We gathered stories of some of the worst mother-in-laws the internet has to offer. The relatives are horrifying, but the stories that capture them are so, so good. Content has been edited for clarity.
“The Look On Her Face Was Murderous”
“This story is about my friend’s wedding and her mother-in-law. Strap in guys, this is a wild ride in which I did THE THING that got me banned from any of her family functions. Plus, there were a few threats of dismemberment and bodily harm. A good friend of mine from university was getting married! They had been a couple since junior year of college, through her two years in the peace corps and currently her return to this continent. They were together for six years in total. She had been to all manner of family functions and always came back with a strange story about how she thinks her mother-in-law secretly hates her. But she, being a very quiet and sweet person, pushed those thoughts aside. My friend is vegetarian and Jewish, but her husband is not. She was invited and went to Christmas dinner and figured she would just eat sides, and she brought a vegetarian casserole. The mother-in-law, after knowing her for THREE years, and being told by the husband a few weeks before about not to forget how she doesn’t eat meat, proceeded to put meat in every dish. My friend drank water and ate her casserole the whole night, while her mother-in-law cried to everyone that my friend was so rude for not eating her cooking.
A few friends and I were asked to be in the wedding. My friend has a HUGE family, so this was not going to be a small affair. Neither the bride nor the groom are particularly religious, but my friend said it was would be nice to be married under a hoopa, think an arbor but four poles and covered with a white cloth and lots of flowers. Her husband said he could care less, and he told her to go and rent one for the wedding. I was at the bridal shower when the mother-in-law found out the ‘pretty canopy’ was actually a hoopa. She almost lost her mind in front of a bunch of people, but she managed to compose herself and laugh angrily that, ‘If the jews were being represented, so would the catholics!’ In my head I heard a record scratch. Something bas was about to go down. So after much fighting, a lot of screaming, crying, and threatening to pull money (which is funny because she contributed nothing), the mother-in-law lost. The boot was firmly placed, and nothing was moving it. Hoopa yes, catholic priest no. My friend texts me the night before the wedding that she has a bad feeling. I tell her it’s probably just nerves, she is getting married and this is a big deal! Oh, how wrong I was.
We all show up, to get our hair and makeup done. We slip into our bridesmaid dresses and hang out, waiting for the bride to be finished with her hair. She makes a comment saying she hadn’t seen the mother-in-law all day, and that she skipped her hair and makeup appointment. We all side eyed each other, took a few sips of vino, and hoped this eerie feeling would go away. Thirty minutes later as we are helping the bride into her dress, guess who shows up. If you guessed the mother-in-law, you win a cookie! Flushed from coming up the stairs, in full hair and makeup and a white dress. Not ivory, not cream, full snow-white. The dress was clearly a wedding dress, it was even from David’s Bridal (which she would later shout at me). It featured floor length satin with a sweet heart beaded top, with a bit of a train and off-white lace on the bottom. The dress was even tailored to her, so this has been a long con she has orchestrated. The bride burst into tears, and aunts and friends ushered the mother-in-law out. We did our best to console the bride, touched up her makeup, and I made her a promise that the dress would never be seen in a photo. She looked me dead in the eye and nodded. The game was on. The venue only supplied merlot and bubbly for the wedding party. But I grabbed my purse and ran down into the reception area and managed to flag an attendant by the bar and bribe him with a cool twenty bucks to give me a bottle of red early. I cracked the baby open, filled a solo cup to the brim with it and stalked outside. After a few swigs from the bottle for courage, I went over to where everyone was getting ready to take photos.
With one last hard stare at my friend, I got her nod of approval. I pulled out my phone, held it in front of my face like I was reading a text and walked straight into the mother-in-law. I poured the entire cup of red down the front of her dress, jumped back, and gasped. The look on her face was murderous. She screamed, yelled, threatened, and promised she would sue me. People had to hold her back because she wanted to fight me. Eventually she switched from screaming to sobbing and sank to the ground and threw a tantrum on the floor. Everyone moved back and just let her go at it and walked away to go take photos. It was surreal, as if everyone just hit their limit and got out from around her. The twelve year old flower girl whipped out her phone and snapped a few photos, much to our amusement. This is already super long, but I will say that the mother-in-law went home and changed into a nice dark green tiny and low cut dress. Because of this, she missed all of the photos. The wedding was beautiful. I got death glares from everyone she told that I attacked her with red. I didn’t care as I drank and danced with friends. The bride thanked me in secret, and three months later, she took me to the spa for a day of pampering. But I am officially dead to that mother-in-law, and I’ll take it with pride.”
Set The Baby Loose, What’s The Worst That Could Happen?
“My husband worships his older sister. I think she’s a complete idiot. She has never been married and has no kids. When she’d come to visit, she would do stuff like grab my toddler’s food and eat it while the toddler screamed. She stood up in the tub and took a ‘shower’ with the hand held hose, soaking the curtains and wallpaper and flooding the floor. More than once she put my silver flatware down the disposal. She always seemed baffled that I was upset. Some years ago, she was visiting our New England home for the October foliage. We were going to take her to some scenic places, but we took two cars because I had to leave early to take my four year old daughter to a birthday party. My husband and his big sister took our ten month old boy with them. When I arrived home later, the front door was wide open! We live on a busy street. I immediately called for our Corgi and she came trotting to me. Phew! She hadn’t gotten out.
I looked for my husband and found him in his study, alone. I asked him where the baby was, and he said downstairs with his sister. I already knew she wasn’t downstairs. I knocked on her bedroom, and when she opened the door I could see she didn’t have him. I asked her where the baby was and she said she left him loose in the living room while she went upstairs to take a nap! I screamed for my husband and flew out the front door. The baby had crawled across our lawn and the neighbor’s lawn and was literally at the curb about to crawl into the busy road. I snatched him up and stormed silently back into the house, shoving past my sister in law. She stammered out an apology. I just walked past her and my husband without a word. Later, my husband came upstairs and complained that I was rude to his sister. He got an earful then. She hasn’t been welcome in my home since.”
Nasty Plot Twist!
Our first daughter turned one shortly before Christmas in ’95. At that time, my in-laws lived in a town that was approximately a two hour drive from us. My mother-in-law asked if we’d be staying at their place on Christmas Eve, and we said, ‘No, it’s kind of difficult with a baby. We’ll drive out to join you on Christmas Day.’
She wasn’t happy, but she said, ‘Fine, but you have to be here by 10:00 a.m. That’s when we’ll be opening presents.’
So we got up bright and early on Christmas morning, gulped down breakfast, got the baby ready, and got on the road by 6:30 a.m. Driving was a bit slow due to some snow and ice, but we arrived at the in-laws’ house at 9:50 a.m. We grinned at each other with relief. We had done it! We entered the house, only to stare in dismay and consternation. There was torn wrapping paper everywhere. They had all opened their gifts without us! My husband isn’t one for confrontations normally, but he couldn’t help it this time. He cornered his mother in the kitchen and said angrily, ‘Why didn’t you wait for us? We got here on time!’
She said sweetly, ‘Oh, the kids didn’t want to wait.’
Said ‘kids’ were my husband’s younger sister and brother, who were 26 and 21 at the time. To this day, I’m convinced that she decided not to wait because she was punishing us for not staying overnight on Christmas Eve. Whatever. That told us how much we mattered to her, and after a couple more similar experiences, we put our collective feet down and have been celebrating Christmas Day in our own house ever since. After we had been doing the “celebrate in our own house” thing for a couple of years, my mother-in-law called on Christmas Day and berated my husband, calling him a ‘bad son’ who had, ‘turned his back on his family’. She made him cry. I’ll never forgive her for that.”
Mom Launches An Unending Onslaught
“So my husband and I have been married for two and a half years. When we first started dating, I asked to meet his mother because family is very important to me, and I have an extremely close relationship with my parents, so it seemed fitting to want to meet her. From the very first meeting, she automatically told me that he shouldn’t be dating me because he is too good looking to settle for me. She told me as soon as he left the room that he could have any woman he wanted, and I am simply not thin and beautiful enough for him. My husband and I are extremely open and share everything, so after we left he could tell something was wrong.
He is not close to his mother because she has a very strong addiction to prescription medications, so honestly she is not what you would call any mother of the year. We decided that it would be best if we just distanced ourselves from her, since she had decided that we shouldn’t be together. We were planning on having a nice simple little wedding, but we decided to get married at the justice of the peace, because his mother and his ex wife were making life very difficult, and we didn’t want them to ruin our day. The day before our wedding was my birthday, so we had agreed that we were just going to enjoy spending the day together and relax. For about twelve hours out of my birthday, I kept getting texts from his mother, saying that her son is an idiot if he marries me. Then she started getting extremely childish and sent me texts calling me a pig, as well as saying that our house is a dump. She even went onto my social media profile and commented on pictures of her son and I together, saying that she hopes he doesn’t marry me. She has even went and told everyone that she can that her son doesn’t want kids, and that I am going to push him into having them, so that when we get divorced I can get child support out of him.
After our honeymoon, we posted photos from various places in California, and she commented that we were the best looking gay couple, and that I just look like an ugly man. Unfortunately, we lost the baby three months into the pregnancy. Now she is going around telling people that we are murdering babies because I miscarried. I don’t know how much more of this I can handle. I have never done anything to this woman, yet no matter what, she seems determined to make my life as miserable as possible. It has come to a point that my husband and I have decided our children will never meet her, so she can never make them as miserable as she tries to with us. I think that it would be best for our kids if they never have to deal with her. She now claims that he stole her medication out of her house when he used to go visit her, just so that she can tell people that he’s an addict. She is not only trying to ruin my name but also her son’s. I just don’t understand what could make a mother want to act this way towards her own son and his wife.”
No Escape From Mommy
“The biggest regret from my wedding day was letting my now ex-mother-in-law dictate pretty much everything. It stopped being out wedding and quickly became her wedding. She is completely crazy. The entire day became less about me and my wife, and instead it was my mother-in-law handing my wife off to me. Some of the weirdest things she did include making a toast to herself, making a thirty minute long spech about raising my wife, cut the cake with my wife, tossed the bouquet herself, tried to place my small family over in the corner of the dining hall, and departed the wedding in the limousine with us. The weirdest one? The bridal lingerie my bride had on said, ‘Mommy’s girl.’
The wedding itself was completely ruined for me. The worst part of it all? This wedding set a precedent for my mother-in-law to do whatever she wanted to in our relationship, and my wife would always choose her side. This eventually caused a huge split, after my mother-in-law spanked my daughter, and my wife took the mother-in-law’s side.”
How To Destroy Your Relationship With Your Child
“My husband deployed last year. His mother went slightly insane because her husband had gone to Vietnam and left her when they were both very young. She kept pretending that her son (my husband) was her husband. She even went as far as to say that to my husband. She didn’t believe him that he really wasn’t going to a combat zone, and that there was little or no chance he would be in that much danger. The week before he left, she decided to throw him a shindig. She wanted him to dress up in his dress uniform and be paraded around all of her friends. She didn’t bother to tell me about it, and I couldn’t take off of work, so she monopolized the last weekend and pretty much the entire last week before he left. After he left, she began calling me, asking, ‘He called me, did he call you?’ with a nasty smirk. When my husband was in basic training, she made it into a competition to see who got more attention. For the deployment, I couldn’t handle that. I just decided to block her number. While he was gone, my husband communicated through social media. It was the least expensive and easiest way. His mom refused to use it because it was of the devil or something. About half way through, to get back at my husband for not calling her enough, she decided to write him a letter blaming him for absolutely everything that had gone wrong with her life since she had him. This came at a very bad time, because he was getting depressed. She let him know that he was the reason that her life was terrible, and that the only thing she felt guilty about was giving him an exorcism when he was 11. She is a very sick woman. It killed my husband. He was having a hard time of it anyway, and this just made it harder.
After the deployment, she decided she was going to have another shindig and parade my husband around again. Although my husband wanted to see them, he didn’t want to be paraded around, so at first he said he would go, but in a very mature move on his part, he let his parents know that he wasn’t coming. He let them know that he couldn’t handle being around other people quite yet. They decided that they were going to come see him if he wouldn’t see them. They showed up pretty much unannounced at or doorstep. I had to work. We went to breakfast. After breakfast, they came back to our house, I went to work, and in the four hour period that I was gone, they proceeded to destroy whatever glimmer of relationship they had with their son. I walked in the door, and his mom kind of giggled, explaining that they were having a ‘therapy’ session. My husband just got up and said that he had had enough and he was going to play video games. I sat there, with his parents, for two uncomfortable hours trying to think of things to talk about. They finally left and my husband told me what they had talked about.
Basically, his parents let him know that he was the cause of all their problems. They loved him, but if it wasn’t for him, their lives would have been much better. They beat him, but only because he made them. That if he hadn’t been such a head strong child at two, they might have been able to do a better job. The list goes on and on. That was almost a year ago. His mom calls, but only to let him know again what a horrible child he was, so he doesn’t talk to them. I don’t know if that is worse than not protecting when he was younger and being assaulted. Or if always making his ‘golden child’ brother the center of attention is a worse thing, but this is just the latest thing.”
Nothing Says Christmas Spirit Like… This?
“For Christmas a few years ago, my fiancé’s parents got me a $10 gift card to Barnes and Noble. I’m a very polite and grateful gift receiver, and it’s the thought that counts, right? A $10 gift card doesn’t seem so bad after all. I hugged them and thanked them as profusely as I would have if they had handed me $100. Which, incidentally, is what they did with my fiancé’s sibling’s significant others. Along with a $50 gift card to the same bookstore. So they gave her brother’s girlfriend and sister’s fiancé $100 cash and a $50 gift card to Barnes and Noble. Here’s the kicker: while sitting around with the family, I happen to check my email. Barnes and Noble is running a special for Christmas. Buy $100 worth of gift cards and get an additional $10 gift card for free. For some reason I found it extremely funny. Last year they gave me a votive they had found whilst cleaning out their recently deceased grandmother’s condo, along with three tea lights. Also pretty hilarious to me.
The Horrid Truth Comes Out
“This weekend, I, a twenty-six-year-old female, went on a family vacation with my in laws. It was pretty nice, featuring a lot of hiking in the mountains and scenic views. But when we got home, my partner, a twenty-nine-year-old male, received a very candid and extremely hurtful email about me from his mother. To summarize the content, apparently I’m a fat, unattractive, unfeminine, unmannered, manipulative girl, and how could any man be attracted to me?! Her thoughts were actually pretty graphically detailed. She told my partner that I’m too unattractive to be with him and that he should find someone better to date, ‘Because the quality of a man’s woman reflects back on him.’
My partner obviously disagrees with everything she wrote, but he’s completely unsure about how he should reply. He was raised to never talk back to her, so he doesn’t know how to talk to her without her completely steamrolling over him. I want to support and help him as much as I can, but I’m not sure what I can do. What she wrote about me is very hurtful, but what hurts more for me is to see my partner suffer. He’s been upset and despondent about it ever since we got home. Please note that he’s not trying to make the situation about himself, but it’s harder for him because he’s the one who actually has to do something about the email with all her unwanted thoughts. It’s also important for me to point out that she and I don’t speak a common language, so I can’t really talk to her without my partner or his sister translating. Otherwise, I would call her myself and give her a piece of my own mind about her atrociously unmannered and narcissistic behavior!”
Bakery Showdown
“I work part time in a bakery. We have three employers who specialize in wedding cake design. Part of my job is to meet with the customers, show them our list of flavors and photos of previously made wedding cakes, and to get a feel for which designer would best fit their needs. There was a couple scheduled to be seen at 9:30 this morning. Imagine my surprise when they show up at 8:15 with an older woman in tow. It’s a little annoying because we were slammed with a morning rush, but my boss told me to take care of them instead. So I go over, introduce myself to the couple, give my congratulations, and do the normal song and dance. The bride takes the book and holds it in her lap, so only she and her fiancé can see it. The older woman sighs and goes outside to smoke. The couple is lovely and have flagged four designs they liked within fifteen minutes. The older woman comes back in and asks what she missed. The fiancé shows her the designs they like, and she automatically starts to complain. No, that’s too detailed. That’s too plain. That’s not big enough. That’s too big. It was like listening to an old cranky version of Goldilocks.
I side-eye this older woman and ask the bride how many guests they are having. She answers, but the older woman intervenes again and gives a number that is twice what the bride said. The bride reiterates the original number and tells the mother-in-law that they are having a small wedding. The older woman whines and says she’s already invited people and can’t un-invite them, because it would be rude. The bride shrugs. The mother-in-law turns to me and tells me the larger number again. She ranted about how it was her right to come here, even though the bride had the final say. After wearing herself out, the old woman went outside to smoke. I was staring at the bride in wonder, since she was abel to put up with all of that so effectively. The groom went outside to attempt to control his mother. He looks like he’s heading to a firing squad. The bride turned to me and apologizes for the scene. She asks about setting up a tasting and meeting with the designer. I schedule the appointments and let her know we can set a password, so no unauthorized changes can be made to the dates or cake. She takes me up on the offer, tells me to make a note to not share the password with her future husband, and leaves. I am torn between awe at her spine and sympathy that she felt the need to use the password and hide it from her future husband.”
She Sank To The Lowest Low
“My husband is from Romania, and his mother came to live with us for a year while waiting for her green card. The plan was that she would then spend six months a year with us in America, and six months a year in Romania. I knew she was the matriarch of the family, and my husband was her first boy. But this woman hated me on sight. She said the most awful things to me. I was too young and too pretty to be with her son for anything other than his money. She would do things like go through my purse when I wasn’t looking and throw out my $40 Chanel lipstick. One of the most hurtful things she would do was turn around the pictures I had in the house of my mom, who died at age 34 when I was 12. She pitted my husband against me. She made it out like I was setting her up and lying about it. The final straw came when I came home from a long, stressful day at work. I sat down at the kitchen table to go through the mail. Over the course of the ten months she was with us by then, downstairs became ‘her domain’. I would retreat immediately upstairs to our bedroom and watch TV or read until my husband came home. She made him dinner every night, which I wasn’t allowed to eat with them. He would sit with her and have dinner and eventually come upstairs to greet me. When she went to bed, we were free to go downstairs and watch TV or something.
She was most unhappy that I had the nerve to sit at ‘her’ kitchen table. She picked up my sunglasses from where they were on the table and threw them against the wall. Then she started berating me in Romanian. I ignored her and continued going through the mail, which infuriated her. She stood over me and continued yelling. My dog, a little Yorkie who weighs all of eight pounds, was very upset about this. We went through a lot together during my previous marriage, and she is still very sensitive to fighting or yelling of any kind. She stood next to my feet and started barking. As I reached down to calm her, my mother-in-law kicked her. Right in the face. My dog yelped, and I could hear her teeth crack together. I stood up so fast I knocked over the chair. I grabbed my dog and my purse and left in my car. I called my husband at work, slightly hysterical, I will admit. I told him, ‘This is it. I am going to a hotel. Either she goes, or I go.’
She flew home to Romania three days later. I can handle a bully, but I cannot handle abuse of my dog, and my husband couldn’t either. When it came time for her to have to return to the US due to her green card, I absolutely refused. Her green card was invalidated because she stayed outside the US for too long. I don’t know if we will try to sponsor her again in the future, but it hasn’t come up in discussion lately.”