While talking about their mothers-in-law, some people choose the nicest words and expressions and show only the positive emotions. But there’re people, who call their MILs “monster-in-law”, and there’s a reason for it. This happened to our today’s heroine, a woman, 33, who used to have the most optimistic expectations about her further relationship with her husband’s mom. But her illusions crashed after she went for dinner with her MIL.
The relationship was smooth at the beginning.
Anna, 33, wrote a letter to our editorial and right at the beginning of it, she made a statement. The woman wrote, “I am scared of my mother-in-law, though my husband says I’m overreacting. I need some opinions on whether other people would feel the same in my situation.”
The woman wrote, “Me and my husband Geff have been married for 3 years. This is not the first marriage, both for him and me. I am divorced, and I have a daughter, 5, from a previous marriage. Geff is divorced, too.
While my husband knows everything he needs to about my previous marriage and the reason why I parted ways with my ex, I know little to nothing about his previous relationship. I have never insisted that he must tell me everything in details, though. Now I understand why he has always been silent about this topic, because, obviously, his mother was the reason why his ex-wife ran away from him. But let me tell you my story from the start.”
Anna wrote, “My husband’s mother’s name is Stella, she is 55 and Geff is her only son. Our relationship has been very smooth from the start. When I first met her, I didn’t feel like she was rejecting me or something, she was polite, cordial, and she was sincerely smiling all the way to me. I thought this was a beginning of a nice and friendly relationship with her. And now I realize how wrong I was to even think so.”
First red flags showed up when Anna became pregnant.
Anna goes on with her story, saying, “Stella has always been a doting mom to Geff. When we visited her at her place, she would show me his childhood photos, like thousands of times, and she would tell me childhood stories about Geff, and I knew them all by heart already. However, I never interrupted her and I never got bothered by listening to the same stories again and again. I thought that it was good for Geff to have such a loving mom, I didn’t see anything wrong in their relationship.”
However, Stella’s attitude soon started annoying Anna. She explained, “I’m now 5 months pregnant. When we announced about our pregnancy, Stella was so happy, she was constantly saying how much she already loved her grandson. Yes, she insisted that the baby is a boy, and Geff and I didn’t care about the gender so much, we even asked our doctors not to tell us the baby’s gender, because we wanted this to be a surprise even for ourselves.”
The future grandmother wanted their baby to be a boy, and she even wanted him to be named after her son. Anna wrote, “Stella insisted on two things. She said the baby MUST be a boy (as if we could influence this), and the baby MUST be named Geff, no other name would be accepted by her. This was the red flag for me that she was too nosy and too possessive about our yet unborn baby, but I didn’t make a scandal and just held it inside.”
The relationship was getting tense after a family dinner.
Anna confessed, “One day, MIL and I went out to dinner. Geff and my father-in-law were out at a concert together. I should mention that my MIL and FIL are from out of state, and they were staying with us for a few days. Stella has always been intense, and she doesn’t hold back on overly displaying how much she loves Geff. I believe she projected this feeling to our yet unborn baby, hence her wish for it to be a boy and for him to be named Geff.”
The dinner went totally wrong. The woman revealed, “Well, at dinner after three cups of herbal tea, MIL looks at me and goes ‘If you ever break my son’s heart I will do something to you that you will remember for all your life. I mean it. And Geff’s dad will too. We already know how to deal with women who hurt our boy.’”
Anna wrote, “I was so stunned that she said this after three years together and understanding how strong our relationship is (because she said in another conversation: ‘I couldn’t have asked for a better wife for my son. You two are a perfect match and so blessed.’)”
Anna understood many things about her in-laws, and about her husband, too.
Anna wrote, “Unfortunately, I was so stunned that I did not respond the way that I wanted and kind of babbled on something about not needing to be worried. I told Geff about this later and, to my surprise, he wasn’t appalled or even surprised. I just really couldn’t believe the tone with which Stella said it, and it did sound like a menace. But my husband was calm about the whole situation, he advised me to relax and to think about our baby first.”
Anna confessed, “Now I understand that there was something about Geff’s and his ex’s relationship, something wrong from the side of my MIL. Maybe she interfered with their relationship in the similar way, and Geff’s ex-wife was just as scared as I am now. Anyway, I really want less of my MIL in our life, and I am even thinking of forbidding her to see our baby. I have this gut feeling, an instinct, that she may do something wrong to me and the baby. Do you think I’m overreacting?”
And here’s yet another mother-in-law, who went too far in her relationship with her son-in-law and just stole his valuable possessions. When she explained to him the reasons for her behavior, the man was even more angry than after he found out that his valuables were stolen.
