RelationshipsAUG 24, 2023

“Zero Social Awareness”: 30 People Reveal The Thing They Hate About Their In-Laws

Mantas Kačerauskas and Jonas Grinevičius

There’s a widespread stereotype that when a couple gets married, they’ll butt heads with their parents-in-law. Of course, life doesn’t always play out like the script of a family comedy: your in-laws can be just as wonderful or abysmal as any other person on Planet Earth. However, the stereotype really does turn out to be completely true in some fringe cases.

Reddit user u/fuzzyloulou sparked a lively online discussion, as people spilled the tea about what they hate the most about their in-laws, and we’ve collected the juiciest stories to share with you. Check them out below, but be prepared to witness what it looks like when someone has no respect for anyone’s boundaries.

#1

“Zero Social Awareness”: 30 People Reveal The Thing They Hate About Their In-Laws

My mother-in-law is always cooking good a*s food and making me fat. It’s all her fault!

EinTheDataDoge, Conscious Design

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178points

#2

My FIL called my wife and her 3 sisters wh*res all while standing I’m MY house. Reason you ask? They all got married outside of the Catholic faith. We haven’t spoken in 6 years. Best 6 years of my life.

Patrick2337

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149points

#3

They live 3,500kms away. It’s a little closer than I would like.

Ok-Geologist8387

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137points

The secret to getting along with your parents-in-law, as well as anyone else, is setting, communicating, and enforcing healthy boundaries. If someone keeps walking all over us, butting into our lives, and making us miserable all the time, clearly they have very little respect for us.

It would be wonderful if they suddenly became fully self-aware and changed their behavior, but life rarely works this way. So it falls to you to let them know how their behavior is affecting you and to tell them what you expect from the relationship moving forward.

#4

My husband's mother and 2 sisters really went out of their way to make me feel unwanted and unliked early in our marriage. They judged me, gave me the cold shoulder. Criticized everything I did. Jokes on them. My husband and I have been married for 30 years. So I learned a lesson: screw the naysayers. Haters gonna hate.

heyjudemarie, RF._.studio

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126points

#5

Oh God, do I have stories. My MIL is one of the cheapest people I have ever met and a hoarder. For my sons first birthday she gave him a roll of paper towels because..."Look! he loves it, doesn't even know whether it is a toy or not!" At age 3 for Christmas she gave him some random toiletries and cleaning supplies she bought at the dollar store, wrapped them and everything. Now I have to give my boy credit on those...after he opened them he said "This Christmas Sucks!" which caused major drama for my wife and I.

who519, Eli Francis

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117points

#6

My mother-in-law is a religious zealot who legit hates more than half of her children. One is a lesbian, one is trans, my wife is non-binary, their other brother is gay. But she doesn’t know he is.

BlackwatetWitcher, James Coleman

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115points

Some of the signs that you might have toxic in-laws include them disregarding your feelings, being invasive in your marriage, and being overly self-involved. Not only that but psychotherapist Dr. Susan Forward also notes that the worst parents-in-law will also try to one-up everything that you do and will gossip about you behind your back.

A few other red flags to look out for include in-laws who are overly critical of everything and anything that you do (nothing will ever be good enough for them), hold grudges, make you feel like you’re inferior, and enjoy stirring up as much drama as they can.

#7

I loved them so much. They expressed their love for me, for almost 40 years. I hate they got old and died.

Quint27A

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108points

#8

The way they come over to my house unannounced. Just show up then get mad at me for being in the shower or not home because I’m running errands. I know I’m a SAHM but damn I still have to go run errands outside the house. The way they insist they can have our baby whenever they please without our permission.

LoveOfTheLee, Kindel Media

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107points

#9

The constant criticism. I married their only son and nothing I do is good enough. My house is never clean enough, my one year old doesn’t “behave”, and my cooking sucks. The passive aggressiveness is so overwhelming.

BAM151822, Teona Swift

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101points

Aside from setting proper boundaries, it also helps if you try to emotionally detach yourself from whatever drama your in-laws whipped up this time around. Don’t judge yourself too harshly even if they keep criticizing you, and if everything else fails, spend some time apart from them.

For instance, if they keep butting into your lives, you may want to ask them not to come over so often because you and your partner are both incredibly busy. You can do this gently, politely, and diplomatically, but it still needs to be said. Your in-laws might think that they’re doing you favors out of love and they might not realize they’re being a nuisance. Or they know exactly what they’re doing and you need to be firm with them.

#10

My MIL is overly Christian... And reminds us regularly we're going to hell because we don't go to church. My incredible wife responds with either, see you there or, that's where all our friends are going, why wouldn't we want to go!

ekinria1928

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98points

#11

I absolutely love my in-laws, but compared to my family they are *REALLY* loud. Like instead of taking turns talking they just talk louder over each other until someone listens. I leave with a headache, and that's including times I sneak to an empty room for peace.

kannakantplay, Edmond Dantès

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80points

#12

Their concept of time. They're all always shamelessly late to everything. And they all act like it's a cardinal sin to be early. They think they're "early" if they stroll in just in the nick of time.

For example, I've told them, "We have to be there at 7, and it's a 20 minute drive, so we should leave by 6:35 at the latest. So you need to be at our house at 6:30 so we can load the car".

"Why so early? I'll be at your house at 6:45".

Then they show up at 6:55 and can't understand why I'm pissed. And we get to where we're supposed to be at 7:15 and can't understand why everyone there is pissed.

At least my husband has gotten better about it. He still hates to be anywhere early but he plans and takes steps to be on time, not late.

MrsPottyMouth, Wil Stewart

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79points

#13

My MIL isn’t too nice to the kids. Granted, she has 15 grandkids, you can tell which ones she likes more. And less. My kids are in the middle.

wclure, Ben Wicks

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77points

#14

I hate that my father-in-law was a pig headed son of a b***h and refused the vaccine. Left my wife with ashes.

starion832000

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75points

#15

There's nothing I hate about my in-laws but my MIL occasionally says some things that give me pause when she's in the room. For example, she wished me a happy birthday recently to which I casually replied, "Just another trip around the sun." My comment resulted in a 20 minute lecture about how the sun actually orbits the Earth based on her visual observation of it rising in the east and setting in the west every day. I often wonder how much of my partner's childhood trauma is a direct result of her mother's "unusual" beliefs.

officehelpermonkey

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71points

#16

How critical they are of my partner. He is loving, kind, smart and unique. Nothing he ever does will ever be enough for them. As a result he has major anxiety and perfection issues. He’s hard on himself and constantly apologizes over minor things. I wish he knew how awesome he is. For this reason I’ve chewed out both his dad and mom with them being clueless as to why. What issues? I’d love to be close to them if things were different; however see how dysfunctional they are and am totally okay with zero contact.

Spletzi, Les Anderson

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71points

#17

My wife’s dad is a very “I’m right, or you’re wrong” kinda person. If he’s not right, he refuses to admit it and will just leave and not speak to you for a long time. Then show back up and act like nothing happened.

SaiyanGodKing

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66points

#18

My mother in-law abused my wife physically and emotionally. She is the cause of her PTSD, and I suspect, her anxiety. The woman is a narcissist who uses people and then drops them if they lose value. When my father in-law was in the hospital for his third stroke, she preyed upon his family, asking them for money to pay her bills. No one knows what she did with the money, and my heavily disabled father in-law swiftly lost his home (despite the loans supposedly being for the mortgage payment). We have gone as no contact as possible.

doctordoctorpuss

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62points

#19

That they were neglectful parents. I realize that they weren't in the best financial situation while my partner was growing up, but they kept his learning disability diagnosis a secret from him and he was left to his own devices most of the time. He's the youngest by a lot, and likely was not planned. He grew up without being encouraged to do well in school or to set goals in life. He also struggled a lot with affection early in our relationship because it wasn't modeled in his home growing up.

My partner doesn't hold it against them though, merely sees his childhood as a way to not raise our child so I have to commend him on that. I just wish he had been given the support and love a child deserves too.

Majikone

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62points

#20

Hate is a bit strong, but I judge my step-MIL because she posts EVERYTHING on Facebook. I swear she can’t take a s**t without posting.

MalpracticeMatt, Brett Jordan

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60points