Some mothers-in-law have a rough time adjusting after their children get married. To a degree, it's understandable — it has to be a little tough when your children grow up and become responsible for their own lives, which includes spending time with people of their choosing (and thus less time with their families of origin).
One woman shared on Reddit that her mother-in-law consistently goes way over the boundaries that should be in place between herself and the woman's husband, which causes a lot of issues for everyone. Most recently, the woman's birthday was wrecked when her mother-in-law just couldn't help butting in and stealing time on the day.
"It was my birthday the other day," she began. "Hubby and I obviously had plans together. We enjoyed the morning hanging out with friends until hubby gets a call from his mother."
Then his mom called.
"She needs him to go to her house to board up her windows," the wife continued. "We were expecting some unsettled windy weather but nothing that required boarding windows up. Hubby tried explaining this to her but she’s old and old people worry. No problem, so we went out of our way to find someone else to do it for her."
The solution was not good enough for her.
"Hubby calls to let her know that someone will be over to help her with whatever she needed doing. She loses it and says 'you’re my son, you’re meant to do this for me'. He reminds her it’s my birthday but she doesn’t care."
Then her husband started buying into it.
"He hangs up and I think that’s the end of that, nope! Cue hubby trying his best to rearrange our plans so that he can rush right over there."
He tried to get his wife to do something else.
"He suggests I go get my hair done which would take a few hours," she explained. "Why would I get my hair done when we planned to go biking and swimming? Naturally I refuse and I tell him I’m not revolving my day around her or him. He says that I’m being unreasonable."
It turns out this wasn't even the first time this has happened.
"So I cancelled all of our plans and spent the day doing my own thing. Yet another birthday ruined. Last birthday he left me at the hotel room to go do something for her."
The woman posted her story to vent, and people responded.
The woman shared the story in the forum JUSTNOMIL, which describes itself as "support for those with nasty, cruel, toxic, abusive MILS and moms." So plenty of people were happy to weigh in and offer the woman support for her situation.
Some people think the problem is her husband.
One person wrote, "You have an SO problem not a MIL problem. When my jnmom is being unreasonable I tell her to [expletive] right off. Your SO pandered to his moms whims."
Like … her husband is *really* the problem.
Another person added, "So, your real problem is your husband can't say no to her and act like an adult. She only gets away with what he allows her to get away with."
One person offered a solution.
"Something that worked for me was excluding my guy from the plans. He didn't always love the stuff I planned, but I could tell he was hurt to not be asked or left out. I just said I cancelled my last plans for his family and I was also done not being able to enjoy things we did do (mommy used to need to text 3 dozen times during dinner). He can just plan to spend that special day with mommy. $40 says if you plan something awesome with your friends or family, that battle axe won't need him for anything."
The woman came back with a grim update.
In response to a suggestion that her husband should offer to make it up to her, the original poster said, "Yes he did offer and he’s been doing everything around the house since. I haven’t lifted a finger. But I’ve been there done that with him. As soon as I forgive him it’s just a countdown until he does something similar again. Rinse and repeat."
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
