There’s a widespread stereotype that when a couple gets married, they’ll butt heads with their parents-in-law. Of course, life doesn’t always play out like the script of a family comedy: your in-laws can be just as wonderful or abysmal as any other person on Planet Earth. However, the stereotype really does turn out to be completely true in some fringe cases.
Reddit user u/fuzzyloulou sparked a lively online discussion, as people spilled the tea about what they hate the most about their in-laws, and we’ve collected the juiciest stories to share with you. Check them out below, but be prepared to witness what it looks like when someone has no respect for anyone’s boundaries.
#1
My mother-in-law is always cooking good a*s food and making me fat. It’s all her fault!
Image source: EinTheDataDoge, Conscious Design
#2
My FIL called my wife and her 3 sisters wh*res all while standing I’m MY house. Reason you ask? They all got married outside of the Catholic faith. We haven’t spoken in 6 years. Best 6 years of my life.
Image source: Patrick2337
#3
They live 3,500kms away. It’s a little closer than I would like.
Image source: Ok-Geologist8387
#4
My husband’s mother and 2 sisters really went out of their way to make me feel unwanted and unliked early in our marriage. They judged me, gave me the cold shoulder. Criticized everything I did. Jokes on them. My husband and I have been married for 30 years. So I learned a lesson: screw the naysayers. Haters gonna hate.
Image source: heyjudemarie, RF._.studio
#5
Oh God, do I have stories. My MIL is one of the cheapest people I have ever met and a hoarder. For my sons first birthday she gave him a roll of paper towels because…”Look! he loves it, doesn’t even know whether it is a toy or not!” At age 3 for Christmas she gave him some random toiletries and cleaning supplies she bought at the dollar store, wrapped them and everything. Now I have to give my boy credit on those…after he opened them he said “This Christmas Sucks!” which caused major drama for my wife and I.
Image source: who519, Eli Francis
#6
My mother-in-law is a religious zealot who legit hates more than half of her children. One is a lesbian, one is trans, my wife is non-binary, their other brother is gay. But she doesn’t know he is.
Image source: BlackwatetWitcher, James Coleman
#7
I loved them so much. They expressed their love for me, for almost 40 years. I hate they got old and died.
Image source: Quint27A
#8
The way they come over to my house unannounced. Just show up then get mad at me for being in the shower or not home because I’m running errands. I know I’m a SAHM but damn I still have to go run errands outside the house. The way they insist they can have our baby whenever they please without our permission.
Image source: LoveOfTheLee, Kindel Media
#9
The constant criticism. I married their only son and nothing I do is good enough. My house is never clean enough, my one year old doesn’t “behave”, and my cooking sucks. The passive aggressiveness is so overwhelming.
Image source: BAM151822, Teona Swift
#10
My MIL is overly Christian… And reminds us regularly we’re going to hell because we don’t go to church. My incredible wife responds with either, see you there or, that’s where all our friends are going, why wouldn’t we want to go!
Image source: ekinria1928
#11
I absolutely love my in-laws, but compared to my family they are *REALLY* loud. Like instead of taking turns talking they just talk louder over each other until someone listens. I leave with a headache, and that’s including times I sneak to an empty room for peace.
Image source: kannakantplay, Edmond Dantès
#12
Their concept of time. They’re all always shamelessly late to everything. And they all act like it’s a cardinal sin to be early. They think they’re “early” if they stroll in just in the nick of time.
For example, I’ve told them, “We have to be there at 7, and it’s a 20 minute drive, so we should leave by 6:35 at the latest. So you need to be at our house at 6:30 so we can load the car”.
“Why so early? I’ll be at your house at 6:45”.
Then they show up at 6:55 and can’t understand why I’m pissed. And we get to where we’re supposed to be at 7:15 and can’t understand why everyone there is pissed.
At least my husband has gotten better about it. He still hates to be anywhere early but he plans and takes steps to be on time, not late.
Image source: MrsPottyMouth, Wil Stewart
#13
My MIL isn’t too nice to the kids. Granted, she has 15 grandkids, you can tell which ones she likes more. And less. My kids are in the middle.
Image source: wclure, Ben Wicks
#14
I hate that my father-in-law was a pig headed son of a b***h and refused the vaccine. Left my wife with ashes.
Image source: starion832000
#15
There’s nothing I hate about my in-laws but my MIL occasionally says some things that give me pause when she’s in the room. For example, she wished me a happy birthday recently to which I casually replied, “Just another trip around the sun.” My comment resulted in a 20 minute lecture about how the sun actually orbits the Earth based on her visual observation of it rising in the east and setting in the west every day. I often wonder how much of my partner’s childhood trauma is a direct result of her mother’s “unusual” beliefs.
Image source: officehelpermonkey
#16
How critical they are of my partner. He is loving, kind, smart and unique. Nothing he ever does will ever be enough for them. As a result he has major anxiety and perfection issues. He’s hard on himself and constantly apologizes over minor things. I wish he knew how awesome he is. For this reason I’ve chewed out both his dad and mom with them being clueless as to why. What issues? I’d love to be close to them if things were different; however see how dysfunctional they are and am totally okay with zero contact.
Image source: Spletzi, Les Anderson
#17
My wife’s dad is a very “I’m right, or you’re wrong” kinda person. If he’s not right, he refuses to admit it and will just leave and not speak to you for a long time. Then show back up and act like nothing happened.
Image source: SaiyanGodKing
#18
My mother in-law abused my wife physically and emotionally. She is the cause of her PTSD, and I suspect, her anxiety. The woman is a narcissist who uses people and then drops them if they lose value. When my father in-law was in the hospital for his third stroke, she preyed upon his family, asking them for money to pay her bills. No one knows what she did with the money, and my heavily disabled father in-law swiftly lost his home (despite the loans supposedly being for the mortgage payment). We have gone as no contact as possible.
Image source: doctordoctorpuss
#19
That they were neglectful parents. I realize that they weren’t in the best financial situation while my partner was growing up, but they kept his learning disability diagnosis a secret from him and he was left to his own devices most of the time. He’s the youngest by a lot, and likely was not planned. He grew up without being encouraged to do well in school or to set goals in life. He also struggled a lot with affection early in our relationship because it wasn’t modeled in his home growing up.
My partner doesn’t hold it against them though, merely sees his childhood as a way to not raise our child so I have to commend him on that. I just wish he had been given the support and love a child deserves too.
Image source: Majikone
#20
Hate is a bit strong, but I judge my step-MIL because she posts EVERYTHING on Facebook. I swear she can’t take a s**t without posting.
Image source: MalpracticeMatt, Brett Jordan
#21
How fake they are. They just care about their image and how they appear to others, very little, if anything, is genuine about them.
Image source: Unhygienictree, August de Richelieu
#22
MIL refuses to discuss anything that bothers her. She just goes dead silent for a moment, then pivots to a different subject.
Image source: LaComtesseGonflable, mahabis footwear
#23
Oh man, how much time do you have? Number one thing is that they are drama vampires. They can’t live without it. Everything is about them, and if it isn’t, it will be soon. They are cartoonishly childish and it’s as ridiculous as it is sad. I feel terrible for my spouse and her siblings. Every family get-together is a sh*tshow. Number two is that they can’t make a plan without overcomplicating the ever-loving s**t out of it, which my wife has inherited.
Image source: Studlum, Timur Weber
#24
They are all incredibly judgemental, a lot of times very self-centered and a hodge podge of other cliches of in-laws from Hell.
MIL once called me a lazy a*s because I lost my job and couldn’t get another one.
We had just lost our home and that job at the beginning of the pandemic due to the pandemic.
I was a “lazy a*s” because I couldn’t get a job during a time when the world had just shut down, people were dying from Covid and my wife and I are homeless. I’m a lazy a*s though, apparently.
Image source: ObtuseStone
#25
Their refusing to acknowledge our kid(s) due to not being baptized in Christianity. They now do but it took years. What’s even worse is my spouse won’t acknowledge it even happened. Or he’ll say it’s in the past. Pisses me the f**k off. Still does. They were a******s for years. I refuse to go see them. I’d rather study in school.
Image source: mexicanitch
#26
They disowned my wife for marrying me and they hate me because I’m non-binary.
Image source: Equal-Requirement-61, Alexander Grey
#27
They are christian, right-wing, QAnon’ers. If it gravitates to politics, I feel like I can’t keep up with all the conspiracy theories unless I keep my phone out to Google topics. If I don’t know of some backwater story, they delight in trying to make me seem like I’m ignorant to the world’s biggest news reveal.
We are getting better at shutting down these conversations with simple phrases or just walking away.
Image source: Top_Outlandishness67
#28
Outlier here I think.
I love my in-laws like my parents, and I have known them since elementary school (I married my childhood friend), but here goes: Please stop telling old stories about me and my wife to my kids. I didn’t need them knowing I was a wimpy kid that needed to be protected by my wife from bullies.
Image source: loki_magikill
#29
When we go to my in-laws, we never leave the house. We sit in the den, watch TV twelve hours a day and listen to my father-in-law c**p on anything and everything he sees on the idiot box. We finally told them that the condition for our coming was to turn off Fox News.
And it’s not because he’s 84 and a grump old man. He’s been doing this for the past thirty years. Everybody, everything is stupid but him. Just this constant stream of negativity.
And my mother-in-law isn’t much better. She will sit there and talk about everybody else under the sun and how stupid those people are. I’ve started just leaving for a couple of hours for a sanity break. I have to demand my children go visit them once a year.
Image source: AnybodySeeMyKeys
#30
My MIL is a major narcissist and racist.
Image source: DeaddyRuxpin
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