They say the greater the guy, the worse his mother is. While that theory may sound completely backward, all you need for proof is to ask the wife.
Women with first-hand experiences to back up said theory took to Reddit to share specific examples of why they hate their significant other's mom. These are the most messed up things women's mothers-in-law have said to them. Content has been edited for clarity.
Sounds Like A Nightmare
“Until I finally snapped and told her that the pediatrician thinks the baby’s head is just fine, my mother-in-law mentioned to me, over and over, ‘Don’t you think the baby needs a helmet? It seems like her head is a weird shape.’
Speaking of my daughter, she recently asked me, ‘How much do you feed this baby? Is she too fat already? Aren’t you worried she’ll turn out like you?’
During a conversation with her while my partner was having an Aspergers-related meltdown, she asked me, ‘Have you ever tried being nice?’ She had been under the impression that the only reason her son had anger issues was because I just must be mean to him all day every day.
There was another time when she said the following to me: ‘We were thinking about selling the house and moving somewhere with lower taxes, but if you can’t afford to live in a gated community, you have to live with the black people.'”
Her MIL Left The Wedding In Tears… Not Tears Of Joy
“My mother-in-law wrote her son a letter a week before we got married telling him to think very carefully about what he was doing, as he needed to be sure he was marrying someone he loved and trusted. She later walked out of our wedding in tears, drove home without saying anything to anyone, and then followed that up by emailing me saying she didn’t know what her son saw in me.
I refused to have anything to do with her until she apologized to me. It was a year of no contact from her at all. Then, I got pregnant and she came crawling back. We have built a relationship of sorts now. I feel she still hates me, but doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the detente we’ve reached in case we don’t let her see our daughter anymore.
I still don’t let her babysit. Whenever we invite her over for dinner, she texts me a list of what she wants to eat. I refuse, on principle, to let her dictate what I make, so I just ignore it. Even if I had planned soup, as soon as she texts, I will make curry instead and no cake at all. Forget her!”
The Only One Worse Than Her Ex-MIL is Her Current Father-In-Law
“My former mother-in-law once said, ‘Any woman who doesn’t think motherhood is a gift from God and isn’t interested in procreation, is probably a closet lesbian.’
After finding out I told my boyfriend that you couldn’t get ink poisoning from writing a number on your hand with a BIC pen, she told me, ‘It doesn’t matter if what I say was a lie because a mother’s lies to her children are truths.’
God, I don’t miss that woman.
However, the first time I met my current father-in-law, he said to me, ‘How come you aren’t wearing a bikini, that’s what men like. You don’t want to get too skinny because men will be afraid to break you, but you got to stay slim or he’ll get the wandering eye.’
I have also seen him in his birthday suit, seen him belligerently wasted several nights, and heard him tell me all about his prostate and the health of his member.”
Beware “The Look”
“For me, it’s not the things my mother-in-law says – it’s the things she doesn’t say. She sort of gives ‘the look’ a lot and doesn’t respond to things, mostly about my weight.
‘So, have you been taking my son to church?’ she once asked me.
‘No, we are not religious,’ I explained to her. ‘Besides, he doesn’t want to attend.’
Cue the look.
‘So, I called my son and he says your pants size is 10,’ she said another time. ‘That right?’
‘Yeah,’ I replied. ‘An 8 or a 10.’
Cue the look.
‘That [cue the look] outfit is new,’ she pointed out once.
‘I bought it last week,’ I replied.
Cue the look.
‘So, your ister-in-law has been losing weight recently,’ she informed me another time. ‘There’s a gym at the community college.’
‘Great!’ I replied. ‘Glad to hear she’s reaching her goals.’
Cue the look.
It has gotten to the point at which I can hear the look on the phone.”
She’s Been Cut Off
“I had caught my husband living a double life…while traveling for ‘work’ (he was self-employed so his travel was completely self-imposed), he was busy cheating, becoming a hardcore addict, and spending what little savings we had accumulated over our 17-year marriage on his selfish escapades.
The last time he spent at our home, I gave birth to our 4th child almost 6 weeks early while my mother-in-law was visiting. I left the other 3 children in her care while I went to the hospital. It was my longest labor, and postpartum, I had serious complications that almost took my life. During this time I spent in the hospital alone while my husband was somewhere outside the building getting high and facetiming with his latest girlfriend, my mother-in-law was at my home screaming at my children that I had no business getting myself pregnant with their new sibling and should have been focusing on getting a decent job so I could support them all financially. She told them they had no right being happy about the baby and she hoped I ‘learned my lesson’ by having a preemie.
All this time my children were not told anything about the baby’s condition (she was healthy) nor about when I would be coming home. When I finally did come home with the baby 3 days later, they did not know when she was born, why I spent extra time in the hospital, or that I was sent home on condition I would be on strict bed rest for 2 weeks or I may develop stroke complications because my blood pressure was so dangerously elevated. After greeting them, introducing the baby, and telling my then 14-year old what was going on, my husband rushed the kids out of the room to tell me he had purchased tickets for another trip and would be leaving within a few hours for ‘at least a week’. My mother-in-law’s flight back home was 2 days after this…and she very happily packed her bags and left after waking me up that morning to demand I call her a taxi if I wouldn’t be getting up to drive her to the airport.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I then told my husband not to bother coming back and haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law again. She emailed me a few months later saying, ‘I know that you think my son is a bad husband but I don’t want to talk about that. I want to still be friends with you and have a relationship with the children blah blah blah’. That blatant denial of leaving me alone to care for 3 children and a newborn by myself when in the middle of a medical emergency solidified my decision to never waste another word on her.
She Had An Interesting Opinion Of Feminine Hygiene Products
“My former mother-in-law thought that only irrepressible women wore tampons and that tampons could make you want to do it too much. Therefore, they were best avoided so as not to have illicit desires at improper times.
She was appalled when I went grocery shopping with her sister and bought tampons. Apparently, I embarrassed her. I wish I was joking.”
She Was Being Pushy When They Just Needed Time With Their Son
“My son was born four months early and spent the first two months wasting away. My husband took leave from his college job and withdrew from courses that semester after he missed the first week of class because I was in the hospital three hours away, trying to cherish as much time possible.
Nearly every day for two months, his mother would call him and tell him that he needed to go back to school and that he was breaking her heart. Two months in, she was telling him to go back to school even though he told her he wanted to spend every day possible with his ailing son. No college was going to cater to someone who missed the first two weeks of school, let alone the first two months.
It got to the point at which it was causing even more stress in our already stressful lives. He would hang up on her and she would literally call back 10 times in a row. We got to our breaking points. I told him that if our son passed away, we would split because I could never respect his mother. If our son made it, I would be nice to her, but I would never be best friends with her or have any sort of close relationship.
Our son pulled through, but I still resent his grandmother for all of that unnecessary pain in an already dark period.”
His Whole Family Is Messed Up
“My significant other and I lived in Texas. His family lived in Illinois. I met his mother and father once before we got engaged.
When he told his parents that he was going to propose to me, my father-in-law said, ‘Well, son, she’s a lot of fun, but are you sure you want to marry her?’
When I went to visit the in-laws for the first time after we got engaged, we had been living together for four years, but my mother-in-law still said to us, ‘You know, men won’t buy the cow if they get the milk for free.’
It was during that same visit when my brother-in-law’s girlfriend, whom I had never met before, told me, ‘You know his mom will try to break you up, right? She did that to me.’
My 19-year-old sister-in-law didn’t say anything to me. However, she did tell her parents that my significant other and I had relations while they were out of the house and that she was disgusted by our behavior.
Yep, I still married him.”
That’s Some Inter-Generational Trauma She Could Do Without
“My sister recently discovered her husband’s string of affairs. He had, at least, while they were together, six or seven if you count the woman he was already dating when he started pursuing my sister. She had no idea. They are in the process of divorcing.
‘You two are just meant to be together,’ her mother-in-law recently told her. ‘I mean, I cheated on my husband when we first got married. We split up for a while but came back together. And we’ve both carried on with other people over the years, but when it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. You’ll both do some awful stuff to each other in your lives, but you just gotta learn to live with it. It’ll get easier in time.’
She wonders why her son had no qualms about cheating and she can’t understand why my sister doesn’t want to raise her own son in that environment? It ticks me off so bad.”
Talk About A “Nutcracker”
“I went to the ballet one night to see The Nutcracker with my mother-in-law. This conversation ensued:
MIL: ‘Aren’t the ballerinas lovely?’
ME: ‘Yes, they are.’
MIL: ‘Were you in ballet?’
ME: ‘No, unfortunately, I was not.’
MIL: ‘Yes, that sounds right.’
What does that mean? I thought, but I said nothing.
MIL: ‘They take really good care of their bodies.’
She is the worst.”
Hostility Or Stupidity?
“My mother-in-law either hates me or she’s really dumb. She says things all the time to me like, ‘I heard this diet works really well. You should try it.’
When I got engaged and showed her my gorgeous engagement ring, all she said was, ‘Well, that’s cute.’
While we were planning the wedding, I would always hear her say, ‘If you guys get married.’
Every time I see her at a family gathering, she greets me with, ‘Oh, are you guys still married?'”
She Knows It All
“My mother-in-law is a witch. When my husband and I started dating, she told me how much she liked Nicole (his ex) and how she was going to be a lawyer. When we planned our wedding, she tried to force her cheesy, tasteless ideas on us. She tried to blackmail us, threatening not to come if particular people showed up.
Shortly after our wedding, she asked, ‘Are you still on the pill? I hope you are, I’m too young to be a grandma!’
Just three years later, she asked, ‘Why oh why won’t you give me grandchildren?!’
When I became pregnant, I received so many weird tips I can’t even remember. She was always quick to let me know that, ‘It’s your fault if something goes wrong.’ Two days after the baby was born, she asked me, ‘Are you sure there isn’t another one in there? That belly sure is still big. Mine went away immediately.’
Furthermore, she always claims to know it ALL because she’s ‘seen it on TV.'”
She Never Saw Her As Anything More Than A Hussy
“My serious, long-term boyfriend’s mother did not like me. Because I was not Indian. We have since broken up, primarily because of issues with his mother. He’s now engaged to a lovely Indian pharmacist and I’m pleased they’re both happy.
While I never met the woman, since she refused to meet me, the most memorable quote I know came from her was after she hacked into my significant other’s e-mail to discover we were spending a weekend together in New York City. She forbade us from even staying in the same hotel, saying, ‘What if your future wife is upset she’s not the first person you spent a night in a hotel with?'”
Her Boyfriend’s Parents Were Not Happy About His Announcement
“‘Mom, Dad, I want to let you know that I really love my girlfriend,’ my fiancé announced to his parents, ‘more than anyone I’ve been with in my life. I really think I want to marry her.’
‘Really?’ his mom asked. ‘You love her more than you loved Amy?’
‘Wait… What?’ my boyfriend replied. ‘Seriously? Did you seriously just say that?’
‘I really loved Amy,’ she told him, getting weepy. ‘I miss Amy.’
Amy is the girlfriend my fiancé dumped six years earlier. SIX YEARS. He chewed his mom out and told her how offended he was.
‘I just wanted to check to make sure,’ she responded.
She and I get along now. Once that ring was on my finger, she realized that Amy, who is married and has two children now, was never coming back and that I am her only real hope at grandchildren. Funny how those things work!”
She Doesn’t Want Her Daughter-In-Law To “Make Her Look Bad”
“My mother-in-law is a real peach. First and foremost, she is a terrible mother in the first place. She doesn’t want any of her children to do better in life than she does and gets really bitter and catty if any of them have anything nicer than her. She also has some messed up views on marriage, as if divorce is an eventuality – she’s on her third, by the way. To top it off, she’s one of those ‘no woman could ever possibly love my son as much as I do’ types, but puts absolutely zero effort into their relationship.
According to her, everything I’ve ever done for my husband is specifically designed to ‘make her look bad.’ I try to ‘keep her from having a relationship with her grandchildren,’ as if it’s MY responsibility to ensure she has a relationship with my kids. She actually told my husband that I was trying to erase her from our lives and gave him the whole ‘her or me’ ultimatum. She even had his two sisters on the bandwagon. He didn’t speak to any of them for almost two years.
She finally apologized and is doing better, but she still has a dramatic meltdown every few months because I ‘hate’ her. She has no clue that I’m wary of her because I never know if she’ll twist anything I say or do to make it appear as if I’m victimizing her.”
Her Boyfriend’s Mother Needs A Reality Check
“Lots of things have come out of my boyfriend’s parents’ (mostly the mother’s) mouths that mar my ability to respect them, to this day.
Somehow the topic of mental health came up when I was sitting with my boyfriend and his parents in their lounge one night. The conversation trailed into the topic of my sister having Borderline Personality Disorder and how it negatively affects her day to day life.
‘I don’t believe in these things,’ my boyfriend’s mother commented. ‘The old lady across the road would often tell us that [my boyfriend’s brother] has a mental illness, when he was just acting like a typical boy.’
An old lady’s gripe with your son is not the same as a psychiatrist making a professional diagnosis, you idiot.
I had to explain to her that depression is just like any other chronic illness, in that it needs to be tended to and medicated.
They also have the annoying inability to accept that technology is a great benefit to our lives. The boyfriend and I went on a road trip with them when they came to visit us in a country they had never been to before. His mother, point-blank, refused to take my directional advice from Google Maps. She had to use the outdated physical map in her hands.”
Can You Say “Get Help”?
“I was talking to my mother-in-law about my then 2-year-old son, saying, ‘He is always on the go and just never stops. He is always into mischief.’
She replied, ‘At least you don’t have to worry about him turning out gay.’
I once heard her say this about my nephew: ‘They just don’t give him enough attention. If I had him for a weekend, he wouldn’t have ‘autism’ anymore.’
When describing her midwife when she gave birth to my husband, she said, ‘She was a lesbian. She had long, dyed, red hair and earrings all along her lobe. How on earth am I meant to comfortably give birth knowing that she was looking at me down there and probably was getting turned on?'”
Spreading Rumors Is Her Specialty
“I am not married yet, so she is not really my mother-in-law, but we are engaged, so she’s going to be within the next two years or so. We don’t talk anymore, but she has said all sorts of horrible things about me.
She has called me crazy, a hussy, tells my fiancé to break up with me all the time, and loves spreading rumors about me that have no basis in reality. For example, she told everyone I was pregnant, that I was still contacting my ex, and that I am using my fiancé and will dump him when I’m ‘done with him.’
Sigh.”
Wrong Dress Code, Dear
“On the eve of my ex-husband’s departure for a two-month research trip to Japan, which was just three weeks after our fourth anniversary, his mother said to me, ‘I’m sure he’ll find a nice Japanese girl to marry!’
Then, I met her best friend, who I got on very well with. I overheard them talking, and the friend said, ‘She isn’t horrible at all! I think you’re overreacting to something.’
Then, there was that time when she told us that the dress code for a family wedding was rustic style. We turned up to find it was black tie. She was willing to humiliate him to make sure I looked bad. I found my ex’s gossipy aunt and told her in strict confidence how mortified we were by what she had said and apologized to the bride.”
How Were They Supposed To Respond To A Request Like That?
“My parents live in another country, so they did not meet my fiancé until we had been dated for almost two years. The first time she met my mom, my mom told her, ‘When the two of you start having kids, I want you to send the kids to live with me. I will then return them after they are old enough.’
Awkward.”
As If Amanda Deserved Such Special Treatment
“Before my husband and I moved out of state for him to attend grad school, my mother-in-law pulled me aside during our goodbyes and said, ‘I really want to you be nice to Amanda and at least PRETEND you don’t hate her so much, because if the relationship between my sons is ruined because of you, I’ll never get over it.’
Amanda is my brother-in-law’s girlfriend. They’re living together off of an allowance my father-in-law gives them. She lied about her age (she was 17 while my brother-in-law was 22 when they started dating), her favorite show is Cops, she constantly begs my mother-in-law to spend money on her, calls her names to her face, and she talks openly about doing the deed with my brother-in-law, her bullying behavior, and the theft that has gotten her in trouble with the police in front of the entire family.
Oh, but you’re going to lecture ME, your actual daughter-in-law, who ISN’T a high school drop-out living off of your finances, a chronic liar, and verbally abusive about ‘keeping the peace’?!
This absolutely ticked me off. My attitude toward my mother-in-law has never been the same since then. I understand that she must think I’m the responsible one, able to control my behavior better, implying that my husband and his brother having an argument would be MY fault?
Too far, lady. Too far.“
Everyone Agrees She Is A Witch
“My former mother-in-law and father-in-law take me out to dinner, only to tell me at the end of the meal that I had a little over a month to move out of the condo I rented from them. They said that they didn’t want to be landlords anymore and have to deal with the taxes and stuff that went with it. Then, they handed me a magazine with a list of places for rent.
This may not sound unusual, but, their son (my husband), had died almost THREE months prior to this. I started crying and she had the nerve to say that my crying made her uncomfortable.
Since, I have heard different versions as to why she did what she did. How people have responded once they hear this story has always been the same: ‘That witch!'”
Laughing Through The Pain
“Shortly after my husband, Tim, and I got back from our honeymoon, we went over to see his parents, who are ultra-religious and ultra-conservative. During the visit, I spotted a vase on the counter with the same bird seed filled silk roses from our wedding.
‘Oh cool!’ I said to my mother-in-law in response to the rose. ‘I see you got some of the silk roses my cousin made for the wedding.’
‘Oh yes,’ she replied, ‘we figured Tim could use them for his next wedding.’
‘That’s so funny,’ I said with a laugh, ‘but the only way he’s leaving me is in a bag.’
Needless to say, my mother-in-law is not too fond of me, and even less so almost 16 years later.”
“There Is A Reason Why My Mother-In-Law Is Not Allowed To Come Around Very Often”
“Once my mother-in-law revealed to me, ‘I tried to abort [my husband], but the doctor said I had medical complications, so I decided to keep him instead. I wish I hadn’t.’
‘You know,’ I replied, ‘he’s standing right there.’
‘I’m mad I didn’t get an invite to your courthouse wedding.’
‘I called you. Twice.’
‘Well, I was in the hospital with a broken knee and wrist,’ she explained. ‘You’re rude’
I just said, ‘I’m OK with this.’
There is a reason why she is not allowed to come around very often, and only with the father-in-law so he can shut her up… most of the time.”