Marriage isn’t easy, but it doesn’t help when the mother-in-law (MIL) is causing some of the problems. These women share the most disrespectful thing their MIL has ever done to them and I'm absolutely shocked. Content has been edited for clarity purposes.
“I Did My Level Best” But It Still Wasn’t Enough For Her
“My MIL was a piece of work. I could write a book based entirely on this woman. I’ll be the first to say she was a very strong, courageous woman. But she despised me because I didn’t spoil her little boy rotten and kowtow to him. I didn’t cook well enough, my house was never clean enough, I was never a good mother, I was always lazy regardless of how hard I worked and the sacrifices I made, I was a wretched wife, when I worked I didn’t hand over my entire paycheck to her baby boy – and because of that, he had to ‘pull a double load.’
She and her husband would come to visit, then sit at the sufreh (a tablecloth spread out on the floor for meals) and claim they weren’t hungry and so they wouldn’t eat. Then they’d go back home and say I didn’t feed them. Were they lying? No! Cause, yes, I didn’t feed them! All they had to do was omit the fact that they were the ones who refused to eat so it would shed a horrible light on me.
Every visit, either us visiting them or visa versa, she and her daughters would gather together and bad-mouth me. They’d laugh at me and mock me for every little thing their wretched little minds could make up. They’d make fun of my attempts at helping them with tasks I had no knowledge of. They never let me live down the way I sliced the potatoes french fry style and ‘ruined’ the entire meal as a result. They were fried and a side dish, so the shape could not have changed the flavor or ruined the entire meal (they cut them in wedge shapes, as I learned). I wanted to help, but I became weary of their anger, intolerance, insults, and mocking. So, I finally stopped helping with meals (I did help with everything else). They loved it because it validated their constant lies.
I found out I would have to wash clothes by hand, which, as an American, I had never done. But I was willing to learn. While I did, they sat off to the side and made fun of me by laughing, sneering, mimicking my attempts, and even claiming how I washed the clothes was a sign of sheer laziness and sloppiness. I. Did. My. Level. Best.
Thruout the ten years I was there, however, my MIL did come through many times for me. I’m sure once she returned home she griped and complained and expressed her sheer dislike of me, but her help was immeasurably appreciated.
When my son was born, I was distressed when none of them came to visit me or him in the hospital. I was alone for three days in a dirty government hospital, surrounded by nurses I couldn’t understand, tolerating a slimeball of a janitor who would lean over my bed to stare at me as I slept. I kept waking up to find him almost nose to nose with me.
I went hungry from the time I went into labor and the entire day after I delivered. No one called, no one checked on me, I didn’t know the family was supposed to bring food. My son and I almost died when I had him, the doctor missed clear signs of distress and by the time she did, it was too late for a cesarean. He became lodged in my narrow pelvis and wasn’t getting enough oxygen. They had to break his collarbone to facilitate delivery. My son was whisked off as soon as he was born and I wasn’t allowed to see him for three days, leaving me to imagine the worst.
A friend who accompanied me during labor and delivery brought me a little food, but it wasn’t enough to sustain me. She had a family member who was dying so she couldn’t stay but assumed my own husband and in-laws would be there. My ex-husband finally arrived late that night with flowers someone else bought and a small Iranian-style pizza (like a small tortilla with a few toppings). I almost inhaled it. The following day, I went hungry again. The lady who shared my room felt sorry for me and had her family (who were there for her) bring a big meal for me. I started crying.
This, I will never forgive. I remember one of the nights I was there in the hospital, I dreamed my mother was at the nurse’s station and I heard her. I started calling out to her so she’d know where I was, but she couldn’t find me. I woke up calling out, ‘Mom, I’m here!’ And then reality hit. I was still alone in that awful place so far from home, still had not held my newborn, and was still hungry.
But, despite that, my MIL later finally came to our home with some other family members, and she ended up staying for about a week to help. When it came time to go, she began crying and told my ex-husband that I was going to kill my newborn and she just knew it and to let her have my son.
That was the worst, and I will never find it in my heart to forgive or ‘try to understand’. No matter the help she did provide since this has marred it irreparably.”
A Not So Happy Holidays!
“After about two years of marriage, we moved into a bigger home. That Christmas we decided to host at our house to invite both our families. I was excited to show the moms I could host a big dinner, they asked if they could bring anything I said maybe a side dish or dessert or something, not a big deal. Well came that afternoon, my mother-in-law showed up with tin-lined boxes filled with an entire cooked turkey dinner.
My dinner was almost ready but she insisted on hers. She also brought all her dishes and place settings, a centerpiece for the table, glasses, you name it. She placed her hand soap in my kitchen to go with the tea towels, kitchen rugs, and other kitchen decors from her house. She insisted they wear their slippers in case my floors weren’t clean, but they were. I was ticked off but I let it go. Then, my own mother who thought it was all weird, came to me and asked if I’d seen my washroom yet.
The woman went as far as to redecorate my entire bathroom right down to the shower curtain with all stuff from her house. I was flabbergasted. I’d never seen anyone behave this way, she told me she wanted her husband to feel comfortable. He was pretty laid back and wasted and probably didn’t give a hoot.
When she left that night, she re-packed all of her boxes with all her items and left. I told my husband, he needed to talk to her and that can’t ever happen again. Low and behold, come Easter, the same thing happened. I’d had enough. She could do it at her house from now on. The following Christmas, my new son was nine days old. She showed up at seven am with a camera and tripod. She insisted were doing a family photo right then and there. I kicked her out of my house that day and never looked back. We’re divorced now.”
Momma’s Boy
“When I first got married, my mother-in-law used to call the house on Saturdays, very early in the morning. She knew very well we slept in late on Saturdays. She would call and ask me what did I fix for her son for breakfast or order me to get up and cook him breakfast. She would say things like, ‘His shirts don’t look clean, what are you using to wash them or how much salt are you putting in his food? He looks like he is swelling.’
My mother-in-law would call me to tell me what I should cook for his dinner or how to wash his clothes. She even tried to tell me what to wear to bed one time, and on and on. This went on for a while. I told my husband to please tell his mother to stop calling so early in the morning and to leave me alone. Nothing! He was afraid of his mother for reasons I found out later.
Well, anyone who knows me can finish writing this story but here’s what I did to put an end to that nonsense.
I packed my husband’s things up when he was at work. We had only one car at that time so I had to take and pick him up from work. When I picked him up from work that day, I drove directly to his mother’s house. On the way there, my husband asked why are we going to his mother’s house, ‘to see your mom’ I replied. When we got there, I took the suitcase out of the trunk, walked into the house. I told her if she thinks she can be a better wife to her son, then she can have him back. I dropped the suitcase and left. My husband was furious (understatement) with me but I had had enough and he was not doing anything to help the harassment I was getting from his mother.
My husband called from his mother’s house telling me to come and get him right now (among other words used). I told him only if he would tell his mother to stop harassing me. I don’t know what they talked about but when I got back to the house, but she was upstairs crying. We drove home in total silence the entire ride.
She stopped calling me on those ungodly hours but things were never the same between her and me. My husband never tried to get me and his mother on good terms. Knowing his mother, and the fact that I was raised by my grandmother, he may have thought it was a good idea if we were kept apart as much as possible.
By the way, I got the advice to do this from my grandmother. She told me to ‘take his narrow behind back to his mother, don’t put up with that nonsense. And if she continues to give you a hard time, tell me and I will handle her.'”
The Worst Mother-In-Law, Mother, AND Grandmother
“I have two mothers-in-law, one is my husband’s biological mom and the other is his stepmom of about five years. The stepmom is a malignant narcissist and I limit my interaction with her severely as she has made her position known over the years.
The biological mother-in-law was at one time a fairly reasonable human to deal with. Over Christmas, she begged us to let her move in with us as she sold her house and blew through the money, and her roommate/girlfriend of four years was kicking her out to make room for her returning daughter and grandkids. My MIL was crying, begging, and blessing my husband, he wanted to help. I didn’t want to see her on the street, so I agreed. The three of us agreed on the condition that she would pay 600 dollars for a full room and board in order for us to afford an apartment that had three bedrooms, an upgrade that more than doubled the rent we were paying at the time. We all moved in together. I was so stupid, hoping for the family to grow close and for my son to have a connection with at least one grandparent who wasn’t a raging psycho. She turned out to be the worst.
After the first day of living with us, it went downhill. She physically attacked me in front of my son (her grandson), stole numerous items, including money, from myself, her grandson, and her own son. She spread vicious lies and rumors about me in particular to the rest of the family, even going so far as to claim I was badmouthing my young nieces. She hurled insults at me constantly – even once saying my husband was going to divorce me because I was a prick.
She went through my dresser drawers and other places I kept highly personal items, then when a keyed lock was installed on our bedroom door, she picked the lock to do it again, twice. She was frequently wasted or whacked out on her prescribed meds, belligerent, demanding, and entitled. She had the cajones to yell at my son who at four years old confronted her for stealing from his piggy bank, and when I informed her she’d find my foot so far up her rear end that she’d taste nail polish if she ever yelled at him again. She called me a ‘smelly witch’ and stabbed me in the nose with her bitten-up cuticles.
She offended me daily by eating at my table with the worst manners I’d ever seen, to the point we started eating meals without her so she couldn’t spray partially chewed food on us while she was yelling with her mouth full. The grossest? She would use the bathroom, go number two, not flush, and throw the used toilet paper in the bathroom garbage can for all to admire. This all transpired in one month. My husband and I were arguing nearly every night over her psychotic – nay, satanic presence and I’m sure I levied on him at least once that it was gonna be her or me because there was no way in heck we were continuing on for another 11 months.
When the first month’s rent came due, she refused to pay her share. The next day I drafted a letter reminding her of our agreement and informed her if she did not pay by the fifth she would have to seek an alternate living arrangement. I provided her with a list of assisted living facilities based on income and the contact info for a female-only shelter. She refused to pay and she refused to move out. The property managers and the police said there was nothing we could do unless we went to the small claims court for the rent.
I got her back in a number of ways that no one will ever know about before the shite truly hit the fan.
That fateful night, my husband found out she had been sitting at the bar for 14 hours while claiming to be unable to afford to pay her rent. He triple-locked the front door from the inside and we settled down for a peaceful night’s sleep. She showed up stumbling wasted, I mean I don’t know how she avoided a car accident, and banging on all the neighbor’s windows before reaching our bedroom window at three am (my husband gets up for work at five am) demanding that we give her money since she drank her money away at the bar all day. He put his clothes on, made her a sandwich and a glass of water, brought it out to her, and told her she could sleep in her car for all he cared, she was never setting foot inside again. He told her not to ask for a nickel, not a stick of gum, nothing. He was so disgusted by her behavior, namely the theft and the fact his son was exposed to all this, that he told her to never come to his door again and he didn’t want anything to do with her until she got some mental and emotional help. My husband is a tender and patient person with a great deal of empathy, and he was livid, so this was heartbreaking for him. She was in our home for just over one month and never paid a cent for her portion of the rent. She did leave everything she owned in the room for three months before she came and got it.
The worst offense was this: She refused to sign herself out of the lease so she retained the full legal right to enter and there was nothing we could do about it, again, except small claims court. The police told us if we changed the locks to protect ourselves we would be charged with unlawful eviction.
Several months later, while we were out of town and some other ‘family member’ let her know, she used her key to enter our apartment, took over 800 dollars worth of stuff including two very nice pairs of boots I’d owned for five years and a cast-iron stockpot that we had borrowed from someone else. Before she left she dropped sedative pills in the carpet where my son later found them.
Thankfully he asked about the ‘candy’ before he ate it. I called the police, and I even gave the pills to the officer. Despite the fact she committed theft and potentially could have killed my son, the police said again ‘small claims were it.’ She entered lawfully. Despite remaining unlawfully and committing theft, but I digress.
We helped a destitute woman, my husband’s mother, and she burnt us badly. Since February, my husband and I have barely scraped by paying more for rent than a mortgage cost. When our car broke down and died, we went three months with no vehicle as there was just no way to save up a down payment.”
Funeral Arrangements
“My FIL passed away several months ago. He was one of the kindest and most loving men I have ever known. My husband and I flew into town when he was in the hospital with our three children. Two of them are from my first marriage, so not biologically his. However, they refer to him as their dad, and he has been in every sense. Our third child is our only child together. We also have an adult child from his first marriage who was 20 at the time. It must also be said that my FIL loved all of our children unconditionally.
My husband and I, as well as all three children, were at the hospital around the clock. We left for about six to eight hours a day in shifts so that we could get some sleep and give the kids short breaks from the waiting room in ICU. The 20-year-old was nowhere to be found and wouldn’t answer his cell phone or respond to messages. My FIL passed away, and we were helping my MIL make arrangements with the funeral home. During this time, my MIL was asked who to list in the obituary.
She said of course herself, my husband, my brother-in-law, and sister-in-law, and her two grandchildren, the 20-year-old, who still hadn’t shown his face and our baby girl. She decided that apparently, our two other children didn’t count despite the fact that they are now also my husband’s children. To top it off, her oldest grandchild didn’t bother to show up for any of the wakes (there were three viewings) or the funeral. He finally came around after the funeral with the excuse that he was helping set up furniture at a friend’s house, but he counted enough for the obituary.”
Christmas Dilemma
“When I first started dating my current husband, she would purposely keep his ex-girlfriend around her house so I’d never come over. When I did finally come around, she had pictures of his ex-girlfriend everywhere.
When he and I started living together, she’d only come to visit if she knew that I would be gone for an extensive amount of time. And is still doing this today, 15 years later. Any questions she had for me, she’d tell her son to ask me. A recipe, a job opening, the name of a store, I mean anything.
One good example is Christmas, she’d ask her son what I would like for Christmas every single year. He in turn would ask me and usually send her a few things that I had written down that I needed. Every Christmas I watched my sister-in-law (her daughter) open every single thing I had on my list. I would get some ridiculous gift that I never even knew what to do with.
When we got married she wore a black funeral dress to our wedding.
When I was in labor about to have our first child, she was in the hospital room with me, my husband, and my mother. As time was dragging on, the doctor decided to go ahead a prep me for surgery and so she said to my husband right in front of me, ‘You don’t need to stay here overnight, it will be so uncomfortable. Why don’t you come back to my house and play video games.’
I could have blown fire of how I was so mad. Yeah sure go ahead and leave me to go through this alone! That one really, really hurt.
Years go by and we have two kids now. She demands to have Christmas with his side on Christmas Eve like she always has. I’m talking eight pm we finally eat and 10 pm we open gifts then leave around midnight. I had two toddlers in the middle of winter, my own Christmas morning to prepare for, and my own Christmas Eve traditions I wanted to start with my children. So by the time my oldest was four, I knew I couldn’t keep doing this so late at night on Christmas Eve anymore. I asked if we could simply have it earlier around four pm. I had ruined her life and I had the entire family yell at me for it. Finally, I had enough and we stopped coming. They all still have it and we are the black sheep for it.
I have never done a single thing to this woman.”
“Who Gives A Five-Month-Old Baby Chocolate Milk?”
“I was an older mum at 37 and had been told by my consultant, after several tragedies, I would never be able to carry a viable pregnancy. Well, I did. Albeit a lot of time in hospital, an early c-section, and a son born with (realistically compared to many) minor health problems. These problems included allergies to all sorts of things but there were some which we only discovered during weaning; eggs, cows milk, dairy, bananas.
My step MIL decided I was attention-seeking. Caught her trying to give my five-month-old chocolate milk. I snatched it out of her hand just in time. He was only five months old. Really? Who gives a five-month-old baby chocolate milk, let alone when you know they have dairy allergies.
My husband and I told everyone about our son’s allergies.
At eight months, I caught her at a family party giving my son one of those hard round lollipops on sticks. I’m not sure what they’re called, but definitely inappropriate for a baby as they come off the sticks. Instant choking perhaps? Her excuse when I grabbed it from my son’s mouth was, ‘Well I gave them to my kids and they’re all fine.’
Sure you did lady, but not at eight months old. I limited contact as much as possible as I didn’t trust her.
My lovely FIL had always treated her kids and then their kids as his own. However, my husband was his only son, and our son was his only actual grandchild, plus the only boy amongst grandkids and who would carry his name. And she always resented it. That his only son and I had a baby. She was always lovely to me each previous time when it ended up no living baby.
Anyway, the next time I caught step MIL, she was giving my less than a year old son whole grapes. How many times have we read about young children choking on whole grapes? After that, I stopped all contact, used to take my son to see grandad at work. I never let my son go to their house to visit without me or his dad. Her next move was to buy milk chocolate Easter eggs for my son and bad mouth me to others when my husband talked to his dad at work about it all. Lovely FIL did support us but yeah, we understood he wanted a quiet life at home. This woman then banned him from putting photos up of his only grandchild at home; he used to keep them in his office. Only photos of her children and grandchildren were allowed at home. I thought that was weak of him but at least our son had a relationship with grandad. The final straw was when I had a friend who ran a local fruit and vegetable stall so used to go there frequently and also chat.
I was there one day with my baby son who sleeping in the car, parked up at the back out of the way but where we could see him. My step MIL also came to stall. She was being quite amicable and I was all in favor of being nice. Then she asked to see my son. I just asked her not to wake him and resumed my conversation with a friend thinking my son would be perfectly safe. Suddenly my friend flew across and almost rugby tackled my step MIL.
She had seen her pick up a banana and walk round to which she was trying to force the banana into my son’s mouth. Again, he’s allergic. At that point, I’ve gone into serious Mama Bear mode again but I also have an independent witness to what she did. Told her if she ever tried to harm my son again I would have her arrested no matter how much family embarrassment it would cause. But from that point on, I never allowed her any contact at all until my son was old enough to know what he can and can’t eat, etc. And always with his dad or me present.
No, she didn’t try and put a pillow over his head or anything, but as far as his dad and I were concerned, she could have killed our miracle baby and claimed it as an accident. All due to jealousy that this was her partner’s only grandchild. When he has treated hers as his own. I find that deeply offensive.”
Her Son Cheated, But She Blamed The Wife
“My MIL was lovely to me when I was married to my husband. But after he cheated on me with a man and divorced, she started getting nasty.
My husband didn’t care about our seven-year-old daughter at all when we divorced so he gave me full custody. I was heartbroken when he did that because I couldn’t believe how he could just abandon us like that. Anyway, I thought that a change in environment might be better for both my daughter and me, so I decided to immigrate after I graduated (I was only 27 when I divorced).
At first, my MIL was begging me not to take Paige away because she said that Paige was her only granddaughter and was going to be since ‘her son is now with another man.’ I told her ‘I’m sorry’ and that she could come and visit anytime and I’d even bring Paige back to visit if I could, but I had to leave or we could never have a fresh start and move on.
Then, my MIL started to scold me and said the reason her son cheated on me was that I was a bad wife and ‘now I am selfish’ because I wanted to make them suffer by snatching away her granddaughter. I screamed back at her that I didn’t want any of this to happen, and I had always been a good and faithful wife, but it was her son who walked out on us and it was her son who gave me full custody of Paige because he didn’t want her in his life anymore. Then, I told her to leave us alone and she stomped off and never came back.”
She Just Gave Birth, But The MIL Didn’t Care
“I was an Army wife and I was pregnant with our first child. During this time, my then-husband was in Afghanistan for 15 months and I was by myself. Although we were hoping he would make it home on time since he scheduled his leave to come home around the time I was set to deliver, nothing was guaranteed. Luckily, he literally made it just as I was delivering our daughter.
Hours later as I sat in my room looking at our baby, I decided to call my mom and let her know the good news. I knew she would tell everyone in the family and I was too exhausted to call everybody one by one. My ex-husband decided to call his dad and let him know. Some hours later, I was dead asleep when my husband woke me up and told me that his mom wanted to talk to me. I and this woman had never got along for the fact she hated that I was actually married to her son. Not because I was a bad wife or a bad woman, but she thought she should always be first in her son’s life.
‘Why didn’t you call me and tell me you gave birth to my granddaughter?’ She sid.
I couldn’t believe it. When I told her that it was not my responsibility to call my husband’s mother to make sure she knew, she had the nerve to blame me. She stated if I was any type of a ‘real wife and woman’, I would have made her son call her to let her know. By then I was livid. I had just had a baby, like seriously?
So I finally told her, ‘Well considering that you’re on marriage number three, I don’t think that you should really be giving me advice as to how to keep a husband’ and hung up the phone. That woman was my mother-in-law from misery and every day I thank God I am no longer related to that woman or have to deal with her in any capacity.”
She Was An Instigator
“After we got married, I was facing a lot of hassles. My parents stopped keeping in contact with me and I didn’t even complete my bachelor’s. I have never lived in such limitations of budget. My in-laws were not even allowing me to work outside and earn for myself. My husband was quite immature during that period of time. We were both students and didn’t have enough money for our expenses.
I decided to start working and my husband’s cousin owned a school. I started working there, and since they were family, my in-laws didn’t object. I used to leave early in the morning at six-thirty am and come home at two-thirty pm, which my husband would start fighting with me like crazy about having an affair with his cousin, who is like 30 years older than me.
One day, I got fed up and told my mother-in-law about it, and she gave my husband a good reason to not suspect me.
She said, ‘Did you see your cousin’s wife? She is far prettier than your wife.. your wife is not worth of her( cousin’s wife) nails.’
I was stunned.
I didn’t feel bad because she called me ugly since I know I am beautiful. I was derailed by what she said as it was how a mother taught her son.
I and my husband are doing quite well now. It’s been seven years of our marriage and now we live on our own, we don’t let her toxicity enter our lives. I got to know later that it was her who instigated those suspicions in him.”