It’s common to hear about rough mother-in-law relationships from time to time, but these stories take ‘rough’ to a whole new level. From trash-talking to overstepping boundaries to throwing temper tantrums, these people have experienced it all. Talk about toxic! People expose their entitled mother-in-laws. This content has been edited for clarity.
No Boundaries
“My fiancé and I have been together for almost six years and have lived together the whole time. I am Latina and he’s German (important for later). He’s the typical chill dude with a ‘nothing really affects me’ attitude. On the other hand, I am the ‘sensitive one’ who overthinks everything. I’m currently in therapy because of it and some other issues.
His immediate family is just his sister and mother. His dad passed away when he was around nine and it was very traumatic. For this reason, they understandably have a very tight bond. When I first met my SIL, the situation went from nice to sour quickly. She thought it was funny to make offensive jokes about Latino people. She would also talk about her husband’s ex-girlfriend and how trashy/awful the girlfriend was because she was from a Latin country.
The mom, on the other hand, is a different story. I wouldn’t say I had an issue with her per se at the beginning. She is sick and spends most of her time in bed on her laptop while constantly relying on her son for most things. In addition, she and her son run a business together. According to her, that meant my fiancé HAD to be available 24/7. When he wasn’t available was when the issues happened.
If he wasn’t reachable within a short period of time, she’d start messaging me with: ‘Are you with my son? Where is my son? I need my son. This is an emergency.’ Of all these ’emergencies,’ none have actually been emergent. It made me feel like I was his secretary. If I was at work, I needed to know where he was in case his mom asked. If we were at the gym, I needed to stop what I was doing and let him know his mom was in ‘urgent’ need of him.
Thanks to therapy, I realized what was going on. There was an incredible lack of boundaries. So I stopped answering and going more and more low-contact with her. As I mentioned earlier, my fiancé’s thing is being chill and he just wouldn’t reply at all. That’s how he ‘didn’t get affected by it.’ I started to have other issues with my MIL. While staying with us, she started to meddle in our disagreements. She would be in my apartment and make comments on our relationship.
I had been fed up for so long that I exploded on him about the little situations (that’s when I started therapy). My fiancé supported my side of things and agreed with the lack of boundaries from his family. He had an intervention with his mom about it and it went so wrong. She played the victim, denied everything, and said ‘she would never’ do such things.
It didn’t stop there. My fiancé is an introvert and rarely ever goes out. He hadn’t seen his childhood group of friends in three years. He told me one weekend he was going to another city to meet them. I was thrilled! I love my time alone and I’ve been asking him to go out and have more of a life that doesn’t just revolve around work, me, and our dog. I told him to let his mom know he wouldn’t be available for the weekend.
On my relaxing Saturday, I started getting messages from my SIL saying ‘Where is my brother going?’ and such. I didn’t reply and kept enjoying myself. She wouldn’t let up: ‘Where is he? With who?’ and so on. I wanted to remain calm but I couldn’t and told her to back off because he’s 34 and didn’t have to tell her anything.
I asked him to seek help after that because it was affecting me greatly. His response was that his sister asking about it was a joke, and I just didn’t get it (as usual). ‘It’s totally 100% a normal sibling relationship.’ He definitely cannot and doesn’t know how to ask for boundaries. I am confused and feeling lost, but he did agree to seek counseling.”
Goodbye For Good
“My husband and I cut his mother out of our lives after she called our son with autism ‘a mentally challenged waste of time’ and for telling my husband ‘leave your wife and start new, that kid’s only going to drag you down.’ After four years, we decided to give her another chance. We told her multiple times our son didn’t like being pet or her touching him a certain way but she had yet to respect him. She would say, ‘A swift smack on the bottom will cure that.’
Here’s the real kicker. We have cameras in our house as our son tries to get out a lot. In a video, she gave my husband 100 dollars. I didn’t think much of it. It’s not like we needed money help, but whatever floats her boat.
The problem was when she said, ‘I’m giving this to you and you keep it. You don’t have to tell her (meaning me) about it.’
‘We don’t have secrets,’ my husband replied.
She said, ‘Well, that’s okay. But if you don’t tell her, let me know so I know what to say if she asks.’
I found that really weird and disrespectful. I sat my husband down and said it was clear our attempt to mend the relationship wasn’t going well. I felt we should just cut our losses.
When we asked our son, he said, ‘I don’t want her to visit’ and ‘She makes me sad.’
We both decided to go full no contact again. I’m not upset about it and my husband is not upset about it. However, he does make weird comments sometimes like ‘Maybe more time would have worked’ or ‘That’s how she’s always been.'”
Not Invited
“My husband and I have been together for thirteen years and his mother has always been a sore subject. She has been horrible to me and my oldest son over the years and we’ve had numerous fights. When we first started dating, I didn’t want to bring my husband around my son until I knew it was serious. Therefore, he would come over a few days a week after my son was asleep and leave before he got up.
After about three weeks of that, my MIL packed all his things up and put them in her driveway. She said if he ‘wanted to spend three days with me, he could spend seven’ and kicked him out with nowhere to go. When I gave birth to our son, she made numerous comments about his hair having a reddish tint and that there was no way it could be his son. My husband and our son look identical in the face and there’s no denying it.
The list goes on.
My MIL threatened to evict us over a 50-dollar garbage bill she never gave us. She tried to wear a wedding dress to my wedding, not to mention she had three outfit changes. I started a job at the post office and she tried to convince my husband I was lying about it. She belittled my son for an injury he received that caused him to walk with a limp. After she was horrible to my son, I was done with her and went no contact for three years.
I’ve explained she just needs to apologize but she refuses. She has since used the situation to put a wedge between other family members and my husband and me. We no longer get invited to holidays even when they are not hosted by her. I constantly hear from people she is ‘keeping tabs’ on us. If we have a date night, she asks why the kids were home alone. FYI my oldest is 16 and is more than capable of staying home with his 12-year-old brother for a few hours.
She clearly does not want my husband and me together and has shown that for years. We are getting ready to have a celebration to celebrate our ten-year anniversary and I can’t wrap my head around inviting her. I want the party to be about us and the love we share, not the drama that will come from inviting her.”
Impossible
“My husband’s mother has never been nice to me. She’s made it known for 15 years she does not care for me. Every time I’m in a conversation with my husband, she’ll butt in and change the subject or make him run errands. Our conversations are always one-sided and feel like an interrogation as she’s always nosey about my relationship with my husband or my family.
She always talks about herself and never asks about me. When I do talk about myself, she minimizes everything. She’ll talk over me, undermine me, and question me about things. Here are examples of questions she poses: You’re going to the grocery because there are sales? Why do you have to listen to the doctors? Not everything they say is right. Do you like being fat? Do you like being dark? Why don’t you use whitening soaps?
Unfortunately, we moved into my MIL’s basement because it was a big house and we could save money and help her too. My husband was at her beck and call no matter what he was doing. He’d drop anything and everything to do what she told him which also extended and was expected of me. I’d cook and bake, wash her clothes, iron her clothes, and clean the house. Doing things for people is my love language, so at first, I had no problem doing it until it became expected of me, and I was never thanked.
My first pregnancy was our honeymoon baby and I lost the baby. I was only five weeks along and I was really depressed. We were three months into our marriage, and she asked, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why can’t you get pregnant?’ Little did she know, I had just lost my baby and was grieving.
Three years later was my second pregnancy and we decided to tell her because my husband said she was going through some stuff. The people pleaser in me wanted to make her feel better with the news. She asked me how far along and I said about four weeks. That same night, she posted on Facebook announcing my pregnancy without asking me first. Who does that?
Four weeks later, I lost the baby. My MIL was in a conversation with my sister and I heard her say, ‘I was more depressed than her and her husband.’ My jaw dropped. Not to mention I cried every single time people congratulated me on my pregnancy and I had to tell them I lost my baby. She never even said she was sorry for what she did.
When I got pregnant a third time, I gave birth to a healthy baby girl. However, it was at the height of lockdown so my husband and I didn’t want my MIL around our daughter. She worked in healthcare exclusively with patients who tested positive. She threw tantrums, had meltdowns, talked trash about me, and was trying to break up my marriage. She kept bullying me. Then my husband began taking her side because his brother was manipulating him into it.
My MIL then threatened to sell the house if I didn’t give in. It was the best thing that happened because my husband was forced to finally move out and buy us a home. In the meantime, she started moving out. She had people in and out of the house at all hours of the day. She had construction people working day and night for three months hammering away while I had a newborn! It was so rough. Because we were in the basement, I’d see sawdust falling from our ceiling.
I didn’t get to enjoy the bliss of motherhood for the first six months. I was really running on low. I just knew I wasn’t going to let her win. Even if my husband couldn’t be there for me, I sure as hell was going to fight for my child. I didn’t want her to have to suffer at the hands of his family. Standing my ground worked out in the end.
We’ve been in no contact for two years and it’s been so peaceful. We’re so much better and happy. It’s the only way! It got better by putting myself, my child, and my husband first.”
