When someone gets married, they're not just marrying their spouse. They're also marrying into a new family! In-laws can make a wonderful addition to someone's life, and provide countless laughs and memories. Unfortunately, sometimes that's not the case.
People on Quora share what made them furious at their in-laws. Content has been edited for clarity.
A Regular Occurence
“It was Christmas time. My husband was in college full time, and I was working to pay the bills. We had one child. My in-laws said they were planning on spending Christmas with my husband’s little brother,, who was going to college in another state. His brother had a wife and a child. His parents stopped by on the way through our city to his little brother’s city. When they got there, we visited for awhile and then they said they had to leave so they wouldn’t be on the road too late. We followed them to the car. My in-laws told us they had presents for us. The backseat of their car was full of Christmas presents.
My mother-in-law opened the back door and started going through the gifts saying, ‘Oh this ones for brother, this one is for sister-in-law, this one is for their child.’
After going through at least four gifts for each person, she found one gift for our daughter. And then she handed an envelope to my husband.
They said, ‘That’s it. We will see you later.’
We walked into the little trailer house we were living in, and put the gift under our tiny tree and the envelope in the trees branches.
After we went to bed, I asked my husband if he was upset by the lack of gifts. He said he figured the envelope was a big check. So he got out of bed and got the envelope brought it into the bedroom to open. There was a check but it was for $25. That’s it. I was so angry. But would find it wouldn’t be the first or the last time they treated their son like trash.”
Always Listen To Mom
“When our oldest son was about three, we went on vacation with my in-laws. My son had tubes in his ears, and the kids were doing a lot of swimming. My mother-in-law decided she wanted all of the kids to put a rubbing solution in their ears to get the water out. I told her absolutely we will not do this to Jacob, as he has the tubes in his ears. The tubes are in to drain fluid so he did not need this done. She was very insistent and I kept telling her no and explaining why. I got in the shower and she talked my husband into it. All I heard was my baby screaming like I had never heard.
I rushed out of the shower to see what was going on to find out that my husband had put the solution in his ears to please his mother. I was so mad, I said a few choice words to her and I’m sure I had fire coming out of my ears. I did not, however, my son felt like he did. We flushed his ears with water but the screaming continued. We made the decision to take him to the emergency room where they did the same thing we were doing.
Finally, the burning subsided and we were able to go back to our condo where my son got lots of attention and cuddles all night. I have never been so angry at someone in my entire life. I told her when I make a decision regarding one of my children she will do what I say, or she will not see them.”
“He Honestly Scares Me A Little”
“My soon to be father-in-law (FIL) is terrible.
Within six months of dating my fiancé, he out of nowhere started a massive fight and he and my fiancé stopped talking. My FIL found me on Facebook and started commenting on my posts, telling me to leave his son. I blocked him, but then he sent me a long email telling me that my fiancé would do nothing with his life and I should leave him before he ruins my life. I deleted the email and told my fiancé I was scared of his dad, and he needed to end this fight or something.
The fight ended when my FIL somehow found my address and came, uninvited, to my parents home to confront my fiancé. They talked it out and that was it.
Then three years into dating my fiancé, my FIL was rushed to the hospital and almost died. Something like a cyst burst on his spine and he was septic. He lived! But my fiancé likes to put his fight and all the crazy things he said and did after that on the undiscovered cyst. So I fully forgave him and moved on.
Four years into our relationship, and the man still doesn’t know my name. My fiancé and I were getting tired of living with my parents so he invited us to rent his basement apartment for $400. We were going to get married that summer so we thought it would be perfect to get out into our ‘own’ place and still be able to save money! Two months into living there and fixing up the nasty apartment (at least $1000 worth of work), he doubled our rent to $800. He wanted to refinance his home. I honestly think he intended to have us pay $800 from the start, but he just needed us to move in first.
We couldn’t move back into my parents house due to construction, and we couldn’t afford to move out so we ended up struggling for seven months. I lost all the money in my savings, my fiancé almost maxed out his credit card, and we had to postpone our wedding and stop saving for a house. I worked two jobs while finishing up my degree and my fiancé already worked a full time job and paid most of our bills. The apartment had mold and we could hear my FIL and the two other renters constantly fighting and throwing things. One was an heavy drinker, and always vomited in front of our door. When winter came I missed work and some school days because he didn’t want to hire someone to plow the quarter mile driveway.
When summer hit, I was about to ask my parents if we could fix up their basement and move in there. We were broke, and did not feel safe living there. Then, my father-in-law got evicted from the property. He must not have been paying the mortgage, even though he said the refinancing went through. Then he accused us of saying we never paid him and he never asked us to pay him rent. I showed him all the receipts and all the checks made out to him and checks he cashed when he refused to give us receipts.
I have not seen the man since I moved out of his house. My fiancé was having breakfast once every other week with him, but my FIL started drinking heavily and was hammered every time my fiancé met with him. My mother-in-law said one of the reasons she left him was due to his drinking, and I have never seen him without a drink.
My FIL is invited to our wedding because I want to make my fiancé happy. But I have told him that I do not want photos of me and him together. He has hurt my fiancé time and time again, and also hurt me. He honestly scares me a little. My fiancé understands how I feel ,and is the most amazing man in the world and I couldn’t be happier. I have an amazing relationship with his mother and siblings, I just truly wish, for my fiancé’s sake, that someday my FIL becomes a better man.”
She Didn’t Give Her A Hand When She Needed It
“My ex mother-in-law was awful.
My marriage was toxic, and it took a very long time for me to see it. When I did, I knew I had no option but to leave. I offered to pay my half of the rent for the last month as I knew I had not given notice. My mother-in-law owned the house, which she was renting to us privately (without declaring her income). My ex refused. When I told him I was leaving, he smashed up a door, while I ran out of the house.
I had nowhere to stay. I stayed with a friend in the meantime but I had to call mother-in-law to ask for a landlords reference, as I was having a hard time finding somewhere to stay and this was a requirement for some agencies. She essentially refused, as she didn’t want to get in trouble for renting to us illegally. During that call, she found out I still had house keys. Most of my stuff was there and I had nowhere to put it, as I was homeless. She said she didn’t trust me to have house keys, and wasn’t comfortable with me having them any more. She demanded I return them to her tomorrow. I was devastated. I had known this woman for 10 years. I had helped her and her family, had invited them to birthdays, tried to be friendly with her. She trusted me to visit her father who had deteriorating dementia, drive him to visit her mother and spend time with him (along with my ex), but suddenly did not trust me with keys to the home I had been living in for five years.
The next day, I contacted my uncle-in-law, who was related to them by marriage to drop off the keys. I left them with him. When I went to drop them off I mentioned there was damage to the door and that I hadn’t done that. My aunt-in-law sneered and said they knew. I still don’t know what that look meant, but I was too emotionally exhausted to ask or do anything about it, I just left the keys.
I had to contact my ex to let me in a few days later to get some of my things. My mum and my friends mum had rallied and found some space for me to put some things until I found a place to live. I collected what I could, filling up the van, and had to leave the rest. I lost a lot of money and items. Many things went missing before I got there. Most of what was left at that point was furniture and other large items. On leaving, while I still had keys, I had got a friend to come with me and pack up the van with my clothes etc. He ignored me most of the time I was packing things up. Then as I was leaving, he proceeded to yell insults at me in the street, calling me names, telling me I had cheated, accusing me of being a liar and not being true to my promises, blaming a ‘depression’ he didn’t have for his actions. I cried for 3 hours afterwards. I made sure he didn’t see me cry before I left.
Had I had keys I wouldn’t have had to deal with that. I had only asked for an extra week with keys so that I could finish moving my things. I wasn’t angry at my mother-in-law at the time, I was just devastated. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, I had lost my home, my dogs, I was homeless and having to rely on the kindness of strangers, I was trying to hold my business together throughout all this.
Looking back on it, I’m livid. After everything I did. All the abuse I had to endure, everything that happened. She could have shown a little kindness. After all, I was the same person I had always been, and she had no qualms about accepting my help or trusting me before. Maybe he had told her lies about me and that shaped her opinion, I suspect he had been doing this for years. But to know that I was homeless, and that on leaving, her son had destroyed part of the house in anger, those two things should at least have told her something. At my most vulnerable time, I asked her for a week, and she told me no.”
Good Riddance
“My oldest daughter was two years old, and I was pregnant at the time with her sister. My ex was working at a warehouse, and his 12-hour shifts ran from six am to six pm. So his mom would take me to my obstetrics visits and the grocery. My two-year old had gotten sick and I had to take her to the doctor. So his mom comes to pick us up.
When I told her what doctor we were going to she slammed on the brakes and refused to go there. The doctor was in the local health department and she stated ‘those doctors are for poor people.’
I had Medicaid for both my daughter and myself at the time and we were technically poor. His parents are well off, so she was too good to go there. But she took us to the appointment just the same. When she took me home she went on a rant about how I was a terrible mother and I didn’t deserve to have children. As I got out of the car with my daughter, she tried to snatch her out of my arms. She started saying she would take better care of my daughter than I ever could. It turned into a struggle and I almost punched her. I managed to get away from her and get inside the house. I promptly called the police and they took her off the property. I avoided interaction with her as much as possible for the remainder of the time I was married to him. So glad I don’t have to deal with her anymore.”
A Wedding Photo To Remember
“It was about 10 days before our wedding. We were visiting her mom and dad’s house for that few days leading up to the big day. Her dad treated me fine, but her mother didn’t speak to me and pretty much acted like I didn’t exist.
If her daughter and I were in a room together, she would literally go up to her daughter and ask her something like, ‘Does he want iced tea with supper?’
Honestly, I didn’t give two thoughts about her opinion of me. What angered me was how it made her daughter feel.
As we got ready to go out to eat, my soon to be wife was in the bathroom with her mother doing hair and makeup etc. I walked down the hall to ask my fiancée something, but I stopped when I overheard her mother say…
‘I think you should just tell him that you’ve changed your mind and you aren’t ready to get married yet.’
(This whole exchange made me love and respect my girl even more than I already did) Wife: ‘But that isn’t true, I am ready to get married. I love him and I’m going to marry him.’
Mom: ‘I think you are making a huge mistake marrying him. Your father agrees with me.’
My wife: ‘Good thing I am in charge of my own life then. You and dad haven’t even given him a chance, so your opinion is ridiculous. I’m embarrassed for you. You harping on me about this is just wrong, mother. It is stressing me out. If you don’t stop this, we will go stay at someone else’s house for the next few days.’
We had moved 550 miles away from her parents, but opted to have our wedding in her hometown, near her family and friends.
Mom replied: ‘Fine then! I will drop it.’
Then she stomped out of the bathroom and ran right into me…leaning against the wall just outside of the doorway. I didn’t say a word. She knew I heard the entire exchange.
On schedule, I proudly married my beautiful young bride on March 4th, 1989. She was 20, and I was nearly 23. In our wedding pix, in every single photo that included her mother, she had sourest and bitter expression on her face one could imagine. If you were looking at a photo of a line of our family and friends, you’d see big smile, big smile, big smile, bitter/sour/brat face, big smile, big smile etc.
While perusing the pictures later, I asked my wife what I did that made her parents hate me.
She said that her mom thinks my mom, whom they had met a couple of weeks before the bathroom show, was snobby. That was her mom’s excuse, at the time. My mom was indeed a bit snobby. However, she loved my wife and always treated her like gold.
My mom did not care for my new in-laws because during dinner, the night they all met for the first time, my mother saw her mother roll her eyes at her husband every time I said something.
It seriously angered my mom to see that woman treat me that disrespectfully for no valid reason, behind my back. Can’t say I blame her for disliking the old woman.”
She Had Every Reason To Be Upset
“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 sister took our 10-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 ‘Sorry.’
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.”
“Never Been So Infuriated In My Life”
“My mother-in-law was talking to me about getting my daughter’s ears pierced. She was three months at the time, and I was more than okay with it. At less than two months, my parents got mine pierced. I have never had an issue with them getting infected or closing up.
We (my husband and myself) went to go visit my in-laws, and they had been talking about getting my daughter’s ears pierced. Again, I was okay with this. My mother-in-law and my sisters-in-law left with my daughter (I assumed to just spend time with her as they live is CA and we live in WA), and came back with her ears pierced.
They said that they didn’t think that I would want to go because she would be in pain. I have never been so infuriated in my life. They almost lost all rights to going anywhere with her, but my husband convinced me otherwise. And it was somehow me being crazy. No, you took my child without my permission to get her ears pierced. They weren’t even, even. One of them was at the bottom of her ear – I was so mad.”
“Shocked, Hurt And Angry”
“I had just had a miscarriage the night previous or the night before that – I was still bleeding heavily and the emotional pain was still very fresh. My mother-in-law asked how I was feeling, and if we knew what it was yet. I teared up, trying not to cry.
My husband choked out, ‘She lost him, just yesterday.’
His dad said, ‘This is a blessing. She can’t even take care of the one she already has, you guys had no business making another one to start with, and God fixed your mistake for you.’
I was so shocked, hurt and angry. I didn’t trust myself to even stay in that house. I turned on my heel and rushed out the door without a sound, and without looking back.”
What Was She Hoping To Gain?
“My husband was in the army overseas, and I was left at home until I could join him. I was living with my mother-in-law. I thought everything was good between us, because that was the only face she showed to me.
I would leave at night when my folks were home to visit. I would walk to visit a friend who lived close by, and often, I babysat her three sons. If she was going to be late, she would let me spend the night instead of the walk back home, since I didn’t have a car. So sometimes, I did spend the night when my friend got home late.
I always told my mother-in-law where I was going and when I would be home. Always!
I found out my mother-in-law was writing and telling my then-husband I was never home, and she didn’t know where I was going. She told him sometimes I didn’t come home at night. She drew the conclusion that I was cheating.
I moved out the next day, and moved in with my friend with the three boys.
My husband asked me about it. Since I had been writing and telling him what I was doing, it all made sense to him and we were good.
The relationship between my mother-in-law and myself was not the same. I had plenty to say to her before I moved out. I can’t remember ever having been that angry.”