We can’t choose our family, but we can’t exactly choose our in-laws, either. One day, we’re falling in love with a great person—and then comes the time to meet the parents. While some mothers-in-law are lovely people, others…are not. From petty behavior to horrific acts of vengeance, these mothers give new meaning to the term “monster-in-law.”

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1. The Revenant

I’m a single father. I have raised my son alone because when he was just a few days old, his mother suddenly decided she didn’t want a child anymore. She claimed she’s not ready to have a child and refused to even feed him or hold him. I wanted to give her some time, since I thought that maybe it’s just postpartum depression or something.

I was ready to be there for her, but she was serious. She packed her stuff and left the hospital. Her last words were that she wants to see neither me or our son ever again. I have never seen her since. But I suspect I know what really happened. I kind of feel like my mother-in-law had something to do with it. During her pregnancy, this woman was talking all the time about how young her daughter is and how inappropriate of a moment this is for her to have a child.

I don’t have any proof and I can’t tell anything for sure but I feel like she somehow secretly persuaded her to take this step for whatever reason. So I was left alone with an infant in my hands. It definitely wasn’t easy, as I was just 21 years old. I had to leave college and work very hard to give my son everything he needed. Fortunately, I wasn’t completely alone.

There were people who helped me to get through the hardest period, people who babysat him while I was working, who gave me advice on how to take care of a baby, and I’ll be forever thankful to them. When he grew up a little, it became easier. I could send him to a kindergarten and work without asking people to take care of him while I’m not there.

During all this time I hoped to hear from his mother, and hoped that she’d eventually come around and realize you can’t just leave your child like a worthless piece of trash. But even though I had left her in my contacts and she could call me or write me a letter or something, she didn’t. She never once used her rights to visit him.

When he was little, he often asked me why did his mother leave him, why didn’t she want him. I didn’t know what to answer because I always tried not to speak badly of his mother in front of him. Now my son is 25 years old. He’s a hardworking, educated young man and I’m so proud of him and I’m proud of myself that I was able to raise him to be a good person.

We stopped talking about his mother a long time ago. It was his choice. He was like—well, if she doesn't want to be with us, then it’s her loss and there’s nothing we can do about it. But that wasn’t the end of the story. Recently my mother-in-law appeared on our doorstep. Without a call, without any kind of notification, she was just there and she had come to visit her grandson.

I couldn’t believe my ears and at first, I almost didn’t recognize her because so many years had passed. She was behaving as if she was a caring grandmother who had come to see her grandchild like she does all the time, not like she was gone for 25 years. When my son saw her, he didn’t recognize her either. I have shown him pictures of his mother and his grandmother just in case they show up one day but I never really thought that they would.

She ran up to him and hugged him just like a loving grandmother would, asking how he’s doing and commenting how big and beautiful he has become. He pushed her away and looked kind of confused. I told him that it’s his grandmother who has randomly shown up to visit him, and he was like ”oh” and walked away from her. She didn’t take this reaction well.

She looked at me and was like, ”What have you taught him if he doesn’t even say hello to his grandmother? He’s looking at me as if I’m a stranger! Haven’t you told him about his mother and me or shown him our pictures?” Well, technically you are a stranger, lady. He had never seen you in person, so why are you so surprised? You show up out of thin air after 25 years when he’s all grown up and expect him to treat you with love? Isn't it kind of delusional?

My son said, ”Dad did showed me your picture, but I didn’t need a picture—I needed you to be there for me.” He was quite hateful with her, throwing question after question at her, and her responses were so incredibly narrow-minded and limited. It was like she wasn’t expecting him to ask any questions. He asked her where his mother was and she was like, ”Oh, she’s doing very well, she’s living together with a great man and she has two nice kids. She has gotten over that misunderstanding about your birth.”

She was acting as if her daughter was the victim here. As if we were the ones who left her. He asked her why his mother abandoned him, and she said, ”Well, she was such a young girl, it would be craziness for her to have a child at that age! She had her whole life ahead of her and a baby would only be an obstacle. You must understand it, she didn’t want to lose her freedom!”

Honestly, her daughter was older than me when our son was born; she was 24. I don’t think it’s too early to have a child, it’s not like she was 14 or something. Actually, age has nothing to do with it. I could have given up my son too, but I didn’t because I loved him and I wanted to be his father. At this point, I wanted to show my mother-in-law the door, but my son stopped me. He had one more heartbreaking question.

He asked why she didn’t want to be his grandmother. His mother left him, fine, but why did she leave him too? She said, ”Well, I had no time to take care of you. I was a young woman too, I had my life, too. And grandkids are only obligated to take care of grandparents when they’re old. So that’s why I’m here.” My son told her to leave and never come back.

He said he doesn’t want to see her ever again and he won’t help her with anything. As she was leaving, she attacked me like, ”That’s what I thought, a man alone cannot raise a proper human being! Such a rude and impolite boy, he would have turned out better in an orphanage than with you!” So according to her, the conclusion is—don’t have children while you’re young or if you do, feel free to leave them and then come back a few decades later and they’ll love you even though they have never received any kind of care from you.

But seriously, what the heck was she expecting?

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2. Beat Em At Their Own Game

You all, my revenge on my mother-in-law was GLORIOUS!  So I've been married a long time, a long time. My mother-in-law was mostly just annoying but had her awful moments, and I’ve been low to no contact for probably the last 10 years with her and my life has been divine because of that. My husband doesn’t mind because he gets lots of romance when his mother isn’t interfering in our relationship.

But way back, I tried so, so hard to get on her good side. I was such a sweet summer child. I thought to myself, she should be happy for my husband that he has me. I cooked and cleaned and threw parties and most people liked me. But she was sly, so my husband didn’t catch the nuances of her behavior. I tried to point it out, with little luck, because I had no experience with a woman like this.

We left for our honeymoon a week after our wedding, which was enough time for us to set up our small apartment and get cozy living together beforehand. We left for a week and left the keys with my mother-in-law to fetch our mail and various things. Y’all, when we got back, she had completely rearranged my kitchen, the living room, threw out some of my pictures and knick-knacks from our bedroom, and I swear she also tossed some of my lingerie.

I was upset, so upset. I cried to my husband, and he got angry at his mom, talked to her, then came home with the usual, “She can’t imagine why I’d be upset! She was being SO helpful! She didn’t mean to do anything wrong!” Then she started crying on cue and my husband was thrown for a loop, having never experienced woman-to-woman territorial rages.

He came home spewing her diatribe and simply told me that he would help me put things back. And he did, except for the kitchen—he only made things worse in there but not for lack of trying. My mother-in-law never even taught him how to butter bread. Sigh. But, I learned a valuable lesson. Whenever the mother-in-law was up to her shenanigans, she would wait until we were alone, look at me and do this evil smile with a nod to acknowledge her disdain to me properly.

I learned from the best, the very best. My mother-in-law was the town pillar; active in church and charity, and so sweet to the people she approved of. So, here is the revenge. My mother-in-law is old now, and still just as sneaky. If anything, old age has sharpened her skills, and she has taken on the role of helpless old lady quite fabulously.

There are volunteers who help her and bring her meals, sit and read with her, it’s all quite nice, really. She did a week-long stint in the hospital recently, and my husband got the key to her house to retrieve her mail, etc. Well, I made a copy of said key (without him knowing, of course) because I had a plan. During that week, I took some time off work and let myself into her house to rearrange, I mean, clean her kitchen. I also threw away some broken porcelain and other items, and took pictures off the walls and put them in the closet. Then I rearranged the linen closet, the coat closet, my mother-in-law’s closet and her bathrooms. Both of them.

I left the living room mostly alone, sadly, but I didn’t want my husband to catch on, see. Then, on the day my husband was supposed to pick her up from the hospital and bring her home, I offered to help him clean her house for her homecoming! He was mildly surprised at my offer, but I said I’ve decided to let bygones be bygones.

I will help, then get out of the way so he could help the mother-in-law get settled in. She can mostly live by herself, with a little help every day from friends and family. So we cleaned, mopped, and vacuumed. Got everything sparkly and clean. I went with him to fetch his mom and sat in the back seat.

When we arrived, my mother-in-law immediately noticed things were askew but she couldn’t tell what it was yet. Then she noticed the missing pictures. Mother-in-law: "What did you do with my pictures?" Husband and me: "What do you mean?" Mother-in-law: "You took my pictures!!!" Me: "Oh my, no mother-in-law, I helped him clean and that’s all."

My husband confirmed that this is all I did. I asked if she’d like some tea, and she yelled at me to stay out of her kitchen. She went in herself and screamed, “What have you done?” I looked at my husband, all puzzled, and he repeats that he and I only cleaned the counters and dishes, and mopped. My mother-in-law was livid, so I told my husband that my presence must be upsetting to her so maybe I should leave.

My husband, confused because he had no idea why his mom was acting so outwardly hostile to me, agreed. So I cheerfully told my mother-in-law that I’d be on my way and my husband could call me when he’s ready to be picked up. That’s all he heard, but I did one more thing. He didn’t see me smiling at my mother-in-law because he was facing my back.

Then I nodded at her with her very own signature nod. She was livid. My husband told me on the way home, when I went to pick him up a few hours later, that she had accused me of all sorts of things, and that’s when I said, “The poor dear’s mind must be going.” He agrees, the poor thing is getting so old, after all. She should have been nicer to me.

I get to help pick her nursing home, and I know very well how to play the helpful supportive role. Thanks, mother-in-law!

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3. Out Of Her Mind

I’m a male officer, I’m dating a man, and my mother-in-law hates this. Yesterday I came in for my shift in the morning, without thinking about my mother-in-law at all. I got changed, had a cup of coffee, looked who I was going to be paired with, and when my partner and I walked out of the station to go to the patrol car, I saw my mother-in-law.

She did kind of come up to me, not close enough for a conversation but close enough so that I could hear her. She started to say something about my boyfriend and some money she needs. I saw her but I totally ignored her. I just walked past her without saying a word and went straight to the patrol car to start my shift. The fact that I ignored her annoyed her pretty badly, I guess.

She stepped back a bit, waited until we got into the car, and just before we turned on the engine and started to drive, she grabbed a rock from a nearby flowerbed and threw it into the windshield of our car. The windows of our patrol cars are quite durable, fortunately. It cracked but didn’t shatter and I didn’t end up with a face full of glass.

I wasn’t driving, my partner was driving and it was obvious that she aimed her throw right at the passenger seat where I was at. Then she probably realized that doing that to a police car in front of two officers in front of a station wasn’t the smartest thing to do. She turned around and took off running. I got out and ran after her. This pursuit wasn’t very long.

She only made it to the park that’s not far from the station when I caught her. And that’s when she started to make the biggest scene I had ever seen. She had no intention of calmly letting me put handcuffs on her. Instead, she dropped to the ground and started to yell for help.  Mind you, it was an early morning, but there were already quite a lot people in the park—some were walking their dogs, some were jogging, some were just walking through to get to wherever they needed.

She was yelling at the top of her lungs, “People, good people, help me! I’m being attacked! This isn’t a real officer! He’s trying to kidnap me!” and things like this. She was yelling for help so loudly that everyone in the park stopped whatever they were doing and looked at us. Everyone—men, women, children, dogs, and cats. There was not a single person who wasn’t looking at us.

You might think that I’m a man and she’s a woman, so I should be able to hold her down, but really it’s not that simple. She was hitting and scratching and biting. She was spitting at me. Also, during the struggle, she kicked me several times, quite hard, and it was really painful. Honestly, at this point, I had all the rights to tase her. I didn’t.

My partner came with a car, helped me, and together we managed to handcuff her. The next problem was getting her into the patrol car. Our patrol cars are like vans; the back door opens and there’s like a cage with a bench where you can put the person in. And my mother-in-law wasn’t going to get in there without a fight. Even with her hands cuffed, she was kicking the door, and spread her legs very wide so that we couldn’t get her in.

When we finally got her in, she was putting her feet in the doorway so we couldn’t close the door. While she was doing all this, she was yelling that we’re breaking her bones, that we have no rights to treat her like this, that this is against the law and still asking the people to call the real authorities. During my whole career as a cop, I had never had an arrest like this.

I have detained many aggressive people, many weird people, but this right here was the stupidest thing ever. We took her to the station, and if we had trouble getting her in the car, now she didn't want to get out. She held onto the bars and we literally had to grab and pull her out. Once inside, my mother-in-law immediately demanded to see the captain.

She wasn’t listening when we tried to explain that the captain isn’t going to do anything for her and shouldn’t be bothered with this. She insisted that she has the rights to see someone superior, and technically she’s right. So we went to get a captain for her who recognized her from the last time she had gotten in a scrape with me (yeah) and wasn’t too happy to see her.

My mother-in-law said that she wants to complain about “this officer” while pointing at me. She said that I misused my power, used way too much strength on her, and didn’t even care that she’s a fragile woman. She claimed that I twisted her hands and brutally pushed her into the car. The captain asked to see my body camera, since this is one of the reasons why we use body cameras all the time.

If the suspect says one thing and the officer says something different, then you can watch the recording and see what actually happened. So, the captain played the recording for all to see. Then he asked her, “What’s this, ma’am?” as she was clearly ignoring my orders on camera. My mother-in-law was like, “This is me fighting for my life! It’s a survival instinct. I thought he would shoot me right in the head!”

The captain was like, “No, ma’am, this is you resisting. If an officer is giving you a lawful order, you’re supposed to listen, and if you don't listen, the officer has the right to use a certain amount of force to detain you.” This is when she amped it up. She hissed, “I take no orders from gays!” while glaring at me. She was charged with vandalism, fleeing from an officer, resisting and assaulting an officer.

And just as she was going to be booked in, she suddenly started to complain that’s she’s not feeling well. She said her heart hurts and she’s dizzy and her blood pressure is too high and she wanted an ambulance. Everyone realized that she was faking, but just to be sure that we’re not mistaken, we called an ambulance. The medics came and examined her.

Just like we thought, she was fine. Her heart rate was normal, her blood pressure was normal, and she had no need to be hospitalized. I was just thinking, “What do you think would have happened???” The charges don’t disappear just because the person is taken to hospital. She probably didn’t know that even if she was hospitalized, an officer would have gone there with her and stayed with her all the time.

And as soon as she was ok again, she would be transported behind bars anyway. She wouldn’t sneak away if that’s what she was thinking of doing. The ambulance left and even though our captain is a very calm and composed man, at this point he seemed very irritated. He was like, “Ma’am, is the circus over or are you going to give us more nonsense?”

My mother-in-law then asked him if he was going to punish me and he answered that no, he’s not going to punish an officer simply because I was doing my job. And then she looked straight at him and went, “Are you gay too?” I froze. I couldn’t believe that she really just asked that to a captain. I know he’s not gay but this was probably the most inappropriate thing she could have done.

He knows I’m gay because I was forced to come out to him when my mother-in-law tried to cause troubles for me the first time. He ordered her to be taken behind bars immediately, and even then she still had the audacity to speak. She insisted on having a phone call so that she could call her son and he could pay her bail. I’m not sure why she thinks my boyfriend is going to bail her out—he didn’t do it last time.

I called him first and I told him that his mother is behind bars, and he seemed quite delighted as he’s so tired of her. The captain offered for my boyfriend to come to the station and see the recording if he wants, but we really don’t want to show ourselves as a couple more than absolutely necessary.

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4. The Grinch Who Saved Christmas

My husband and I have this board hanging on our wall. It's a list of all the things we want and need, how much it will cost, how much we saved for it, and when we should be able to have it. It has things like a new fridge, dishwasher, nice knife set, wish list items, etc. I even include pictures, model numbers, or other specific descriptions for a lot of these items. I'm very proud of it.

My father and his wife come to visit on a semi-regular basis. My stepmom always makes sure to look at my board, comment on it, and express her sadness that we are unable to afford the stuff. Within a week or so, she will buy one of the exact things on my board…for herself. Sometimes it's a smaller item like the coffee maker, other times it's a larger item, like a motorized toy car for her children.

Her buying these things isn't really what bugs me, what bugs me is her rubbing it in my face that she was able to "get it first" or how I was "copying" her when I do finally get the item. It's super annoying and childish. Anyway. I was walking through a local store's Christmas section right after Thanksgiving one year. I was looking for board ideas and happened upon a giant, ugly, and super pricey outdoor Christmas decorations set. Which gave me an idea.

It was definitely not my stepmom’s style. But hey, why not try? When I got home, I put the set on the high priority section of my board. I went as far as to erase the money I had pooled for other things and move it to this Christmas monstrosity so we could "buy" it sooner. I was hoping this trap would be tempting enough for her, especially if I made this set seem super important.

A couple days after that, my father and her visit. She looks at my board and asks about the set. I gush over it, describing it as the way to make my Christmas dreams come true. I really lay it on thick. On Monday, we go to visit my dad at my stepmom’s request. Sure as heck, she bought and put up the entire set. It's ugly and over the top, and I hate it.

It's hilarious. Immediately, she dives into describing why she just "fell in love with it" and how she "had to have it.” She’s making a huge deal on every little piece and how it was soooo worth the money. Finally, she concludes her gloat fest with telling me that I really do have great taste and she’s sorry she beat me to it. That’s when I dealt her the fatal blow.

"Oh, I don't actually like the set. I just put it on the board and said I liked it to mess with my husband. He hates the over-the-top stuff like this junk. Glad you love it though." If her smile fell any harder, it would have fallen right off her face. The rest of the visit she was quiet and didn't say much. She looked like a kid who got coal for Christmas.

My dad kept asking her what was wrong and got a lot of "I'm fines” and then finally she got a headache and went to bed early. She now refuses to talk to me, with none of her usual texts or calls. Best Christmas ever.

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5. The Cautionary Tale Of Huggy Holly

This story requires some background, so buckle in. I promise that I'll get to the mother-in-law part and it'll be worth the wait. When I was six, bad things happened to me at the hands of someone I had been told I could trust. Part of the aftermath of that situation was lots of therapy and an introduction to a strange and wonderful thing called "bodily autonomy."

I was told that I, even as a child, could tell other people that I did not want them to touch me. If anyone touched me without my consent, it was okay for me to tell them "no" and it was okay for me to be as loud and emphatic about this as it took for them to get the message. I could even push them away if they persisted! Adults might be upset if I said "no," but that was not my problem, because adults are expected to control their emotions and actions.

At first, the only people I would allow to touch me at all were my mother, my maternal grandmother, and my aunt. It took a while, but eventually I was able to expand the list. Family members who received my permission were aware of the implications of my trust, and treated it as a serious privilege. People Who Were Allowed to Touch Me at the Time of This Story: Mom, grandmother, aunt, brother, grandfather.

People Who Were Not Allowed to Touch Me at the Time of This Story: Everybody Else on Planet Earth (This is relevant). Now, there's a substantial age gap between me and my brother—about 14 years, because I was quite a surprise. At the time of this story, I was about eight years old. I was a small kid, and even now, I'm under five and a half feet tall.

I was a major tomboy, and my mom kept my hair trimmed into a shoulder-length bob because I was terrible at taking care of it. My brother had been dating a girl for a couple of years, and they decided that they liked each other well enough to get married. His mother-in-law-to-be was...interesting. Very, very touchy-feely, huggy-wuggy, smoochy-woochy, why won't you get the ever-loving-heck out of my personal space-y; thus she earned the nickname of "Huggy Holly."

Upon seeing pictures of me, she squealed that I was just the cutest thing she'd ever seen, and she couldn't wait to meet me and give me a biiiiig hug! And pinch my cute round cheeks! And ruffle my pwetty hair! And kiss my widdle rosebud mouth! My brother told her no. "No, don't hug my sister. Don't pinch her cheeks. Don't ruffle her hair. Don't kiss her. Don't touch her at all. Don't even ask to touch her. If she offers you a hug, that's one thing, but do not, under any circumstances, touch her without her express permission."

Huggy Holly could not wrap her head around the idea that a child could tell an adult not to touch them and expect to have their wishes heeded. My brother has mentioned that he must have tried to explain it to her a dozen times. She just could not, or would not, understand. During the course of the wedding planning, there was a fair amount of communication between my family and my brother's future in-laws.

I was brought up as a topic on several occasions, and every single time, my mother reiterated my brother's warnings. Huggy Holly would always say, "Yes, I remember, but—" and as we all know here, "but" is shorthand for "Watch how fast I invalidate what I just said." In this case, the "but" was always followed by weirdly rapturous comments about how adorable and darling I was and so on.

Moreover, she seemed to have unclear ideas of how this in-law thing works, because she kept talking about how much she was looking forward to "getting another darling little daughter" that she could spoil with fancy tea parties and dress up in pretty princess outfits, like she'd done with her own daughters. My mother must have so much fun dressing me up like a little doll!

I remember my mom laughing until tears came into her eyes during a few of these phone calls, because she knew exactly what kind of semi-feral wolf-child she'd raised, and no matter how much she tried to gently explain this to my brother's mother-in-law, the information never, ever sank in. This woman believed with the holy fire of a fanatic that I was some kind of living, breathing Precious Moments figurine.

She'd be rabbiting on about this coochie-coo stuff while my mom was gazing out the back door, watching me roam the back yard, eating live ants and mud while building elaborate stages for the battles of my Thundercats and He-Man figures out of sticks, grass, rocks, and whatever mud I didn't eat. When I could be induced to hold still long enough to be cleansed of accumulated filth and clothed in strange human garments, I was reasonably cute, but I constantly longed to fling off the constraints of civilization and go roll around in the dirt and play with the mangiest stray animals that a major urban area could produce.

I once tried to convince my mother that a huge, evil-eyed sewer rat was top-tier pet material and had bonded with me and I should totally be allowed to keep it. (She disagreed. The rat was returned to its natural habitat and went back to catching and eating pigeons in the alley behind our house. But I have now seriously digressed).

The day of the wedding rolled around. Because I loved my big brother and had opted to gracefully tolerate his chosen spouse until such time as I developed an actual liking for her, I cooperated with the efforts of my mother and grandmother to make me look presentable. I was wearing my very best outfit, which was a frilly pale-blue dress trimmed with white lace and, yes, it made me look adorable.

We disembarked from the car and went into the church to mill around in the pre-ceremony confusion. Suddenly, out of the crowd, this strange woman in a cerise satin dress which emphasized a bust that needed no extra emphasis and a hairdo like an explosion in the blonde factory came swooping at me with her arms flung wide, emitting a sort of teakettle noise.

I back-stepped fast and said, "No!" loudly and clearly, but on she came, her fuchsia lips scrunching into a kiss-pout that resembled a hemorrhoid pillow, burping out something about the "sweet little princess." My entire assembled family—brother, mother, aunt, grandmother, grandfather, one uncle and his wife—all shouted, "Don't!" at the same time.

It was probably the most organized as a group they've ever been. (My family is mostly Irish, which means we mostly fight with each other, except for my Czechoslovakian grandfather, who always watched the fights from a peaceful safe distance). My uncle, the person physically closest to the brewing disaster, tried to intervene, but the weird lady was moving like she'd been fired out of a ballista made of bad decisions, and frankly that particular uncle isn't a fast mover even when not faced with a high-speed idiot.

Secure in my knowledge of Bodily Autonomy and armored with the assurance that defending myself from unwanted contact was the Right Thing to Do, I was prepared to act. So, as Huggy Holly stooped upon me like a Haast's eagle upon a moa, single-mindedly focused on hugging the child she'd been repeatedly told by several different people not to hug, I took action.

I squared up, planted my feet, and hauled both fists back at shoulder level. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" I screamed at the very top of my lungs, and double-punched my brother's imminent mother-in-law squarely in chest. Anyone who has ever been punched in the chest knows that this is not a fun experience. Possessing a balcony that one could do Shakespeare off of, Huggy Holly had a fair bit of upholstering, but her momentum combined with the small contact patch of my eight-year-old fists concentrating the force resulted in a not-insignificant impact.

She reeled backwards, arms flailing Kermit-fashion, and my uncle just barely missed (so he claims; I suspect intentional action, but that's fine by me) catching her as she toppled onto her be-satined butt, incidentally crushing the gigantic stupid frilly bow on the back of her dress. Having defended myself adequately, I shot into the cluster of my family members and hid behind my grandfather.

He was a short, cheerful, smiling, gentle old man whose heirlooms included a WWII Luger that he acquired from "a German officer who didn't need it any more" occupied Czechoslovakia (you may draw your own conclusions). My uncle, who honestly looked as if he'd rather kick the woman, helped Huggy Holly back to her feet while she began to gasp and sob, clutching at her bosom.

"Why did she do that?!" she demanded. My mother calmly said, "We did warn you not to touch her. Several times." Huggy Holly wailed, "But she's so smaaaaaaaaaall and prettyyyyyyy!" "You know, dynamite comes in small decorative-looking packages, too," my grandmother remarked, then turned to my brother. "Okay, where are we sitting?" That was literally the first time I saw this woman. She did not improve with further exposure.

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6. A Tough Transition

I split custody of my transgender daughter with my ex-husband. My daughter is 16 and only came out to us as trans about a year ago. We also have a 14-year-old son. Custody is an uneven split in my favor, and my ex gets every other weekend as he moved a few hours away. I am bi, and my parents kicked me out when I came out to them. Eventually, a gay couple adopted me. Meanwhile, my ex-husband was raised by very conservative, very religious people, and not the good “love one another” religious; the “Feeling gay? Jesus should fix that” religious. So when my daughter came out to us as trans, I definitely took it more in stride than my ex did. In fact, my ex still hasn't fully accepted it.

My daughter is a typical "girly girl," far more than me, and we have mother-daughter days where we get our nails done and buy her some clothes. She's been growing out her hair and it's a little below her clavicle. My ex mother-in-law has these two specific photos that she's obsessed with. The first photo is of my ex father-in-law and his father.

It was taken on my ex father-in-law’s 16th birthday; he’s out in front and his dad behind him, who has his hands on his shoulders. Both men in the picture are wearing suits. The second photo is from my ex’s 16th birthday. It's a recreation of the first photo, but now my ex is in the front and his father is behind. Before my daughter was born, when I was still pregnant and we were told she'd be male, my mother-in-law immediately got excited about the idea of recreating that photo when our "son" turned 16.

My daughter turned 16 at the end of September. I had pretty much forgotten about the photos until she turned 16, but then I didn't hear anything about it from ex or his mother and figured that since they no longer had a 16-year-old son to take the photo with, they'd just leave it alone until our actual son turned 16. On Wednesday, my son got sick so I texted my ex to say that he wouldn't be coming over this weekend.

On Friday, I brought my daughter over as normal and then headed off. I told her to text me if she needs anything but I needed to get home to look after her brother so it might take me a while to get there. Still, I put some money on her card so if she needed to get home quickly she could. The plan is always I do drop off Friday night, straight after school, and my ex drops them home Sunday night.

My daughter came home Saturday afternoon, fresh off the train, a full 24 hours early, with a short, uneven, chin length bob. She told me that she'd woken up Saturday morning and come downstairs to see my mother-in-law and my ex. My mother-in-law said they were taking a photo for Christmas cards…and then handed my daughter a suit.

My daughter explained that suits aren't really her thing but this woman insisted and my ex agreed, leaving my daughter feeling like she couldn't argue. She put the suit on. My ex mother-in-law then picks up the kitchen scissors and told her to sit for a haircut. My daughter says no way, and my ex then suggests she tie her hair back as a "compromise."

They take the photo. At some point after taking the photo, my daughter sits down and turns her back on my ex mother-in-law and the entire ponytail gets cut off. At this stage my daughter runs upstairs, gets changed, grabs her phone and card, and tells both my ex and her grandmother to go screw themselves and leaves. My daughter gets the first train home.

I've done my best to even out the bob. I am now looking into fixing it so she doesn't have to go to his place ever again. The custody agreement was made over a decade ago and both kids are now teenagers. I can see my ex putting up a fight if they just stopped going, so I'm going to have to go the lawyer route and see if I can't renegotiate custody.

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7. Daddy Issues

“My son is your children’s father and there’s nothing you can do about that.” This is the exact quote my former mother-in-law screamed at me in my own driveway back in 2006. All while her worthless, addict son literally hid behind her. My girls were three and six and my fiancé had already taken them into the house. What set her off was hearing my kids call him “dad.”

We hadn’t taught them this, they had just started doing it because her precious son only saw my girls four or five times a year. So here I have this garbage human that literally had his mommy fighting his battles, who didn’t answer his phone when I called, didn’t work or pay child support, and didn’t even know our youngest daughter’s birthday or how to spell our oldest child’s middle name.

And then I have this fiancé, this sweet, kind-hearted man who fell in love with me and my girls, who said to me when he proposed, “Those girls deserve a dad and I want to be it.” This guy wanted the job, so why should I be dealing with this fool and his mother anymore? I replied to her, “Nothing I can do about it, huh? I guess we’ll see about that.”

That was the last time she saw my kids. I never called her son again and I stopped answering her phone calls. It’s amazing how quickly he disappeared when I stopped forcing him to do his job. My fiancé and I married that fall. We filed adoption papers after Christmas. My ex didn’t contest it. He didn’t show up to court. His mother showed up on my doorstep on Easter but my husband told her to take a hike.

My children are 20 and 17 now. They don’t know my ex. In 14 years, they have not seen or heard from him. No phone calls or birthday cards. No social media requests. If he walked by them on the street, he would just be any other guy to them. He’s been completely erased from my children’s lives. He does not exist to them. He is not their father. So yeah, I guess there was something I could do about it.

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8. It’s Not What It Looks Like!

My mother-in-law is an idiot who likes to talk behind people’s backs and thinks she can buy the love of my children with awful toys that get donated as soon as she leaves. She came to our house, unannounced as usual, and just let herself in, as usual, to drop off some toys that she had recently bought because we all know they didn’t get enough stuff Christmas only days ago!

So I was making myself scarce, tinkering around in my shed, and apparently she looked in the cabinet under my aquarium, saw a piece of equipment, and automatically assumed that it was some kind “intimate” parts enlarger. What??! She proceeds to go tell my wife that she thinks I have a weird side of me that I am hiding and she thinks my wife should have a talk with me.

My wife said that her mom was totally serious, a little mad even, and my wife asked her to explain. So my mother-in-law goes get my “pump” from the cabinet and shows it to her. My wife said she nearly peed her pants when she recognized it as a piece of aquarium equipment, but she held her composure and quickly walked outside and yelled for me to come in.

When I got in she said, “My mom has a question for you.” My mother-in-law asks what I need that “sick device” for? I calmly explained what it was and that she should really worry about her own life. She noticed that my wife was about to expire from containing her laughter and she stormed out of the house. It was great. I can’t stand that witch.

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9. Loose Lips

My partner and I were out shopping, and he had wandered off to look at something else, wanting to avoid the makeup and beauty counter. I haven't physically been to the makeup section in a while, choosing instead to use Sephora online, so this was exciting to me to get to be at the actual counter and do a whole lot of swatches and drool over makeup in person.

You know that scene from Parks and Rec where Ron can sense a shift in energy and he can “smell” his ex-wife whenever she's in a few miles’ radius? It was kind of like that. I felt someone watching me. I felt this shift in energy. I was very much aware of being alone and that there were no store attendants close by. I look over and I see my mother-in-law, and she's staring at me and throwing me a dirty look.

She doesn't like me. She looks down on me. She looks down on my teaching job, and she thinks I'm vapid and vain because I wear makeup. She thinks I'm a gold digger. She thinks I'm a troublemaker. She's called me a makeup-wearing hussy behind my back. Which to be honest, I kind of own that. I dig it in a weird way. She comes over to say hello, this huge grin on her face because of course, I'm looking at makeup and skincare.

To her, this just re-iterates those thoughts she has of me as being shallow and vain. We mumble a greeting to each other, and then she says to me, "Buying more makeup?" Her tone is very surprised, as if I couldn't possibly need more. "Yes," I say. "Apparently I have a reputation as a hussy to uphold." Her. Face. Dropped. She knew that I knew.

She knew that there was a mole and someone was telling me stuff about her and what she said about other people. It felt great. I walked away and left her there, and then my partner and I left before she could spy on him and try to feed him information or gang up on him.

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10. Nothing Hurts Like Good Manners

My mother-in-law wants us to have children, and we won't. My husband finally told her about his vasectomy, which seemed to shut her up, and all further interactions with her have only been mildly annoying. Until now. Yesterday, my mother-in-law told us all that she had purchased a burial plot for her and my father-in-law, and how she's pre-planned a funeral.

She wanted to start working on their long-term medical requests and power of attorney documents. All good things! Then she starts to tell us about her estate. My father-in-law tries to change the subject, but no no, we have to talk about this as a family. Well, mother-in-law gets this smug look on her face and then goes on about how their estate will be divided up.

Basically, it gives my husband almost nothing because we "don't have children, and the money is to support their family line." Our response was perfect. Y'all. Her face when my husband and I both nod approvingly at this and confirm that this seems like a smart plan. I'm fairly certain that she wanted us to either fight back or cry and make a scene or beg her for money.

She controls two of her children with money but not us, and it drives her batty. She sent my husband an email last night "apologizing" for her decision and giving him a "method of communication" about this without me involved. 100%, she was trying to get him to beg her for money or change her mind. So, he popped me on the email and responded, "Mom, she and I want you to enjoy your money and have a happy and secure retirement. This is your money, you can do whatever you want with it, and we'll never criticize you for your decision about this."

Ha. The rest of her kids are already fighting over their bones, but not us. I'm using good manners as an insult.

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11. Mi Casa Es Su Casa

This is happening as I type this. I’m currently at work until 2:30 and my boyfriend is home. His mother texted him that she and my father-in-law will pass by at 2:00 and bring lunch. My boyfriend immediately texted me: “BABE THE STRIPPER POLE!!!!” So I’m at work laughing, imagining the absolute horror in their faces when they walk in and the first thing they see is my shiny, beautiful stripper pole.

Did I mention that they are veeeerrrrrryyyyy Christian? I’m talking the worst kind. Nothing against Christians, but I don’t like extremists of any form, and they use their faith to hurt people. So I texted back: “Screw it, it’s our house. They’ll have to live with it.”

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12. More Harm Than Good

Right now I have a lot of problems going on with my mother-in-law on top of a bunch of other issues. Foremost, I’m fighting cancer for the second time in my life. I was first diagnosed when I was 14, fought it and won. I lived a happy and peaceful life until recently, when I had my health checked for job necessities and surprise!—I’m 30 years old and I’ve got cancer again.

This is secondary cancer, different organ, nothing to do with the first one. Fortunately, stage 2 only, however my oncologist warned me that it’s aggressive, grows and spreads fast, and I could be stage 3 or more in a short period of time so we had to act fast. Hearing that you have cancer is always devastating but to me, it feels like something wants me gone very much.

I was distraught that I’ll have to go through this again. It’s a very hard fight, both physically and mentally; any current or former cancer patient will agree on that. I had a surgery and now it’s time for chemotherapy. The doctors decided on oral chemo that I can take at home and only have to go to a hospital to do blood tests and scans every few weeks, which is very good.

I wouldn’t have the strength to go there every day. I’m on a sick leave from work now and because of the treatment, I’m quite weak and I’ve lost a lot of weight. Before that my wife and I, we both had an equal share of household chores. Some days I feel better than others, however directly after every chemo appointment, even the simplest chores are often a physical impossibility for me.

I try to do as much as I can, but my wife has been amazing. She doesn’t care at all that I don’t help around the house as much as I did. She’s like, “Your only obligation now is not to die.” The other day my mother-in-law came over to visit. She knows about my diagnosis, and I was on the couch reading while my wife was doing something around the house.

My mother-in-law walked over to me and was like, "Look at that! Lying on that couch as if you’re on the beach! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself—a grown man and lying down in the middle of a day while your poor wife is working so hard!" I said, “I just had chemo, I have a headache, I’m nauseous, I don’t feel good.” Nope. She was like, "A young man like you and you cannot beat some silly cancer! You cannot cure yourself with those chemicals! Nature products only!"

Later that day, my mother-in-law was talking to my wife in the kitchen. I didn’t mean to listen, but I heard their conversation anyway. The mother-in-law was like, "You really shouldn’t let him take that poison he’s taking or he will be a goner. It’s poison, otherwise he wouldn’t feel so bad. Doctors nowadays are totally stupid, you should seek herbal treatments instead!"

As all of that came from someone without any medical education, my wife shut her up quickly and told her to stay away from things she understands nothing about. The next day I was going to take my chemo, as I’m scheduled. I’ve got to take it once a day and I prefer to do it in the morning because then I feel better in the evening and I can sleep better.

But, as I walked into the bathroom and opened the cabinet, there was no trace of my chemo bottles. They were gone, completely. I asked my wife if she moved them by any chance and she said no. We looked around but realized it’s pointless because they couldn’t fall out of the cabinet and there’s also no need to hide the chemo; we don’t have children or pets who could accidentally swallow it. Then the horrific truth hit us.

My wife remembered that just before leaving the day before, my mother-in-law asked to use the bathroom. She could have easily taken the bottles with her, considering her words about the toxicity of chemo. My wife turned into a dragon. She was literally almost spitting fire as she got dressed and stormed out to go to her mother’s house.

I had never seen her so mad before. She came back a half an hour later or so and told me that she demanded my medication from her and my mother-in-law admitted she took my chemo but that when she left our house, she threw it out. Obviously, it’s gone. We can’t search through every garbage bin the city, but just the fact that she did it blew my mind.

My wife and her mom had a huge argument, and this woman really thinks she did me a favor. She was like, “Don’t you see he’s dying, don’t you see how fragile he’s become? It’s not cancer that’s hurting him, it’s those pills! I got rid of them, I saved your husband and that’s how you thank me, by insulting me? Better go and buy him some herbal teas!”

Because of her, I missed a dose of chemo, which is very bad, and I had to see my oncologist immediately. When I told him I need more chemo, he was surprised and said, “What happened to the chemo I gave you a short time ago? You couldn’t have used it all already.” And I had to be like, “Well, you see, doctor, my mother-in-law took my chemo.” He looked totally baffled, as if the fact that someone would take someone else’s chemo is ridiculously stupid. WHICH IT IS.

He prescribed me new bottles of chemo and a new schedule on how I’m supposed to take it, and now I keep it in a cabinet with a lock. Even though my wife swore to me my mother-in-law will never set her foot in our house again.

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13. Getting Along Like A House On Fire

The last few months have been rough. Near the end of last year, we lost the house to a freak accident, and we lost almost everything we owned. It's just been a really stressful time for my little family of four. We were out for a school recital when we received the call from a neighbor, and we returned to find the house in flames. The fire department tried to save what they could, but the damage was really bad.

We ended up selling the property and moving altogether because the repairs amounted to essentially rebuilding the house. I have been married for 10 years and my mother-in-law has never liked me. I still didn't expect her to act the way she did during this time. I always believed that even if she didn't like me, she'd help me in a time of need because I was the mother of her two grandsons and the wife of her son, and I made them happy. I found out just how wrong I was.

On the night of the accident, we needed a place to stay temporarily, at least until we could have a few moments to breathe and get our bearings. My husband suggested we stay with his mother for the night. It was late and it made the most sense to us both. We drove over to the house. My boys were half-asleep in the backseat and we left them in the car when we went to speak to my mother-in-law to explain what was going on.

She was very sympathetic at first and said she had no problem with my husband and my sons staying…but I would have to make other arrangements. My husband lost it with her and began to yell that she was being unreasonable, and she refused to budge. In her words, I wasn't true family and she'd never blessed our marriage in the first place, so I was not her responsibility.

We left and spent the night in our car, and we got a motel the next day. She began calling and inviting us over to stay again, and she said that she'd graciously permit me to stay in the garage for a few days. Again, we didn't take her up on the offer and my husband told her that she was being very disrespectful. My mother-in-law got very angry in response and said that we were spitting on her generosity.

She then offered to keep the boys so that they wouldn't need to stay in a motel while we put our lives back in order. Again, we rejected her offer. We heard nothing from her for a few days until we learned that she had been badmouthing me to people. She was claiming that I was tearing the family apart in this time of need with my grudges.

From her point of view, she'd opened her house to us in an instant and I'd turned her down and forced my husband and sons to live in a cheap motel because I didn't like her. My husband set the record straight, but my mother-in-law did not ease up. It turned into a nightmare in the blink of an eye. She made an official complaint to the fire department claiming that I had caused the accident purposefully to destroy the house and force the current situation.

She said that I was money-hungry and had designs on her house and this was all part of my plan to take her house from under her. I was taken in for questioning and I understand why due to the nature of the allegations, but I was cleared off everything as the investigation proved it was an accident and there was no way someone could deliberately caused the accident.

She later showed up to the house while we were going through it to see what could be salvaged, and she made disparaging comments about how we should not be upset as these were just things. Yes, they were things. I'm not upset about the stove and the couch and the bed. I'm upset about the arts and crafts projects my sons made for Mother's Day every year.

I'm upset about family heirlooms that are irreplaceable. I'm upset about the memories that were lost. The house was a fixer-upper when we bought it and we did a lot of the restoration ourselves. We had professionals handle things like the wiring, but we did the painting and the sanding and whatever we could to save money. My youngest son had a gaming console that he owned, which had been left at her house before the accident.

They'd been over for a weekend with their father and had taken the console to keep them occupied. My mother-in-law stated she didn't have it, and we must have taken it back. My son argued with her that he'd had a conversation with her about leaving it there for the week so his cousin could use it while visiting. She gaslit him to the point of frustrated tears and kept saying we'd taken it back and it had probably been lost in the accident.

The truth came out from others that my mother-in-law had given it away after we'd refused her initial offer of hospitality. The shining ray of light through all this has been that this is the straw that broke the camel's back for my husband. We all went no contact after these incidents and a few more, and we cut contact with her shortly before moving to our new place. She has been trying to get our address from family members, but she hasn't had any luck just yet.

My husband made it clear that he'd have no problem cutting off anyone else in the family who gave her our address or contact information. If she can't support us when we're at our worst, she doesn't deserve to be there when we're at our best.

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14. Cruella De Vil

Today my mother-in-law was over and as always, she started to talk about children. We’ve been married for eight years now but we don’t have children because we don’t want them. My mother-in-law has a hard time wrapping her head around this, though. She started to wail that we’re going to be too old soon (we’re both 30), and I kind of feel like she thinks our dog is to blame.

I think she sees our dog as some kind of a hindrance that prevents us from having children because sometimes she says things like, “If you didn’t have the dog, you could have children more safely” or “It’s so weird that you care so much about an animal but don’t even think about having your own child.” Our German shepherd is 14 years old now.

Of course, my husband and me realize that his life is coming to an end and it’s really hard because he has been my dog since I was a teenager and my husband has come to love him even more. He’s like a child to us and it’s very difficult to say goodbye. He doesn’t have any terminal illnesses, though, and the vet said that as long as he’s still eating, drinking and walking, we don’t have to think about putting him down yet.

So this time my mother-in-law got upset because we asked her to close this topic about children once and for all. Whether or not we have children, it’s none of her business, and we’re definitely not going to have them just because she wants us to. She went out of the living room and to the foyer to get her jacket that was hanging there on the rack.

Between the living room and the foyer, there’s this short hallway and our dog was walking there. I went out of the living room just in time to see her snarling, “Get out of the way, you dirty mutt!” as she kicked him on the side. The dog staggered aside, surprised, as he has never been hit before. Even when he was a puppy and was doing all kinds of mischief, we never ever physically punished him and this witch wasn’t going to either.

So I was like, “What are you doing? Why would you kick the dog?” She said, “Well why is he getting in my way, moving like a snail! I don’t have time to stand here forever! ” Yes, lady, the dog is slow. It’s because he’s old and doesn’t have the energy anymore to run around all the time. So...MOVE AROUND HIM! Honestly, she could have easily walked past him, the hallway is wide enough.

But no, she probably hoped that no one would see her taking her frustration about us not having children out on the dog. I told her that the dog lives in this house and she doesn’t, and that she doesn’t have any right to treat our pet like that. The dog doesn’t have any fault in anything. If we wanted to have children, we would have them regardless of owning a dog, he’s not an obstacle.

I told her that if she ever does something like that again, I will rip her head off. My husband didn’t see his mother kicking the dog, but he heard the noise and came to see what’s going on. I told him that his mother attacked our dog. First, he couldn’t believe it, and then he blazed in fury. He was 100% on my side and he told her to leave our house and never come back.

He said she’ll never step over the doorstep of our house because our dog deserves a peaceful remaining time of his life and she’s a danger to him. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised. I knew he puts me above his mother but I never thought he has that much of a spine. My mother-in-law was starting to say something, but my husband dragged her into the foyer.

He didn’t even let her get dressed. He threw her jacket and her boots out the door and told her to never contact us again and that if we ever decide to have children, she’ll never see them. My mother-in-law was offended beyond words. She was like, “All because of one dirty, shedding, unsanitary piece of hair? You’ll both regret it. ”

Our dog is fine, in case you’re wondering. My husband insisted that we go to the vet to make sure she didn’t cause some internal damage, but everything is ok, as much as it can be at his age. My husband blocked my mother-in-law’s phone and it looks like he’s very serious about going no contact with her. So am I. I will never understand cruelty towards animals.

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15. Sharing Isn’t Caring

I’ve always had issues with my mother-in-law, but this year, I’m so angry I can’t see straight. We arrived at my in-laws (a four hour drive) for Christmas on Saturday. We were only staying one night and then heading back home. We don’t visit them often, mainly due to my job. I’m an OB/GYN and have very few days off. We get there on Saturday and my father-in-law is nowhere to be found.

This was after my kids hugged and kissed my mother-in-law hello. My husband asked where his dad was. Mother-in-law:  “Oh, we have both not been feeling well. We’ve had vomiting and diarrhea for two days. He is in the bathroom.” My husband: “Did you guys eat something bad?” Mother-in-law: “No. Everyone has been sick at the office!” I could have screamed. I nearly burst into tears.

Me: “How could you do this? How could you knowingly expose us to something like that? It’s Christmas! And you know I work with newborns and pregnant women!” Mother-in-law: “Well if I would have told you...you wouldn’t have come to visit.” My mouth just fell open. My husband told her that it wasn’t right and asked what if her grandchildren got sick?

Her: “They’ll be fine!” And guess freaking what. On Christmas Eve, I was up with my children. All throwing up. All night long. I woke up this morning and have been vomiting. I’m going to have to let my partner do my scheduled C-section tomorrow. And my kids are unable to enjoy Christmas because of my stupid in-laws. I’m so angry. I just don’t even know what to do.

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16. A Hairy Situation

When I was younger I dealt with a lot of bad situations. My only real escape from that was my hair. I know how silly that sounds, but it is what it is. When stuff started to fall apart, I'd turn to my hair and use it as a medium to control and reflect how I felt. I'd cut it, dye it, style it weird, whatever, and it would make me feel better. In 2011, I gave myself an 80s-like purple mohawk.

This involved shaving off a good portion of my hair, and it was the last time I truly felt like I wasn't in control of my life. Since then, I've let my hair grow without much messing with it other than regular maintenance. This year after the birth of my third child, my hair reached the length of my thighs. To me, my long beautiful hair is a reflection of how far I've come with my overall mental health and happiness.

It's very, very important to me. This brings me to now. With three children under five, my long hair stays in a ponytail, braid, or bun. Little hands tend to pull on it otherwise. This fact for some reason has been EXTREMELY annoying to my husband's stepmother. Every time I'd see her, at least once she would bring up what a waste my hair was on me.

She would tell me that a mother shouldn't have a "rat’s nest" like I have or something snide like that. She's annoying and I ignore her for the most part because she just wants attention and I won't give it to her. Until yesterday. I was sitting on my father-in-law’s couch, breastfeeding my youngest and having a pleasant conversation with my husband and father-in-law about what we were watching on the TV.

Suddenly, I felt a tug on my hair and before I could pull completely away, I heard the scissors close. There's my mother-in-law and my four-year-old standing behind the couch, both laughing as she holds a large portion of what was my bun. The three of us turned and stared at her. It was like looking at a cartoon villain. Now I'm devastated and trying not to cry in front of my children.

My husband starts yelling at her, asking her if she insane. My four-year-old starts to cry, which is followed by my mother-in-law, who tearfully claims, "It's just a joke, it'll grow back. We thought y'all would laugh." The whole situation falls apart with my husband arguing on my behalf, my three children and I crying, my mother-in-law snot bubble sobbing, and my father-in-law trying to get us all to calm down.

We end up leaving with my husband telling his dad to divorce his wife because being married to an overgrown eight-year-old is probably against the law. Which I would have giggled at if I wasn't so upset. My husband drives us around looking for a stylist that will take a walk in, and I call my sister-in-law to come sit with me. She meets us at her stylist’s work place.

She was off work but came back as a favor, thank God. Looking at my tattered hair was horrible. Large chunks where gone, the length was all over the place. It was awful. I felt like I lost a body part. Luckily the stylist was very talented and salvaged my hair to right above my shoulders. It looks nice, but I'm still sad looking at it. I don't know how long it'll take to get over this.

My mother-in-law sent me a couple half-baked apology texts like, "Sorry but don't be a baby, hair does grow you know" type of stuff.

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17. Strings Very Much Attached

I'm engaged, and planning on getting married next fall to my fiancée. We want something very small. We have a guest list of 11 people and we want to wear clothes we already own. When we first met, she was in a suit and I was wearing a white dress. We have a mutual best friend who is helping us design custom rings, and we want a short ceremony where we just sign the certificate and we're done, followed by a meal at our favorite restaurant.

My parents transferred me $10,000, and her parents did the same. We did not ask for this. We both called our parents and explained that we were fine for money, but they said it was a "wedding gift," so we thanked them. My mother-in-law wanted to know how we were doing the outfits and we told her that I'd be in a dress and my fiancée would be in a suit.

She has spent two weeks trying to convince my fiancée to wear a dress so she will look "pretty" for the wedding. Every time either of us has tried to say we'd already chosen our outfits and explained why, she insisted that we both had to buy wedding dresses. My parents, meanwhile, have been nagging both of us about our guest list.

We said small and intimate from the start, but they've given me expanded guest lists, which includes cousins, uncles, and aunts I've never even met. When we tried to reinforce the "small and intimate" aspect, they brushed us off. So we met both sets of parents for lunch earlier. They said that there was a miscommunication and the money from her parents was actually a "dress budget" for both of us, meant to only be used on dresses, and the money from my parents was for "the guest list" so it was meant to cover venue and catering for an expanded guest list.

We both went away from the table to talk. We discussed it and agreed that the money wasn't worth it, so we brought up our banking apps and transferred the money back. Then we went back to the table, sat back down, and told them what we'd done. Chaos broke loose. They responded that we were acting like children, and we said that we wouldn't be told what to do.

My mom and my future mother-in-law promptly burst into tears, and both fathers looked pretty angry. They told us that the money was meant for us, and we said that we wouldn't accept anything from them that came with strings attached. We repeated that we had all wedding elements, including our outfits and guest list, already decided.

We said it was final and we wouldn't be taking suggestions, to which they said we were being unfair by not giving them a say. We then thanked them for the meal, put down a $20 each (our meals came to about $15) and left without another word. We felt justified at the time, but since then we've both gotten messages from our siblings, saying that we were rude to our respective parents when they were just trying to do something nice, and now we feel like we went too far. I still don’t think so.

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18. Fight Fire With Fire

I have an angel for a mother-in-law and a sane human for a mother. However, I have a truckload of stories about OTHER people's moms and mothers-in-law. This incident just happened, and I finally decided to share. Quick bit of background: I live in an apartment complex. Two-storey buildings, with outdoor stairwells that are used by four apartments on each level.

I have a front window that looks across a short stretch of grass to the parking lot. My upstairs neighbors are generally calm, unobtrusive people and we have a sort of nodding acquaintance with each other. There's a husband, wife, and two boys; one's 15 while the other's about nine. I am sitting on the couch, reading, when I suddenly hear a commotion outside.

A bunch of shouting, feet running up and down the stairwell, general panic. I look out the window, and it's my upstairs neighbors, who are apparently losing their minds as a family unit. The husband is literally running in circles, clutching his head, yelling, "Oh my God, is it dad?! It's dad! What's wrong with dad?! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! Dad! Daaaaaaaaaaad! Wait, is it [female name]?! Siiiiiiiiis! What happened to Siiiiiiis!"

He's naming off members of his entire family tree, as far as I can tell, and bewailing their as-yet-unknown conditions. The wife is standing on the grass, swaying back and forth, flailing her arms like a wacky-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-man, alternating between making this yodeling "alalalalala" noise and yelling to the kids to "Hurry, hurry, get the extinguisher, get the go-bag, grab everything, go go go!"

The older boy is dashing in and out of their apartment and up and down the stairs at full speed (while still using the handrail; good kid) and spouting garbled literary lines like "To the last, I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart, I stab at thee!" and "Out, out, damned spot!" to pick just two examples. The younger boy is doing laps around the wife, trying to howl like a siren, but breaking up into completely justifiable giggles.

Then I start hearing these huge whiny sobs, and at this point, I decide to step outside and get a better view of what the actual heck is going on. I look at the wife and raise my eyebrows, and she just winks at me in between "alalalala"s. I move out of the stairwell just enough to look up—and see what's happening in front of their apartment.

The husband's mother is up on the landing, staring in shock. She begins sobbing, "Why are you doooooing thiiiiiis?! What's wrooooong with youuuuu all?! What's goooooing oooonnn?!" Just like that...the husband stops running. The wife stops flailing. The kids stop sprinting. All four of them gather at the foot of the stairs, staring up at the husband's mom.

Husband: "Mom, we have told you 10 times if we've told you once. We gave you that key to use ONLY IN EMERGENCIES. We've also told you 10 times if we've told you once to call or text us before you come over. Since you just unlocked our door and walked in, unannounced, using your EMERGENCY KEY, there must therefore BE AN EMERGENCY! AAAAAHHHH!!!"

Off go the kids, now running around in the parking lot. Off goes the wife, running with them, going "alalalala." Off go my ribs, because I absolutely can't hold back the laughter any more. The mother bursts into tears. "I just wanted to come by and see my graaaaandbaaaaabies! I wanted to drop off some presents!" Husband: "And we've told you that you need to call first, and not just let yourself in."

Mother: "But you weren't answering your phooooones!" Husband: "You should have taken that hint that we DIDN'T WANT TO TALK TO YOU TONIGHT. We were going to stop by next weekend, like we arranged, but now we're going to have to cancel those plans because you broke the very simple rules we requested that you follow. Go home, Mom."

Mother: "Your father won't let you do this! Your father will hear about this!" Husband: "You think?" Husband takes his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and holds it up to show a connected call. He thumbs it to speakerphone. "Hey, dad? You hearing all this?" Father: "[Mother's name], YOU COME HOME RIGHT NOW." Cue renewed outburst of sobs and backpedaling from the mother.

The father has a voice like James Earl Jones with a head cold. He is not yelling, but speaking in an incredibly calm, level voice that drops words out of the speaker like lead bricks. He's not letting her get a breath in edgewise, just repeating, "GET HOME RIGHT NOW, WE ARE GOING TO TALK." The mother looks around and realizes that I am not the only person who's staring; other neighbors have popped out to see what in all heck is happening.

The wife and kids have stopped running and are sprawled on the grass, laughing. The mother draws herself up, then reaches towards the apartment door, presumably to get her key. Husband: "LEAVE THAT KEY WHERE IT IS." Mother: "But!" Husband and father (at the same time): "LEAVE IT." The mother recoils like the doorknob just turned into a live rattlesnake and comes stumbling down the stairs.

The sobbing is drying up, and now she's just looking mortified and angry. She stomps past her son, who just turns to track her with the phone; she stomps past her daughter-in-law and grandkids, who are still lying on the grass having giggle bursts; she stomps past the other neighbors who are rubbernecking, and she gets in her car and GOES AWAY. And I go back into my apartment and head for my computer.

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19. A Dark Day

I can't have children. My soon-to-be mother-in-law didn't like that and did what she could to sabotage our future wedding, telling people not to attend, and calling me "defective." My future (no more) husband and his father were going to sit down with her Tuesday night and try to talk sense into her. Well, she won. I don't know what happened or what was said, but my boyfriend came home and we got into a big fight.

Despite what we had discussed before, he now said that he wanted kids and if I couldn't provide them, the wedding was off. I basically said, "That sounds like your mother, not you." He replied with, "I can speak for myself" and it escalated into a bunch of shouting at each other and I quickly put together a bag and went to my parents for the evening.

I called in sick from work the next day and basically stared at the ceiling. We first met when I was nine, 23 years ago. It went from being friends to more romantic, we dated through high school and went to college together, then after graduation, moved in together. I have never dated or seen anyone else, neither has he as far as I know.

We waited so long to get married because it wasn't important to us as long as we were together. That changed when my dad got a terminal illness and he expressed his wish to walk me down the aisle (I'm his only daughter) before he became too ill to walk. I'll be giving two-months’ notice at work on Monday, to give them time to find a replacement and for me to train them, then moving back to Germany.

I was born there and lived there at first and still have friends and family there. My friend has said I can stay in her spare room with her and her family until I get situated on my own there. I'm sorry, no happy ending here. The evil mother-in-law won and got me out of her son's life. Technically, she got me out of the country. I know I could move elsewhere in town, or even in the state, but I don't want to be alone here.

There's too many memories, and I have a strong support group overseas so that's where I'm going. I have been picked on so many times for so many things over the years, from my height to my accent when I first moved here to other things, but this one hurts. I was able to handle the others by telling myself, "That's who I am, if they don't like it, that's their problem."

I'm sure in a few years, I'll think that about this situation too, but it's too soon..

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20. The Cherries On Top

We live on an acreage, and my pride and joy the past several years has been putting in long-term plants. Specifically fruiting varieties, berries and long-term harvestables like a rhubarb patch and even some sunflowers. I prune my trees each season. Every tree gets a once-over a few times to deal with pests. It's meditative for me. I grew up in the city and always wanted to work towards this point.

I even talk to my trees and plants and everything I grow. It helps with my depression and anxiety. Very grounding, hah! My cherry trees were doing so, so good this year. Big, beautiful crops. I had nets up. The birds were leaving them alone. No serious pests. I watered them through a huge dry period during June, where most plants were scorching.

They made it through, and did so good. I was so proud of my little trees. I had everything ready during the week to harvest them. Got my ladder. Got my buckets. Got my canning equipment out and sterilized and freezer bags ready to rock. I had planned for a whole day on Saturday to get my cherries processed, and time on Sunday too if I underestimated.

Work had been hard all week. I had an anxiety attack at work from the stress. It's been rough. On Friday, I got up early, checked my cherries and was excited for the day to be over so I could get a head start on some things. I roll into my driveway and tell my other half that I'm going to just throw together a quick supper then head out and pick some cherries.

He tells me: "Sounds good! Mom stopped by earlier and grabbed some cherries too." My stomach turned into an instant knot. This was my hard work. The cherries were my reward for all of that. All the years of tending and pruning and caring and fertilizing and love. I go out and my nets are still on the trees, but the cherries are picked as high as I could reach. All of them.

All four trees are stripped except for the very, very top. I started crying. I threw my bucket like a child with a tantrum. I was so mad. Those were my cherries. Mine! I went inside to husband and he asked what was wrong. I told him all my cherries were gone, that his parents had taken all of them. He immediately calls them and puts them on speaker, asking what the deal was.

The response?! The reason they took ALL my cherries? "Well they were ripe and ready to be picked! Since she hadn't done it yet, we assumed she just didn't want them." Yes, because I put up bird netting for fun. Because me having the ladder out is just me doing yard feng shui. Because having buckets on hand is just me giving the buckets some sun and fresh air.

The kicker?? The best part of all of this?!?! THEY HAVE CHERRY TREES! And apple trees. And fruit bushes! When I brought this up, they said that their cherries hadn't come in well this year. No kidding. Their trees have a fungus I've been telling them to deal with for years but they couldn't bear the thought of pruning their fruit trees! So, they took my cherries as a result.

My mother-in-law had already frozen the majority of the cherries, plus given some away to friends. She turned the rest into various canning recipes. I picked what I could and ended up with a single ice cream pail worth of cherries total from my four trees. Words can't explain how absolutely gutted I am. I cried again on Saturday as I put away all my canning stuff, realizing I wouldn't need it for the amount of cherries I managed to get.

I don't think I've ever been this mad before. My mother-in-law has had moments in the past that I could deal with. That I've worked through. That I can almost forgive her for. Or at least pity her for, to be so desperate for certain attention or affection from people. Even just typing this up just makes me feel so upset. My trees are something I love, you know?

I've taken care of them, tended to them, talked to them, and was so excited for this year to have that moment of picking a beautiful harvest that I worked so hard for, despite depression and anxiety telling me I wasn't a gardener, couldn't do it, that I wasn't talented enough to have fruit trees. I proved that wrong. I had a beautiful reward waiting for me, with beautiful weekend weather, and happy cherry trees to feel pride about.

And it was taken from me. This feels like heartbreak. It's not even about the cherries, you know?

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21. Tongues Will Wag

Way back more than a dozen years ago when my now-husband and I met, we came to a rapid mutual decision—friends with extremely frequent benefits. Neither of us wanted re-marriage. We both had kids, though, and religious parents, so we tied it up in a nice “we are dating” bow and presented it as a package deal. My parents loved him.

His dad was kind of iffy with me, but his stepmother hates me. She'd managed to run off the ex-wife , so she didn't appreciate a newcomer to share attention with. I am a brutally honest person by nature, but I put up with, ignored, or rolled my eyes and walked away from far, far more than I should have. I wasn't trying to be the bigger person, I was simply an adult who didn’t need or want to play mean girl games.

What finally tipped the scale was when my guy’s brother, after a nasty divorce, found an extremely sweet, very innocent young woman to date. The stepmom’s target shifted from me (a hard target) to my now sister-in-law (a soft target). She could bring this young woman to tears with her barbed tongue and insults, and she enjoyed it. She was always waiting until her boys were distracted, then she would move in for the hit.

One Saturday evening, the stepmom was just viciously tearing down this girl (and me) while we were BBQing. My guy and his brother were out at the grill with my father-in-law and well distracted. The stepmom went on a hateful, relentless rant about their ex wives, and how they didn't or couldn't love us or they would have proposed by now.

Frankly I was ignoring her and eyeballing my now-husband’s cute little butt through the window, making some mental plans for alone time once we ditched the rest of the family. It was in that window that I caught the reflection of the innocent girl with tears running down her face, and my mind snapped back to the conversation just in time to hear that the “boys” only had room in their hearts for one woman—and that was her! I had the perfect reply without thinking.

"You can have his heart,” I said. “I'm more interested in his package and tongue." It rolled out of my brain and off my tongue before any filter could catch it. My sister-in-law choked, then laughed until she was laugh-crying, laughing and snorting at the same time. The stepmom screamed and cried all the way out to the “boys,” wailing about the perverted godless heathen sitting in her house. Oh, but it got better.

When my father-in-law and brother-in-law both high-fived my guy, she wailed louder, ran into the house, and locked herself in her bedroom with a resounding slam of the door. My father-in-law decided he liked me that night, handed me a drink, and welcomed me to the family. He also told my sister-in-law to up her game. He knows his wife is a witch, and what she starts we are clear to finish in his book, no harm no foul.

To this day, my sister-in-law and I can make the witch run away from us and leave us in blessed peace with one simple tongue gesture.

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22. The Truth Will Out

My mom was never a good mother, and I ran away at 13 to live with my dad. I then found out I have a medical condition—a tilted uterus. It never caused me issues so I never paid the news any mind. Fast forward a few months, I'm 14 now. I’m home at my dad’s alone, and suddenly I collapse in agonizing pain. I'll try to describe the pain.

My back felt like someone had a hold of my lower spine and was trying to pull it from my body, while simultaneously twisting a knife in my stomach. All I could do was crawl my way to my bed and cry. My dad and his girlfriend came home to hear me screaming. He asked what was wrong, and I tried to act tough. “Oh it’s nothing, just my period. I'll be fine, etc.”

His girlfriend told him that's not normal and I needed to go to the hospital. Being the manly man he is, he didn't want to handle lady problems, and called my mom to take me. Well, my mom shows up angry, but remains outwardly calm…until I get in the car and we pull away. Instantly, she came in with a horrific accusation. She starts telling me that I'm probably having a miscarriage.

That this is what I get for being a hussy and getting pregnant at 14. I, between sobbing and screaming in pain, try to explain what the doctor told me about my tilted uterus. She, of course, calls me a liar and tells me to shut up. We get to the ER, sign in, and she’s explaining her theory to the nurse. We finish and are told to go wait.

While in the waiting room, she never said a word to me, just glared. The nurse calls me in and tells her to wait until the exam is done. She’s not happy about this, but, not willing to argue with the nurse, she sits back down. The exam finishes, and she's called in. The doctor explains everything I had tried to and follows up with, "She's definitely not pregnant. It's just a bad month and it will pass in a day or two."

He says he can give me something for the pain, but my mom denied that offer. I was sent home to just wait it out with instructions to take it easy. Get in the car, still crying, no words from her. It’s very tense. I admit, knowing my mom, that this next sentence was a mistake. But in my delirious state I just wanted my mom’s comfort, and for her not to be mad at me as I did nothing wrong.

I said, "I told you I wasn't lying." She instantly pulls over the car, and simply but very angrily says, "Get out of my car now." She left me there to get myself home. No cell, no money, in crippling pain. I managed to walk a few blocks very slowly, and the last few I literally (I really wish I was exaggerating) crawled back to my dad’s.

After finally getting home, his girlfriend found me and helped me up to my bed. She got me Tylenol, a hot water bottle and all that. I told them what my mom did. My dad’s girlfriend was just stunned while my dad just shakes his head in disgust at his ex’s actions. That was the last time I spoke to or saw my mom for eight years.

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23. That’s The Tea

So my mother- and father-in-law have been staying with us for a week. It’s the first time I have ever had to stay with her. I’ve never particularly liked her but I stay civil for the sake of my husband. However, in the past week she has made my blood boil. Some of it I can put aside as just lifestyle differences. For example, she came and rearranged my kitchen, threw out some of my things, etc.

What is annoying me beyond my belief is that she was whispering and complaining about me to my husband just seconds ago, less than 5m away. We live in a small two-bedroom apartment, so it's not like there is heaps of space. My husband and I have a great relationship and even he thinks that his parents are overbearing. Anyway, I walked outside and offered her tea.

I then told her she did a lot of talking and must be thirsty by now. She got all embarrassed and mumbled that she didn't meant for me to hear it. I told her if she wants private conversations, my home is not the right place. That was as passive aggressive as I could be with a smile on my face.

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24. Good Boys And Girls

My husband has an ugly history with his stepmother, who is a terrible person. His father was a really great man who has since passed. Anyway, we adopted a beagle named Winston from the shelter when he was already over 12 years old. His owner had passed and he was so sweet and sad that we decided to take him home. He was with us for about a year and had a few health problems, but nothing major.

One weekend, we went out of town and asked our in-laws to watch Winston while we were gone. When we got home, my father-in-law was reluctant to return him as they had bonded over the three-day weekend. My in-laws had a small shepherd dog at the time named Minnie. I hadn’t ever heard them complain about her in the past but, when we picked up Winston my mother-in-law started making a huge deal about how Minnie was digging holes in their yard.

After a week or so of my father-in-law bugging my husband, we decided to trade Winston for Minnie. I know it sounds weird, but I figured it was a quiet environment for him being a senior dog, and I hated to see Minnie wind up in a shelter, which was what I suspected would happen. They had Winston for about a year when my husband and father-in-law went on a trip together.

A few days after they left, it all started to unravel. My mother-in-law called me all upset. She said that Winston had a seizure and she took him to the vet and the vet wound up putting him down. I was in shock. He had one very mild seizure when we had him and I knew he had a few when he was with them, but they said he was being medicated.

After we got off the phone, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with her story. She added the detail that the vet didn’t charge her for putting him down because he felt sorry for her. It struck me as an odd, unnecessary detail, so I decided to call their regular vet and ask about what happened. They told me that they hadn’t seen Winston and didn’t know what I was talking about.

I decided to call another vet in that same area, but I had to leave a message. This was on Friday afternoon. The vet was closed over the weekend and the boys returned home on Sunday. My husband and I went over the story and both picked out things that we thought didn’t add up. My husband asked his dad which vet the stepmom took him to and he said it was the first one I called. Ok, even weirder.

Monday morning, the second vet’s office called me back. I asked if someone had brought in a beagle having a seizure, and after a pause, the woman told me the whole, jaw-dropping story. She told me that a woman in a bathrobe and slippers (no doubt my mother-in-law) had brought in a beagle and said she hit it with her car and didn’t know who it belonged to.

Apparently, they turned it in to the pound. The pound is not open on Monday so I had to wait until they opened on Tuesday to see if it was really him. I was there as soon as they unlocked the doors. When I walked into the dog kennels, I heard him baying and burst into tears. I couldn’t believe that after everything he had been through, he had to spend four days in the pound, abandoned again.

It cost me over $200 to get him out, which we did not have to spend, but there was no way I was leaving him. When I got home, my husband couldn’t believe his eyes. We took him straight over to my in-laws’ to confront her. She dug in and said that he was having a seizure, that the vet told her he was putting him down but HE must have lied.

We knew we weren’t getting anywhere so we left with Winston and went no contact for about a year. My husband still had a relationship with his dad, but we never trusted her again. So we wound up with both dogs and Winston was totally fine. He lived two more lovely years before he developed cancer and had to be put down when his time actually came. Minnie never dug a single hole in my yard.

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25. Evil Genius

I’m a gay man, a police officer, and I have had a WHOLE lot of trouble with my mother-in-law. This morning I came home after a night shift and was taking a nap while my boyfriend was downstairs watching TV. I didn’t hear the doorbell ring, but my boyfriend woke me up and told me that there was an officer outside our door. Then, strangely, he added that he didn’t think it was a “real” officer.

I asked him why does he think it’s not a real officer and my boyfriend said, “He doesn’t look like one.” Um, okay. I got dressed, went to the door, and asked who’s there. The person outside said “Police.” Honestly, it was enough for me to realize that my boyfriend is right. I don’t know what the rules for visits are in other countries but here, if you're on duty and you come to visit someone at their house, you must tell them your last name, announce that you are an officer of the law, and state your purpose for being there.

That's how officers present themselves and there's no way around it. So yeah, this guy was a fake. I looked out of the peephole and saw a young man in a uniform that looked very much like the uniforms officers wear here, but a lot of things were missing. Our uniforms are quite plain, just dark blue with a coat of arms of the town on them, but over the uniforms, we always wear a bright green vest with “Police” on the front and back.

It also has the name of the officer on it, plus it has a walkie-talkie, a radio, and a body camera. The person outside my door had the vest on, but none of the things I mentioned were there. He did look quite realistic, though, and could probably fool maybe an elderly person or a child. But not me. Still, we let him in. I asked to see his ID and he said “no.”

I was like, “What do you mean, no? If someone asks to see your ID because they want to make sure you’re a real officer, you can’t refuse.” A real officer should have no problem with it. Then I looked down where his duty belt should be and there was just a regular belt you use to keep your pants together.  Where’s the taser, handcuffs, and baton? Did you forget it all at home, or what?

At first, I didn’t think my horrible mother-in-law had something to do with it, but then the guy asked for my name and said he’s here to arrest me because I have “illegally married another man.” That’s when my boyfriend and I both understood the whole situation. She never approved of us, and had found another way to try and mess with us. For what it’s worth, we aren’t married, but we are partners.

So I was like, “Do you have a warrant? You don’t. Have you personally observed me marrying someone? You haven’t. Are you even a real officer? You’re not, so hands off.” The guy said, “You have a wedding band on your finger.” I can wear any ring I want on any finger I want, and it’s not a proof of any kind. So I did what I had to do as a real officer.

Impersonating an officer is a crime, so I detained him. My boyfriend called to the station for someone to come and take him away, and this guy was terrified. He spilled everything. He told us that there was a woman who paid him to dress up as an officer and come to my house to scare me. He needed money, so he agreed. He described what she looked like and we were like, yep, it’s her.

But what he didn’t know was that I was an officer myself. She didn’t tell him that, and her plan was STUPID. He was also very young, just 20 years old, and I could tell that he was genuinely sorry and he was really scared and worried about all the consequences he’ll now have to face. He was like, “I would have never done it if I'd known you’re a real officer.”

On the one hand, I felt sorry for him because someone older and more evil than him had simply fooled him, but then again—you’re an adult, dude. You should have your own head on your shoulders. You should be able to make your own decisions instead of doing what someone else tells you to do.

So it looks like my mother-in-law didn’t have the balls to dress up as an officer herself, so she sent someone naive to do it for her. The guy is in the station and he’s going to face charges. Hopefully, that’ll teach him to not listen to what old, dumb hags tell him to do. No idea what the end goal was, or what he was going to do after detaining me, but my mother-in-law has really outdone herself on this one.

I have been an officer for nearly nine years and still, she obviously thought I won’t be able to tell a real officer from an impersonator.

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26. You Are What You Eat

My nine-year-old daughter became a vegetarian about eight months ago after her friend's older sister's influence. She takes it surprisingly seriously, given her age. For some bizarre reason, my mother-in-law has a serious bug up her butt about it and hates that my husband and I allow it. We had a small confrontation about it a few months ago, and she seemed to back off after I made it clear I wasn't interested in her input. And then it all blew up.

On Friday night, we had dinner with my husband's parents and she served spaghetti. It was a meat sauce for the rest of us, but when she gave my daughter her bowl, she said "and a special veggie sauce just for you" all sweetly. Halfway through her bowl, daughter started to panic and asked my mother-in-law if she was sure there was no meat in the sauce.

She insisted there was none. I took her plate to inspect and sure enough, there was beef in her sauce. When I stated there was indeed meat in it, my daughter immediately began to cry. I took her into the living room to calm her down while my husband confronted his mom. She at first insisted it was an accident, but after he established he didn't buy that for a second, she admitted it was intentional.

She said she thought by reminding her how delicious meat was, she would "give up that vegetarian nonsense." She said she couldn't see what the big deal was and suggested we get our daughter therapy because the fact she cried over it was "very troubling and a sign something is wrong with her." At that point, I insisted we leave.

I was starting to seriously consider throwing the spaghetti in the witch’s face, but I knew it would traumatize the kids. In the car, we obviously explained to our daughter that there was nothing wrong with her and grandma was 100% in the wrong. She seemed to have already come to that conclusion on her own, though. My mother-in-law sent a half-baked text apology to my husband last night.

Basically "I shouldn't have done that, but...—insert essay about why eating meat is no big deal and our daughter overreacted here—" He hasn't responded because we're still trying to figure out what to say and how to handle the situation. I'm beyond livid. He's trying to figure out things to say to get her to understand our daughter's feelings, like asking her how she would feel if someone tricked her into eating a dog.

However, I strongly feel like we shouldn't have to do that. We shouldn't have to defend our daughter's personal choice not to eat meat and her right to have that respected. We shouldn't have to try to validate her feelings of being deeply upset after she was tricked into doing something she is strongly morally opposed to by someone she trusted. I knew what I had to do.

I told my husband I don't trust his mother to feed my kids anymore. He thinks I'm overreacting and we should give her a second chance once the dust settles with this, but my trust is gone. She took it upon herself to decide my daughter was "wrong" for being a vegetarian and try to "fix" her. She decided she knows best and to ignore not only my daughter's boundaries, but ours as her parents not to push meat on her.

It also worries me because our five-year-old has a peanut allergy that she also scoffs at. She's never tried to sneak her peanut products, but she's dismissed it as "probably not serious" and has said how people "outgrow allergies, so she probably will too." After this incident with the meat, I'm terrified she'll decide to ignore that food restriction too.

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27. Food For Thought

So my mother-in-law is very nice. However, her twin sister who helped raise my husband is awful. When my husband was little, his mother had some pretty aggressive health issues and spent a large portion of his childhood in the hospital. Because of this, the sister did a lot in raising him, and since she has no children of her own she sees herself as his second mom.

My husband and I live in the same city as my aunt-in-law but purposefully avoid spending time with her because she’s rude and more than a little bit crazy. This story actually started last Tuesday when my mother-in-law called me up and asked if my husband and I could go visit the aunt because she’s been very lonely and feels like she never gets to see him anymore.

Now, I consider myself a pretty nice person and I don’t like when people are sad or lonely, so I agree to give her a call to see if she’d like to join us for dinner. Which leads to dinner last night. We agree to meet at a restaurant she likes for dinner. My first problem with her, though, is how inconsiderate she is. For example, the restaurant she picked is less than a ten-minute drive from her home, but does she show up on time? Of course not.

She was more than 40 minutes late, and didn’t answer a single one of our calls to check if she was okay. But she finally gets there and starts to chat with us—more like complain—about her life. She keeps turning the waiter away because she isn’t ready to order, and at this point I’m starving and just want to order some darn food.

Finally she’s ready and the waiter comes by again to take our order. I order French fries as my side. She gives me a look but doesn’t say anything. As soon as the waiter walks away, she hits me with a brutal insult. She says, “Do you really think fries are the best choice? You’ve gotten pretty chubby lately.” Thankfully, my husband shuts that down real quick.

He basically tells her if she’s going to say things like that, we will be taking our meals to go. She isn’t technically wrong. I have gained weight recently, but it’s because I’m pregnant, which she doesn’t know. She quickly changes the subject and goes back to complaining. When the food comes out, I quickly grab a fry because pregnancy cravings, plus I’m starving since we should’ve started eating like an hour ago.

She gives me that look again and I just know she’s going to say something stupid. And boy, I wasn’t wrong. “You must really turn him off in the bedroom eating and gaining weight like that.” What the heck?? Y’all, I’ve always been slightly chubby but I’m not overweight, and according to my doctor I have gained a completely normal and healthy amount of weight.

My husband immediately flagged down the waiter and asks for the check and to-go boxes. She starts to whine that it isn’t fair of us to leave and she was just stating the obvious, blah blah blah. My husband completely rips into her and tells her she needs to apologize, which she refused to do. As we were leaving, he told her to not contact us until she was ready to apologize.

I’m so grateful for my husband’s spine. My mother-in-law ended up calling to yell at us after the aunt spoke to her, but once she got the whole story she was on our side too.

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28. Grandma The Great

My great-grandmother and I were very close. As I grew up, her home was always a sanctuary away from my dad and stepmother's horrors. She was also always very kind to my mother, even after my mother remarried, and at one point called the authorities on my father. The last year of my great-grandmother's life, she seemed to just...deflate.

My great-grandfather, her husband, had been gone for almost 12 years at this point, and I knew she missed him terribly, but that last year she seemed to talk about him more and more, and she lost a lot of weight, but never her mental acuity. One day, out of the blue, she calls my grandmother (her daughter) and asks for a ride to an appointment.

My grandmother obliges, and my great-grandmother gives her an address—to a hospice. Turns out she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer six months before, and decided it was her time rather than fighting it. She didn't tell ANYONE because she didn't want us to try to talk her into chemo and such when she was nearly 90 years old.

She passed very quickly after she entered the hospice, and meeting up for the funeral was the first time I'd seen my stepmother in person since I graduated from high school. I avoided her, and spent most of the time talking to my grandparents and my aunt. Even my mother came to the funeral, and I could tell she was very distraught about my great-grandmother's passing.

It was a lovely service in her tiny Methodist church, and then she was buried next to my great-grandfather in the nearby cemetery. My grandmother asked everyone to stay in town while she handled the will, and then we'd separate everything out. I told her I couldn't afford to, but I wasn't working at the time and she offered to let me stay at her house.

My great-grandmother's house was locked up like a vault. My grandmother, probably in a blessed moment of foresight, hired security to watch over the house and its possessions 24 hours a day, and wouldn't you know, every day they had to report that a redhead in her mid-30s tried to go into the house and they had to turn her away. About three weeks later, my grandmother called everyone together at my great-grandmother's house to "handle the will."

My grandmother decided to do a reading of the will. Attorneys don't normally do readings of the will like you see in movies, so my grandmother read it, but my great-grandmother's attorney was there with a box, and he was to handout things from my great-grandmother's safety deposit box in the bank. The will was organized by generation.

To my grandmother: the house and whatever remains of her possessions and money after everyone else listed has received theirs. To my great uncle: my great-grandfather's personal effects, like his watches and cuff links. To my aunt: My great-grandmother's antique sewing machine that she'd inherited from her mother, and a lot of her vintage designer dresses.

To my aunt's husband: my great-grandfather's classic car. To my uncle: their summer home by the lake. To my uncle's wife: my great-grandparents' books except the cookbooks, and the bookshelves to keep them in. To my dad: my great-grandfather's golf clubs, pipes, and camera equipment. To my stepmom: $1, with a notation that she never forgave her for the way she treated her “precious great-grandchildren.” But she didn’t stop there.

She also said that she will enjoy watching her burn in hell, even if it means she was condemned herself for such vindictive thoughts. I think my grandmother was fighting off a smirk the whole time she read that. It was taking all of my self-control to keep my mouth SILENT. Thank God I had tissues so I could pretend I was crying into them while laughing silently.

To my father's first wife, my mother: $250,000, plus whatever is needed to pay off her house and student loans. Y'all, my mother wasn't even AT this meeting. My stepmother started SCREAMING, insisting that someone had tampered with the will. "She's not faaaaaammmmily!!!" My grandmother looks at her with that 1,000 yard stare and says: "Neither are you."

My dad is beet red, but my grandmother has always been able to at least keep him quiet. After a few minutes of yelling, my grandmother told her to sit down and shut up. They weren't done. To my great uncle's son: my great-grandfather's cabin, and all the contents. To my aunt's children: a trust fund to pay for college, each.

To my uncle's stepson, who he always treated like his own son: a trust fund to pay for college. To my younger sister: a trust fund to pay for college. To my younger brother: $250,000, and an heirloom necklace to give to his wife if he ever marries. To my younger brother: a trust fund to pay for college. To me: $250,000, her jewelry box and its contents, her cookbooks and the contents of her kitchen, and a letter.

To my brother and my children, should we ever have any: a trust fund to pay for college. If we reach the age of 45 without children, the trust fund is to pay out our share of its remaining sum to us. This was followed by a notation that if anyone contests the will, they get nothing. So onto the “letter.” My grandmother looks over at me and says, "I'm sorry, I read the letter to you before I read the will, do you mind if I read it aloud?"

My stepmother is already hopping mad at this point, insisting that it's not fair, she's going to contest the will, that my great-grandmother wasn't in her right mind when she wrote it, etc. My great-grandmother's attorney was right there THE WHOLE TIME, just rolling his eyes. I gave my grandmother the go ahead, because about 20 years’ worth of vindication was about to go down.

While I don't have the letter here in front of me (it's in my safety deposit box in the bank) here's the gist of it: She is sorry she didn't tell me about the cancer, but she didn't want to worry me about something that is just a natural part of life. She is sorry that I drew the short straw when it came to parents, but she is very proud of me.

She said that my stepmother is a “homewrecker” and not to let her touch a cent of my money, no matter what my father says. That she hopes I'll use some of the money to get the mental health help that was denied me in childhood because my father is more concerned with his idiocy than his daughter's welfare. The rest was mostly life advice, and encouragement. Sorry, I'm crying a bit writing this, I really miss her.

You could have heard a PIN DROP in that room after my grandmother finished reading it. After a few minutes, my stepmother sputtered, "You can't let her DO that!!" My dad just grabbed her arm, and the two of them left. As soon as they were out of the door, my brother looked at me and said, "I'd high five you, but that seems crass."

The rest of my relatives started laughing. According to my little sister, my stepmother yelled a lot about how they needed to contest the will, and finally my father shut her up with, "I've divorced better women for less. That's enough." Which is a sick burn because my mom was his only other wife. My mom broke down in tears when we showed up with my great-grandma's attorney to handle paying off her bills and give her a fat check.

She then started full-on ugly crying when they told her a trust fund had been set up for my baby brother to pay for his college. She didn't realize my great-grandmother thought so highly of her, and the money wiped out all but a few credit card bills overnight. Plus, knowing she didn't need to save for my little brother to go to college made her life so much easier.

As for me, I got the mental health help I needed (and am still getting it). I used a significant portion of the money to pay for college once I was stable, got a nice job working from home, and used some more to move to southern California since I have Seasonal Depression and not having a real winter helps a lot. As far as I know, my stepmother is still a bitter spiteful witch who knows no one likes her.

My father and I have an agreement that we do not talk about her, and I do not have to ever see or speak to her or consider her existence in any way.

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29. Grow A Spine

I have just annulled my marriage after a week. I tried. I really, really tried. His mother tried everything to get me away from her son, and she finally succeeded.  Her son had a spine like jelly. If she told him to hurt me, I’m sure he would do it. But there was one final straw.  So, I have a very crazy allergy against Latex. I react really badly to it.

We found out when I was a toddler. I was treated in the hospital for something and I went into shock after a nurse just touched me. Since then, I have a little sticker on my driver’s license and I wear an allergene necklace. I can literally perish from sniffing a glove. My ex mother-in-law knew this, because my ex-husband told her. Last week, after I got home from work, I was angry with my ex.

I can't remember why. Everything is really fuzzy right now. However, I went into bed early. I just bought this bed a month ago. When I laid into bed, it felt really comfy, but I could feel a small layer of plastic under my mattress. I assumed that this was normal, since it is a new bed, and I might have missed some plastic cover on the mattress. I didn't think about it much and went to sleep.

I woke up 17 hours later in the hospital. That’s when the disturbing truth emerged. My ex mother-in-law cut up 75 latex gloves to create a little layer under my duvet cover. I do not remember, but when my ex-husband went to bed several hours later, he found me white as a ghost, sweating and barely breathing. You know why I knew it was my mother-in-law?

Because she called me to brag about it. While I was in the hospital. She told me ex that she was afraid I would wet the bed, since I acted so childish. Remember, I am a 27-year-old woman. My ex, instead of going full no contact, said he was sorry about my behavior. He. Was. Sorry. I was in the hospital for a week. My ex visited me once…to make me apologize to his mother.

Instead, I got security and told everyone he is not allowed to be back in my room.

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30. A Real Pain In The Neck

My oldest daughter is now five years old, and her biological father is no longer in the picture. I kicked him out of the house when she was about one and a half and he decided that meant his role as her father had ended. Not a problem. Things are way better now. My ex's mother is the mother-in-law in question. She had her knees replaced when she was about 50 and had complications.

She is now a paraplegic and has as many as 20 seizures a day. She is in very poor health, but her attitude is worse than her health by far. I have never met a more miserable woman, or someone who got so much joy out of making others feel bad. She is a witch. She said so many negative, ugly, horrible things about everyone around her, right to their faces, and laughed about it.

I always hated her, but back then I felt obligated to placate her. She was the "MY baby" type of mother-in-law with my daughter and it drove me nuts. After I broke up with my daughter’s father, he told her I wouldn't let him see his girl. That was a lie. She messaged me, freaking out that she was going to take me to court for grandparents’ rights.

I let her know the only contact I've had with her son is the messages I've been sending him asking him to visit. I told her I wasn't keeping my daughter from anyone. I would occasionally Skype her with my daughter so she could see her. Well, one day we are on Skype, and my daughter is playing with a giraffe toy. The toy somehow broke off at the neck, all while my mother-in-law is watching on Skype.

My daughter is in my lap so both of us are in her view of the webcam. She then laughs and says, "Wouldn't it be funny if your mommy's neck snapped like that?” I froze for a second, trying to comprehend what I just heard. When it clicked, I shut the laptop without saying a word. And that was the last time I ever talked to that woman. She's been blocked on everything since.

My daughter is now a big sister, and my youngest's father has been her father for as long as she can remember. Things are good, and we couldn't be happier.

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31. Irish Twins

My husband and I welcomed our daughter into the world 18 weeks ago. She’s a darling baby and really pretty easy as far as newborns go, except for one thing: she wasn’t a son. My in-laws were obsessed with the idea of us having a son, to the point that they denied she was a girl up until the moment she was born. Why? Because “the bloodline follows the father. If you don’t have a son, our family name will peter out, because your daughter will marry a man and carry on his bloodline. So girls don’t really count.”

The day they came to visit in the hospital, my in-laws asked when we would be trying for another baby. We kind of just laughed it off, but my mother-in-law got more insistent, straight up telling us, “You need to try for a boy!” Over the next month or two, the conversation about us having another baby sort of tapers off into little comments every now and again.

I had no problem ignoring them, and we’d already told them it wasn’t happening so I just let it run off my back. Around this time, my mother-in-law started coming over daily for a few hours, watching the baby for me so that I could sleep and she also occasionally cleaned up a bit for me. She’d be over unsupervised anywhere from 1-4 hours.

Fast forward to the present day. Two days ago now, my husband poured me a mixed drink, and when I brought the cup up to my lips, I got hit with this paranoid and panicked feeling. I immediately put the cup down and insisted we take a pregnancy test. Sure enough, it comes back positive. We wait until the next morning, take a digital test and again, positive.

Based on timing, I should have been about six weeks along. After getting over the initial shock, we were excited but confused. For several reasons, we hadn’t been able to get hormonal birth control, so we’d been using condoms and lube to make sure they didn’t tear. So we weren’t sure how we’d gotten pregnant, but we’re happy with the news.

We decided we wouldn’t tell anyone because we didn’t want another baby stampede from his family, but I’m incredibly close with my sister-in-law so I decided to tell her after swearing her to secrecy. When I told her, her eyes got wide and started to water. She asked if I was serious, and was I sure. I told her I know my husband and I are young (we’re in our early 20s), but between us we make more than enough to support another baby.

She then bursts into tears and starts to apologize over and over, meanwhile I sit there with my mouth hanging open and lost. She calms down a bit, and through her tears tells me that my mother-in-law has been poking holes in our condoms pretty much since we came home from the hospital. She claims my mother-in-law told her she did it, but she thought that she was just spouting nonsense because she was upset we didn’t have a boy. And suddenly everything clicked into place.

That’s why the condoms didn’t work even though we were careful with them. That’s why she’d always shoo me off to sleep while she was around. And that’s what she was doing when she was “cleaning” my house—snooping for our condoms. And she knew I wasn’t on birth control because I remember complaining to her about how my OB-GYN went on maternity leave and I wasn’t able to find another one that took my insurance at the time.

I’m so angry I don’t know what to do. I want to go right over to her house and tear her a new one so bad I can smell my tires burning in the blacktop. I’m also illogically angry at my sister-in-law for not telling me. How could you think this was a joke when she was so specific about everything she was going to do?! Why didn’t you warn me?

I would have put my condoms in my room. I’m livid with my mother-in-law. I’m pleased with this pregnancy, but it wasn’t my choice. It wasn’t even an accident; it was her meddling because she didn’t get the Golden Grandson she wanted. I don’t even know how to handle this. I want to scorch the earth but I also still don’t want his family knowing I’m pregnant.

Also, I’m not even 12 weeks yet so the risk of a miscarriage is still uncomfortably high. The only bright side of this whole thing is that it’s snatched my husband out of his mother’s fear, obligation, and guilt so violently he’s probably got whiplash. Personally, my pregnancy has soured a bit so I’m really trying to hang on to any happiness I have about the pregnancy left.

As it stands now, I have absolutely no one to turn to. My own parents are extremely horrible to the point of no contact, and I can’t post in my baby bump group anymore because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings who had difficulty conceiving or carrying.

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32. Secret Recipe

Today I made Sand Tart cookies and this memory about my mother came to mind and I had to share. Growing up, my mom would make these cookies she called Sand Tarts. They are a firm cookie much like a sugar cookie. Not too sweet, so good for icing. I always loved them, and I’ve not found a recipe like them or anything called Sand Tarts so I have no idea where she got the recipe.

Anyway, years ago I wanted to make them and asked for the recipe. You never knew what mood you’d find her in. She’d either be nice and chipper, or alternatively moody, insulted, angry, severely depressed, or nasty and vindictive. It was always a lottery. You never knew what you’d get! She must have fallen in one of her moods when I asked, but she sent me the recipe anyway.

I made it but it didn’t taste right. The texture was off. I asked if it was the right recipe and she nastily replied, “Of course!” I offended her. Yippee! Many years go by and she passed. I cleaned out her house and brought home her recipe box. Eventually I got around to going through it when I find the Sand Tart recipe. I decided to compare it to the one she gave me…and it was a completely different recipe.

It’s not like she couldn’t find it, she just didn’t want me to have it—she must have been in her vindictive mood that day! We are talking like, the recipe she gave me called for baking powder, this one does not, etc. So just to spite my ol mom, I’d like to share her Sand Tart recipe for the world to use and enjoy. Here we go, friends:

1 cup softened salted butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

4 cups of flour.

Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs and vanilla. Slowly add flour until combined. Refrigerate for 4 hours. Break off in small sections and roll out in flour about 1/4” thick. Don’t make too thin. Cut into shapes. Bake 350° for 8-10 mins. Decorate with royal icing or favorite frosting.

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33. Don’t Mess With Grandma Privileges

So I just found out I’m pregnant, and am over the moon excited, as is my soon-to-be husband. We plan on announcing it at our wedding in a few weeks, after I reach the point where it’s unlikely for me to lose it. But we told our moms because if a miscarriage did happen, I would want the love and support from my mom. However, I felt guilty just telling her, so we told my mother-in-law too.

My mom had the reaction I wanted. Tears and kisses and belly rubs, the whole shebang. Then it took a dark turn. My mother-in-law stared at us and said, “Well what are you going to do?” Um, what do you mean what are we going to do? “There are no clinics around us.” Clinics for what? “To get rid of it!” Why would we get rid of it? “Well you very well can’t be pregnant before marriage. It’s embarrassing.”

Why is it embarrassing? Tons of people are happy and healthy with kids before marriage. “Well yeah, but it’s bad luck to get married while pregnant. You’ll be too fat for your dress.” It went on like that for a while before I got sick of it and left. My husband is furious that he wasn’t there to stop her, but guess who lost grandma privileges before she even became a grandma.

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34. Swing And A Miss

I just got married last Saturday and my husband and I decided to have dinner with our in-laws the Monday after. Big mistake. Still, we were still on the high of being married so we thought it was a good idea. My mother-in-law opened the door, and I’m in a sundress with my normal hair and makeup. She looks me up and down and says, “Wow...you sure looked much, much prettier 48 hours ago...”

To which I replied, “Geez, thanks. So did you!” My husband and father-in-law burst out laughing, and cue that awful scowl look mother-in-laws love to give and me feeling very satisfied with myself.

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35. A Helping Hand

So after WEEKS of waiting, planning, and co-ordinating with the bridal shop to get my wedding dress shipped to me, the shipping company emails me and lets me know the dress is here, and would be available for pickup yesterday. They requested a copy of my identification, just to help ease along the process and make pickup easier.

My awful mother has been worrying that “they’ve lost your dress” and “we’ll have to buy a whole new one.” I told her to relax, that I would grab it when I got off work, and that I would bring it home with me so she could stop by to come see it. I got to the shipping company, and when they couldn’t find my dress and told me it had already been collected, I burst into tears.

I’m sobbing to my fiancé, who is trying to work with the shipping person to figure it out. They’re confused. She matched the ID, she confirmed her name and date of birth, even where the item was coming from. They don’t know how this managed to happen, and are profusely apologizing, promising that they will work with the dress store to get a new dress.

Eventually, they decide to check the cameras and see who it was who collected it so a report could be filed. Ya’ll. YA’LL. SHE FREAKING WENT ON HER LUNCH BREAK WITH MY SISTER, PICKED UP MY DRESS, AND TOOK IT HOME WITHOUT EVEN TELLING ME. I drove straight to my mom’s house and demanded my dress. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” She claims. But she forgot about a huge detail.

The freaking box is on the darned sofa behind her! But is that the worst part? Nooooo. THE DRESS ITSELF WAS THROWN ON HER BEDROOM FLOOR. She says she was just inspecting it to make sure it was ok after such a long shipping time, but I don’t care. She had no right. I’m so furious. The dress is ok, just rumpled, but the fact that she would have the audacity to even try such a thing...it’s mind boggling.

I’m officially password protecting everything related to the wedding now. If it even has a CHANCE of her interacting with it, it’s getting password protected.

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36. I’m Not Like The Other Girls

I’m fighting cancer. It’s an early stage, fortunately, so things should go well. Right now I’m going through chemo, which means I’m losing my hair. Today I got sick and tired of finding hair everywhere I go, so I decided to just shave it off and call it a day. It’s not so bad as I thought it would be, and I kind of like this look actually.

My husband is away for a job trip and will be back after a month or so, but my 20-year-old son has a few days off before he goes back to college and he’s staying in our house. My mother-in-law came over, saw me without hair, and her reaction was beyond cruel. She just burst into laughter. She was laughing aloud as if she just heard the funniest joke ever.

She was like, ”Oh my God, you look as if God was tipsy when he made a human! You look like a shaved egg! You look like an inmate who just got out after decades! Jesus, you look so silly!” Before I managed to say something, my son heard what she said and was like, “Shut your mouth before I do it for you. Look at your own mug in the mirror, like a scarecrow from the yard of a loony bin.”

My mother-in-law wasn’t expecting this, of course. She stopped laughing and pouted that he can’t talk to his grandma like that. She said that I’ll have to be ready for comments like this because people immediately will see I’m ill. My son was like, “Well, be careful, don’t kick the bucket yourself.” My mother-in-law said, "Oh honey, I’ll be fine! I have no family history of cancer so I don’t have to worry about that!"

Well, guess what, neither do I. In my entire family I’m the first person to have cancer. When I got sick, I tracked my family’s medical history as far as I could and from what I found, not one of my relatives has ever had cancer. Of course, I don’t wish it upon her, but her thinking is completely flawed. Yes, maybe it puts you at less risk of getting cancer than someone who has a history of it, but it doesn’t grant you immunity.

Cancer doesn’t discriminate. This is a nasty trait of my mother-in-law. Whenever she sees someone with a disability or someone who, because of a health condition, visually looks different than others, she often sneers and comments that this person must have done this or that to end up in that condition and it’s their own fault. Lovely person, right?

It has always seemed so weird to me because you don’t know what awaits you in the future. Today you’re healthy and tomorrow you might not be able to get out of bed. But she’s so sure she’s going to be fine at all times and that her health is the strongest of them all. It’s like diseases don’t exist to her, it’s just something that happens to everyone else, but now her.

Then she was like, "But really, wear a wig. You don’t want to walk around looking like a bald alien. You’re a woman after all." I told her that whether I wear a wig or not will be my choice, and her comments are highly inappropriate and I don’t have to tolerate it in my own house. She was like, “Jesus, stop being so dramatic. You know yourself people laugh at bald women. How about you just wear a wig and calm down?”

My son then said, “How about you get out of here? Be careful walking down the stairs, don’t bump your already stupid head into something.” I don’t really understand why it was it necessary to comment on anything about my hair. And if she absolutely had to, she could do so without being mean. I wish she appreciated being healthy, as that can change at any minute.

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37. I’ll Love You…Forever

I am seething. I am still seeing red. I cannot believe she would do something like this. My husband is so mad at his mother. A little background: My husband is 30 years old, and I am 28. We have a nine-year-old son and four-year-old triplet girls. We both always wanted a big family, but the traumatic birth of the triplets took a toll on me.

Recently, we just brought up the thought of more children with my mother-in-law, and she basically announced a pregnancy to the kids, and then claimed that I must be having fertility issues when there, uh, was no pregnancy. Seriously, lady?! I mean, sure, it’s possible, but I had also spontaneously conceived triplets. Then, not long after that, a close friend of my husband’s passed in a car accident.

Obviously it was very unexpected. The friend and his wife live two states away, so it required a bit of travelling in the aftermath. We went to help the friend’s wife pretty soon after we heard, and stayed for the funeral plus a few days after. Due to the fact it was quite unexpected, my mother-in-law took the kids for us. Initially it didn’t seem like a bad idea.

My brother- and sister-in-law would be there for a week visiting as well with their two kids as well as my aunt-in-law, who is a saint. Before we went, I had to clear things with my mother-in-law, though. I didn’t want her taking anything out on our kids while we were gone, and she was the only option to take care of them for that long.

I explained that I was hurt because she knew how traumatic the birth of the triplets was, and how it was scary for all of us. She was terrified too, actually. She came in white as a ghost to see me after the girls were born, and cried hugging me, saying she was so glad I was okay, and that we were all okay. She did, after all, lose her mother to childbirth.

She apologized for everything, said she had no idea and was acting selfishly. She said the idea of a baby just got into her head and then she didn’t want to be wrong, so she just made something up. She said she knows how wrong it was. Anyway, we drop our son and the girls off, give them hugs and kisses, tell them we love them, and leave.

The first few days are great. My mother-in-law sends us updates, the kids are playing with their cousins, all is well. Then my brother- and sister-in law leave five days early. Turns out, my brother-in-law’s sister lives kind of close by, and they hadn’t seen her in years. She was also swamped with her children, so they went to help her out.

That leaves mother-in-law with our kiddos for five days without anyone else. It all went so wrong, so fast. I don’t hear anything from my mother-in-law for a week besides the usual “the kids are doing great” stuff. The mood at the friend’s place was pretty somber, so even hearing that was enough to brighten my day a bit, and I didn’t think much of it.

Three days before we are about to come home, my aunt-in-law calls me, absolutely furious. She can’t even describe what had happened, and just said I had to Skype her right then and there. Guys, when I Skyped her, my heart nearly dropped out of my chest. She was sitting in her car pulled over on the highway with the kids in the seats.

My kids were red faced and teary eyed. One of my daughters has a small rash under her eyes from crying so much and rubbing her eyes. See, after my brother- and sister-in-law left, my mother-in-law decided to tell them THAT WE HAD DIED. She didn’t go into details, just told them that they would be staying with her forever because we had passed and wouldn’t be coming home.

When the aunt came, the kids were still mostly upset. My mother-in-law blamed it on them missing us, which they agreed to because, you know, they thought we were dead. A few days later, the aunt figures out what actually happened, tells the kids we are fine, and takes them from the house, and Skypes me where I find all of this out. We agreed that she’d take the kids for the last few days.

I told my husband and let him know that we would be cutting his mother out, or we would be getting a divorce. He’s in full agreement on cutting her out. The kids are doing alright. My son hasn’t let go of my husband or I since we picked them up. My heart is breaking underneath this seething rage I have. I want to hurt her, like she hurt my children. I want her to suffer.

We are already looking at places to move and plan on not telling my mother-in-law at all. She’ll find out eventually, but not where we are living. I also have no idea how to explain to the kids that grandma won’t be around anymore. I don’t want them to assume she’s passed, too. This is a mess. I am so angry. I am so heartbroken. My poor, sensitive son and my sweet little girls must have been so devastated. I just want to cuddle with them forever.

38. Sick And Tire

I work overnight as a 9-1-1 dispatcher. I have fibromyalgia and had to walk almost a mile home thanks to some jerk slicing tires in our parking lot last night. I needed fast money to replace my tire, so I tried to do a payday loan—and got denied. What the heck? My credit score was fine. But then I found out that my own mother has been using my social insurance number, and my credit is now tanked.

Four different credit cards, cell phone, electric and cable all in my name in another darn state. I already cancelled everything, and my cell is blowing up because her phone and cable aren't working. Little does she know that her electric will be cut off at noon as well. My husband is raging, too. We have been cut off from my family for years at this point. Why oh why did she freaking do this?

And I still need a darn tire.

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39. Orange You Glad

My son is three and a half years old. Both of his parents are native English speakers, but we live in an area with very limited English for my job. We have lived here for seven years and we speak the local language much more often than English. It is my child's native language and he is extremely articulate in it. His English is decent but due to a language attachment difficulty we had when he was learning to talk, we switched from bilingual parenting to primarily speaking the local language and "teaching" English on the side.

This is what works best for our family and his English is actually beginning to be comparable to native English speakers his age. Along with barely being bilingual, my son also has a ridiculous orange allergy. I'm talking, he walks by another kid at daycare eating an orange and he's on the ground choking on his closing airway.

My mother-in-law has been made aware of this allergy. We didn't think it would be an issue because my mother-in-law basically eats nothing but tortilla chips and Captain Crunch. Apparently this assumption was wrong, because she has decided that clementines are the "Christmas Fruit." I'm not sure if you can see where I'm going with this, but let's just say that we didn't teach our barely bilingual toddler the names of all the different types of oranges to avoid.

When we got back home for Christmas and stayed at my mother-in-law’s, we didn't even know there were clementines in her house because she kept them in a blacked out fridge drawer until she was alone feeding my child breakfast. My husband was out with his brother and dad, I was folding laundry, and my mother-in-law was "making pancakes" with my son. The way the house is set up, I couldn't hear her and my son talking.

From what I understand, she pulled out the clementines and offered one to my son. He told her that he can't eat oranges, and she said "No baby, this is a clementine not an orange, it can't hurt you." Then my son (good boy that he is) said that he had to ask me. My mother-in-law told him that he couldn't go into my room. She promised that he could eat it and peeled it open for him.

He was not at all comfortable eating it because he knows he has to avoid oranges, but it's an inhaled allergy and he was right next to her when she opened it. And then she touched his face with her orange hands as he started freaking out. My son started screaming and calling for me, so I flew down the stairs and see my child gasping for air.

I don't think his airways were actually closing this quickly, I think he just remembers the time it did happen and freaked himself out enough to believe that his throat was swollen shut. But in the moment I thought my child was dying, which he definitely could've been, so I ask what happened and my mother-in-law says she doesn't know.

I asked my child in his better language to get a faster answer and he told me she gave him an orange. I didn't have time to yell at her, so I just grabbed my child and ran up the stairs to get his EpiPen, got him in the car, and called my husband on the way to the hospital. When we got there and got everything under control, my husband asked his mother what the heck she was thinking.

She didn't deny doing it, she didn't say that she thought clementines were different from oranges, she didn't say she was testing his allergies. She said: “If his mother’s job didn't make you keep my baby from me, maybe I wouldn't have to use such extreme measures to keep him here with me." What. The. Heck. Did she think slaying my child would make my husband and I stay with her?

Did she really think that an allergic reaction would make us extend our stay WITH HER??? No. We'll be in a hotel for the rest of the stay. She's not safe. If she wanted my child to stay with her, that’s a terrible way to make that happen. I don't even know what to do about this woman. Obviously, we're not staying in her house, and we rarely speak to her anyway so it's not like there's much contact to break once we get back home.

I just don't know what to do. Is there even an acceptable punishment for attempting to hurt my child? She also tried to blame my three-year-old for listening to his grandmother and trusting that the food she promised wouldn't hurt him is safe to eat. My husband is fully on my side, and is even more mad because he called HER when we were in the hospital with a sick, sick baby reacting to orange juice residue on my husband's hands.

He told her what happened in real time, he cried and she comforted him, and then she turns around and does this.

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40. Driving Me Crazy

My mother-in-law has, I suspect, been a bit jealous this past month given we just had another baby. Usually my husband likes to spend a little bit of time with his mom on a Saturday while I take time for myself and the kids are at activities. I see no problem with this as he always puts us ahead of his mom. The thing is, she now sees a problem.

Because now with a newborn baby, also a toddler, eight-year-old and a 10-year-old to look after, the Saturday visits have stopped. This is natural given that things are hectic and we are still trying to find a balance in our scheduling. Except my mother-in-law now sees me as the bad guy and thinks I deliberately planned this, so she now thinks I need to be punished.

I have tried to be nice and told her once in a while she could come to our house and visit my husband and the kids at the same time, but she had to ask first before showing up. She ignored me, I guess because she would have to ask. Besides that, she hates how my husband would still be giving our kids attention too, not just lavishing her.

In all honesty if it was her choice, he would have been snipped years ago. This all happened a week ago, so we had a fun week without having to deal with her. And then at 5 am this morning, she showed up at our door. Our phones continually buzzed at us because she was continually hoping someone would get up for her.

We had a newborn and a toddler in the room with us, and we wanted a couple more minutes’ rest. But she wasn't having it and constantly called us. She wanted my husband to get up and drive her to her job interview in the next city over because she didn't want to drive. It would have been a two-hour drive both ways, plus her interview was at nine.

How did she expect my husband to get back in time for the kids’ school run? Oh wait, she didn't. This was also the first time we heard she got a job interview, so I think she planned to show up unannounced and automatically get her way. She stood outside for half an hour before my husband got up and dressed and left. I heard him take off in his car and got mad because I thought he caved in and drove her to the interview.

20 minutes later, though, he is back home and rolling into bed. Turns out, he drove her down to the bus station, dropped her off, and told her to find her own way there.

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41. Beauty Is Only Skin Deep

Recently I went to my class reunion. We all graduated when we were 18, now 15 years are past and everyone is in their 30s. It was a really nice event, very interesting to find out what your old classmates have been up to all this time. My former teacher had made a small photo album for each of us. It consists of our pictures back when we graduated and our current pictures.

Some people have changed a lot, some, me included, haven’t. The next day, my mother-in-law came over and when she noticed the album, a phrase came out of her mouth that wasn’t that unexpected but was quite unpleasant nevertheless. She said, “Look at everyone. Everyone has glowed-up over these years, even the ugly girls. Everyone but you. Unattractive then and unattractive now.”

See, that’s something my mother-in-law has always held against me. She’s one of those women who loves to regularly spend a lot of time to make themselves look neat and attractive. Salons, manicures, pedicures, hairdressers, stylists, and heavy make-up—that’s her. She strongly believes that that’s what every woman should do. I’m the complete opposite.

I don’t pay that much attention to my appearance. To me, the most important thing is to have basic things like a clean body, clean clothes, washed hair, and clean teeth. I don’t wear make up. My friend who’s a hairdresser trims my hair every few months. When it comes to my nails, I just cut them short and forget about it. It’s so unimportant to me.

And that’s why she thinks of me as an ugly duckling and sometimes spits out little comments like, “Doll yourself up a bit, how can you walk around like a grey mouse?” or “I don’t understand what my son has found in you, normally men don’t look at women like you.” Or "Dye your hair for once, your natural color is so dull" and "I won’t look like you even on my deathbed."

Luckily, I have a very thick skin when it comes to comments like this and normally that doesn’t offend me at all. I hear it and forget about it almost instantly. I don’t really care what people think about me. If you don’t like me, I’m not going to rip myself in half just to make you like me. So when she said it, I was like—whatever. She obviously thinks very highly of herself, even though I feel like someone who’s completely happy with themselves wouldn’t say hurtful things to others.

Then she was like, "You know, just a little advice from one woman to another. You should really look after yourself and make yourself look a little prettier. Otherwise, you might lose your husband. My son is a great man, of course, yet he’s only a man. And men don’t like ugly women." I thought—well, then you obviously don’t know your own son.

I highly doubt that the main reason why he married me was my looks. I seriously don’t think that’s the biggest priority when it comes to choosing who you want to spend your life with. It’s a factor, of course, but what’s the point of a pretty face if the person who has it is a jerk. Later that day, my husband came home from work and noticed the photo album too, commenting on how cool and interesting it was.

I told him that his mother obviously disagrees because she was over earlier and called me ugly. It didn’t matter to me, but it did to him. I wasn’t even expecting such a reaction, because he called my mother-in-law straight away and asked her to explain why she would say something like that to me. She said that she only explained to me something I should know—that a woman must be beautiful to not lose her marriage.

My husband was like, "Mom, don’t forget that most of your beauty can be wiped off with a wet wipe. My wife, on the contrary, always has the same face." She didn’t like it, needless to say. Well, I haven’t seen her without makeup, but my husband said it’s not a pleasant view.

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42. The More The Merrier

My mother-in-law is a witch. I don't mean that figuratively. She identifies as a witch and “curses" people. Just a very eccentric person in general, but she's just been low-key annoying with her behavior for a while. She did try to put a spell on our wedding and ruined it, but that was years ago and my husband and I were very low contact as she lived far away.

My husband and I have an open relationship. We're kinky swingers. No judging, please. What we do is entirely between us and it's nobody's business. This is important. We BOTH have other partners. In November last year, my mother-in-law moved without telling us that she was coming. We got the call from her after she'd set herself up in her new house about 30 minutes away from us.

Her proximity and lack of anything to do with her life have now given her the opportunity to spy on us, and over time she saw many of our "guests." For some reason, she thought they were all mine and could never have been my husband's. So she comes to my husband saying she believes I am cheating on him at Christmas. He laughs her off and told her that it's not like that.

I think his explanation went in one ear and flew out the other. What she then did was set up a Facebook profile using pictures of her friend's son from the region she'd lived in before moving. She messaged me as this dude. We chatted for a while, and then he propositioned me. He's a cute guy, and my husband agrees for us to meet him.

So I set up a meeting at Starbucks. Imagine my surprise when I arrive—with my husband—and find my mother-in-law waiting for us with printouts of all our messages. She waves her proof at us, doubles down on me cheating on my husband, and only stops when the staff asks her to leave. The argument moved to the sidewalk and we all got very loud.

Finally, my husband and I drove off and left her still yelling because she's just stupid. That was a week ago. Today she called to let us know she's going to put a hex on me to make sure I leave her baby alone and stop ruining his life.

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43. Mistaken Identity

So 14 years ago with the birth of my daughter, my mother-in-law wanted to be called “mama” instead of me. Why? Because she’s awful I guess. But the worst part is, it worked. She constantly manipulated my daughter into calling her “mama” even though I talked to her about how upset it made me, even if it seemed irrational to her. It was almost like she was the real mother, and I was just a caretaker.

To be fair, my daughter also called me “mama” too, until I became just “mom” when she was three years old. The smugness of my mother-in-law at all this was unbelievable, though. She used to make comments like “I told you so, I was always going to win.” It got easier as the years went by, but it still stung. Fast-forward to today, I decided to ask my 14-year-old daughter why she didn’t just call her “grandmother.”

She looked very taken aback, and told me she always knew I was her mother. Then we got into some of the ways her grandmother had been horrible and manipulative, particularly about this issue. Well, we have just left my mother-in-law’s house, and when we arrived, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law were there also with their children.

My mother-in-law greeted my daughter, and my daughter turned around and said, "Hi Grandma Alison." My mother-in-law said, “Erm? Who told you to say that?” while looking at me. My sweet daughter then turned and said to everyone in the room, “Did you help manipulate me into calling Grandma ‘mama’ too? I always felt weird when my friends would make fun that I call another woman ‘mama’ and now I know why!”

Then she finished with, “Alison, I NEVER THOUGHT you were my MAMA, I just went along with it because that’s what I was taught. I always knew you were that OLD WOMAN with the same name as my mom.” Everyone was so shocked. She then said, “From now on, you’re Alison, my dad’s mom, Alison.” I finally got my revenge. I waited a long time, but there it was.

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44. Hateful Heart

My mother-in-law set our house on fire because we’re a gay couple. We made a big mistake when we didn’t take my mother-in-law’s threats seriously enough. We thought that she’s like a dog that barks but doesn’t bite. Speaking of dogs, the only hero in this story is actually our dog, heavens bless our dog. It happened at night. My husband and me, we’re heavy sleepers, and we were dreaming sweet dreams and didn’t notice anything.

If our dog hadn’t jumped on our bed and barked, waking us up, we would probably both be goners now. I’m a firefighter myself and I realized that the fire was too big already, we couldn’t put it out by ourselves. We escaped through the window, fortunately unharmed. Somebody had called the firefighters who happened to be my colleagues, which was a weird situation, since it was the first time they had to work on their buddy’s house.

They tried to work as fast and as efficiently as they could, but our house is damaged beyond repair, and we can’t live in it anymore. My mother-in-law got caught and basically dug her own grave because she herself said that she was hoping until the last minute that her son would come to his senses, break up with me and start to date women.

When he didn’t, she felt ashamed that she has created such a deformed human being, so she decided that it is better to have no son than a gay son. She basically said she wanted to off him. So even though at first what happened was classified as “arson with the intent to damage the property,” which would mean a softer sentence, after those words it became “arson with the intent to endanger life” and that means a much more severe punishment.

Our lawyer said that most likely she will not receive the maximum sentence because no one got hurt, but she will receive at least a couple years behind bars. And there’s not much her lawyer can help her because she confessed. She said such a stupid thing, too: “Well, but my son’s husband is a firefighter, why didn’t he save his house?”

In the middle of the night, just awoken, no gear, no tools, no equipment, caught completely unaware by the fire. Are you serious, lady? You think that just because I’m a firefighter means I can put the fire out with my bare hands? Many people think that house fire is like what they see in the movies—flames and light—but actually it is a complete darkness.

The smoke makes the room so dark within minutes that you can’t even see your own hands. Now we’re living with our friends while we find another place to live. Our clothing, our documents, passports, marriage certificate, everything is gone but of course, those are just things, we can buy them again. We’re alive, that’s the most important thing.

My husband is done with her. He's so upset that his own mother wished him gone just because he's gay. If before this he still hoped that their relationship could be fixed, now he doesn’t want to hear a single word about her anymore.

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45. Nice Day For A White Wedding

I went to the wedding of a good friend of my partner’s this weekend. He is a lovely guy and his bride is a-mazing! We arrived at the church and were rather early, but no biggie. I had two small bottles of a fizzy drink mix with me since we knew we'd arrive pretty early because we had to drive three hours and left early enough, just in case we hit traffic.

So we sat outside the church. The weather was brilliant and we enjoyed the atmosphere. We had a hotel room for the night where the reception was going to be held which was right around the corner, but we couldn’t check in until later. Anyways, I'm a slow drinker with fizzy stuff because it tends to go to my head really quickly. I had maybe drank half of it when the other guests started to arrive.

At first everything is great, but suddenly everyone just stops talking. I had to ask my partner what was going on because I’m quite short, and he tells me that the groom’s mother just showed up…in a white, lacy gown and a little veil thing in front of her face. Everyone was in shock. But oh man, the plot thickened from that point on.

The bridesmaids and maid of honor arrived before the bride and I pulled the maid of honor to the side and asked her if it was planned that the mother was wearing white. It wasn’t of course. The bride and mother of the groom had picked out a nice silvery dress beforehand. I asked her if she could do something about it, but she had no idea about what she could do.

I then asked her if she wanted me to do something about it, to which she answered YES PLEASE! So I handed my partner my purse, gathered all the shininess of my spine available and walked up to the mother and her husband, pretending to be quite tipsy already. I greeted the father of the groom, who looked severely uncomfortable next to his wife, and then it happened. When I went to greet the mother, I “stumbled” and the leftover content of my little bottle of fizzy drink just sloshed out of it and landed on her dress.

I, obviously, felt so, so bad. The shock of it sobered me up right away and I tried to make it better by rubbing on the stains with my hanky. Now, if you try to clean something with your hanky, do make sure that it’s a clean one and that you hadn't dropped it sometime beforehand because, well, it'll make things worse. To sum things up, the ceremony was delayed by 30 minutes because the mother had to go and change.

My partner had a hiccups from laughing so hard. I was congratulated on my aim no less than 12 times. The mother hates me now but who cares. Everyone had a fantastic time, and the maid of honor wants to name her firstborn after me and hopes it'll have "balls of steel like me, no matter the gender." The bride and groom almost crushed me while hugging me the next morning at breakfast when they heard about what happened.

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46. Sweet Vindication

She told us she would never allow an adopted child into her family. We couldn't afford to adopt. She passed and we inherited. We used her money to adopt and her family now loves our daughter.

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47. Ruining The Big Day

This story is about my friend’s mother-in-law, and her wedding. Strap in guys, this is a wild ride. I did THE THING that got me banned from any of her family functions. Plus a few threats of dismemberment and bodily harm. So, a good friend of mine from university was getting married! They had been a couple since junior year of college, through her two years in the Peace Corps and currently her return to this continent.

Six years in total. She had been to all manner of family functions and always came back with a strange story about how she thinks her mother-in-law secretly hates her. But, she being a very quiet and sweet person, pushed those thoughts aside. Point 1: She is vegetarian and Jewish, while her husband is not. She was invited and went to Christmas dinner and figured she would just eat sides, plus she brought a vegetarian casserole.

Her mother-in-law, after knowing her for THREE years and being reminded of her being vegetarian just beforehand...proceeded to put meat in every dish. My friend drank water and ate her casserole the whole night while the mother-in-law cried to everyone that the friend was so rude for not eating her cooking. Anyway, back to the main event. A few friends and I were asked to be in the wedding.

My friend has a HUGE family, so this was not going to be a small affair. Neither of them is particularly religious, but my friend said it would be nice to be married under a Jewish hoopa, which is like an arbor but with four poles and covered with a white cloth and lots of flowers. Her husband said he could care less, and told her to go and rent one for the wedding.

I was at the bridal shower when the mother-in-law found out the "pretty canopy" was actually a hoopa. She almost lost her mind in front of a bunch of people, but managed to compose herself and laugh angrily that "if the Jews were being represented, so would the Catholics." There was just one huge problem. In my head I heard a record screech. Guys...they aren't catholic.

So after much fighting, a lot of screaming, crying, threatening to pull money (which is funny because she contributed nothing), the mother-in-law lost. The boot was firmly placed, and nothing was moving it. Hoopa yes, Catholic priest no. Things got stupid quiet, until my friend texts me the night before the wedding that she has a bad feeling.

I tell her it's probably just nerves; she is getting married and this is a big deal! Oh how wrong I was. We all show up and get our hair and makeup done. We slip into our bridesmaid dresses and hang out waiting for the bride to be finished with her hair. She makes a comment saying she hadn't seen her mother-in-law all day and that she skipped her hair and makeup appointment.

We all side eyed each other, took a few sips of our drinks and hoped the eerie feeling would go away. 30 minutes later as we are helping the bride into her dress, guess who shows up? If you guessed the mother-in-law, you win a cookie! Flushed from coming up the stairs, (she is not a light woman) in full hair and makeup...and the piece de resistance. A white dress.

Not ivory, not cream, full snow-freaking-white. In fact, the dress was clearly a wedding dress; it was even from David's Bridal (which she would later shout at me). Floor length satin with a sweetheart beaded top, a bit of a train, and off-white lace on the bottom. The dress was even tailored to her—this has been one long con that she has orchestrated.

The bride burst into tears while aunts and friends ushered the mother-in-law out. We did our best to console the bride, touched up her makeup, and I made her a promise that the dress would never be seen in a photo. But she looked me in the eye and nodded with a strange expression only I could read. The game was on. The venue only supplied white wine and champagne for the wedding party, but I grabbed my purse and ran down into the reception area and managed to flag an attendant by the bar and pay him with a cool $20 to give me a bottle of red early.

I cracked the baby open, filled a solo cup to the brim with it, and stalked outside. After a few swigs from the bottle for courage, I went over to where everyone was getting ready to take photos. With one last hard stare at my friend, I got her nod of approval. I pulled out my phone, held it in front of my face like I was reading a text and walked straight into mother-in-law. I poured the entire cup of red down the front of her dress, jumped back and gasped.

The look on her face was priceless. She screamed, yelled, threatened, and promised she would sue me. People had to hold her back because she wanted to fight me. Eventually she switched from screaming to sobbing and sank to the ground and threw a tantrum on the floor. Everyone moved back and just let her go at it and walked away to go take photos.

It was surreal, as if everyone just hit their limit and noped out from around her. The 12-year-old flower girl whipped out her phone and snapped a few photos, much to our amusement. Eventually, the mother-in-law went home and changed into a nice dark green, too small and low cut dress. Because of this, she missed all of the photos. By the way, the wedding was beautiful.

I got glares from everyone she told that I attacked her, but I couldn’t care less as I drank and danced with friends. The bride thanked me in secret and three months later took me to the spa for a day of pampering.

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48. Blood Under The Bridge

My mother-in-law killed her grandchild, my daughter. She was two years old at the time. My husband and I let her babysit the baby while we were busy with job-related things. It was summertime and they were staying in the mother-in-law’s house that has a pond next to it. My daughter loved water; bath-time was her favorite time of day.

They were playing at the edge of the pond and then the mother-in-law remembered she had to take clothes out of the dryer, so she left a two-year-old alone next to the quite a large body of water. My daughter’s childlike curiosity plus her love of water resulted in her getting into the deep part of the pond and drowning. All because she considered clothes in the dryer an important enough reason to leave a toddler unsupervised.

When she realized what happened, she started to panic and call for help. Her neighbor heard her, they got into the pond and called an ambulance, but it was too late. Imagine what it’s like for a parent to come home to the person you trusted your child with and they tell you your child is gone. Somehow though, it got worse than all that.

Throughout it all, she was begging us not to involve the authorities into this. She kept repeating it was an accident and she “doesn’t know how it could have happened,” “was only gone for a moment,” ”feels even worse than we do” and “calling the authorities won’t bring her back.” We did call them, of course, and she was charged with negligence and sentenced to three years behind bars, which, in my opinion, was too light of a punishment.

Now recently she was released, and my husband was the first person she looked for contact with. He never once visited her while she was behind bars. It doesn’t matter that she served her sentence, neither I or my husband will ever forgive her for this. Besides, she hasn’t asked for forgiveness; all she gave us were excuses and more excuses.

In the courtroom, my husband told her she’s not his mother anymore and that he never wants to see her face again. Our marriage was damaged too, we were depressed, we fought a lot, and there were times when we were on the brink of divorce. We separated for a while, and I left for another country thinking that this was it for us. However, my husband came to look for me and we managed to save our family and continue our life together.

I couldn’t bring myself to have any more children for a long time but eventually, I got pregnant again and last summer we welcomed our son. He’s nine months old now. Obviously, we weren’t going to tell my mother-in-law we’re parents again, but then my nightmare happened. She saw us walking with a baby stroller and realized that once more she has a grandchild.

So she tried to get in the contact with my husband. First, she reproached him for not visiting her, cried about how hard it was for her to spend all those years behind bars, that she shouldn’t have been there because she’s too old for that, how could he do this to his own mother, how could he abandon her, etc. Then she was like, “But I saw you have a new baby, I’m so glad I have a grandchild again!”

Then she went on about is it a boy or a girl, when will she be able to see them and meet them because she wants to take care of them so much. My husband told her immediately that she doesn’t have anything, this is our child, and ours only. Our son doesn’t have a grandmother, we’ll be telling him this as he grows up, and he will never ever in a million years be anywhere around her.

We’re 100% on the same page about this. The loss of our daughter still hurts and we’re going to do everything we can to protect our son from her. He doesn’t need an irresponsible grandmother who would likely endanger his life just like she did with his sister. My mother-in-law was shocked to hear this and began to wail about us being so evil and cruel towards her, that we’re going to hold that against her forever even though she paid for it and we cannot be so heartless to prevent her from seeing her grandchild.

But what was she thinking? What was she hoping for? That we’re really going to let her around our baby? That we’ll ever trust her with babysitting again? Honestly, I’m not sure if I can leave my son with any babysitter. I don’t trust babysitters anymore, because if a grandmother can be careless enough to let a child perish, who knows what an unrelated person could do.

So my husband told her firmly that she’ll have no access to the baby and he doesn’t want to talk to her either so she should do something useful with her life and leave us alone. My mother-in-law wasn’t having it. That evening, she came to our house, asking to see her grandchild again. We didn’t let her come in, obviously, and she got mad, claiming that as a grandmother, she has rights to meet her grandchild.

We told her that she lost all her rights to our children when she let our daughter drown. If a trust is broken, it cannot be repaired and there are some things that just cannot be forgiven. She escalated it from that point. She told us that she’ll go to court and she’ll demand permission to meet the baby. I’m not sure if there is such a thing but if it’s true, I highly doubt she’ll get it considering her record.

If we need to go to court and prove she’s not the type of grandmother you should let around your child, we’ll do it. If she comes back again, we’ll call the authorities. If we need to leave this country and go live somewhere else just to be away from her, we’ll do it too. Nothing’s impossible. I’m amazed at her lack of shame. She knows very well she tore apart our lives three years ago.

No parent should bury their child, but we had to because of her, and now she comes to us as if she’s the best relative ever, as if nothing ever happened.

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49. A Fresh Start

Due to reasons, my mother-in-law had to move in with my husband and I for a while. I'm South Asian, and my husband is white. Indian food is what I was raised eating and I love it to this day. Currently, I suddenly have a lot more time to cook than I did before. I stocked my kitchen with rice, different spices and whatever else I would need to make what I wanted.

My husband doesn't mind and enjoys the food. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, does not. She's never liked me. Some stuff she says includes, "What kind of people use their hands to eat? Just use a knife and spoon like normal people." My husband has stuck up for me on all those occasions before, but having to live with her 24/7 is wearing him down.

After she moved in, she immediately started complaining. "Why does that smell so strong? It'll cling to the walls. Stop that." Or, "God, are you really feeding my son that? Just eat normal American food." At first, I decided to stay quiet. My husband did try to talk to her once, but that fell on deaf ears. Like always. So I woke up yesterday morning and go downstairs.

I chat with my husband and mother-in-law for a while. Go into the kitchen, open my pantry, and there. Is. Nothing. My rice, spices, flour, everything has been cleaned out. I had a rice-dispensing machine that I got a few years back and that was missing too. I go to the fridge, and besides milk, bread, butter, jam, and eggs, there was nothing.

I get my husband and ask him what happened to the food. He looks in confusion until my mother-in-law pipes up and says that she threw everything out. When asked why, she simply says, "My child isn't used to eating your types of food. Just make him what Americans eat.” That made me so angry. She has this insane thing about not acknowledging that I am American, or when she does she tells people that I got my citizenship through marriage.

Wrong on all accounts. I was born here and so were the last four generations of my family. As a cherry on top, I go grocery shopping and they were out of stock on basically everything that I wanted. I come home and she still has the audacity to ask why I'm not cooking like I usually do. I’m seriously going to destroy this woman by the end of all this.

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50. Mother Knows Best

I ended up terminating my engagement with the person I fully planned on spending my life with— all because if I stayed with him, I’d have ended up miserable because of his mother. Here are some things his mother did that he defended, ignored, or outright supported: She insulted me to my face, with comments ranging from my weight to my intelligence.

She took my fiancé’s ex out for monthly dinners where they’d gossip about me and post nasty rumors on a joint twitter account dedicated to airing out details of my private life. Things like my miscarriage, or my dad cheating on my mom. She told my fiancé that if we ever have a child, she’ll dismiss it as a “mistake.” She also told him “it’s me or her.”

She slammed my hand in a car door and started crying when I screamed because it “scared her.” Then she made me apologize for upsetting her. She pretended to take me out for a birthday dinner to “try to connect and make amends,” only to stiff me with a $270 dinner bill because “I should always pay for she and my future father-in-law, out of respect.”

She mentally and emotionally mistreated my ex his whole life, so I understand why he took her side and refused to defend me. His dad passed when he was six, so she kind of used him as an emotional spousal replacement. I tried for a year to get him to go to therapy, in hopes of opening his eyes to her disgusting behavior, but he thought that agreeing to therapy would be disrespecting his mom.

We ended things and to my knowledge he hasn’t dated anyone since. So, yeah. When you sign up for a partner, you sign up for their family too. Make sure that’s what you want to resign yourself to.

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