"She Told Me That Because My Daughter Wasn't Her Blood, She Didn't Count": 17 Dreadfully Awful In-Laws Who Chose Hate Over Love
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the most unhinged things their in-laws have ever said or done. We were overwhelmed by the sheer volume of responses we received, not to mention how wild and gut-wrenching they were. Here's some of what people shared:
1."I was about seven months pregnant. My husband and I were visiting his sister, her husband, and their 5-month-old baby. They were having a little get-together with family and friends. I went into the baby’s room, and my mother-in-law was there holding the baby and rocking him. She saw me enter and didn’t say anything at first. Then she started to talk to the baby, telling him how much she loved him and how he was such a perfect little boy. She then turned and looked me directly in the eyes, looked at my pregnant stomach, and said to him, 'I will never love another grandchild as much as I love you. NEVER.' She said this to him and then looked back at me with the most vicious, hateful face I have ever seen in my life. She did not like me and made sure I knew she would also dislike my baby."
"I have never told my husband this, but through her other actions, including abusive behavior, racist comments (I am a POC), and her other abhorrent traits, he made the decision not to have her in our child’s life. We knew we could never trust her to be alone with our child. We are so happy without her in our lives."
—Anonymous
2."My ex-MIL poisoned me because I married her son. I spent the night in the bathroom, on the commode, vomiting so hard, I broke my front teeth. I didn't realize I had been poisoned until my husband's next wife called me and said she believed she had been poisoned by the MIL."
—Anonymous
3."My MIL lived next door to my three children and me when they were young. We had gotten a black lab as a pet. One day, the puppy got loose from her collar that attached her to the run line. The puppy went to my MIL's yard and chewed up a bird feeder with the seeds. The next day, when my children went over to see Grandma, my MIL got out a long gun and showed it to my young children and told them, 'The next time your dog comes into my yard, I am going to SHOOT IT!' Needless to say, my kids came home crying and screaming that Grandma was going to shoot their dog! I called my MIL to clear up what must have been a misunderstanding. Nope, she confirmed that she was actually going to shoot the dog if she saw her in her yard ever again. I had my husband go to her house after work and remove the gun."
—Anonymous
4."My MIL texted me on my 30th birthday and said, 'Happy birthday. I hope you understand I’ll always love [insert husband's ex-girlfriend's name here] more.'"
5."I could write a book about the things my MIL has done, but this was the most hurtful. One of our pets was terminally sick and required constant care from my wife and me. We were devastated and extremely stressed out. We had to try to make him eat and give him medication several times a day, which required us both being there because it was impossible for one person to do it alone. Around Christmastime, my wife usually goes out of state to visit family, but she told them several times she wouldn’t be able to that year because she needed to be home to help take care of our pet. Her mom spent the entire month of December guilting her about not going and making her feel like crap, including a phone call on Christmas Eve where my wife ended up crying."
"The best was when my wife was trying to explain to her mother that we were under a lot of stress and were extremely depressed because our pet was dying, and her response was, 'If it’s so stressful, then why don’t you give him to a shelter?' That was the moment I lost what little respect I had for her. It happened a year ago, and I will never forgive her for it."
6."I have an ex-MIL who was just awful and only got worse after my son was born. She made regular snide remarks about me not working while pregnant. I wasn't employed prior to becoming pregnant and was a full-time student. She worked while she was pregnant, so she thought I had to too. She also threw a fit that they weren't the first ones we called when my son was born. They were actually the second people we called, and they weren't even home to answer the phone to begin with. Oh, she also thought rear-facing car seats were stupid and constantly tried to talk us into front-facing our infant. One day we were all at Lowe's, and she asked if she could take our son to go to look at a fridge she was thinking about ordering. OK, sure, I guess? Turns out she actually went around the store to the other exit and buckled in our 1-year-old without a car seat in the front seat of her truck and went joy-riding in the parking lot."
"Two years later, at her house, she asked if she could take our son to her backyard to play, as it was fenced in. I said yes and told her keep him there because he was a runner and reminded her that she lived next to a busy highway. Ten minutes later, she came running in the FRONT door out of breath with my toddler in tow. Turns out she took him to the front yard and he immediately ran away from her and she had to catch him. Exactly as I warned her. We went no-contact with her because of her constant rudeness and boundary violations. Her response was to try to check our son out of his preschool without us knowing. Obviously, the school didn't let that happen because she wasn't on the pickup list. Our son's teacher immediately let us know that she tried to check him out."
7."I have a daughter from a previous relationship, and my partner has a son from a previous relationship. Before we started trying for another kid, my MIL stated that she really wanted a granddaughter because she only had grandsons, and I said, 'Well, I have a daughter, so she’s technically your granddaughter.' She then proceeded to tell me that because my daughter wasn't her blood, she didn't count and she wanted one who was related to her. Let’s just say she’s never met my daughter and doesn’t really see our infant son."
8."My MIL belongs on this list. So many things, but I'll leave a few here: She stepped on my couch, shoes and all, to get in my face and tell me she would kick my ass if her son ever stopped talking to her again. She took my 2-week-old newborn to get his pictures taken without telling us. Of course, she was in the pictures and expected us to hand them out to everyone. They're still sitting in the basement 16 years later. She took a bath with my 1-year-old son and bragged about shaving her legs while he was in the bath with her. She told me she would wear white to my wedding because she was paying for it. (She did not pay 1 cent toward our wedding.) Hubby told her she'd be banned if she did. After I'd known my now-MIL for a few months, my mom died. She told me she thought she was a better mom to me in those three months than my mom had ever been!"
9."My ex-father-in-law was awful. He constantly put me down in front of my ex but then hit on me when my ex wasn't around. He told me outright that I was a horrible mother for choosing an unusual name for my child, that I was damning my child because I'm a pagan, not a Christian, and that I should have my baby taken away from me because I had severe postnatal depression. He used that against me again when my ex and I separated. He said I shouldn't be allowed to keep my child because I was on medication for my depression. He's also racist, misogynistic, and homophobic."
10."My MIL didn't acknowledge our son's 13th birthday because the week prior, none of us had any interest in attending a late-night college basketball game with her."
11."After my fourth miscarriage, my evil in-law loved to make it known how she thought it was funny that I couldn't do something 'so easy.'"
12."My MIL discovered the Seventh-day Adventist religion. Not knocking her religion — people have the right to their own beliefs. My issue came when she called me over to visit, and when I got there, I was greeted by her, her pastor, and another minister, my sisters-in-law, and my husband. They held a religious intervention for me, the heathen daughter of a Christian pastor! They basically told me I was going to hell for the simple fact of going to church on Sundays."
—Anonymous
13."My ex-MIL belongs here. She divorced my ex’s dad when my ex was in middle school and never dated after that or remarried. Instead, she turned my ex-husband into her weird partner/man of the house. He hadn't had any relationships before he and I got together, so she was not a fan of having 'competition' for the time, attention, and affection of her son (an only child, mind you). She would get upset and guilt-trip him if she didn’t talk to him every day on the phone with stuff like, 'I could be DEAD and you wouldn’t even know it because you don’t call me.' She tried to gaslight me and said she didn't believe me when I told her about my horrible narcissistic and borderline personality mother. She tried to have us get married in her backyard, her way, in line with her religion, with control over the guest list, food, etc. (that did not happen)."
"She tried to pull a stunt saying that if we didn’t get married in accordance with her religion, she wouldn’t come. Her brothers and sister said the same thing, but the MIL and one brother ended up showing up. She would want to sit on the couch with my husband and watch movies while holding his hand. She claimed I had a 'magic vagina' because clearly there was no other reason why her son wasn’t at her disposal the way she wanted him to be. When we moved to the other side of town (purely coincidental), she tried making it about her and said we moved as 'far away from her as possible' on purpose. She also spoke negatively about the fact that I had tattoos (only three on my back, and all with personal meaning), yet she had her eyebrows, eyeliner, and lipliner tattooed on. Yeah, it was wild."
—Boop
14."I caught my MIL going through my purse. She wanted to know how much money I had."
—Anonymous
15."When we were engaged, my now-husband got in a car accident and needed surgery. My mom came to the hospital to wait with me. As he went into surgery, my mom called his mom to update her because she lived out of state. My husband’s mom called him a couple of days later absolutely livid that my mom had called her. She said my mom was so rude and had no right to do that. I kept asking my husband what was so rude. One mother was updating another. He could never really explain why. Over the years, there have been other instances like that. His mom hates when my mom does anything for my husband or kids, and refuses to speak to her. All this despite my husband’s parents originally living four hours away, yet choosing to retire four states away in a location where they know no one."
"She’s also constantly upset (calls my husband in tears) about the expense of air travel, yet is also devastated that our family with young children won’t get on a plane to visit her multiple times a year. It’s exhausting."
16."I don’t have children, but my cats are my babies. Last November, my 7-year-old cat was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, and I was trying to care for him and make his final days as happy and peaceful as possible. Of course, this was football season. We were on FaceTime with my MIL (complete narcissist, constant victim) who wanted me to join them for a stupid college football game (which she knows isn’t my cup of tea anyway). When I told her I couldn’t join them because I would be caring for my sick cat, she responded, 'Why don’t you just put him to sleep and then you’ll be able to come?' followed by her snarky giggle. I burst into tears and left the room. She was 'confused' by my reaction and has never apologized for being so insensitive. I haven’t spoken to her since. She’s a heartless monster."
17.Finally: "I have terrible in-laws. They are manipulative, entitled, and often the 'victims' in every situation. If my husband spends any time with them, either in person or on the phone, he starts to behave like that again too, but when he spends time apart, he can recognize the toxicity. My problem is (and I predicted this) that we moved closer to them only because of my job change, and for the past year, our marriage has been strained. Whenever he gets done hanging out with his brother, he gets really mean and provokes me into an argument so he can accuse me of being a bitch. Sadly, my husband doesn’t have good boundaries and will never stand up to his family for either of us, so I’m contemplating divorce."
I am speechless. It breaks my heart to see how utterly cruel some people can be. If you have an in-law or other family member who behaves this way, I'm truly sorry. No one deserves this!!
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
