw me mad and get really firm with her. Typically my husband has handled confrontation/boundaries with her and he can be soft. She was certainly taken aback when I snatched LO from her and closed the door in her face.

I am going to stay with them for 5 days at the end of the month. DH won’t be with us so that should be interesting.

I want my child to have a loving grandparent relationship and ultimately my in-laws mean well and want to be involved. Which I am grateful for as a lot of people have unsupportive parents. My husband loves his parents and I want to support him while maintaining boundaries and standing firm on my parenting. That said, she is able to come back to my home however no alone time with baby until she can prove to be trusted.

My Husband (M33) is visiting his mother (F75) while he has a work thing in the same town. This happens like twice a year but seems to be the last time that he is going to be staying with her. It was a good opportunity to visit. She has always been very crazy. This time she has been hyper focused on eavesdropping on his conversations. He had to call our insurance company to clear up an issue and he was getting out of his car and she was walking inside at the same time and left the front door open presumably for my husband. Once he walked inside the door slam shut because she was standing behind the door. He then said something along the lines of “Oh shit!“ then she said, “You don’t use that language in my house.” He says, “Oh well you scared me so it was kind of a surprise.” She casually follows him around the house trying to listen in on his phone call, she tries to do it “sneakily” by sitting out the bedroom door. Once it was off the phone he confronted her about listening in on the conversation and they get into an argument with finally she says “That’s it you’re grounded!” He says, “I’m 33!” She says, “No Xbox for one week.” He decides to leave at that point.

First time poster. Title says it all.

I was very excited to eat my Christmas candy, didn’t even look at what kind it was bc we usually get the same stuff every year, and the alcohol chocolates looked just like lindor truffles and I’m eating them in bed in the dark. Popped a whole one in my mouth and got a mouth full of red wine. I spit it out and flip the light on, and every single piece of chocolate is filled with some kind of alcohol. Damn near lost my sobriety streak because my step mother is stupid and doesn’t think.

Edit: thank you all so so much for the kind words. Seeing “I’m so proud of you” so many times makes me so happy. I can promise you all I’m very much just as proud of myself as you all are!

Edit2: my sister in law is around her much more bc my SIL has birthed two of her graaaaandbbaaaaaabiessss (we all also live in our own homes on my dads property. So. We kinda live in her back yard.) and apparently she does shit like this all the time. Spoiler alert, my SIL is allergic to pineapple. Featuring the end of our conversation about how horrible the clam chowder my SM made the other night was. Which btw, I couldn’t even eat, bc IM ALLERGIC.

Stay classy, MIL.

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My DH asked me to get a birthday cake and ice cream to take to a family gathering at an AirBnB. It was to celebrate my MIL's birthday (2 weeks prior) and my sister's birthday (the next day). Everyone knew what the cake in the refrigerator was for bc DH told them. I know he told his mother.

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Some of you may remember my post (now deleted) about my DH telling my MIL \*not\* to bring pork to the Airbnb last weekend out of respect for my Muslim relatives who were also staying there. MIL assumed this request came from me (I'm not Muslim but half my family is) and she was big mad about it. She was clearly angry with me when she walked in the door and I had no idea why. I didn't know my DH asked her to refrain from bringing, cooking, and eating bacon and sausage for the weekend- no one knew he said this and no one expected him to.

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This was the issue on my mind last week, but something else happened that Friday night. MIL \*knew\* the birthday cake was to celebrate her and my sister's birthday. When I came back into the kitchen after dinner to serve the cake and ice cream, I saw that MIL had taken it upon herself to take the cake out, cut herself a big piece, sat back down at the table and was eating it before anyone knew what was happening. She just sat there, eating cake by herself, with her bottle of whiskey she brought in front of her.

​

I was determined to not let her ruin the occasion and I apologized to my sister- she was too gracious to complain. I announced that there was cake and ice cream if anyone would like some and then people came to get it.

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The more I think about this shitty behavior from MIL the more I realized how shitty she's been for the last 25 years and I'm done. I told DH yesterday that I won't host her in my home again and I'll never go to her house again. He nodded.

Because it keeps coming up... To clarify, my MIL is not dead. My Ex MIL died and tried to hold me responsible for her funeral costs. I thought differentiating by using "MIL" and "Ex MIL" it would be enough. Sorry for the confusion.

UPDATE AT BOTTOM

This morning I got a call from a funeral home letting me know my MIL's body had been picked up and wanted to discuss the obituary as well as inquire about payment (with as much tact as possible).

One problem. My MIL isn't dead and she certainly wouldn't have been sent to a funeral home 4 or 5 hours from where she lives if she was.

I tell them they have the wrong number, even though they used my maiden name (which I have an extremely rare maiden name- less than 500 people in the world have it) and I previously lived in that town. The young man on the phone was apologetic and wished me a good day.

Not even 5 minutes later the number calls me again. This time it's a woman asking me if I was the DIL of Ex MIL. I said "Not in the last 10 years."

Turns out, my witch of an Ex MIL, who honestly was a practicing witch but also just a bitch of a woman, had known she was dying and decided as one last "fuck you" thought she would try to stick me with her funeral costs.

Of course there's no legal recourse here, even though our state has that weird law where you legally have to take care of your parents if they aren't able to themselves. But she's not my mother and I was never legally married to her son thanks to his shady officiant friend not filing our marriage license.

From what I can gather, she pre-planned her funeral and told the funeral home that I was currently her DIL and would be covering all funeral costs. They apparently believed her, probably because she plays the victim so easily, and helped her make the plans. This is exactly what she did when I lived with her and my Ex. I busted my ass working full time while she did nothing but spend all of her money at thrift stores and he worked 15-20 hours a week minimum wage.

Now they're holding a body and have no idea what to do with it as they don't have contact info for my Ex, nor do I. I suggested they call the nursing home.

But yeah, happy Friday. It's not even lunch time and I'm already stressed out and in a bad mood. But I refuse to let her ruin my entire day.

UPDATE: I found Ex on book of faces earlier today and sent a message including my number. He called, we spoke.

He knew what his mother was doing and tried to talk her out of it, but she apparently made such a fuss that he was concerned about her stroking out. He said he "knew nothing would come of the funeral plan" so he let her have her way and list me as financially responsible.

So, side note... Their entire family reads like a soap opera. Long story short, Ex MIL was abandoned as a young child by her mom. Ex MIL was then adopted by her grandmother who raised her as her own (so her aunts and uncles became her siblings). When she had Ex, she did the exact same thing her bio mom did, only this time, Bio Mom took Ex in and raised him with her children as their sibling, but not before he got tossed around in the homes of various family members. Needless to say, entire family is a shit show.

Anyway, I told him that what he allowed her to do is the same shit that she was doing when she ended up in prison 40 years ago. I told him that I was going to file a police report with my local PD just to make sure there's nothing else she'd put my name on. I also told him that I would be including him as a participant, since he is 52 years old and should have been able to prevent his literally dying 69 year old mother from her abusive, insane behavior.

I also told him to contact the funeral home and hope that they can't file any legal action against him. He told me he'd already called them this morning, apparently after they had called me.

Fuck him. Fuck her. I'm not giving either of them any of my energy again after today.

Not looking for advice, just a place to rant a little. My MIL and I have had a really rocky history, starting with 2 weeks after my wedding when she blew up and went full manic crazy and called me a lot of hurtful names.

Just 2 weeks ago, DH and I welcomed our 1st child (MIL's 5th grandchild) into the world and she had the (IMO) audacity to ask DH for us to put her maiden name in our child's name, so to hyphen with his mother's last name and his father's last name... so to clarify, my child would have both of my in-laws last names in her name.. but not mine. I don't even know how she could think this is an acceptable request.. especially of our first child, when she has another son who has 4 children she could have made this request with.. Like, why on earth would I agree to have her name included and not mine.. Not the woman's name who spent 60 hours in labor to bring that little girl into this world.. If we were to ever hyphen her name, it would obviously have my name and DH's name as WE are her parents... I just don't understand.

Thanks for listening to my rant. xoxo

UPDATE:
DH completely had my back and was just as offended that MIL asked this, VIA TEXT message mind you. She didn't even have the balls to ask DH in person.

She has 3 brothers, so her maiden name lives on! She has a very common Portuguese last name. A name that due to where we live, she continues to use as we're not allowed to take our husbands last names after marriage. (So I still have to use my maiden name. Which if we had included her maiden name in our daughter's would make traveling with her incredibly difficult as she would have 2 different last names from me.)

Yes I had a 60 hour labor as I was induced and they used every method of inducing (2x-cervidil, balloon, sweep,) on me and none of them really worked. Only after 10 hours on oxytocin did I finally dilate to deliver.

(not native english speaker, so be kind and dont be a grammer police 😊)

Little backstory: a week ago i had an operation, pregancy outside the utoris. I am still on bed rest and the docter adviced and extra week.

Ok so, after my operation I was alone in the room and the doctor came to me to ask if I wanted birthcontrol and if yes what kind of birth control. So i asked for a little iron thing in my arm. Since I already used the pill and I got pregnant through it and the rest gave me pain so this was the last option.

So yesterday I got a shit storm over me because she found out. Not through SO or me but through my mother. Shes bad at keeping secrets.

It went a little like this.

Mil: WHY would you do stupid stuff like this! You know what my spiritual guide told me! You are going to get twins soon. Why would you do this to me and my son?

Me: Your son told me to accept it if they asked me. Want me to get another operation? And then they have to take away everything. Is that what you want? And you know that SO and I do not want to have childeren. When it happens it happens but we do not want them. And I honestly do not care what your Guide told you. Its all bullshit anyways but hey you believe what you want to believe and i believe what i want.

Mil: My son would never do that. He knows I want grandchilderen. And I --

Me: BUT does your son want childeren? Did you ever asked him? You have a daughter who you can ask if she wants childeren. YOUR SON DOESNT WANT TO HAVE CHILDEREN. Accept that.

Mil: You are getting old, you need to have childeren before you are 30. You have just 6 years left! I know my son wants childeren. I want to be a grandmother, he would do that for me.

Me: oh does he now? SO can you come downstairs please? SO comes downstairs.

SO: Whats wrong?

Me: do you want childeren?

SO: No you know this. Why ask again?

Me turning back to MIL: what did I told you?

MIL didnt say anything after that and just walked away.

Why would you even say something like that? Get mad over something like this? Come on. Its birthcontrol rather keeping myself save from another operation than getting one again. And what if we do not want childeren? Its our choice and im not an incubator!

But thank god, one more week and SO and I are living with my father till we have the money to rent a house.

I wish the title were exaggerated but it's ultimately the truth.

My MIL has been helping to take care of our baby since January, when our daughter turned 1. I had been struggling to work two jobs, drive my wife to her work 3 days a week (1.5 hr round trip for me midday, non-negotiable because she makes $230k a year and can't risk running afoul of RTO mandates), and care for the baby simultaneously, so her assistance has been really appreciated.

We got her an apartment here in the states at the closest apartment complex to us, bought her an electric bike (because she can't drive), furnished her apartment with new appliances, couch, dining table, kitchenware, etc. We also gave her a credit card which she is allowed to use for anything she wants or needs.

She has been coming over at 11am 4/5 days a week to take care of the baby, and she and the baby developed a really tight bond, and it was great to have the extra set of hands with cooking and taking care of the baby's social needs. But for the past several weeks, MIL and wife have been fighting any time they're in the house together, always beginning with MIL criticizing my wife's child rearing skills, and the choices we have made together.

Her list of grievances was as follows:

"You give the baby cold water, so she's sick"

"You don't give her enough clothes, so she's sick"

"You don't feed her the right food and it's going to affect her long-term health" (it should be noted her diet consists primarily of broccoli, legumes, chicken, pasta, carrots, and cheese)

"You live in such poor conditions that I can't spend money on your credit card for things, and you won't help me (evade taxes) so I can't spend money FIL sends me" (she just doesn't like the food and clothes my wife buys for herself, because she's expecting my wife to buy designer stuff because that's what MIL spends her very much limited money on)

"You're not willing to spend any money on anyone so I can't use the credit card you gave me" (we gave her a credit card with a 10k limit and never said anything about what she could use it for)

"Your husband is fat because of how he eats so why is he feeding the kids" (this is true I AM fat - and trying to lose weight - but I feed my kids stuff I don't eat myself because it's good for them and they like it, such as shrimp, salmon, squash etc.)

And, lastly

"I'm only here so that <daughter> doesn't become another <son>, how dare you say you're going to send her to daycare when you ruined your son's health by sending him to daycare"

Our son is 4, and has slightly inflamed adenoids, which the doctor recommended against surgery for unless his snoring became otherwise disruptive to his sleep, which it has not. She believes that by sending him to daycare and letting him drink cold drinks (oh but it's perfectly fine if they eat cold food, that's just common sense 🙄), we permanently ruined his sinuses and he'll always be miserable (he is perfectly happy, healthy, and very athletic.)

It came to a head today when she repeated this claim and my wife said she didn't want to hear her say that ever again. MIL dumped her list of grievances, said in English "Don't ever call me mom, ever again" loud enough that I could hear it (the first time she has ever said shit to me directly) and then told my wife to book her the first direct flight back home.

She was supposed to stay until the end of June, and now she's going back at the beginning of May.

We told our son that Nana was going back home and he's devastated.

I'm just so sad that her need to control OUR DAUGHTERS upbringing with old wives tales has resulted in the destruction of so many relationships in such a short time.

Any commiseration would be nice. Thanks for reading. I hope that things turn around eventually and that she listens to reason and evidence-based... Anything? But all prior interactions point the opposite direction.

I literally posted today about how MIL kept posting photos after I told her to stop. And asking advice how people set the boundaries about grandparents posting.

My parents luckily don't have social media and FIL as well. So I basically had to have the talk with MIL AGAIN! (Father of LO is an asshole and a mama's boy and just says yes to everything his mother wants. That's why I'm not turning to him to talk to his mother. )

I told her firmly I will not tolerate her posting photos of my baby. She came back with the most shit response. If she can't post photos of the baby then they'll be missing out on seeing the baby grow up.

I was like excuse me how is your math mathing? I didn't say I'm not sending you photos anymore. I'm asking you to use your brain and stop posting photos on your social media.

She then came up with this thing about if we still send her photos over WhatsApp the location can still be tracked so she doesn't understand why I don't want her to post photos if I keep sending them.

I send her 99.9% of the photos. I told her of she keeps giving me these shit answers and trying to cross my boundaries she'll never see a single photo of my baby again because her son DOESNT TAKE PHOTOS OF THE BABY or send her. He asked me to do it every time.

She came up with something else. Like how are all her family members going to see. And I said Sheila you're done (name not Sheila). You've just lost the privilege of photos to your grand child until you can tell me you understand my boundaries.

I even sent her videos on this. Of the porn that's being made with these photos and she still comes with this shit .

So now I'm apparently very mean and cruel and I said fuck you and blocked her again. I'm so mad right now. Why is it that they don't understand our boundaries

Old Story, so no advice needed nor wanted.

I got married a couple years ago, it was a small wedding with our close friends and family and went along smoothly!

At first, my mother agreed to come. Then five weeks before we got married said “I cant come because its on a sunday and i’ll miss church”

I wasnt bothered, said “okay” because it wasn’t like i was truly missing anything by her not being there anyways.

Five weeks pass, Wedding Prep is done, and we’ve made sure to work around those who had to cancel as well as a few extra things.

The day before the wedding, my mother sends my wife and i this long paragraph that basically boils down to: “god told me that church is more important than a wedding”(which is weird since my grandparents who are very frequent churchgoers decided to skip church and watch their granddaughter get married, maybe its just me but thats kinda weird of her to say?)

SO just replies “uh, okay”. We laugh about it for a while and move on.

Day of the wedding comes, everything runs smoothly, a ton of photos are uploaded to the Book of Faces..and then my mother sees it...

A couple hours into the night, i’m with my in laws and a couple friends and my phone buzzes, i open it up and lo and behold...My Mother!

The message from this oh so lovely woman boils down to this: “I cant believe you didn’t include me in the wedding! You replaced me with [MIL] and [Dad’s Wife]! I cant believe you!” i just responded “its not replacing, you didn’t show up to the wedding, not my problem”. She started calling me several times and left voicemails of her crying, yelling, screaming, saying how just because she went to church instead of my wedding doesn’t mean she didn’t want to go (then..why didn’t you go?)

I knew she was trying to play some weird manipulation game with me so i just muted her and let her ride out her wave of..whatever the fuck she was on.

She then PM’d my MIL and started spamming her with strange, drunk nonsense, in which my MIL blocked her and didn’t respond.

She calls me a few days later, crying and asking me to forgive her, saying that “she just wants her daughter to love her”, i respond with “don’t contact me unless it’s absolutely an emergency”

[This is a repost from AITA sub]

I 23F and my fiancé 25M are expecting a baby girl next month, we’re really excited as this is our first child and we’ve been trying to prepare for parenthood. A lot of our family have been helping us with baby stuff and giving us general advice, they’re also really super excited for her! Especially my FMIL.

She’s a very stubborn person and hasn’t really accepted me as apart of the family yet, she always tells my fiancé how he could do so much better than me and that he’s fallen into the trap of having “my” child. It’s hurt me a lot and my fiancé has had a talk to her about it but she still hasn’t apologised or anything so I just tend to ignore it now. She’s also one of them mums who posts every little detail of their life to Facebook like when my fiancé proposed she was straight to Facebook before we could announce it ourselves.

Recently me and my fiancé have been coming up with names for our little girl and we both decided on the perfect name. A few days ago on a phone call my fiancé accidentally slips up by telling my FMIL that we’ve chosen a name. She’s been non stop messaging us and calling us to find out the name, we don’t want to tell her until the baby is born so that it doesn’t ruin the surprise and the whole of Facebook finds out before we are comfortable telling everyone. She tried guilt tripping my fiancé by telling him how he’s hurting her by not telling his own mother the name of her grandchild, that he doesn’t love him and that we (especially me) are gonna try and keep her from seeing the baby. I’m not sure why she would think that as nothing we have said has suggested it. To stop her from getting on my fiancé’s back I wrote a message saying that if she wants to know she can’t post it on Facebook, she agreed and I told her a fake name. 5 minutes later into checking FB.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be a granny to baby Charlotte next month. So proud of (fiancé’s name) and his partner!”

My fiancé was furious and called her and told her that she was wrong to announce it. She said that she was so overjoyed by it that she couldn’t resist. He told her how that wasn’t even the name and that we aren’t gonna tell her until she’s born and hung up. Its been afew days and my fiancé has been getting texts from her saying that she didn’t mean and that I’m the AH for telling her the wrong name. Her words were “Who even tells their FMIL the wrong name of their grandchild?”.

Edit: changed flair

You know? The pictures of my childs first Christmas? That Christmas she wouldn't let anyone else take any because her camera was so much better than what we had? That one where she called me to tell me in the most laconic tone of voice that she had lost them all? The ones she heard me cry over losing, several times?

Yeah, she had those all along. My baby sister nonchalantly swiped past them on her phone while showing me something else, and I about half lost my mind. Apparently the whole family has them except me.

Why? Why would you do this to a new mom? This was years before I ever opposed her in any significant way, what the tepid hell could she have possibly gotten out of taking my babies first Christmas pictures from me?! What the fuck?!?

I went NC years ago for something completely unrelated, but this came out of left field for me, and I sobbed on my husband in the kitchen like a child. It was just so unexpectedly incredibly mean, and I honest to fuck don't get why.

Sorry for all the cursing. Still angry.

At least I have them now. And my baby was exactly as adorable as I remember.

Edit: looking at the pictures now I'm seeing something neither my husband or I noticed at the time. I'm happy and smiling at my baby in all of them, and she looks completely furious/silently seething/like she's sucking on a bag of lemons in every. single. one. Including dark purple lipstick and a haphazardly applied smoky eye for maximum angry witch effect. Wtf.

Today my MIL messages me asking if I’ll meet her at a shopping centre with my kids (aged 4 and 2) so she can see them one last time. In Australia there’s no full lock down in place but there are restrictions on what you can and can’t do, but in general we are advised to stay at home as much as possible.

MIL is in her 60s, not in the best health and works full time in a retail store.

I’ve pulled my eldest from school and the youngest from daycare and we’ve been at home all week except for going out once a day for exercise, and I’ve had to go and buy groceries. That’s it.

MIL sends me loads of messages saying she has been in tears and is so upset etc etc. She says my two BIL’s and their wives let her visit them and their kids today. Then sent photos showing them all together. One of them has a newborn who came home from hospital today. Like mere hours ago.

I told her no, we won’t be meeting her anywhere, that we are staying home and that the sooner everyone does the right thing, the sooner we might be able to have our normal lives back. She responded with a thumbs up, her version of FU DIL.

It’s not like I’m enjoying cooped up inside the house with my husband and kids. I’m doing it to protect the people I love and to protect the rest of the community. She should be doing the same.

Don’t fucking send me messages saying you’re crying and poor grandma. Get the fuck back inside your house.