Family planning should be between a couple and no one else, but we all know in-laws can be particularly nosy when it comes to potential grandkids — and sometimes they aren't nice about their opinions either. Take one woman on Reddit, who recently shared that her mother-in-law harshly told her husband that she was "lazy" for not giving up her job and getting pregnant already.
Things might have gone wrong when the woman allowed her MIL to move in with them during the pandemic.
As the 26-year-old woman explained in her post on Am I The A–hole, she and her husband have been married for a year, but they dated for a long time before they got married. For the most part, her relationship with her MIL has been friendly — although not as friendly as the relationship between her MIL and her brother-in-law's girlfriend.
"Bear in mind I've been dating my husband for nine years and my BILs only been with his girlfriend a year and none of us knew her beforehand," she added.
Her husband's family is Catholic, while she's atheist.
"But that doesn't tend to affect things as his family doesn't go to church, not even at Christmas, they just seem to hold those views," she explained.
Recently, the OP came home for work with blazing period cramps.
She has endometriosis and her husband didn't mind that that all she really needed were some painkillers and to lie down after she got home. Unfortunately, her nap would get cut short for the worst reason.
"I woke up about an hour later to shouting," she wrote.
It was her MIL, "telling my husband that I was being lazy and how God is disappointed in him for choosing a terrible wife."
According to her MIL, the OP shouldn't be working anymore and should be pregnant "by now if I was a good wife that is."
"When my husband pointed out I have endometriosis and was in pain so needed some rest, she told him that I was faking it and that there's no such thing because she's never had period pain," she added.
OP was "fuming," and all she wanted was to do was tell her MIL to leave the house.
But her MIL said she had no right to ask her to leave "when it's her son's house."
"I paid the majority of the costs for the house but I still consider it OUR house," the OP explained.
She decided her MIL needed to go.
The OP threw her MIL's things into a bag, put the bag on the driveway, and then told her to leave. Her MIL did end up going, but her husband later told her that he thought she went too far and now the OP is receiving "some very abusive messages from his family."
"I'm really sensitive due to my endometriosis because I had a miscarriage last year which his mother knows about and at the time accused me of murdering my husband's child," she continued.
Does the OP really need to keep tip-toeing around her MIL's feelings?
She feels like she has been calm and polite for "way too long."
"I accepted her calling me a murderer because I thought it was her grieving for her grandchild but now I just can't put up with her anymore," she wrote. "I think I'm in the right….. so Reddit, Am I the A–hole?"
Her MIL's behavior was infuriating, some people wrote in the comments.
"Your MIL is completely out of line," one person wrote. "No one should have to listen to those kinds of insults, especially not in their own home! Good for you for sticking up for yourself."
"Just calling you a murderer due to your miscarriage is already horrific and something you shouldn't have to have gotten accustomed to, I'm sorry to hear that," someone else agreed. "That in itself would already have made it acceptable to not even let her come live with you guys, if I was still Catholic I'd mistake you for a saint."
While a third person put it this way: "You were polite to help her pack," someone else commented. "Not The A–hole."
And some people thought the OP was wrong for getting down in the dirt, too.
"You went down to her level when you threw her stuff out," one person commented. "Kicking her out was too much."
"Your MIL sucks, no question about. Way worse than everyone else," a second person added. "But (and I don't know if you have done this already) talk to your husband about how you want to resolve your shared problem. I think maybe you did overreact — but you were certainly right to feel the way you feel."
For now, the OP explained later in the thread, she and her husband are discussing what kind of relationship they want to have with his mom going forward.
"My husband and I are talking through everything trying to decide a way to make us both happy, he was very close to his mother but he's putting me first which I'm extremely thankful for," she explained.
"It's a shame for my husband because they were always very, very close and I wouldn't want to take anyone's mother away but it's toxic situation that I can't mentally cope being in," she added.
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