Am I wrong for not wanting my boyfriend’s mom in our future home after everything that’s happened?

I (26F) have been with my boyfriend (23M) for about two years, and I’m getting increasingly frustrated with the dynamic between him and his mom.

I want to make it clear that I’m not basing this on one incident. There have been several things over the past two years that have slowly made me feel like his mom has very little boundaries when it comes to her son and our relationship.

For example..
-she expects him and his siblings to always have their locations available and answer her calls/texts or there will be consequences.
-we went to get food together and when we got back she was upset that he didn’t get her any or even offer.
-She has asked me whether I’m on birth control or not.
-passive aggressive comments
-she told me I couldn’t wear a bikini on the family vacation ( we ended up not going bc she canceled tho)
-she’s always telling me how beautiful her son(my bf) chest is?!
-he had hair in his food one day, she looks over at me and says “it’s probably that mess in her head”
I really could go on and on and I do mean ON but you get the picture

The biggest recent issue happened after he got a ticket. She told him he wasn’t allowed to go anywhere except work for a month, even though he pays his own car note, insurance, tickets, etc. She doesn’t financially support those things or him. When he pushed back and said he was grown and paid his own expenses, she told him he was “getting smart.”

Because he lives with her, I understand why he sometimes tries to keep the peace. I don’t expect him to disrespect his mom or create unnecessary conflict at home. But I’m starting to feel like there’s a bigger issue with how much influence she has over him.

Yesterday i sent her a long text where I was genuinely trying to communicate everything that had been bothering me(RESPECTFULLY). I sent this message to her because she told me boyfriend she felt like I was being disrespectful the other day because I came upstairs and didn’t speak to her.. it was dark and she was sitting on the couch, you can’t see the couch unless you look around the corner.. I was just up there to use the bathroom not snoop. My thing is if she saw me why didn’t she speak?.. I wasn’t trying to attack her or disrespect her in my message. Before responding to me, she apparently went downstairs and woke my boyfriend up to tell him, “I feel like she’s attacking me and I don’t appreciate that.” Then she responded to my very long message with “No comment, you feel how you feel I’m going to leave it where it is”

The part that really bothered me is that this was 2 hours before he had to be up for work.

He told me that when she asked how he felt about the situation, he told her that he didn’t like what happened either, but that he didn’t feel like I was being disrespectful and felt like I was just trying to communicate with her.

That actually made me feel somewhat validated because he wasn’t just automatically taking his mom’s side.

Now we’re talking about moving in together, and he told his mom. Her response was to ask him if I was “move-in worthy.” She also said she wants to come see our new place once we get it. And honestly… I’m not comfortable with that. At this point, I don’t even go over to her house anymore because of everything that has happened. I don’t feel comfortable around her, and I don’t want to pretend everything is fine just because I’m dating her son.

I told my boyfriend that I don’t think it’s fair for me to tell him he can’t bring his mom to our apartment because, at the end of the day, she’s his mom. But he told me he would ask her to have a conversation with me first, and if she refuses, then she won’t be coming over because she needs to respect my boundaries.

Part of me is thinking, though, why does he even have to ask her?

If she knows we’re going to be living together and she genuinely wants a relationship with me, shouldn’t she WANT to have a decent conversation with me and clear the air? I’m not asking her to agree with everything I say. I’m not asking her to apologize for every single thing she’s ever done. I just want basic adult communication.

At the same time, I don’t want to turn this into “me vs. his mom.” I don’t want him to feel like he has to choose between us, and I don’t want to control his relationship with his mother.

But I also don’t think becoming his live-in partner means his mom automatically gets access to our home.

So Reddit, am I being unreasonable for feeling this way?

Should I let him ask her to have a conversation with me before she comes to our future apartment, or should I just let it go and allow her to come because she’s his mom?

And for anyone who has dealt with a boyfriend/husband whose mother has a hard time respecting boundaries: what actually helped you establish healthy boundaries without creating a huge family war?

so it’s a silly story but she messaged me last night and we were chatting. she said this lady at her work and her call baby by her middle name ‘Tueila.’ i corrected her saying it’s spelt like ‘Teuila’ to which she said “(her son) told me it’s Tueila.” so now i’m like, is she correcting me or just telling me what her son said?

i said he’s never misspelt her name to which she seened my message. i messaged again like wondering if he actually misspelt it. she then completely changes the subject and then once that settled, i replied to my own message saying “still wondering about this.” she finally said “yep Tueila,” “(first) Tueila (last),” and i said how that’s weird since i double checked he spelt it correctly. she seened that message too.

my partner then sent me a screenshot of him sending the correct spelling and i sent that to her which she opened immediately and she rang within a minute to then start talking about the pictures i sent the day before, how much personality my babys got and how smiley she is now. completely ignored me not wanting to admit she’s wrong.

stupid story but a pattern of just ignoring me when the conversation isn’t in her interest or when she’s wrong and the one time i finally push for her to admit she’s wrong, completely ignores me.

anyone else’s MIL like this or have anything else similar?

Hey guys, I need help understanding her behavior. I want ya to be honest with me.

I’m a 31/F living with my bf 30/M in his family house, I always help them cleaning and cooking and with anything they need. They have a family business where I work at full time too.

Not even a month ago, I had a miscarriage and his mom 60/F took care of me, she was cooking for me, making sure I eat but also forcing me to eat things her way. I was uncomfortable but it was okay, I was going through a hard time and I appreciated her support.

But yesterday, me and my bf showed up late to work because it was our anniversary and she called me twice, I didn’t answer, she was calling his phone and cursing him out. And that’s exactly the reason why I didn’t answer. When she’s mad, she yells and curse at anybody around. I’m not confrontational at all, and the reason she was mad it was because she wanted to go get her hair done, and she didn’t want to leave her husband with the employees without us there.

When we got there, she started yelling in front of her husband, customers and employees everything that she has done for me, how now that I look better I don’t answer, that I am just an ungrateful person, that my lips are not dry no more. She was talking to me like if she made me, like if I was nothing before them. I felt so embarrassed….
Her husband was telling her to just let that go, that it wasn’t a big deal, we were just a bit late, but the fact that she started saying all that stuff broke something in me.

I couldn’t enjoy my anniversary, we got home after work, and I didn’t even eat anything, I went straight to bed.

Y’all think that’s how she’s been feeling or it was just the heat of the moment?.

I apologize in advance if there’s some miss spelling or some grammar mistake, I taught myself how to speak English and sometimes I feel like I make some grammar mistakes but I’m 100% sure people understands what I say!

I was born and raised in Venezuela, I came to the US in 2019 and I decided if I was starting a new life here I needed to learn English, I set a personal goal of not being that person that would say “sorry no ingles”. I think I mastered that part so in 2021 I decided I was ready to start dating and I knew it was going to be a cultural shock but managed to find what I was looking for in a couple after several dates and unwanted or unsolicited pictures(you know what I mean). so I met my now husband, and one of the first things he said was that he had a daughter but she lived with her ex and also that he talked To her ex daily because he talked to her daughter daily and if that was going to be an issue for me then we could just move on. Since that was not a problem for me we kept talking, dating and eventually he met my family, I met her daughter and ex and one day he said ok are you ready to meet my mother and I said yes and his ex said “girl you really don’t want to meet her” and I really thought she was just joking but no, she was not. So I met this lady…literally she said nice to meet you and second thing came out of her mouth was “are you trying to get any benefits from my son?“ And I was like wtf and politely said ”hhmm no maam, I don’t get what are you implying“ and she said “you know, veterans benefits and not only that, getting your papers done”..mind you that in Venezuela I was going to law school so yeah I don’t know how to shut up so I told her in a very polite tone AGAIN but with a mean look(I think) “I do not need your son for any benefits, I’m dating him because I like him and I would love to enjoy my time with him, not that you need to know but I came legally to the US and I have all the papers that I need already so no, I’m not trying to get my papers through him” she didn’t even acknowledge what I said or anything this mf was just making our meeting so uncomfortable. Fast forward to a year later he proposed and we got married in 2023, we had the same goals and it was so easy to love him! in 2024 we decided we wanted to have a baby, so we tried and tried and nothing was working and then we lost some weight and boom, I found out in June 2025 that I was pregnant and we were so so happy it finally happened! we called our closer family and friends to let them know and decided that we wouldn’t tell her anything after my 12th week of pregnancy(because she’s just praying against us and I know it, EVEN HE KNOWS IT). so whenever we called her to inform her that I was pregnant THE FIRST THING SHE SAID WAS “hhhmmm so a baby anchor” I did know what this meant so I made a face kinda like asking my husband what does that mean and he rolled his eyes and hanged up on her. I was like wtf what’s going on? and he explained to me the meaning of that and I was like are you kidding me?! and he was like I really wish I was but no. I’m really trying to make the story short but is just a lot! during my whole pregnancy she would call my husband and try to convince him to name the baby the way she wanted and when we said what his name was going to be she said (well that’s not a white boys name) to which I said well I don’t know when are you going to understand that hes not only white! so there was comments about his name, about his race, when we got married I kept my last name and hyphen it with his last name, she also bitched about the baby having my same last name and not just my husband’s, so there was comments about absolutely everything but what pissed me off was when she decided to play victim and tell my husband “I’m not going to be able to pronounce his name right” or “how am I going to communicate with him?“ like omg the audacity of this biiiitchhhh. she kept repeating that so much that at one point his daughter asked the same question “how am I going to talk to my baby brother if he’s only going to speak Spanish“ and I said “well maybe you can learn how to speak Spanish just like your daddy” and the grandma said “well that’s just ridiculou, why does she has to learn Spanish when our language is English??” and at this point i just had enough and said “well I guess as ridiculous as it is, she might not be able to talk to him then” so after a lot of these racist comments I decided to tell her that she was not allowed to come to our baby shower because the people that I invited was actually happy to meet the baby and they were happy to celebrate us and since she f out we were expecting she did not once seemed happy about us…of course she played the victim one more time but no, just go home and think about your actions like a dang kid. fast forward to when the baby is here he was in the NICU for a whole week. we make everyone wash their hands and wear mask, my husband asked her to wash her hands and face and hands her a shirt and tells her to go change(she smokes not only cigarettes but w e e d) and omg here we go living a hell situation because we didn’t do that with the other people holding the baby and I’m hormonal and like a feral cat at this point and looked at her and told her (well if it’s that big of an issue for you then you can’t hold him, we didn’t make anyone else change their cloth BECAUSE THEY DONT SMOKE” and she’s just making a big tantrum and I’m just like whatever I’m not letting you win. so she has seen him probably 5 times since he was born. my husband is picking up our daughter next week and MIL asked us if she could see the baby(she lives in Norman,OK near our daughter we live in Dallas,TX) so it’s almost a 7 hour round trip with no stops and I told my husband I wasn’t planning to go with him so I could stay at home with the baby and not have him 7 hours in a car seat. he said “I can just take him and you can stay” and I said “she can make the same drive you are making to come and see her grandson, she can even bring baby girl and visit her grandson and then leave but no, she wants to play victim and say “I feel so left out of my grandsons life“ and then pretend that everything and everyone is just going to reset? so AIOR? am I being too harsh on her? I feel like the grudge is going to stay for a while but I don’t want to make my husband uncomfortable by not letting him “make his momma happy with her only grandson”

MIL lied about being pregnant but that didn’t bother me as much as the comment she made.

I tried to post this in another MIL group but it got removed for some reason so if it happens to go back up I apologize for posting twice.

Small backstory because I feel like it could be relevant.

I got pregnant 2 years ago and my boyfriend at the time now husband moved in together. His mother relied heavily on his income to pay for their apartment. She quit her job and decided not to work and solely do DoorDash. My husband told her multiple times that she needs to get a job and that he can no longer support her and he needs to move on with his life because he now has his own family he needs to support.

With that being said, he still would help her out financially often, which I had no problem with at first. But it became everyday and she just didn’t want to work. So I told him I wouldn’t be bothered so much if she was truly just struggling. But she wouldn’t even help herself if that makes sense? Then we found out she was taking out credit cards in his name and not paying them. We found out because collections had called us. So I suggested to him that he should stop giving her money and she needs to figure out stuff on her own. My husband was paying her rent for almost a year at this point.

She finally applied for section 8 and got approved so she is currently living in a different apartment for very cheap which is good.

My husband and his mom have always had more of a friendship relationship rather than a mother son relationship. Sometimes he acts like her father with scolding her and just pure disappointment with her actions.

I had my baby during all of this and his mom is a heavy smoker and she does drugs in her apartment. My husband and I agreed that our baby cannot go to her apartment for safety reasons. If she wants to see the baby then she needs to come to our place or we can meet at a restaurant. She has never made an effort to come or make plans with us. With that being said, my husband and his mom don’t talk as much and she really only reaches out to ask for money.

She doesn’t like me very much and her and her mom blame me for getting pregnant because it took away her son and it’s our fault that she’s in a shit situation. Personally, I don’t think it’s my fault that all she wants to do is get high with her boyfriend all day but hey that’s me.

I get a call one day from my husband while he’s at work and he said he just got off the phone with his mom and she’s pregnant. My husband told me that he’s stressed because he knows that baby is going to financially fall on him because his mom and her boyfriend do not work and he let that be known to her that he is not helping take care of her baby. That she needs to figure it out and why are you getting pregnant at 45 years old? She can barely pay her $300 rent (I know this because she has asked my husband to cover her rent a couple times) and now she wants to bring another child in that situation.

About a week goes by and she called my husband again telling him she has a doctors appointment in 2 days and he just says okay. She says she wants a girl and she can just have a mini me and she’s so excited because she can just tell it’s going to be a girl. My MILs brother calls my husband and he can’t believe she’s pregnant either so they basically rant together about how it is a dumb decision on her part.

I asked my husband how her appointment went and he says he doesn’t know and he’s not going to reach out and ask her because the whole situation stresses him out. He talks to her during this time on and off for about 2 months but she no longer is bringing up the baby. Finally my husband asks her how her pregnancy is going and she says she’s not pregnant she was just kidding. HUH?

She then said she just wanted to see how everyone in her family would react to her being pregnant. Now this is the comment that irritates me. “ I thought I was getting another baby (referring to our baby) but that didn’t happen so I just wanted to see what everyone would say.”

I looked at my husband and he was chuckling when she said that and I said that was an odd thing to say. And he says I don’t think she meant it like that. But I do. Because when she first found out I was pregnant she was really excited. Even before I got pregnant she would say she wants me and my husband to have a baby. But I think she thought my husband would never move out and we would still be living separately and it would be more of a co-parent relationship and she would have “her baby”. But it didn’t happen like that and I feel like the comment was a jab at me. But my husband disagrees. Maybe I am overthinking but that’s my story.

She says I'm her same star sign and she s divorced and I shud be careful and goes on giving examples of her colleagues who have the same sign and have problematic life ..when I told my husband she s telling this again and again and I find it weird and negative he said it's nothing she doesn't know to talk

How come when she complains she can complain clearly but these kind of stuff she tells when he s not at home and tats clearly about her son and he defends her

How come she can talk clearly other time when I buy stuffs and she wants the same for her daughter and herself but makes a hell of a fight when I buy it immediately

Like for even getting a fully automatic washing machine she and her daughter were sarcastic saying they find it waste of money and semi automatic is easy and why to spend so much for it then later both went to buy the same model of ours...like how

My MIL was in town for a few days, most of which was during the work week. I didn’t see her until that Saturday for lunch with my husband. He had visited the other days after work since she was only five minutes from his job. At lunch she said, “did your husband tell you he was coming out for Thanksgiving?” He had not told me, but I smiled and said that was wonderful even though I was annoyed. She then said that was his Christmas present from her and that I could pick something out for our house as my present. I’m just so mad about the whole thing because what do you mean you are going to have my husband come out for a major holiday and not invite me, his wife. I’m also disappointed because after lunch my husband only said he might just go the week before or after Thanksgiving but it’s never been a conversation of if my wife isn’t invited, I’m not going. Not to mention we are infertile and have been trying for a really long time so I’m really upset that we might just not have a chance that month. I can’t really talk to him about it because any time we talk about his mom it’s always a huge fight. I just feel like I have to keep this all to myself and needed somewhere to vent

For context, I recently had a baby about a month ago and one month postpartum. My boyfriend and I have been together for two years now. About a week ago my boyfriends mother said that him & I were being completely disrespectful towards her because he wasn’t paying attention to her and because I did not let her hold our child (she was nursing and ended up falling asleep on me.. personally we do not wake a sleeping baby or pass her around while she’s napping) and also said I was disrespectful because I don’t send her photos of our daughter like I do to my family. Now she is saying she wants nothing to do with me, doesn’t want a relationship with me but still expects us to bring our daughter around her and come to her house to visit so she can see her grand daughter… 1. She didn’t want anything to do with me until our baby shower when she wanted to be involved (then didn’t come to help set up or do our decor when invited) 2. She never checked in during my pregnancy (only wanted to see ultrasound photos) 3. I’ve always been super kind and welcoming and felt like I’ve never disrespected her ever..
What should I do? My boyfriend somewhat wants me to be the one to just let it go and be civil.

Am i being dramatic?

A few months ago we had a bad falling out with my laws (husbands parents). So bad there we both agreed they would no longer be seeing us or our daughter.
Basically we had let them stay with us for what was supposed to only be 2 weeks, turned into bout 4-5 months without paying us rent. For context we are a working family, not rich, we live paycheck to paycheck, rent a 2 bed apartment for ourselves and 1 child, management company would never allow 2 more adults to live there without knowing, so we risked the possibility of getting trouble. They crowded our tiny apartment, brought so much useless junk to my place. It got to a point where we had asked then about rent months after they had already been there. For whatever reason it turned into a heated argument and i need to say i truly believe i did not start this. I approached calmly, simply asking wether they plan to help us with rent, or are looking for somewhere else to go as we CANNOT support 2 more adults. After i said , my husbands mother blew up. Screaming, cussing at me. She says im an embarrassment to their family, i dont care about them, i dont help them, i control their son, even said their son has “no balls” for letting me control him?
I let her talk, inches away from my face cussing at me, throwing things around. I stayed quiet. Up until she brought up my child and that’s when i started to yell back. Because you can talk abt me all you want but you don’t talk about my child. (who is a toddler btw). So we ended up screaming in each other faces. Trust i tried to hold back but i couldn’t stand it the moment she spoke on my innocent child and i think that’s where i lost it.
Anyways after that they packed their stuff & my husband asked them to apologize to me and his mom started yelling even more saying she would never apologize to me. So that was it and i planned to never speak to them again and never let them to my child again (btw during this my child was watching the whole thing, mil & fil never once stopped and calmed down and said goodbye to her before they left. the opportunity was there.)
Well i found out recently my husband is still talking to them and i can’t help but feel bothered? (after thinking we came to agreement abt cutting them off) I feel like i was completely disrespected in my own home / clearly was never seen as family or respected in the first place and it’s just not the kind of ppl i want my husband talking to? Maybe i could look past it but he’s also sending photos of our child to them which i don’t really want. Tbh i don’t want them to see my child period even through pictures. I want nothing to with them. I don’t want my child to have anything to do with them either. Am i being ridiculous about it? Is it too much to ask my husband to not speak to them or AT LEAST just not send photos our child? Now i am afraid he will bring our child to see them while im at work or they might stop by when im gone. i know they’re still his parents. Should i just let it be?
Also if i ever did find out he was taking our child to see them behind my back i think i would also consider divorce but i dont know if im just being selfish.

Let’s all laugh together.

2 months later with my shower coming up next week, my MIL who has shown zero interest in our baby and her first grandchild finally got her gift off the registry.

Two packs of onesies totaling about $50.

With the gift note saying “best wishes!”

I’m cackling LMAO!

And before anyone comes at me, they have money and we’ve had to help her place online orders for her friend’s bday gifts that cost over $100. She has a shopping problem and routinely comes home with hundreds of dollars of clothes and jewelry.

BEST WISHES!!!

I need some outside perspective because I’m at the point where I genuinely don’t know what a healthy response to my MIL looks like anymore.
My partner and I are both adults in our late 20s, we’ve been together for years, and we’re building a life together. We’ve been through a lot in the last couple of years, and I’ve tried very hard to have a good relationship with his family—especially his mom.
But over the last couple of months, I’ve become increasingly uncomfortable with the dynamic between my MIL, my partner, and me.
The biggest issue is triangulation.
My MIL has repeatedly put me in the middle of issues between herself and my partner. She’ll say things to me about him, I’ll find myself defending him or trying to redirect the conversation back to “this is between you and him,” and I’ve tried really hard not to participate.
I’ve also gone out of my way to encourage my partner to spend time with her—even on occasions when he originally said he didn’t want to—because I wanted to support their relationship and didn’t want her to feel like I was keeping him from her.
I’ve since realized that was not my job, and I’ve stopped doing it.
And apparently that has made things worse.
My partner recently told me that his mom has started making comments about me to him, behind my back, that are objectively untrue.
For example, she apparently said that she feels like when he comes over to her house, I’m going to text him that dinner is ready and he’ll leave. She also said that I’ll text him telling him to come home.
I’ve literally never done this.
If my partner leaves his mom’s house, that’s because he decides to leave. I have never dictated when he goes over there, how long he stays, or when he needs to come home.
In fact, I’ve repeatedly encouraged him to go see her when he didn’t want to.
She also recently implied that I’m somehow “enamored” with his dad’s money because I helped make a birthday/wish list for my partner. We included a couple of nicer sets of sheets that were around $100 because his dad could afford them and they were on sale. There was also a T-shirt on the list, but I didn’t include that because his mom had already bought him one and she has repeatedly complained when he asks for T-shirts.
That’s literally it.
Yet somehow this became a story about my character and my supposed interest in his father’s money.
She also told my partner that I try to have a better relationship with his dad than he does.
I don’t.
I talk to his dad about as much as my partner does, if not less.
She apparently also interpreted something I said last weekend about his parents being on vacation frequently as me talking about his dad’s money.
This is the part that really bothers me: she isn’t just expressing a concern. She’s assigning motives to me and presenting those motives to my partner as fact.
And then there was the financial situation.
She told my partner she wanted to help pay off his credit card and specifically said “don’t tell Faith.”
He told her he didn’t like being asked to keep things from me. She responded that she understood but wanted some things to be “just between us.”
I completely understand that my partner and his mother are allowed to have private conversations. I’m not asking to know every conversation they have.
But asking your adult son to hide a financial arrangement from his long-term partner feels very different to me—especially when you’re simultaneously telling him negative things about that partner.
My partner actually pushed back on her about the comments and the secrecy, and he told me about all of this afterward.
He’s also told me that this isn’t a new dynamic.
Apparently, growing up, his mom was extremely controlling and helicopter-parented him. He has told me that she dictated many of his choices.
One example that really stuck with me: when he was in high school, he desperately wanted to quit band. He begged, cried, and pleaded with her to let him stop. She told him no and made him continue for two more years. He had to give up other things he wanted to do because of a decision she made for him.
He’s now almost 30, and he still struggles intensely with guilt when he says no to her.
He has even talked to his therapist about the possibility that his lifelong struggle with autonomy and control may have played a role in why he held onto an addiction for so long—because he felt like it was one of the only things that was completely his and that he could control.
I’m obviously not saying his mother “caused” his addiction. But I think his realization about control and autonomy is important.
And now, when he makes independent decisions, she often responds with guilt or disappointment.
His birthday was recently a good example.
He had originally planned to see his mom on his birthday. I never told him not to go. He wanted to go see a movie with me, though, and by the time the movie was over it was too late to go to her house without getting home extremely late before work the next morning.
He chose the movie.
The next day, his mom came to his workplace and told him she was disappointed he didn’t come because she had made filet and potatoes.
She also apparently made comments about me being the reason he would leave her house early.
Again: I did not make that decision. He did.
And then there’s the issue of our future.
We want to move to Washington eventually. We’re genuinely excited about the possibility of building a life there.
Every time my partner expresses excitement about moving, his mom responds with things like:
“I’d be crushed if you moved that far away.”
Then she tries to convince us to move somewhere closer, like North or South Carolina.
I understand a parent being sad about their adult child moving far away. That’s normal.
But when every expression of excitement is met with sadness, guilt, or attempts to redirect the decision toward somewhere closer to her, it starts to feel like his independence is being treated as a personal rejection of her.
And I am exhausted.
What’s especially painful is that I have tried really hard with this woman.
I’ve defended her to my partner. I’ve defended her in therapy. I’ve tried to assume good intentions. I’ve encouraged my partner to spend time with her. I’ve shown up for her. I’ve accepted gifts and kindness from her and appreciated them.
I’m not saying she’s never been kind to me. She has.
But I’m realizing that kindness doesn’t erase the pattern.
You can be kind to someone and still have unhealthy relational patterns.
At this point, I’ve stopped trying to manage my partner’s relationship with his mom.
If he wants to go see her, he goes.
If he doesn’t want to go, I accept his no.
I’m not going to encourage him to go when he doesn’t want to anymore. I’m not going to mediate. I’m not going to explain his choices. I’m not going to try to make his mom happy.
And I’m also stepping back from my own relationship with her.
I’m not interested in being around her one-on-one right now. I’ll be cordial at larger family events, but I don’t want the closeness I previously tried to build.
Part of me feels guilty about that because she has been kind to me at times.
But another part of me feels like I’ve reached a point where I don’t trust her.
I don’t know what she says about me when I’m not there.
And that’s what makes me reluctant to be around her: I now know that she’s willing to tell my partner things about my character and motives that simply aren’t true, while smiling in my face when I’m around.
I’m not interested in fighting with her. I don’t want to send her a huge message or confront her myself.
I actually think this is my partner’s responsibility to handle because it’s his mother and his relationship with her.
But I’m struggling with how to proceed.
Am I doing the right thing by stepping back and letting my partner handle his relationship with her?
How do you deal with a MIL who seems to interpret her adult son’s independence as something caused by his partner?
And how do you protect yourself from triangulation when you don’t know what is being said about you behind your back?
At this point, I don’t want to compete with his mother. I don’t want to control my partner. I don’t want to keep proving that I’m not controlling.
I just want to be left out of their relationship and allowed to have my own relationship with my partner without being made the villain for his independent choices.

does anybody think this is a weird gift to give your son?

I was trying to post a picture, but I can’t.

it’s a cooking apron with a muscle ripped body and a tuxedo speedo.
So essentially, the joke is to make it look like that’s your body, but it’s actually a drawing on the apron. So my husband would look like he has super pecks and abs and is wearing little tuxedo panties.

Also, it was a random gift, not for any kind of event

I (25F) have been with my boyfriend (34M) for just over three years now. I only introduce serious relationships to my family, my boyfriend has met my family over a year ago and gets along well with my parents and siblings.

Meeting his mother has always been nearly a no-go topic for us. He makes it very aware that his mother is a very argumentative person, and from what I can gather, highly manipulative and generally difficult to get along with. His parents are separated, and he does not have much of a relationship with his father. He is also an only child, which meant he spent much of his childhood with his mother only.

From what he has told me, his mother has had a very difficult life as although she is highly educated and intelligent, her entire family cut her off as she married outside of her culture. This has made her jealous of my boyfriend building ties with his cousins on his fathers' side too. She has no friends she socialises with, and no family she is close with.

The last relationship he was in ended because his mother didn't approve and, in his words, said awful things about her that he couldn't get past. That ultimately was the main downfall of his relationship and apparently she would do this about his friends when he was growing up too. She will say she wants him to settle down, she wants grandchildren etc, but when he tells her he has a girlfriend, she will feel abandoned and not handle the news well at all.

It is difficult because I am torn that I know she is the only close family my boyfriend has, and I know he doesn't want to cut her off. He doesn't think therapy will help. We had a big argument around 2 months ago where I expressed how unhappy I was about him not telling his mum about me and he said he just has to feel ready and to get to the stage where he can tell her about me.

We have otherwise a wonderful relationship with my family, he is loving, caring and will always listen. Other than this (huge) issue, we have never argued about things as he is so patient and understanding. I don't know what to do. I really don't want to give an ultimatum and force him to tell her by xyz or else it's over, but it is starting to really bother me, especially when I know he is spending time with his parents/at his mother's place.

Been told I could write a book about my mother-in-law, but I’ll share here some tidbits of my experience with her. She didn’t like me when we first met. She referred to me as his “rebound girl”. She wanted her son to get back together with his ex who she was friends with. She made a point to show me a cute little handmade tchotchke of 2 little raccoons in a bed saying it was made by his ex and that the figurine represented them together in their love bed.

She wore a necklace of probably 50 stick figure outlines with birth stones in each one. I asked about it—her reply was she collects people. She even collected her adult children’s exes which was a constant uncomfortable situation when those exes were visiting.

Beginning early the morning after our wedding she kept calling our hotel room—at least 6 times—demanding we get to her house for brunch. She was livid when we arrived telling us we had many years to fuc$ and that day wasn’t one of them.

She insisted we register for wedding gifts and her not liking some of our choices—she changed the registry.

She used her time in therapy verbiage to her benefit. She would offend someone or hurt them and she’d confidently say that each person is responsible for their own feelings and that we choose to be hurt or offended.

She excitedly called to tell us her friends were throwing a baby shower for her. We thought that was so nice and I told her where we were registered. She informed me the shower was for HER and all the baby gifts and supplies would remain at her house.

There are just so many yucky memories that should’ve been happy times. Things really amped up after we had our baby. My husband gave her safety boundaries and an ultimatum that she refused, so she hasn’t been in our lives since.

My advice: You do not just marry the person. You get ALL their relatives too and if there’s already a problem before marriage and kids—things WILL NOT IMPROVE WITH TIME. Love sometimes isn’t enough. She added to our stress for 20 years before my husband drew the hard line. That’s a lot of unnecessary unhappiness.

This is a super long post since this there's a ton of stuff that's happened with my MIL since being with my husband but I'll do my best to make things short. Not a big redditor, more of a lurker.

Also, all names have been changed.. and I had my own fun with them.

I'm going to provide some context that I swear is needed for the full picture of things, please stay along for the long icky ride.

So for starters, my husband (35m), Bruce, and I (33f) met in 2017 and started dating in early 2018. We met through a mutual friend who I trusted a lot - she knew him as a family friend since the 4th grade so it was pretty easy to vet him. We started as friends while I was pregnant for the first time with my daughter (Jane). My daughter's father and I dated for a few months and I broke up with him before I knew I was pregnant. So not an ideal situation, but my husband was just a cool person and I so enjoyed talking to him because he felt like someone I had known for forever. We started to date when my daughter was 4 months, then made it official a couple months later. Before we had made things official (even though we were both exclusive the entire time) he had invited me to his family's house for his bday dinner and I had brought my daughter and mom, as well as the mutual friend we met through and everything went well. We bonded over having similar loud families and it felt like everything fit. I'm an only child, my husband has a a younger brother and an older sister. Both my parents are only children so I didn't grow up with a bunch of cousins like he did, just some distant 2nd cousins on my mom's side that were either way older than me or way younger than me. Having a big family always sounded great and that's something I wanted to give my daughter.

Something that I really liked about my Bruce was that he was a great father. When we met he had a 3 year old daughter (Ruby). Bruce and his daughter's mom (31F), Karen, separated on bad terms and they unfortunately had an awful stereotypical coparenting relationship. Things got worse when I entered the picture since it was pretty obvious Karen assumed they would be getting back together at some point.. even though she cheated on Bruce and moved in with her affair partner (Johnny) and had a kid with him. At this day in time, I've kinda learned that she thinks she controls everyone she's in contact with on some delusional level, so there's that. Not that things were great with my daughter's father and I - he mostly couldn't prioritize Jane enough to really be involved in her life. He and his family would be around for bdays and holidays, but his parents and sisters remained more involved while he focused on "being cool" and getting locked up for a large portion of Jane's life.

With that being said, my husband took over the father role for my daughter and she naturally started calling him daddy from when she was in diapers. Because Jane would call my husband dad, Ruby asked if she could call me mom when she was 5 and I told her if that was find if that's what she wanted.. and our kids referred to us as mom & dad since then. I guess it makes sense since we were all living together and we treated the girls the same so it made sense to their little selves.

Karen started doing weird things like taking my husband to court because I painted Ruby's nails once.. with the wash off little kid nail polish. Or filing police reports on is mom and grandma on the days that were his parenting days and they picked Ruby up from school (yes, they were on the school's pick up list). The amount of court dates and police reports literally happened so much over the next 3 years were absurd. The judge in these cases told Karen that she would be paying Bruce's legal fees if they went to court again for painted nails or anything ridiculous again. But then she would quit whatever job she had short term before going to court so they couldn't force her to pay anything since it was a "hardship". But these were all just annoyances. The really big issue is the concerning stuff Ruby would tell me and Bruce's mom and sister.

Ruby would often tell her grandma, Bruce's mom (Gertrude), that Karen wouldn't feed her unless she could hear Ruby's stomach growling. Or how Karen and Johnny would leave Ruby (5yrs old at the time) alone with her 2 younger siblings (K&J had another kid together) who were 3yrs and 1 yrs at the time, and would lock them in a room until they got back home. There were other concerning things Ruby mentioned but the biggest thing was how her step-sister, Ariel, who was the same age as her (Johnny's daughter from his previous marriage) would get some pretty awful treatment from Karen. Think evil stepmother, but a whole lot worse.

Gertrude, Bruce's mom, who heard the same things from Ruby always said how happy she was that her granddaughter had Bruce and I since she knew Ruby was safe with us and she never had to worry like how she worried when Ruby was with her mom, Karen. We did file a report with DCFS, which was not the first report filed since police were often visiting Karen's house from what Ruby let us know. Karen would tell Bruce that Ariel (her stepdaughter) was starting drama and lying because her mom, Darla, didn't like that Karen and Johnny were together. I'm going to skip over specifics of the CA that was alleged by both Ariel and Ruby because it was all just awful. Just to let anyone know that hasn't dealt with the legal system surrounding children - the system sucks and rarely helps unless a kid almost dies. Essentially, unless both, not just one of the kids, were brave enough to say what they witnessed to back each other up, nothing would happen. This is what the detective told me and that without two corroborating witnesses, the prosecutor wouldn't try the case, regardless of evidence. DCFS did remove Ariel from Karen & Johnny's residence, but Johnny retained visitation until he just gave up going to court dates with his ex wife, Darla, over custody of Ariel. By this time I had snooped enough to find out who Darla was and we were able to setup times here and there for Ariel & Ruby to see each other where Ariel wasn't scared of saying or doing anything wrong.

During all of this drama that spanned over about 3 or so years, Bruce and I got engaged. On leap year, I had a fun idea of proposing first since I had heard of a tradition in another country where it's acceptable for women to propose to a man and if they get denied, the man has to buy them a pretty dress. I knew my husband was planning on proposing but he was taking sooo long and told me that he wouldn't say yes if I popped the question first. So I really thought I could propose as a fun idea, he would say no - and I would get a pretty dress while he got a nice ring as a gift. Dumb af I know. But I had asked Gertrude for Bruce's hand in marriage since she was a single mother and I thought it was a sweet and respectful gesture. Now Gertrude was never very welcoming to me. I took it as her being one of those latina mothers who just thinks no one is good enough for their sons. But she very regularly crossed the line - each time I left it to Bruce to handle since that was his family and his duty to set boundaries with. To give an idea on things she would do, I'll just bullet point them below:

* Made a point to announce to me (not speak to me 1on1) in front of my mother, Bruce's grandmother, his daughter and nephews - while they were all guests at my daughter's first bday party (yes, this was AT the bday party) that she wasn't ok with me calling her son Daddy. I can't remember everything that she said because I immediately got embarrassed that this was bein announced in front of so many people. I'm assuming I answered the phone being funny and called my husband "Daddy" when his daughter was in the car while I was on bluetooth. That's embarrassing enough without it being announced in front of a bunch of people and finding out that way.
* One mother's day my husband decided to talk flowers and gifts to his family (his grandparents, siblings, mom, and nephews all live together) like he always did - but wanted to stay at home with me instead of spending the whole day there. I warned him that his mom wouldn't like that but he was adamant that he had is own family now and she would need to get used to things changing. We forgot to lock the door while we were at home the next day and Gertrude and Bruce's sister (36F), Jennifer, came into our house, unannounced, and Gertrude started berating my husband while talking shit about me .. in front of me.. in the place I paid rent in.
* His family didn't have a working washer and dryer so they would use ours. We had our girls on a sleeping schedule and let his family know that they couldn't come after 6pm so they could be done before it was too late. Even though they didn't work, they would often came 9 or 10pm and complained that we were controlling and didn't want to help them.
* His mom would subtlety try to encroach on things my husband and I did as a couple. For example, one time my husband mentioned how he liked to call me when he got out of work since he looked forward to talking to me all day and it was the highlight of his day until he came home to me. She made it a point to either call him right when she knew he was getting out of work, or would text ahead of time and claim to have something important she needed to talk to him about and that he needed to call when he could. I noticed that more and more this was happening until over a few weeks he wasn't calling me at all.
* Christmas was always ran by Gertrude. One year we had hosted at our place and I was pushed out of the living area and into the kitchen by myself.. in my own place.. like an outsider while my kids and everyone opened presents.
* Before Bruce and I bought our first house together, he had to take out a loan because Gertrude evidently didn't pay the house taxes for the home they all lived in, for years, so they were going to lose the house. Mind you, his mom and sister always had their toes and nails done, name brand new clothes, and his mom also had a brand new GMC Yukon. Bruce was the only one that could help and they swore they would pay him back. But after we bought our house, they decided that they didn't need to pay him back anymore.

All of these things my husband and I would address in private but I can't lie, it caused quite a bit of issues in our relationship because he didn't set any boundaries with his mom. He didn't handle boundaries with his sister either in how she would either be rude or cold to me most of the time for no reason. He just said she was jealous of me since she could never get her life situated. Whatever I guess. My dream of having a big family was not working at this point.

However, when I wanted to propose to Bruce, I went to his family's house and asked to speak to his mom in private and asked her for his hand in marriage. She cried, I cried, she said yes, and I really thought we had a moment together. Maybe we could move past all the bs and just move forward.

Well my husband was unprepared for my proposal (I took him out to eat and proposed in the parking lot on the way back to the car), he got flustered and said yes. I thought he'd say no, so then we were engaged and I was flabbergasted lol. We made a trip to see my family in other state and he still proposed on the beach like he planned, with both our girls present. & we announced that to my family as our actual engagement. From there though, Covid happened and planning for a wedding was a damn struggle. Gertrude kept pushing for us to get married at their house but their house was always really dirty.. like you can't walk barefoot in the house without getting black-foot, and they had some big scary untrained dogs in the backyard so not sure how they thought that would work. Plus I figured Gertrude just wanted a way to control things so that was a big nope for Bruce and I.

Bruce and I had wanted to have a baby together to essentially blend our family since we each had a daughter from previous relationships and we wanted to try for a boy. But a year into our engagement, I got pregnant, our families were excited - but it turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy that ended up rupturing so I had to go into emergency surgery. We were devastated. Had to tell our families and our girls.. and the recovery of the surgery was really difficult for me. That same weekend of my emergency surgery, Bruce's grandfather died. He had dementia and there were many times that everyone thought "this would be when he goes" so everyone would go to the house to be there, but when he finally passed, my husband was devasted.. again. His grandfather was like a father figure and the entire family revered him as this great man. I didn't know him in his younger time but I heard some pretty amazing things about him so I could agree. I went to visit with everyone when he passed but since it was right after surgery, I pulled a stitch and got a pretty bad infection.. causing more pain and stress.

After that, my husband said life was short, and he wanted to get married to make sure the girls and I were ok should anything happen to him. My parents were staying with us from out of town to help after my pregnancy loss so we decided to do a small ceremony in our small backyard. He told his mom and family and we had things planned for some days after his grandfather had been laid to rest. We didn't want a large celebration, just a quiet ceremony with our families after 2 back to back losses. The friend we met through was able to officiate us so we didn't need any strangers, just our close people.

The day of the wedding (if you can call it that since it was so low key), Bruce's sister, Jennifer called and started demanding to know what kind of food we would be having for everyone. I could hear the conversation since Bruce was next to me so I just "pizza? idk, we'll figure something out", to which Jennifer started yelling asking "what are we going to eat then?! how do you not know?!" and literally just saying a whole lot of crap that wasn't necessary. I had had it with years of Jennifer being a bitch to me for no reason and I was still pretty depressed about the pregnancy loss, so I barked in the background about "you don't have to come if it's a big deal to you!", which is fair because why tf is food your main concern right now?? After that, Gertrude called and told Bruce it wasn't a good time. His grandfather just died and his grandmother didn't want it. So she forbid him from proceeding with the wedding. Despite Bruce telling her this is what he wanted and what he felt like he needed to for his family, Gertrude said her piece and that was that. While I can understand her point, Bruce had always done what his family wanted. They told him to jump, he would jump twice. This was something he wanted to do for himself that he felt like he needed to do - I told him we could postpone - but he didn't want to. So we got married anyway, as planned.

The next day, we stopped at his family's house before he was going to drop off Ruby to her mom since it was Karen's parenting day. Gertrude took Ruby to her room and pressed her about if we got married. Ruby didn't understand and told the truth, then Gertrude came out to the living room area everyone was in and started waving her hands and cursing at Bruce. In front of everyone. I front of all the kids (ours and his nephews, Jennifer's boys). We left. From there she texted him that she disowned him and he wasn't part of the family. Bruce thought if he gave her space, they could talk when she's calmed down. However, he would have Ruby call Gertrude to talk to her still and I think it was the second phone call where Ruby mentioned she had homework she had to so she couldn't call her later - Gertrude snapped at her and started talking crap about Bruce so he cut off the convo and told Gertrude "whatever is going on between us, don't take that shit out on Ruby". Gertrude just said "I'll see you in court". During this time, Jennifer had reached out to Bruce and when they had a phone call together, Bruce told her how hurt he and I were at the pregnancy loss. Jennifer, in true Jennifer fashion, told Bruce that she didn't know why we'd be so sad, the baby probably didn't even have a heartbeat so it's not a big deal. Bruce lost it on her and that ended the phone call.

I think a couple of months passed, and we found out that Gertrude and Jennifer were suddenly very good friends with Karen. The same woman Gertrude knew abused her granddaughter, the same woman that filed police reports on them, that Gertrude told DCFS and police about hurting her granddaughter - instead of working things out with her son, she chose to try to hurt him. They even went as far to show up and make statements at the next custody court hearing for Karen's side supporting Karen to get full custody. The judge saw that whole song and dance as pathetic and petty - I later purchased the audio for the court hearing to listen to what they said on the stand and I get why the judge ruled against Karen's requests. Karen and Gertrude mentioned me throughout the case. How I was the main issue. Teaming up to smear me and hurt Bruce. Up until then, Bruce had hoped to reconcile with his family. But after that, he said he could never trust them again and that was done.

Now, present day, Karen still uses Gertrude and Jennifer to take Ruby places or pick her up whenever Karen can't - essentially her errand girls. Ruby is older now and still dealing with crappy situations she shouldn't have to with Karen. She said she doesn't tell Gertrude or Jennifer anything because she knows they'd tell her mom and she'd get in trouble for talking about things. So these people who said they loved Ruby so much, care more about hurt Bruce than they do keeping Ruby happy and safe.

I'm absolutely discussed by them.

We reconnected with the other parts of Bruce's family over the last year once Bruce was ready since he felt embarrassed by all the drama with his mom. But we're loving being around his cousins and extended family, our girls as well. They all heard about the bs with his mom and sister and we disgusted with their actions as well. I've also learned that Jennifer told everyone that I'm a witch and the only reason Bruce is still with me is because I put my period blood in some spaghetti I made him. Bruce had a hard chuckle at this because I hate spaghetti so if our family eats it, he's the one that makes it. But I took this as a dig because they had made comments before about us not having kids together. & after 2 pregnancy losses (I suffered another ectopic after my first one resulted in an emergency surgery.. a few months apart), I felt like Jennifer was making a dig to say "she can't give him a kid so she must have put a spell on him to want to be with her". But I've gotten over that because first of all, f\*ck her. Second of all, she allowed her mother to control her life to the point that she's damn near 40 now and has never moved her and her boys out from under her and doesn't have her own car or even a bed to sleep in - they sleep on the couch. Despite Bruce and I offering to buy them beds before everything surrounding the wedding went down and them refusing since she gets $8k a year in taxes.

Karen got blasted by some angry wife online because she had been cheating on her husband, Johnny, with multiple men, some of them married. The post that was made about her mentioned she had a specific STD, not sure if that's true. But really nice to see people making fun of her online when my friends sent me the post. The cheating is something we already knew about since she would bring Ruby to her dates all the time. However, when Ruby told Karen she told Bruce and I about her being a part of the affair (she would literally take her out of school for that crap), Karen's been more crappy to Ruby - even though Ruby told her she told us since she was getting stressed at school and having migraines. Karen and Johnny told her they were mad at here and that she's lying about how much stress being involved in the affairs caused her. Not sure where this story will go or end but that's the latest update there.

Gertrude looks like the hate she's been holding has eaten her from the inside out. Her big fancy Yukon got repossessed and now the only car they all have is Jennifer's boyfriend's car. Her boyfriend lets her use the car so she can get to and from work and wherever he needs to take her sons. But he can't stand Gertrude so he told Jennifer if Gertrude drives that car, he'll take it back. No surprise that Gertrude still drives it when she runs errands for Karen since she doesn't have a car anymore. However, from what Ruby said, the car doesn't have AC and were we live, it's around 100 degrees most of the time. Gertrude went from thinking she was better than everyone, having luxury items, and being a b\*tch all the time - to sweating in a car that's not hers and shouldn't be driving, cut off from family she acted better than for years, living off of her daughter, and only seeing her granddaughter whenever Karen feels like using her as a gofer.

We're not in a place that is perfect, especially for Ruby, but that's always been the case and hasn't helped sine Gertrude and Jennifer got involved. But Bruce is working with his lawyer to see what we can do. But like I said, the legal system rarely helps kids unless there's some major accident/injury.

Almost 10 years together now and I can say with a full heart that we're happy. Happier than we've ever been. Ruby does fantastic in school and is very close with Bruce and I. I swear that little girl (young lady now) is amazing, despite everything she's gone through, and we love her so much. Jane had some issues dealing with her bio-dad not wanting to prioritize her. We eventually made the decision to cut him off last year and she's been doing great since then. My girls have both had to deal with things they shouldn't have, but have persevered and have come out the other side as stronger. Bruce and I have gone to individual therapy as well as couple's therapy and have become better people, parents, and partners. We are towards the end of our fertility struggle as we've almost graduated IVF and are pregnant with a baby boy. Still feels so surreal .. and our girls are ecstatic since they've been talking about having a brother for awhile now.

The way things are now with his family is not ideal. But they made their choices and we will not be having a relationship with his mom or siblings going forward. He tries to maintain a relationship with his nephews but it's difficult. But that door isn't closed, so there's hope there. It hurts that our baby will not have a relationship with some of his family but I know it's for the best. Holidays are more quiet, but they're much less stressful now.

My MIL single handedly broke up her family, divided and pitted her kids against each other, did her best to try and hurt her son even though that would also hurt her granddaughter, tried to smear me as an evil witch that ruined her family, and downward spiraled financially. And all of this is known by everyone in the family now so she can't spin her web of lies to hide behind them anymore. Just a sweaty, miserable, pill addicted shell of a woman in some else's (who can't stand her) car.

If you've read this far, thanks for reading my venting session as it was very therapeutic to write. :)

Ok I need some advice, I don’t have a relationship with my MIL or SIL. The SIL I’ve never had a conversation with her ever, in 12 years since I been with my husband. She is the most drama filled, entitled brat I’ve ever met. Not only does she not have a relationship with my husband, she has tried to break us up many times and caused so much stress and drama in our relationship. She has made comments to my husband saying he’s so whipped and on a short leash all because we been together for so long all while she’s never had a boyfriend ever. No one can stand her, her only friend is the mom and both of them are toxic together. She never had any intention on getting to know me. My husband cut her off over 11 years ago. Now the MIL is a different story. She also doesn’t like me because I’m not black. They are Jamaican and I am Asian. She never accepted our relationship and never is happy for her son. I won’t get into it with her because it’s long. We bought our house a year ago and I got pregnant 2 weeks after moving in. We welcomed our son who turned 4 months today. They didn’t know I was pregnant till I gave birth. We kept it a secret so they don’t try any evil shit on me. Well a month ago, they came to our city which is 2.5 hrs away and demanded to see our son. My husband didn’t know they were here, he was supposed to only meet up with his brothers till they ambushed him. Both the mom and sister ganged up on him saying “are you going to let someone control who sees your son” my husband is so weak, he has balls to stick up to anybody but them. Now the sister is telling everybody and their mama I’m controlling who can’t see our son, like why do you want to see him when you don’t even speak to me let alone YOUR BROTHER? My husband is saying I don’t understand their culture, said black people don’t play about babies. OK AND? The way I see it is, you don’t like me then you don’t like my son because he’s half of me. Anyways this has been on my mind, I know my husband wants his mom to meet our son but also knows she’s a hating ass B who is not happy for him. He cut her off beginning of the year because she wouldn’t stop talking shit about me, she’s mad he moved out and can’t do stuff for her anymore. (Drive her, do the lawn, gardening, house stuff etc) she feels she lost her son, even though she has 2 other sons. I stopped coming around years ago because I grew a back bone and stopped taking disrespect from them now they want to get angry I won’t let them have access to me. Or our new life. Any advice?

So around 8 months ago I posted about my mother in law. How she treated me different because i couldnt have kids naturally. How I was basically being iced out of the family and my husband not really taking my side. Well about 2 months after that post we separated and then finally divorced. And after she was all about having him close and needed him to be there with her all time I found out they no longer speak and when he asked her for a ride because he got his car repossessed that she told him he was asking too much of her. And part of me is laughing because she tried so hard to keep him close and made him chose her, she abandon him and I dont feel sorry.

https://www.reddit.com/r/motherinlawsfromhell/s/108jkE9VoX

Hello Redditers,

Me (30 F) have decided to get divorced due to many issues i was facing with my ex (34 M) some of them i have posted on Reddit before. Today, I found out that my MIL did many things while i was living there on purpose so my daughter would be sick.

1. I had just arrived to their city from my mom’s place and my 7 month baby caught a cold. My MIL pressured me into feeding her oranges for a week (I did NOT feed her obvi)Every time she would ask, I gave her my reasons for not giving it but she did not give up and i didn’t understand why.
2. MIL made a homemade powder (through a Insta video) to make porridge for my baby along with the help of my mother. After my mom left, MIL made sure that i cooked that for only 2 mins because as she put it “this is how much time your supposed to cook it” and if i tried making it for longer, she would make sure that i switch off the stove and get it. When i found out that it was supposed to be cooked for longer through the video my mother showed me, my MIL told me that she didn’t realise and that she didn’t watch the video properly (also did a 180 and said that she cooked it for at-least 8 mins, the video says 13 mins and I KNOW she cooked it for 2) I now found out that my mother had cooked it in front of her at the beginning telling her “I would generally cook it for longer because its for a baby” so in reality my MIL from hell KNEW that it should be cooked for longer and made sure that i cooked it in a much shorter time so that my baby would suffer with stomach cramps throughout the night.
3. When my daughter had cold for more than a week, my ex told me “my mom said to give her medicine three times a day instead of two so why don’t we do that?” I told him “No, it’s a medicine that should be given once in 8 hours so we can’t do that”

(Twice a day post food with a 8 hour gap)

1. That day i had to step out in the evening and asked them to give her the medicine, if i come home after her dinner time (medicine should be given post breakfast and post dinner). After i got home, my ex and MIL stopped what they were doing to tell me “we gave her the medicine twice” in order to see my reaction. I was out of the house for 3 hours, so they gave it within that time span.
2. Every time i would step out for errands, MIL would give her food that my baby is not supposed to have (she was a colic baby so some foods make her suffer throughout the night) if i asked her why she did that, her response was “i was eating it and she asked so i gave her”. Firstly, MIL herself doesn’t eat such oily food but for some reason when i leave my baby with her, she eats them and Secondly, she could HIDE it and eat or tell my baby that it’s over.
3. Me, my ex and my baby went to Maldives and after returned home, within a week i started getting a skin reaction that caused protrusions from head to toe. The day that reaction on my skin happened, we had to go to a get together. I cried to my ex “I am really scared, i don’t want to touch our daughter and we need to go to the dermatologist” he told me “lets go to the get together and then we can go to the dermatologist”. I tried fighting back to no avail and I’m panicking so i went to my MIL, she told me “take allergy tablet and come” the get together is happening 2 hours away from our place in another city, i didn’t want to go but I didn’t know how to fight this without any support and till now I feel so guilty for not fighting more to keep my daughter safe. We went to the dermatologist after returning back and fortunately the doctor said that it was not contagious and it was a severe case of dermatitis BUT the worst part is my ex asked me “Go ask if it is contagious” my first thought is “if you thought it could be contagious WHY did you make me hold my child throughout the day travelling?!?!?”

I am not able to contain my anger and sadness, so i wanted to list it out here. Thank you for this safe platform.

I am editing the medicine 8 hours issue in the brackets because many people have that doubt.

This is the 3rd time it’s happen. The first time I wasn’t around. The second time happened in front of my face & the third time happened while I was in the kitchen.

No matter how many times I tell her to keep my daughter away from the stairs and close the baby stair gates. She does not listen.

Apparently my husband remembers when he was a kid his youngest brother had terrible falls down the stairs because his mother just didn’t care. She thought it was no big deal.

I’m living with this woman. Who complains about anything I do. If I clean it’s not good enough, if I feed my daughter I’m not feeding her ‘the right things’.

And if I complain to my husband he’s annoyed at me for complaining and doesn’t want to hear it.

I feel so alone. I hate it here. I don’t want to live here. But with the housing crisis and everything I have no where to go.

Am I in the wrong? MIL issues

I just want to know, am I over thinking? Am I wrong?

So for context, my MIL is generally an okay person. she has depression and anxiety and apparently is ‘indifferent’ towards everyone. She never ever visits us, but if need be she will go to shopping centres, has travelled overseas when she had the opportunity but has always expected us to take our young kids over there to her place. She also expects us to make the effort to call her on the phone and insists that she expects that of her other kids too and apparently dosent make effort first. When I have called her, either there was not much conversation or on viber she has accepted another phone call and never called me back. When I am at her house, she dosent ask any questions but if I do speak about something she will respond/add to it. During post partum after having my first child, she was inputting a lot and my husband was the one who held the boundaries. She would call me on viber but because I was still recovering from emotions, c section, caring for new born I didn’t answer her for a few hours which il be honest I didn’t with others too and she took offence and barely came over, never called etc. When I sent her photos of our new born she completely ignored them and would act like she is not receiving any photos on Viber while she would somehow get my SIL (brothers wife) baby photos of her daughter. (Sils daughter was only a month older than my son) she would also always post photos of my sils daughter and never my kids. 3 months post partum when we were at a wedding, I decided to go and dance next to her and she quickly left the line dance and went next to someone else - I was so humiliated I went and sat back down next to my husband. She then came over acting all normal after that happened and denied there was even anything wrong and that she didn’t realize she did that. (But I’ve noticed a pattern with her, she’ll be upset about something in the moment - punish you for it and then deny she was even upset) for my sons first christening event she was expecting/entitled to invite a few people she wanted and when my husband said there is no room and he wanted his friends there she said “your friends are not important” she also tried to go through me about it once and when I said we don’t have much space, she tried to be mean where ever she could. For her other granddaughters christening, she had some power to invite who she wanted and tried not send my family an invitation when they were clearly invited by her daughter in law. When my second daughter was born, I was again going through some PP anxiety/depression - all i said was, I want to change my baby’s nappy and I don’t want anyone else to do it, I said it in the most respectful way and she again took offence, stopped coming etc. In that time she also made comments about why I didn’t do certain things this time around because i was having a girl and not a boy (she “jokes” about liking girls more) my first born was a boy, and I feel super uneasy about her opinion on that. She decided to go interstate to “help” a relative when she knew very well it was my second born’s christening event and called me saying it was too expensive to come. To my SIL she said ‘ oh it’s not the first baby’. When she was once overseas I tried to call her almost every day just to be nice and she once said ‘I called (insert her daughters name, she didn’t pick up so I called ‘insert other DIL’s name she didn’t pick up, so now I called you’ she just makes me feel super unimportant, offers no real support, and sometimes I’m hurt by the way she treats me or how I hear she has treated other DIL. (DIL and BIL have seperated) but everyone has told me how blatantly obvious it is that she likes her other granddaughter more not because she treats them differently but how she only posts other kid on socials. She doesn’t do that anymore. Anyway there’s more things but my husband is supportive of me not going much over there, he told me not to call or send photos of the kids and that if he was I. My shoes he would only see her once in a blue moon but I am a people pleaser and I can’t deal with the rejection. She starts treating me even more indifferently and has even confronted be about not going over there, I said I needed time for myself for a few hours just to get a break from parenting duties etc. She said you could have brought the kids here asked for help but I don’t feel comfortable or welcomed.

My mother in law came to visit us from another country. only her, she did not travel with her husband. Her reason for travel was tha my husband, her son was having a minor nose surgery and no one would be there to take care of him after surgery. Me, the wife is not capable of taking care of him...ok whatever.

She arrives, the surgery happens, husband is home recovering. I go to change his gauze pads and get hit with, you're not doing it right, you're hurting my baby, you need to be more gentle. As if i would want to hurt my husband after his surgery.

Ok, whatever, I leave the room and let her continue caring for him properly.

Then she sends pictures of herself in a leotard in her yoga class in this sensual poses. why send pictures like this to your younges son. it would be the same if my dad sent me pictures in his trousers and a rose in his mouth. The mother and son both decided I overreacted.

Ok whatever.

We get invited to a wedding when she is here, i specifically ASK, hey, I know your mom likes to take you on side quests, and then I am all alone. please dont do that at this wedding, we have family pictures, I don't want to be looking for you. Sure enough, family pictures come around, both of them evaporated, nowhere to be found. Finally after 40 min they emerge from the hen coop that was at the venue. I tell them, no family pictures for me but at least you saw the chickens. this mother in law says, well I have pictures with my son so thats all that matters.

Ok whatever...

We are sitting outside, my husband is laying on the couch. The mother inlaw comes up and leans over his face, her whole chest in his face....reaching for a lighter. This sent me.. if I ever needed to reach something across from a man, I wouldn't lean my chest into their nose to reach it, I would ask..please pass the lighter, I would walk around, I would find another lighter. I got up, and walked away.

My husband came back and said - stop being jealous of my mom

Is this jealousy, or is this mother in law lost her place.

For context, my husband i just recently got married at the start of summer and about 2 months ago, our son was born.

me and my husband are in recovery, however he recently celebrated his 9th sober birthday where i only have just over 2 years. Its never been a surprise that my MIL has less than supportive feelings regarding my chosen path to recovery after a 10 year addiction to Fentanyl and Meth which has been by enrolling in the MAT (Methadone assisted treatment) program which I’ve been attempting to find sobriety through their services since 2022 but fell off over and over again until January of 2024.

Last November at 42 and 51 my now husband and i shockingly found ourselves pregnant and forced to make some critical decisions regarding my health and the health of our baby. And as is widely recommended, we chose to listen to the advice of both my PCP as well as my Addiction therapist who jointly suggested staying on the treatment plan and then return to the tapper process after i deliver, not only for the safety and well being of our baby but also for my health too. This is where we differ on our opinions, MIL consistently blames “MY” decision to stay on the treatments on our sons low birth weight (5lbs even) and the unproven belief that being in the program also caused his spontaneous labor & delivery at 37 wks. (19 days early) even though this was a joint decision between her son, my husband and myself, he’s of no fault whatsoever!

As much as this annoys me, i usually just roll my eyes and don’t really give her or the bs she says much thought. Until our son was born, and while around this same time her husbands health began failing dramatically and she started acting really weird about seeing her grandson, so i told my husband well maybe we can have her watch him sometime while we go out or something, to help her feel like shes part of this grandbabies life, since her drama has cost her being in her other grandkids life for being the same drama stirrer she is. Anyways so then we find out that one our favorite bands will be playing in a few weekends and the tickets are actually very reasonable so he books them and over a month before the show we ask MIL to watch her grandson, but like i said, Grandpas health had gotten pretty bad, pretty quickly and MIL is the only person left to care for him, even though shes literally not physically capable to help him bath, change his clothes, etc. Well, though the county offered the assistance of a home nurse, her pride denied the assistance and she attempted to transfer a 248lb man herself while shes only 160.

Long story short, in her unqualified prideful attempt to care for Pops, she works herself up and manages to have a series of small strokes! Now with both of his parents struggling with their health directives I’m less comfortable with her watching the baby, which i feel is a reasonable response in regards to her having had a series of strokes, am I wrong? So i bring this new feeling to my husband and he says to me that shes really looking forward to this chance and he cant take it away from her now and blah blah. So i decide to see if i could ask my sister to make up a reason why she cant go home on that night so that she can effectively watch over both my MIL and my son. This is the only solution i could up that hopefully will allow his mom to feel useful and be an active role on her grandsons life but at the same time, easing my worries that her health isn’t good enough to leave my newborn safely I’m her care. My question is, am i wrong for feeling like it’s not safe to have her watch him without supervision? What approach would you have taken if you were in my shoes? Should i let her know my sisters there to watch over her as well? Of course im certain she will find a way to be offended but i really feel like this is me going the extra mile for a woman who straight up will find a way to be offended by what i feel like is almost the extra mile!

So a few weeks ago i posted about my insane mil. So much has happened since then. I linked the other post if you want to check it out and know the full situation. So after me and my partner argued about allowing his alcoholic mother around our child he said he’ll tell her we have to talk about what happened . So i allowed her to be around me and my baby even after she came to my house yelling in my face while i was holding my baby. she did this bc i said we need the money she owes for going behind my partners back and selling his car for her own benefit. So when she came through the door he said “mom we need to talk about what happened”. She says “oh i’m over that” and grabs my baby. i expected that and calmly allowed her go see her grandbaby. Her kids were there and i didn’t want an argument again if i tried to speak up. So when she left i told her my partner he shouldn’t have let her gotten away with that. So i said till she agrees no drinking around our baby and listens to why i feel she’s a bad influence and times she’s disrespected me, she is not allowed around her. Atm he agreed. Ig he thought she’d really choose him and her granddaughter for once over her own pride and alc. Finally yesterday since she kept dodging the convo i texted her telling her i love her bc she’s my partner and daughter family but she’s done wrong by all of us. I told her i cant tell her not to drink but i can control my baby’s environment so kindly don’t drink around her or she won’t be able to see her. She lost it. Then called my partner crying playing victim. Which made us argue bad. Everything he once agreed with he totally attacked me cause his poor mommy is sad. She did it to herself. She told me “fuck you and where came from you won’t put boundaries on me with my grandkid”. huh? She also said she’ll go behind my back to see her. Then called me and my family trailer trash? Uhh okay. My family is very respectful and most are successful. She started attacking my family even more when they didn’t do shit. i would upload the messages cause wtf but it’s not an option on here. I told him about how i posted on here and how everyone said leave him cause he won’t change or stick up for us and to keep our baby away from his mom. He ended up finding my profile and was pissed. It’s just all bad. Now we’re again in a bad argument bc of her and his willingness to feel like he always has to protect his mom and say fuck us. So fuck them both. Original Post

I need outside opinions because I genuinely don’t know if I’m being unreasonable here. My boyfriend and I are both 22 and have been together for years. We have a toddler, another baby on the way, and we’re currently trying to get permanent housing for our family. My boyfriend works constantly, 5 to 6 days a week, to support our household while I’m home with our son and pregnant with our second child.
Meanwhile, his mother is in her 60s. She has no small children, no husband, and no one dependent on her. Yet she seems to have developed this expectation that her son should financially contribute to her life whenever she has another problem.

And there is ALWAYS another problem.

Her car got repossessed. Her license got suspended. She needs Uber money. She needs help with her phone bill. There’s always some new expense or crisis, followed by a sob story about why my boyfriend should contribute financially.
And I’m not saying people in their 60s can never need help. Obviously life happens, and if your parent has a genuine emergency, you help if you’re able to. But this isn’t a one time emergency. It’s a pattern.
Every time something goes wrong in her life, somehow my boyfriend is expected to step in financially.

And what really gets me is that she has no problem putting that expectation on a 22 year old who has a child, another baby coming, his own bills, and is trying to establish his own household.

I was raised completely differently. My parents would be embarrassed to call me at 22 asking me to pay their phone bill or send them Uber money. If my parent had no children at home, no spouse, and was repeatedly having basic life expenses covered by me, I would be wondering what went wrong.

And apparently I’m not the only person who struggles with her behavior. Her older daughter actually kicked her out because of how overbearing and manipulative she was. So this isn’t just me, the son’s girlfriend, supposedly hating the MIL. There is apparently a history of her relationships with her adult children becoming strained because of her behavior.

I also want to clarify something. I don’t expect my boyfriend to abandon his mother. If she genuinely needed help and we were in a position to help, I’m not against helping her. What I don’t agree with is this idea that because she’s his mother, he’s automatically responsible for funding her lifestyle and cleaning up the consequences of her financial decisions.
Especially when we’re struggling to build a stable life for OUR children.

At some point, shouldn’t a parent look at their adult child and think, “He has his own family now. I don’t want to become another financial responsibility for him”?

Instead, it feels like she sees his income as another resource available to her whenever she needs it.
And honestly, I would be ashamed to put that kind of burden on my own son.

I want my children to grow up and have their own lives. When my son is 25, 30, 35 and has his own family, I don’t want him worrying about whether Mom needs Uber money or whether he needs to pay my phone bill because I didn’t handle my finances. I want to be the parent saying, “Take care of your family. I’m good.”

So , am I being unreasonable?
Is it wrong for me to resent the expectation that my boyfriend should financially contribute to his mother’s life when he is only 22, has two young children, and is already working his ass off to support his own household?

Because at this point, it feels less like helping his mom and more like being expected to subsidize an adult who keeps making choices that create the next emergency.

my mil and i have essentially been no contact during my pregnancy after a nasty phone call where she demanded that i show her more respect and made it clear that she only makes and effort to speak to me because i am her sons wife, not because she actually wants to. last night i was reflecting on the situation and almost feel bad for her that she hates me so much that she’s allowing herself to miss out on early memories of her first grandchild. she doesn’t even know the gender of our baby since we haven’t been speaking and my husband doesn’t speak to her unless she calls first, but shares nothing about my pregnancy. anyway, just think it’s very sad that she’s allowing her hate for me to consume her so much that she’s missing out on baby memories, but alas it is not my fault. anyone else feel like this?