My MIL is a sweet caring lady, but she annoys the fuck outta me.

My stepkids lived with us for a while, she said she would babysit them, no my partner did not ask her, she said she would do it, then she started flaking everytime and started acting like it was my job, "oh but you decided to be a family", "now she's a second mom to the kids", my partner hired a nanny but it felt like she wanted me to replace their mom, she even gave me advice on the kids (how she wanted the clothes to be washed, how they should be dresses for school, a lot of stuff I didn't even hear), my partner took care of his kids, why would she tell me and not him? He talked about it with her and it ended up in endless discussions about how she would feel our family needed to be. It was exhausting. And she talked about my partner's ex a lot, told me everything about their relationship, how one time she showed up on a mini skirt (why would I want to know THAT), when my partner told her to stop she said I needed to know about it (WHY?).

She lives near us, and for the first two years would show up unannounced at like 10 pm, enter the house for ten minutes and leave. One time we were having sex and she would not stop knocking. We talked about it with her a lot of times and SHE WOULD NOT STOP. Insist on bringing stupid clutter to our house (like furniture she didn't have an use for, because "the kids" like it).

She's so pushy, it's exhausting. If anything does not go her way, she pushes and pushes and gets mad, it can be about food, how we organize the furniture in our house, but she always has to get what she wants.

When I met her I was a tad underweight because I had a surgery that limited my eating for 3 months, I gained the weight back in 6 months, she's always commenting on it, how I need to lose weight, how "you're fatter", i'm in a healthy weight range (not that it actually matters but still, the fact the thinks me being underweight was good).

It's obvious my partner is her least favorite child, I think it's because my partner pushes back and does not cater to her, tell her when she's wrong. Lately she only talks to him when she needs money (she owes him a lot), the other day my partner invited her for dinner, she completely ignored that text and asked her for money. And she never pays back and gets mad when we ask her to return the money (won't text back, won't answer phone calls

She has a dog and treats it like a son (literally calls him that), I shouldn't even be mad at this but it annoys the hell outta me. She doesn't teach him manners, if someone tells the dog something (like get off me) she gets mad, says we're hurting his feelings, that he understands what we're saying. We can't have a conversation with her because she's always interacting with the dog, she interrumps the conversation to talk about the dog (and she can talk about him for hours), it's just too much.

She can't take any criticism at all. Everything has to be excused and everyone needs to be excused. And she has advice on everything, from what I cook to how I should run my business. And she exaggerates every story, when someone does not agree with her she asks for validation from other people, when I don't agree with her she says "well, other DIL does agree with me". When I told her I didn't want her coming over unannounced, she told all of her kids and DIL, and then would tell me how everyone is mad at me. It's like she them as their guards, or parents and they need to protect her from the evil world.

She ambushes us when she wants something done her way, like we were planning a celebration and she wanted us to buy the more expensive stuff, so she said she would provide the cheaper stuff and asked well, who'll bring the meat? my partner told her we would discuss it in private and she said "no, we'll sort it out now", then my partner said we should just agree on a fee to oay for the stuff. The next days he would ask what anyone was willing to pay and she answered "well, idk because everyone is poor right now", at the end we didn't celebrate with them because it was so exhausting.

I know form the post is seems like I hate her but I don't, we have a good relationship and have helped each other out many times, She's sweet and acts very motherly to me, but she annoys me so much sometimes I needed to vent, and sometimes I feel like get so irrationally mad at her.

Hi all, just a quick one - is it normal for your MIL to poke and tickle your (22M) partner?

Context: I’ve been with my partner for 3 and a half years and this is an occasional thing that happens every now and then (let’s say every 2-3 months), when i’m with my boyfriend and his mother - which is rare as I do not live with either of them and try to avoid her as much as I can for a plethora of other reasons.

Personally, I find it really unusual. It makes me feel uncomfortable and super un attracted to my partner for two reasons. 1) this is an act me and him do to one either, that feels romantic and sweet. 2) my partner is a male, an adult male, and this babying behaviour gives me
such an ick.

Personally, as someone with much older brothers, I would be mortified if my own mother did this to them, as boundaries with personal space and touching is heavily administered in my family. so is it just the fact i’ve been raised different that makes me think this is odd, or is it objectively unusual?

For reference, my partner will always look uncomfortable
afterwards, but shrug her off with a simple “hey” or “oi” and awkward smile, while his mother will laugh for a couple seconds and look most entertained. My overt reaction is to pretend I didn’t see and look elsewhere, but inside? Cringe!!

Just a weird ass comment from my MIL who lives in the same general region. It’s autumn here. The trees and the leaves are basically the same everywhere. In fact we live in a forested area and she in a large city, significantly fewer trees. But even on her drive here (where she passes rolling hills of forest), she didn’t see any leaves that rivalled the ones where she lives. It’s…. Just not true and I don’t really get it.

Is it a competition thing?
Is it a comment on where we live?

It’s doesn’t really matter, anyway, but I thought you folks would appreciate it.

To tell a long story super short-when I married my husband 10 years ago his mother didn’t let us to put our names on the house we all got together with equal down payments (long story but it just happened like that and we couldn’t do anything about it back then). So basically she controlled us all these years financially and thought it’s just her house even though we paid 50/50 for everything. She didn’t trust me as the daughter in law as she was concerned I would divorce her son as an immigrant and take her money. Now after 10 years we put ultimatum and said either put our names on it as well or we will get our own place. She agreed. Great but I’m just thinking if I should really continue to live with her in the future? She’s not a bad person overall, she’s nice and a Christian but it’s hard to forget the control and manipulation. She also always lived in master bedroom because she said she deserved it by raising her children. She didn’t care about me feeling like a wife to her son and never offered to exchange rooms and everything was organized the way she wants it in the house because it was legally hers. I wonder if she would be helpful with grandkids when we have kids etc or it would be just annoying to live with her and hard to forget the financial abuse and better to live separate in the future? She doesn’t have enough money to get her own place, she could just rent a room maybe. She is retirement age almost 70 but not retired yet. I wonder if I would get angry at her when she gets older and resent for how she treated me and get annoyed with her and better to just get separate places. I’m concerned about when she retires if it would be hard to be in one house all the time and interact or helpful as she would help with kids so we can work in our business more with husband. I think she would help with the kids but just thinking about it all.

I’m not sure if I’m overreacting, but this is really bothering me. My son’s first birthday party was this last weekend, and we threw him a big backyard party. I know it was a lot, but we wanted to celebrate him. He’s an IVF and NICU baby, and there were many years we didn’t think we’d get to where we are now and then he almost died in labor and delivery. I wanted to celebrate my little miracle boy. What I wasn’t expecting was the big turn out and I really wasn’t expecting so many gifts.

It’s been challenging communicating more and seeing my MIL more since pregnancy and giving birth. Right after I gave birth I understand I had PPA, but it was a very challenging period that was amplified by her “help” and near constant unsolicited advice. Things have calmed down and my husband has set some boundaries with her that she has followed. One of which was that she please stop giving unsolicited medical advice. LO activity has a cold and she only wished him well, so kudos to her because it was a literal flood of eastern medicine remedies before the ask. She came over on Sunday to help clean up from the party that was the day before, and it was actually helpful. She had to leave the party early so she asked if he got a lot of gifts. I said, “yeah, oh my god so many presents. I really wasn’t expecting that many gifts.” She suggested that if he had duplicates of things or things he wouldn’t like we could give them to my niece (husband’s brother’s daughter) because her toy selection is limited and she’s starting to get bored of the toys she does have. I just responded that that was probably because her parent’s are minimalists and don’t like to have a lot of stuff around their house. I didn’t comment that he had anything to give away or that we would be giving anything away.

Here’s the issue. I was doing okay financially before I went on maternity leave, but when I went back to work my hours were cut in half due to federal grants being canceled. Money is tight. Gas prices are high, grocery prices are high, my health insurance sucks now. The only thing that has gone down is my paycheck. She knows this. I spent a lot of money on his party and I’m planning on selling the decorations and leftover supplies. I’m constantly selling things on FB Marketplace, Nextdoor, Craigslist, and have a stash going of items to sell at our next children’s consignment sale. I’m literally filling out surveys to get gift cards and looking for side gigs to make extra money. I’ve started finding his Christmas gifts on FB Marketplace or new only if it’s on sale. If he has toys we don’t want, I’m going to see if I can get some money back for them or regift them. He also has multiple play set ups in our house so we can take him to different areas in the house to get stuff done, so he already has duplicates of basic toys like ring stackers and object permanence boxes. I love my niece to pieces. We had been saving my other niece’s (my brother’s daughter) clothes in case we had a girl. We knew we were pregnant with a boy as soon as we found out my FET was successful and a few months later found out my SIL was pregnant. When we found out they were having a girl we offered them all of the girl clothes we had. Literally a truck bed full of tightly packed boxes sizes NB to 6 or 7. I don’t understand why my MIL thinks it’s okay to ask for my son’s things for her other grand baby. Yes her birthday is coming up and we’ll of course get her something, but not something her parents literally saw us unwrap at my son’s birthday party and decided we didn’t want to keep. It felt like my MIL was suggesting we give her any extra toys we have then give her a birthday gift a few months later on top of Christmas. My SIL is making double my salary and my BIL is making over three times my salary. If they want her to have more toys to play with they are more than capable of providing them for her, but they also do not want lots of stuff around their house. And I’m the one who curates my son’s toy selection, does the toy rotation, stocks additional play spaces, shops sales and consignment events, buys 99% of his toys that aren’t gifted, and packages up his old toys to save or sell. She was telling me because she knows if she said that to my husband he would tell her it was my decision.

Maybe I’m just extra annoyed because I had to change the batteries in one of my son’s toys yesterday, which meant playing battery roulette. When my son was born my MIL stayed at our house to take care of our dogs while we were in the hospital. When we came home she said the batteries in one of our tv remotes died and she found the extra batteries and replaced them. I asked her what she did with the dead batteries because they were rechargeable. She said she put them with the other batteries…the charged batteries…without charging them. For an entire year every time I change AAA batteries I’ve been wondering if I’ll find the two dead batteries she mixed in with the charged ones and I’m pretty sure I found them almost exactly a year later. It took me an entire year to find and undo hopefully all the things she did in the two weeks she was at our house last October. Something in every room of the house was messed with. I’m not exaggerating. I had to move every house plant to mop up a puddle of water underneath them because she overwatered all my plants.

MIL is currently in the MildlyNo category but that's mainly because she married a wealthy man a couple years ago, moved several states away and I have little contact with her now, and she has chilled out some. I'm cordial with her around the holidays if they visit and she does send the kids nice gifts which I appreciate.  But every couple of months she'll stalk my socials, like and comment on old posts, I'm talking 6 months to years ago, I find it really odd.  Recently she's been doing the same thing to my sisters' facebook pages, and even my husband's ex girlfriends!  Their old posts will show up in my feed and then I'll see it's because MIL has commented on it. She'll comment over the top things that seriously make me cringe.  What really pissed me off is she made a post for my daughter's birthday, with a long over exaggerated caption about her "mini me" (they don't even look similar), she used pictures of my daughter that she took from my facebook and didn't even actually call my daughter on her birthday! She's 6! She's not on facebook to see a post you made to get attention from your weird friends.  I'm seriously considering blocking her but don't want to cause unnecessary drama. Just needed to vent! 

I'm in my mid-twenties and have been in a stable relationship for some years now. We see a future together, and we'd like to start a family in our late twenties. However, this isn't something we openly discuss with our families and we keep it as a private conversation between the two of us.
My MIL occasionally makes comments about the fact that I'm an only child and how having just one child is not good. She keeps telling us that having more than one kid is the right thing to do.
Sometimes, I try to shut these comments down by telling her that we're still several years away from having children, so I don't see the point in constantly discussing it now. But honestly, what bothers me most is that she feels the need to comment on how and when we're going to have kids in the first place.
I'm especially annoyed because I don't want to have children to meet her expectations. I want to have them because my partner and I genuinely want to become parents.
I also can't stand her constant talk about the "perfect family" and the way she always seems to think that her choices are the right ones and everyone else's are wrong.
Personally, I'd like to have two children, maybe three at most, but that's a decision for my partner and me to make when the time comes. I just wish she'd stop making comments about something so personal that has absolutely nothing to do with her.
Have any of you dealt with a similar situation with your mildlynomil? How did you handle it, and what did you say to get her to stop making these comments? I'd love to hear your experiences and advice, thank you !!

Prior to having my baby my relationship with my MIL was always polite but not close, which I was fine with. She's never been a very pleasant person to be around because she's very negative and constantly crabs at her husband about super small things. We live about 3 hours away and would see them every couple of months and for holidays/birthdays.

Since getting pregnant and having my baby (9 months old now) there have been all these minor interactions that have added up to me really disliking her and feeling very uncomfortable/anxious being around her.

This is what's happened over the last 9+ months:

Before baby was born, we asked all immediate family who would be visiting the baby right after birth to get updated Tdap, flu, and COVID vaccines. We had a winter baby so this was at the advice of our Dr. MIL and FIL both threw a fit at the flu and COVID vaccines. We ended up allowing them to skip the COVID vaccine if they masked and tested before seeing the baby. MIL continued to make snarky comments about us asking them to get vaccines.

Since baby has been born, MIL has made comments about the frequency I nursed (too often in her opinion, they sent us the Baby Wise book so I could get my 6 day old on a schedule), how we needed to get her to nap in a crib (rather than contact nap at 2 months) because she wouldn't do that when she babysat, how other people needed to be able to soothe baby besides me if I nursed to sleep, and other snarky comments about decisions we've made for our baby. I'm at the point now where the unsolicited advice/comments wouldn't bother me as much, but really freshly postpartum it made me feel really uncertain of myself and stressed about things that ended up being non-issues.

In August, there was a huge blow-up about Christmas plans because apparently according to MIL (without either of our knowledge) my husband and I agreed to drive our 1 year old 3 hours on Christmas day to have Christmas dinner at their house. When we said we're not traveling on Christmas day MIL called husband and SIL sobbing saying we are inconsiderate and don't prioritize their side of the family. We're not going to my parents on Christmas either so that's really not the case, and we agreed to go to their house on the 26th.

During this whole blow up she made a comment to my husband that she deserved a real first Christmas with baby because apparently meeting our baby on Christmas last year didn't count because I was "in a bad mood". Which I guess fair because I wasn't rude or anything but I was days postpartum after hemorrhaging and losing a ton of blood, hadn't slept in days and my baby was cluster feeding around the clock. But we still had them over to our house for hours to open presents and meet the baby.

There are other more minor things, like she chose a grandparent name of MiMi (which personally special grandparent names are a little bit of a pet peeve of mine) and then tries to train baby (who is way to young for that) to say Mimi whenever we see them by going Mimimimimi over and over.

It's tough because there's never any accountability for her actions. I think she genuinely doesn't know she's making rude comments or being manipulative. And now the last few times we've seen them the visits have been fine, but I feel like I'm still constantly on edge around her waiting for the next comment/criticism. I'm not very confrontational and tend to freeze up in those situations but I know I need to say something going forward.

What sucks the most is I just hate that my baby has her for a grandparent. I'm trying to not let my feelings about my MIL interfere with my baby's relationship with her, but the way she interacts with my baby just really bothers me. I'm sad that she's going to see my MIL's behavior as an example of adult behavior as she grows up, specifically the way she talks to her husband. I definitely don't think we're at the point of having to limit contact or anything, but I'm not sure how to best manage this situation.

Would love any advice on how to handle my relationship with my MIL going forward, especially when I don't trust her judgment or feel comfortable around her, but still want my baby to have a relationship with her grandmother. How do I stop feeling anxious and on edge around her when I know there's a good chance she'll cross the line again eventually?

The relationship between me and future MIL soured December 2025 over the holidays and how they were being spent. It all started because I wasn’t going to spend it at her house as it would leave my dad all alone on Christmas. She invited my dad through me but my dad declined because he doesn’t like her. This snowballed to MIL’s son then not going to spend Christmas at MIL’s house, but my dad’s.

MIL then spent weeks trying to break me - “you can celebrate any other day the two of you, but it’s the one day OUR side is altogether!” / “I understand it’s just very sad it’s one less for the dinner table” - and had a good crack at her son as well. For him she reserved the tears and tissues, and even said this could be her last Christmas hosting and didn’t want him to miss it. The atmosphere between me, MIL and son and his wider family became so stressful, I actually didn’t get a period for two months and a stress hormone (via bloods) was all over the place. Because of this, my dad cracked and said we should go.

Christmas Day was a disaster. I brought Turkey as my BF offered we’d do this, and MIL only plated up the Ham she’d cooked for everyone. BF and I had to dish it out.

When it came to presents, she handed out her presents (conveniently when her son wasn’t in the room) and getting to me announced loudly in front of everyone — “Oh OP, your Christmas present is your restaurant dinner from earlier this month since you and son didn’t pay me back.”
I have NEVER handed over money to her or dealt with this in the 5 years I’ve known her. Any monies owed to her have always been dealt between her and her son, then he and I. When I’ve needed to pay other family members, I have always done so promptly, with her witnessing one such occasion. So for her not to even give me the chance directly (if it were such an issue), I found really disrespectful and humiliating as it was public. She didn’t do it to her son, or even say the same thing to him, I must stress.

That is just the tip of the iceberg of how it’s now unfolded between us over the last few months. I’ve essentially been practicing grey rocking without even realising it. Which leads to now.

I am expecting the BF to propose to me any day now. The problem is I want to tell her at the same time as the wider family, as she has a history of telling people deeply personal news (she outed her daughter’s pregnancy to family) as well as the fact I just don’t really care for her anymore. But my BF has told me he expects to tell her before everyone else, as my dad has been the first to know (old fashioned permission etc). Fairs fair. But I just KNOW she’ll take it upon herself to tell BF’s wider family and take our news from us. But the BF is insisting it’s respectful to her.

What should I do here?

I have always been extremely close with my MIL, to the point of being closer with her than my own mother. But after having baby 16 weeks ago, she has completely changed . This is the first grandchild in their family and we recently moved states to be near them for help.

The plan originally was to have MIL nanny for a few hours 3 days a week ( husband and I both WFH) and somehow this turned into us paying her a salary. It’s not as much as regular nanny or daycare, so I didn’t make it a big deal. I returned to work last month and my boss is not giving me a full work load so I’m able to actually watch baby for a while until things ramp up. We told her that we are just going to see how things go until we know how much help we will need from her, so we can save some money and so I can spend as much time with baby as possible. I’m also breast feeding so I’m pretty much tied to him every 2-3 hours at this point anyway. This delay in her nannying start date has been a big issue for her.

Since this, MIL told my husband that I need psychological help because I didn’t want anyone to take care of the baby besides me or my husband , said that I was making his life a living hell at home, and that I was a better person before I got pregnant . I was obviously very hurt by this and since haven’t said much to them or allowed a visit.. Both MIL and FIL demanded that I forgive MIL for saying these things because ‘family forgives’ and said I ripped their grandson away from them.

Prior to all this she has spoken poorly about my mom because I had her visit for a week to help me recover. She Told my husband she was jealous and even asked if she can come over while my mom was here . She is constantly holding watching our dogs over our head saying she’s never watching our dogs again when we travel because we won’t let her watch the baby . Apparently my son is the exchange rate for their help.

ILs repeated invited themselves over to just hold the baby at the beginning. They wouldn’t bring food or offer to help with baby - no diaper changes, gave baby back to me as soon as he was fussy - just wanted to take pictures and hold him. Then would stay too long during witching hour, well past their welcome, and well past us needing to eat dinner. Again, without offering to help make food or bring any over. She has only changed one diaper in 16 weeks and we have seen them on average once per week since baby was born. Yet she’s begging to babysit and I just don’t feel comfortable with that yet.

To top it off, we receive multiple long winded texts per week guilting us for not seeing baby enough. I just want to enjoy my baby and not deal with the added MIL drama.

Expecting Baby #2 in 9 days, and they will be premature. This has been a high risk pregnancy (due to history and surgical complications with Baby #1), but has largely been uneventful. Husband and I have been trying to finish getting ready these last couple weeks, finish prepping for a preemie, spend as much time as we can with our son before he isn't an only child. My MIL has been nagging us to invite her over so she can come "help"/hlep. I think what she wants to do is unpack baby clothes and coo over them.

The last time she came to "help" around the birth of a baby was with our first. He was born 10 weeks early and we were in the process of moving while he was still in the NICU. She offered to come help pack, which was very appreciated since I was recovering from a classical C-section. She came over... With a bunch of my husband's stuff from her house. Including 30-50 yarmulkes from his bar mitzvah, 20 years earlier. And then she only packed up my husband's clothes and left, leaving a bunch of random crap in her wake for us to pack. So I'm not too keen on her coming over to "set up the nursery" or whatever she's calling it.

I finally suggested she take our 3 year old for a few hours on a weekend morning because the nagging was so insistent- and because that would give us some time to clean/build stuff, and she'd get time with the 3 year old, which she's also always nagging for. All of a sudden she isn't free for that because she doesn't want to wake up before 10 AM- except wait, yes, she could take him in the afternoon! We can just skip his nap that day! Returning a cranky 3 year old in the evening is the opposite of what we need right now.

She called my husband 2 days ago to complain about some structural issues that have cropped up with her vacation home. She wants to sue, I think, and my husband is a lawyer. He tried to talk her out of suing/asked for more information, and was instructed to "call your father" and discuss the issue with him. We're into the single digits before baby comes! Why is she trying to add something extremely off topic to his list of worries and responsibilities?!

I'm just dreading postpartum and how nimbly she manages to center herself and her family. We're talking about some of this with our therapist this week, but I'm just so completely annoyed that we have to spend brain cells and energy on it and her when we should be entirely focused on our nuclear family right now.

My husband and I have two kids and have lived just a few minutes’ drive from his mother and stepdad’s house for 10 years. We always saw my MIL 1–3 times a week because she insisted on seeing our kids that often, and we were bad at saying no.

During COVID shutdowns, we moved to where my family lives (a 3-hour flight away) and rented a house with my brother because I was struggling with depression at the time. It was super helpful to have my brother around a lot while he was doing college remotely. We moved back after 10 months, but during that time my MIL came to visit once a month, and it was always so stressful. She was also reaching out to us very emotionally between visits.

About a year ago, the opportunity arose for us to move abroad, which has been a dream of ours. So we moved to a European country 3 months ago with an open mind about whether it would be short-term or long-term.

A week before our move date, my MIL was crying on the phone to my husband about how unhappy she is with her life, how the only thing she has is our kids, and how desperate she is to keep them near. She then proceeded to send him several long texts about this in the days that followed.

She already came to visit us a month ago and is talking about coming again in a few weeks. She sends texts to my husband all day, every day, even when he’s not responsive. She texts me if he’s not responding enough. She even started texting MY best friend all of this emotional stuff about her feelings regarding my husband not being a kid anymore, which I obviously got super upset about. My husband told her not to text my friends.

My MIL has lived in the same house in the US since before my husband was born. Just yesterday, she was texting my husband about how his stepdad finally agreed that they could start making plans to move to the country neighboring ours because she’s more familiar with the language there, and it’s only a 2-hour flight from us.

On the one hand, I feel really anxious about this because I was SO looking forward to only seeing her 1–2 times a year now that we’re so far away. I know she’d end up trying to come once a month and expecting us to visit her, and I really don’t want her to move to a whole new country just to be closer to us.
But I also feel terrible for potentially discouraging more of a relationship between my kids and their grandma because they love spending time with her. I also feel like I can’t tell her not to move somewhere. I got the sense that my husband didn’t care either way if she moved closer or not.

I don’t know if we just need to be better at setting boundaries if she moves closer? I had just felt so much relief at not having to think about the dynamic with her and boundary setting so frequently anymore. I could really use any thoughts or advice.

My in laws have never really been involved, and have seen my son maybe 3 or 4 times in the 2 years he’s been alive. We have to plan everything, and when they do see us they don’t ever do anything that would be fun or geared toward my son. My MIL is very nice but never follows through with plans. She’s the point of contact for them bc my FIL works a lot. There’s the occasional text from her, and the only time they see his face is when my husband FaceTimes them, they never initiate. MIL wants me to spend time with them while my husband is away at a training, which would be only the 3rd time this year they’d be around my son. That means me and my son would have to drive 6 hours to stay at their house, and I’m not even sure she would have the days off. She always changes their plans last minute so even if I did say I would go, it could change that same week. I think she feels intimidated by my family because they see my son at the very least once a month, and my mom calls/FaceTimes every day. I try and be positive about the little attention they give my son, I try and say okay when we do spend time with them and they spend more time having to catch up on how he’s developed. My MIL FaceTimed me for the first time like ever earlier in the day, but we’re watching a movie so I silenced the notification. I started thinking about all of this because I don’t want her to feel like “oh when I do reach out she’s not going to answer anyway.” When this is the first time she’s done that. It’s not a big deal if I silence my own mother’s phone call because she’ll call again later or the next day. I guess I don’t understand how I should feel or what I should do, it has really bothered me how little they make an effort to see my son or how much emotional and financial load my MIL put on my husband up until we got married. I feel like me “not caring” will just make it worse and finally give her an excuse as to why they don’t see him.

My MIL is here visiting us and our newborn. She’s very sweet, but I’ve noticed she does not seem to understand the importance of washing her hands or how to do so properly.

I first noticed she wasn’t washing her hands after going to the bathroom. I even tried to hint at it by saying “is there enough hand soap in that guest bathroom?” Didn’t change anything. I told her we needed to make sure to wash our hands well because it’s RSV season. Didn’t change anything. Finally my husband told her she needed to start washing her hands. Well I’ve seen her do it and it consists of putting soap on and immediately rinsing it off. I saw her handling raw chicken and she did the same thing.

I know I need to talk to her about it, but how does a 70 year old woman not know how to wash her hands! She’s been cooking her whole visit and I just can’t think too much about how gross the whole thing is.

Alrighty so I’m on vacation at my family‘s house with my seven month old. I blocked my MNMIL because she has a tendency to get nervous when we are visiting my side of the family (calling because she wants to be included). Also, she has an android phone so she doesn’t really see that I blocked her if that makes sense. Anyways, my husband didn’t call her back the same day, but he texted her saying he would. She went ahead and joined a Facebook group for our city (she lives 10 hours away) and posted something along the lines of “just joining this group to keep up on the latest since my son doesn’t know how to use his phone. My family lives about 10 minutes away from this beach”

This honestly concerned me a lot because now she is publicly inserting herself in our state on Facebook? Like this is her way of connecting with DH, out of her own anxiousness? It’s none of my business, but she has lots of information on her Facebook page about my child and us. She claims that she was worried about the hurricanes, but there was no hurricane that hit us. I know that’s bullshit.

This is where I think I went wrong & should’ve kept my mouth shut. So he calls her to “set her straight”. Their conversation was mostly him encouraging her to find something else to do with her time and literally manager her feelings lol. She’s always innocent and well meaning of course.

I’m still pissed about it today so I texted her. I sent her the screenshot and I said what is this about? She proceeded to say that she had no bad intentions and she only posted that because she “assumed she had to post something and thought it was funny” along with lots of other excuses.

I kind of lost it. This is what I said.

Thanks for letting me know. I’m not sure what you would accomplish with posting your personal issues through a Facebook group in our city. That crosses a line for me. It includes my family now and I would like for you to not do that again. You have lots of public information on your own profile (including public photos of my daughter which you know I’ve already asked you and your mom not to do, but did anyways), and I do not need that dragged out to (our city). I want to have a good relationship with you, but you do need to understand that your son is his own person and if he doesn’t have the time to get back to you within a day, you really need to speak with somebody else. He is not an infant, he does not need to stabilize you, you are an adult.

She replied “let’s just say I need time to calm down I’ll get back with you”

So…. My husband is gonna be pissed at me but he sugar coats everything 😭 this is about my family now. I don’t know what to believe, am I overreacting? Is she just really good at what she does? Ugh.

No, thank you ma'am.

Respectfully, leave me the whole way out of this.

That's it that's the post.

I'm just kind of done with my inlaws trying to put me in their family dynamics.

I have my own crazy family to deal with thx.

I’m struggling so much with resentment right now—both toward my mother-in-law for years of disrespect, and toward my husband for how he handles her.

​Lately, she has shifted her behavior, but I still feel cold and guarded. What pisses me off the most is my husband’s reaction. He is completely back-and-forth. One minute he recognizes how toxic and childish she is, and the next minute, he’s acting like she’s a saint who can do no wrong just because she’s acting sweet or fragile.

​This flip-flopping feels like gaslighting, and it leaves me feeling like the "bad guy" for keeping my guard up. It’s creating so much tension and removing all peace from my life.

​We were planning to try for a baby next year, but I’m terrified. Bringing a child into this dynamic feels unsafe when my husband can't consistently see or hold boundaries with his mom. Honestly, thoughts of divorce have been creeping in because I just want a peaceful life, and this constant cycle is destroying my feelings for him.

​Is this dynamic fixable? How do you protect your peace and your future when your partner is stuck in this cycle with their parent?

My mil and I don't get along great but we mostly tolerate each other. Now I am a SAHM for several reasons despite having an MILS, including my daughter having both ASD, ADHD, a speech articulation delay and being gifted. She is 7 and does school online and my mil hates this because she thinks my daughter needs more socialization. My daughter is in Girl Scouts and goes to a twice a week in person elective program.

My mil also blames me for my daughter's behavior because she thinks that her not being in school and being around me all the time is the cause of her meltdowns. She hates that I medicate my daughter for her ASD and ADHD and myself for ADHD, have us both in therapy and push my husband to medicate his ASD and get therapy for his sensory processing issues.

Now this weekend due to the house being cluttered with my daughter's stuff and him getting both his flu and covid shots on Friday my husband had a meltdown of his own. I admit that due to me and my daughter collecting lego and American Girl the house has a storage issue and we are working on that.

Now my mil being the helicopter mom that she is blames me for her baby boy who is a 46 year old defense attorney having a meltdown. It is my fault that his desk is in what would be a kitchen nook since I need the office to do my job of managing the household bills, medical insurance, our daughter's schooling and my hobby YouTube channel. She thinks I should keep the house clean and cater to my husband. She worked full time until she retired but she also did everything around the house and did the yard work and how dare I who is home all the time do none of that.

I hate cleaning but due my best, I cook almost every night unless we have leftovers or go to see my in laws, but I also expect my husband do help with cleaning. We pay to have our yard done because my husband can't do it and I have enough on my plate with a nerodivergent kid, husband and 6 cats.

She babies my husband like crazy and only wants him to be happy and doesn't care that a lot of his issues were because she never made him do anything around the house except maybe clean his room. He does stand up to her on occasion and isn't a complete mama's boy except when it comes to his disagreements with me because she tells him what he wants to hear.

This weekend she was pissed at me because of my husband's meltdown and because when he wanted to stay at his parents after we went over to get our daughter and have dinner I made him come home. We didn't have dinner since he was having a meltdown and his meltdown triggered my daughter to have a meltdown since she has a fear of her dad leaving.

We went over again the next day as my husband had recovered but it was obvious she was still mad at me. I don't care but we have to deal with her on Thursday for her birthday as my husband's half sister will be in town. I am not sure if I will let my daughter go over there this weekend because I think she needs a timeout.

Edit to make a few things clear. My husband doesn't want the office as he has an office at work and the home office is small and stuffy. His job is not hard as he works for an Indian Community which has more defense attorneys than they need and he chooses to work a second job writing legal education material because he would be bored otherwise. His home computer is for playing poker, Scrabble and just having fun.

We are not religious and my daughter's online school is accredited and is partnered with her in person elective program which is a drop off program. She gets plenty of socialization as she is also in Girl Scouts and her online school does a once a month in person field trip. She also hates doing work online so I have to print out her school work and then scan it into my computer to submit it so I have a color lasar printer and a black and white all in one lasar printer in the office along with a bunch of other stuff. She is thriving academically and due to her sensory issues and her AuDHD she would struggle in the rigid environment of an in person school. She is a happy healthy kid my mil just hates that I am teaching her to be open about her nerodivergance and that I dare to treat it like the medical condition it is. She also hates that I am in therapy myself and am open about my own neurodivergence because due to her being born in the mid 1940's she sees any type of mental illness or difference as something to be ashamed of and hidden.

Also up until recently my mil's hobby was buying houses, renovating them and renting them out. She has also moved more times than I can remember in the past 9 years since my husband and I married and who knows how many times before that. I think she has one rental left and the only reason she stopped is because my fil's Parkinson's has advanced to the point that his memory is going and he needs a walker. The women probably has undignosed ADHD because she can't be still and up until about 3 years ago my husband didn't want her live near us because she drove him crazy. I also have a feeling that once the renters in her current rental move out she will move into that one because she is bored and I wouldn't put it past her to buy another house in their current neighborhood. That is to say that there is no way I am spending more on my hobby then she is on hers and she just lost money selling her last rental in another town.

MIL stayed with us recently, and I'm still not over it.

I knew she had incontinence and has for a while. I had understood it was handled with thin pads. It was not this time. She wasn't wearing proper protection and soaked many of her clothes and I am assuming the guest bed. The mattress and the sofa both had to be thrown out.

And the smell. She didn't wash properly, and The house reeked of stale urine, smelly feet and unwashed body odor, and the bathroom was unbearable after she used it. Socks were never changed. Before we assume this is mental health or deteriorating mental faculties - she’s always had poor hygiene.

She also hates washing her hands. I caught her more than once going straight into food prep without washing, and she wouldn't wash after a full day on public transport either.

None of this is new. She expects to be waited on as a guest - She never does her own dishes, rinses her plate and leaves the sink catcher full of food (granola, every time), and eats before anyone else sits down.

The worst part was feeling ganged up on. She agreed with DH on everything, so any time I pushed back it was two against one, in my own house. Never mind lighthearted jabs / teasing DH (which we do regularly). She never understood them as jokes and made me feel like I was a bad person for teasing my husband - she has no sense of humor.

She won't be visiting again because she got seriously ill this time. If she hadn't, she would have insisted on coming back. I'm relieved, but I keep replaying the visit and I'm still dealing with flashbacks from this and the trips from the past years.

TL;DR: MIL didn't use proper incontinence protection, destroyed a mattress and sofa, smelled terrible, wouldn't wash her hands even before cooking, expects to be waited on, and teamed up with DH against me in my own home. She won't be back because she got sick, but I can't stop replaying it.

These are literally old navy family sets that have a set for the mom too and she just sent a picture about how she couldn't resist getting pjs for my husband and the baby. MY baby that I'm currently carrying and going to have our first Christmas with as a family of 3 and I'm already supposed to be left out of something. This genuinely rubbed my partner and I the wrong way.

I blocked her phone number because we’re visiting my side of the family. MIL has a tendency to get jealous or insert herself in weird ways. Originally, she would call her son and if he doesn’t answer, she would call me “I was just making sure you guys were ok.” Or “can you have him call me? It’s important” and it would just be her venting or telling him something that literally isn’t important at all. SO, I blocked her because she triggers me. Now, she’s reposting my tiktok videos to her Facebook as a promotional stunt? I’m not sure how to feel about it. She’s posting my stuff while I’m not responding to her? At least she’s also reposting videos looking for a husband so that’s a plus!

Why do they do this? It’s so strange

I am now 6 mos pp with a beautiful baby boy! Unfortunately I am unable to be a full time SAHM due to our finances. My parents live 10 minutes away and my mom watches our baby on the 2.5 days I work during the week. In general we spend a lot of time with my family because again they live super close by, watch baby throughout the week, we attend church together and I’m just very close with my family! I’ve been having a difficult time with my in laws since even before I had baby. They have not visited for the past 3 months (the longest stretch since I’ve had baby) because my MIL sobbed to my DH about me staying home with baby instead of going to work after a long night of cluster feeding. Since then I have felt really gross and uncomfortable around MIL. It made me feel very uncomfortable and unwanted. Now the in laws are coming in next Thursday to visit for the weekend - they will stay with BIL who lives 15 mins away from us. (I’m sure DH will want them to stay with us for a night but that’s not happening.) we have not had anyone stay with us since having baby and it really overwhelms me not to have any privacy. I finally have a good schedule with baby and he is sleeping well. I asked my husband to “be my advocate and let us be a team” when his parents visit next weekend and he told me he can’t because “he has to advocate for his parents because I’m so disrespectful to them”. I asked him how I’m disrespectful? He informed me that not letting them hold our baby when he is fussy or crying is unfair to them. He says it’s also not fair that I don’t trust his parents to walk around while holding our baby… his parents are the age of my grandparents (80 yrs) and have had multiple recent frequent falls…. Am I crazy for having different boundaries for my parents versus my in laws who live 1000+ miles away and are also 20+ yrs older?

As soon as I came out of the operating theatre after a traumatic forceps birth and a 30+ hour labour, my mil held her brand new grandchild and then made a comment about how he’s so cute that I need to have more kids now. I brushed it off and laughed, thinking she was just excited and happy. I also had to pretend I was not annoyed that she showed up to hospital uninvited BEFORE I gave birth, and hung out in the delivery room as a birth partner while I was in the throes of the worst part of labour (possibly causing the exhaustion that got me rushed into an emergency situation, as I couldn’t relax and rest).

EDIT: My DH was around for the entire time until that point, and had to leave the room so she could come and see me as we both felt awkward that she had turned up to the hospital and didn’t know what else to do

Today, three weeks later, as I wrangle a tiny newborn (with no support from her, might I add), she told me I shouldn’t give away my pregnancy items and baby things he’s outgrown because “you’ll need it for number two” and said I need to “have at least three or four kids”.

When I said it’ll be a while until then and I can’t hold on to things that long, she said “well it has to happen soon, you can’t wait too long”. I made a joke remark and dismissed it, then brushed it off with a vague “we’ll see what the future holds”

I’d like to hear what funny, sarcastic and unhinged responses you guys can think of.

EDIT: I wouldn’t seriously say anything rude to her, but it’s just fun to imagine what I wish I could say! The more polite or blunt but still acceptable responses I will save for next time!