37 Mothers-In-Law Who Couldn't Stop Crossing The Line (July Edition)

My kids sleep over and MIL and FIL’s house one night every school holidays. This school holidays they didn’t see the kids at all so now want to do a 2 night sleep over next holidays but I am against it. They have been pushing for 2 nights since the kids were babies but I’ve said no. Now they’ve announced their plans to the kids and my husband without speaking with me. I found out second hand. Am I overreacting? I don’t want to be separated from my kids for more than a night and I feel like my feelings are never respected. They certainly don’t respect my parenting rules so I don’t like the kids to be around them for too long anyway. Would you put your foot down or allow it to go ahead?

I think she always has. I'm not allowed an opinion, especially on politics as I'm the polar opposite of hers.

She lives nearly four hours drive away. I always go with my partner to support him and keep him company on the drive.

Currently we are visiting every three weeks as she is very elderly and housebound (won't go into a care home, despite having money in the bank). Sometimes just for the day, sometimes we book into a hotel. (She offers to pay for the hotel, but never does).

When my Dad was dying of cancer, I went to visit on my own. The same with my Mum when she was living on her own.

I might just suggest that he goes on his own next visit. I don't need to be putting up with being told my hair is too short and we shouldn't be going on holiday when she needs help.

Good morning everyone, my MIL made a post on her public insta about her anniversary and all the special people in her life and included a picture of me heavily pregnant and huge from two years ago and a picture of me having just gone through my c-section in the hospital bed also from two years ago. Everyone else had beautiful pics. We have taken pics together since I had given birth. I have pics available on my insta she follows and my family album app she's a viewer on. I'm low-key devastated.

(Also posted my son in her public insta which I'm pretty upset with)

Not a great way to start the day.

Recently vacationed with my in-laws and some other family. My husband and I were in our hotel room with our kids getting settled minutes after arriving. We turn around and there she is… my mother in law is IN OUR ROOM. No, they didn’t check in for us and we didn’t even give them a room number. I guess the door stuck and she just waltzed right in. Soooo very creepy! Reminded me of a scene from Bad Mom’s Christmas.

Me and my MIL do not get along, especially since she left my SO’s father in the dust with dementia and I woke my husband up to her cruelty towards him. He also realizes how selfish she is now and how she disregards our boundaries, especially with our little one.

I was setting up my SO’s iPad to help when we travel with our one year old. His texts starting coming in and I saw she texted him. “No one loves you more than me. I just want you to remember that.” This is a clear insult towards me because he has told her so many times that I’m him number one priority and now our daughter is.

I’m so frustrated because he tells me when she texts him supposedly, because she’s said weird things in the past, but he deleted this off his phone and didn’t tell me. So now I’m upset she said that but also that he didn’t tell me this. I’ve been wanting to go no contact but this kind of solidifies it for me. She’s trying to stay relevant to him because the relationship has been strained. And I feel like she would do anything she could to make me the bad guy. I have no clue what she says when she calls.

I don’t even know how to bring up that I saw this because it’s just uncomfortable. I know my husband would never believe her or play into this but I also just don’t want her negativity in our lives. She visits about 4 times a year and every time is unbearable with her comments.

We were in the car and my baby started crying because she was tired. We had explained to MIL that she needed to completely ignore her and look away because comforting makes her worse and she will eventually stop after a few minutes and doze off. She kept messing with her and my husband told her twice she needed to stop messing with her. She did, but when my baby escalated a little bit she started whisper praying under her breath out loud to where it was barely audible, but every time I looked over she would stop then start again when I looked away and got my baby super upset.

Then after dinner we were walking to get ice cream and I told her before we got there please just no nuts or coffee flavor...she proceeds to specifically order butter pecan and asks if can have a bite and I said I didn't want her having the cream because the nuts are in contact with it and she got my husband to say he was okay with it and did it anyway. I am so f*cking done feeling guilty over setting boundaries with her from now on.

My baby is 3 months old and starting to have distinctive features. His newborn features are almost gone. I take loads of photos of him and we share them with family through our private gcs. I post ig stories with my husband & bb but never with his face fully visible. Either its just the back of his head or I would put my caption on his face in a collage of 6 pics so you still wouldn't see his face clearly.

Now my MIL posted my son's picture when he was born without our consent (my husband and I never posted him nor any of my fam). I let it slide bec half of his face is covered. Then he posted his cute photo with his full on face visible and made it her profile picture and I am so annoyed. It never felt right to fully expose my son's face in social media. Told my husband and got a non committal response to call out his mom. She is a sweet lady don't get me wrong, I understand she's excited abt our son and is a proud granny but she is just the typical boomer in social media 😭😭😭 also he is the first grandchild of both families and my husband and i live abroad so they've never met our baby yet.

It bugged me so much I slept late last night trying to figure out how to report photos in fb and ask fb to delete it. Today it deleted her profile pic!!! Will she find out its me? I never gave my husband an indication that I will report it. She's not that techie so im hoping she would chuck this off as a glitch??? Im trying to get 1 more photo removed. I feel so guilty for reporting but at the same time I will never be at peace until I see the photo taken down.

why do mils always act like they know other peoples baby’s inside out?

my baby wouldn’t sleep at bedtime because he had a late nap so he was tired but couldn’t sleep. MIL said, “oh it’s because he played so much, now he can’t sleep”. First of all that doesn’t even make sense because he should be more tired?

Second of all she’s contradicting herself because other times she says he’s so tired and fell asleep early because he played so much, or she’ll act surprised saying wow he slept early i know he would, like no girl you didn’t!

She’s always acting like she knows his needs when it’s the complete opposite. If he’s hungry she says he’s not, or if i’m trying to put him down for a nap she’ll come up to him and play with him saying he’s not tired when he’s clearly trying to sleep.

Idk why she always acts like she knows MY baby inside out it’s so irritating.

I’m so upset. We have a 10 month old son and our most important rule is no kissing. I’ve been steady on this from the beginning and went through a lot of fights about it with MIL. Husband always had my back and enforced the rules. So today she comes by and she blows raspberries on his belly. I was like ok. But then she proceeded to blow raspberries on his neck and cheek and I just froze. I’m such a f*cking idiot. My husband didn’t see it from his angle but I’m so mad at myself that I froze. I’m so upset. I can’t believe she broke this rule. We have such a strained relationship and I thought it was getting better but now I’m so upset. How do we even proceed from here? If we bring it up she’ll deny it. All I want to do is cry right now.

Brain is fried from that so I'll try to keep it short. Basically she became friends with the daughter of the deceased over the last year. Dead lady's family is all trying to gather round to support each other. My MIL runs in there and crams herself in, yapping for over an hour straight. People are lining up to offer their support but giving up because she blocks them with sheer unawareness. She does not understand people's polite refusals or "ok I gotta go now attend to someone else" unless it is loud and direct.

Therapy today told me that "she is not your problem, you cannot fix her behavior, you can't let it get to you too much." But oh my god I don't want to be associated with that.

This is mainly a rant (although thoughts & insights are very welcome) because, for some reason, my MIL’s comments on our school choices really are bothering me. My wife (30F) and I (30F) just had a new baby. MIL traveled to our state to meet our baby, she was mostly indifferent or frustrated by our newborn. While she did a lot of very problematic things while she was over, almost none of her behaviors were surprising to me at this point. However, I am still baffled by her odd comments about our possible future education choices for our child. We were having a conversation about schools in the area, and my wife chimed in and mentioned that we were looking at a specific private school near where we live. MIL basically made a lot of negative statements about that possibility and really pushed against it. We even pointed out the school to her when we happened to be in the area, and she wouldn’t even look up from her phone or really acknowledge the school. I really don’t get her sometimes. I have a strong feeling she’s just going to criticize every parenting decision we make.

I absolutely hate when she discloses stuff like this to me. She said “I’m worried about SIL! She’s been trying for a baby for a few months now and it hasn’t happened yet. But I suppose she did just get off of antidepressants so that has to be a factor right?”

Mom, ✋🛑 why have you just shared this very private and vulnerable information with me. I can never unhear that confidential info and I feel bad that I know about it. But I don’t want to start stuff by telling SIL that my mom is blabbing to me about her fertility struggles. It really harms my trust in her when she does stuff like this.

I (30F) have 2 boys age 3 and 1 1/2 years old, they are the only grand kids of both sides of the family, I am an only child and husband (33M) has only one sibling; an older sister(35F) she struggled for many years of infertility and finally got pregnant and we were all of course wishing for a girl but it was another baby boy which from her husband’s family it makes him the 6th grandson with 6 consecutive boys and no girls. Now, my MIL is expressing to me how she wanted her daughter to have a girl and she wished it would’ve been a girl because she knew how special it would’ve been for her and her husband’s family, I said, well that doesn’t matter what the gender in this type of situations plus I am still not done having kids so I have chances of having the girl in this family, she responds “no, you won’t have girls, only boys, you are going to be like Dalma (her sister that had 4 boys and didn’t get to have a daughter)” I said what does she has to do with me? lol that’s so irrelevant. Well, fast forward I am now pregnant and she keeps saying that it’s a boy it’s a boy. We get our nipt test back and it’s a girl. She’s happy about it but I can’t shake off how this lady is lowkey mad that I am having the girl instead of her daughter, she seems like that type that’s always having her kids compete with each other and that never thinks before speaking. What do you think of this situation?

Am I overreacting, or is my future MIL trying to make my wedding about her?
For some context, we're having a barn wedding. The dress code is more cocktail/casual—not black tie or anything super formal.
Lately she's been doing things that are rubbing me the wrong way. First, she's spent over $5,000 on multiple dresses trying to find the "perfect" one. I get wanting to look nice, but it feels excessive for the type of wedding we're having.
Second, I booked my hair and makeup artist over six months ago. The contract is for me and my bridesmaids, and I've been looking forward to spending that morning getting ready with my girls. The other day my MIL told me she wants to have her hair and makeup done with us and asked me to see if my artist could fit her in. The thing is... I don't want to. Not because I dislike her, but because I want that time to be with my bridal party. My own mom isn't even getting ready with us. I also don't want to put my artist in an awkward position by asking her to squeeze in another person when we've had this planned for months.
Finally, her mom refuses to eat the food we're serving at the wedding, so my MIL is making a completely separate meal for her side of the family and bringing it to the reception. Maybe this one shouldn't bother me as much, but it just feels like instead of being guests at our wedding, they're creating their own little event.
None of these things by themselves are huge, but together they have me feeling like the focus keeps shifting away from us and onto what she wants. Am I being unreasonable, or would this bother you too?

My mother-in-law, who is 73, lives with my husband, who is 39, and me, who is 30. Her personal hygiene is completely lacking, and my husband shares this issue, but I’ve tried to encourage him to improve. She doesn’t flush after using the restroom or wash her hands afterward. Additionally, she never closes the door when she goes. My husband does flush, but he doesn’t wash his hands half the time. Without fail, she immediately goes to the kitchen to get food or access the refrigerator. I recently returned from the hospital after a week due to an E. coli infection, which was exacerbated by an IBD flare. I’ve discussed this matter with my husband multiple times in the past, but it has never been resolved. I am exhausted from constantly contracting gastrointestinal infections because adults are unable to maintain basic hygiene practices. While her unmanaged ADHD is the primary reason for her behavior, it’s worth noting that this is something she has been doing for most of her life, I suppose.

Just another unhinged quote from MIL during dinner today while I sat there with my husband and baby 😃😃😃

My husband and I have been looking into childcare for our baby boy for my return to work, and when this topic first reached her a few weeks ago, she immediately yelled “do NOT EVER send him to a daycare.” Okay. So we have been looking into our options for a sitter/nanny for the last few weeks, and realize how insane the costs are for full time care, not to mention the tax implications and additional labor and costs to set up payroll. Additionally, she made discriminatory remarks about how she hired “illegals” when she had her kids, so they were “much more affordable,” and made racist and demeaning remarks about nannies from certain countries.

She is also so weirdly possessive over my baby. Whenever she visits, she immediate snatches him out of my arms, even when he’s napping, and holds him the entire time. One day, she came over and had some “gifts” for my baby. Little did I know they were nursery decorations that she decided to buy WITHOUT TELLING ME and said “it’s about time we decorate the nursery.” She marched into the nursery and started sticking the wall decals and hammering nails and hanging things on the walls of my house. I was dumbfounded and fuming.

Mind you, this was when I was 2 months postpartum, taking care of a baby 24/7 while my husband had returned to work. I don’t have any time to DECORATE when I’m barely taking care of myself.

I’m a very non confrontational, easygoing person, but I feel like I’m going to explode at her someday.

Edit: my in laws live a 4 hour plane ride away, my parents live 20 minutes away by car.

I’ve been with my SO for 15 years. For most of our relationship we were confirmed no kids. We got a little grief from both of our parents but nothing crazy. And then our best friends had twins and everything changed. We had our son almost a year ago. My parents live within 20 minutes and care for our son full time.

My in-laws live a 4 hour plane ride away, constantly complain about us not visiting them but have only visited once, bought a sports car and vacationed three times since our son was born.

We have tickets (crazy luck!) for an event happening within 30 minutes of my in-laws. They want to watch our son while we attend. I am anxious because they have very little experience caring for him or any child (he’s the only grand) in the last 5 years. Time zones will be an issue and he’s a little crazy right now.

My in-laws keep making me feel like I’m too controlling. My worst fear is - they can’t handle it, call us, we leave our event that we spent a lot of money on early. OR they don’t call and my son is traumatized / hurt. I told my husband we should do a trial run where he and I get lunch and they watch our son but his mom said that was selfish and they have limited time with us. I feel like it’s normal I don’t trust them to watch my son without some kind of practice run?

Please give it to me straight.