Marriage is a beautiful union between two people. However, that is not completely true. Usually, one marries the partner’s entire family, and one cannot do much about it. Sometimes you get lucky and get wonderful in-laws, and sometimes you get stuck with toxic in-laws. Today’s story gives us a peek at what it is to have a toxic mother-in-law who takes advantage of an emergency clause.
Reddit user u/Checkinout2022, aged 34, shared her story on Reddit under r/AITA. She tied the knot only a year ago. She and her husband recently bought a new home. [1]
Her mother-in-law kept insisting that they give her a key to their new house. The mother-in-law promised that she would only use it in emergencies. The author did not want to because of what her mother-in-law did earlier.
A Snoopy MIL?
Turns out that the snoopy mother-in-law could not keep promises. The couple had given her a copy of their old apartment keys for emergencies [2]. She used those keys twice to embarrassing consequences:
She promised that she only use it in an emergency but giving the fact that she had an emergency key to our old apartment and walked in on us being intimate twice (but my husband didn’t think it was big deal) I just couldn’t trust her.
-Reddit
Since OP did not want a repeat performance of what happened earlier, she decided to give the mother-in-law a fake key. She personally went to deliver the fake key to the MIL. The MIL had a very smug look on her face like she had won a battle against OP. Things were silent until Christmas came.
On Christmas, the MIL was absolutely livid and created a ruckus at OP’s house. But what could be the reason? Well:
Days gone by and on Christmas dinner MIL angerily “called me out” on the fact I gave her a fake copy of the house key. She shamed me for doing this in front of everyone…
– Reddit
Where’s The Emergency?
But the OP was tired of the MIL’s nonsense, the author asked her how she knew that the key was fake. The MIL’s answer would shock a lot of us:
…she said days ago when she came over at 4 while my husband and were out.
-Reddit
And the OP did not miss the chance to catch the MIL red-handed:
I reminded her “didn’t you promise you wouldn’t use it unless there’s an emergency? So You tried to get in when there was no emergency and you broke the promise you made to us!”
-Reddit
The entire room went quiet and started staring at the MIL. The MIL turned red with anger and embarrassment. And that wasn’t even the end of it:
…some even laughed at her for the face she made. She suddenly got up from her seat and rushed into the kitchen where she had a huge meltdown so loud the next door neighbors must’ve heard – literally I’ve never heard a 60+ year old woman throw a tantrum like that.
-Reddit
The rest of the Christmas dinner was very uncomfortable as the husband and the sister-in-law kept giving the author dirty looks. The author did not find solace even after leaving the dinner party:
My husband went off on me in the car and said I lied and manipulated and humiliated and exposed his mom and said he wouldn’t have let me get away with it had he known. We had an argument and he is demanding I apologize to his mom for my childish behavior and for ruining Christmas dinner for the whole family.
-Reddit
The author shared her story for fellow Redditors to judge whether she was in the wrong for probably permanently souring her relationship with her in-laws.
Read: Mother-In-Law Secretly Changes Newborn’s Name While Mother Recovers From C-Section
The Intervention Was Necessary
Before we get into the reactions, something more happened right after the OP showed her husband the reaction to her Reddit post about the story:
I thought I’d show my husband some pretty helpful comments I found here minutes ago but he got mad at me when he saw it and said I was nuts to talk about his family online. He demanded my phone so he could delete it but I refused and I went upstairs and into the bedroom. I never seen him so agitated and I didn’t think he’d react like that honestly.
-Reddit
Most of the comments were in support of the OP. Some of them even went so far as to encourage her to rethink the marriage, since the husband’s attitude was quite problematic:
NTA. I’d rethink my marriage if my husband put his mother over me.
–YouretheAH
NTA
–CakeEatingRabbit
But your husband seems to have NO Problem of you being humiliated and shamed in front of people. He seems to have NO regards to your need of privacy and dignity.
As for the MiL, most believed she deserved it:
NTA. Play stupid games win stupid prizes. Your MIL was hoisted by her own petard.
–TwoCentsPsychologist
But there was this one minority that believed the OP was a bit immature too:
ESH. You should have just said no instead of stooping to her level with these mind games.
–BullShitting24-7
Every adult deserves their privacy, and after a point, even parents become outsiders to a grown child. The MiL may be doing this out of concern for her child, but if it happens repeatedly then even we agree it has to stop somewhere. What do you think of the situation?
Keep Reading: Mother-In-Law Wants Grandkids to Also Call Her ‘Mommy’ & Dad is Taking Her Side
Sources
- “Woman Gives Her Mother In Law A Fake Key Copy To Her House She Was Supposed To Use In Emergency, MIL Gets Busted At Christmas Dinner.” Bored Panda. Liucija Adomaite and Mindaugas Balčiauskas. January 2022.
Attention: While many of these stories are interesting, and we would love to take their word for it, the content in this article was taken from an unverifiable source (i.e., a Reddit forum). As such, we cannot guarantee that these events truly happened in the way that they are described in the original source.