Note: This post briefly mentions suicide.
We recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community about the red flags warning you that your significant other's parents are problematic, and phew! Let's hear those warning signs and what happened:
1. "She didn’t respect that we didn’t want to have kids. When we got married, his mom kept pressuring us about having a kid even though we didn’t want one. We went on an extended vacation with her a couple of years after we got married. She was acting super weird the whole time and being really nice. She was making my meals and lots of smoothies. During the vacation, I lost my birth control and couldn’t find it. When we were packing, I opened her drawer, and I found it in her room. I found crushed prenatal vitamins, and I found herbal fertility smoothies."
2. "Looking back, there were signs. My spouse is the oldest and is the most successful and healthiest out of all of her siblings. She is the only one with a college education (graduate degree). She is very successful in her field and continues to seek new challenges. Her mother, though, did not finish high school and has no desire to. MIL was a SAHM who did not really take care of the kids and cheated on every husband she had. She was physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive, and to this day, does not take any responsibility."
"MIL actually calls my wife and asks her to talk to her sibling (who is CURRENTLY living with MIL) whenever there is an issue between the two. When we lived in the same state, we spent so much time with my wife’s family. Every weekend, there was some reason to go to MIL’s house. Now, we live across the country, and when we go back for visits, MIL makes snide comments about us staying with my parents and tries to schedule something in all of our free time. If we’re not with her, she’s constantly texting or calling to see what our plans are, even though we told her."
"If someone cannot set/respect healthy boundaries, even a large physical distance won’t stop them from overstepping in your relationship.
Luckily, my wife and I are on the same page, and she is very good about setting and holding boundaries with her mom. She has no problem putting the phone on DND or hanging up on her mother if she says she has to go and the mother doesn’t end the convo."
3. "If she laughs at your humiliation, just run. We hated each other (mainly because of this), but when I was eight months pregnant with my first kids, I had to stay with her because we couldn’t afford housing. It was a living hell. I was having twins and was a giant. I had a lot of problems with mobility as I have a really small frame, and I was carrying two big twins. She would put things on the floor and laugh when I couldn't get them. She also would videotape me waddling to the bathroom."
4. "Red flag from my MIL: She named EVERYTHING after her son (my husband) — her email was his name, her license plates, her passwords, and so on. She is OBSESSED with him, and he barely tolerates her, and she has twisted it to be my fault somehow. But he was avoiding her from the day I met him! He’s 40… Time to let him go…"
5. "I adore my MIL. She is a great woman and grandmother. However, she has this annoying habit of not asking me directly about ANYTHING. She talks about things (which affect my daughter and/or myself) with my husband, and then they INFORM me (they don't ask or consult)."
6. "If she seems inappropriate when you first meet, it will not get better. My MIL was loud, obnoxious, and difficult to be around when I first started dating my husband, and she's only gotten worse. Time has only made it 'easier' for her to 'be herself' because family (including me) were good at acting 'tolerant' of her bad behavior. Whenever my husband or MIL's mother tries to calmly explain that 'the family doesn't want to hear about how many times you've peed yourself today,' she goes off on a sobbing rant of 'Why can't I just be accepted for who I am?!' to the point that she'll sometimes threaten suicide."
7. "When my now-husband moved in with me, his mom wasn't pleased, and this led her to go on a tirade about me, including blaming me for his depression. The depression he's had for most of his life. Then, when we were doing our wedding registry, she was upset about the fact that we put certain items on our registry. She berated us for about 20 minutes and the phrase 'Well, I don't know how she was raised' was thrown around. As I've watched how my MIL sometimes disregards what my sister-in-law (her own daughter) says about my niece, I know that once babies enter the picture, things will be a problem."
8. "My MIL pulled a completely different face out of her pocket the minute my husband and his dad left the room to intimidate me into revealing information about her son and ask me about 'my intentions.' She literally said, 'You have to get close to the girl. She’ll tell you everything' while stirring tea like in the movie Get Out and looking into my eyes. To add to that, she is a white hippy woman, and I’m Black. On one occasion, she asked about what it was like growing up in a big family, and I described fun chaos with infinite fights over leftovers and mentioned 'my poor mom.' She said, 'I know a woman with a lot of kids. Her house was disgusting. I don’t know how anyone can do that. I could never,' with a look of disgust on her face."
9. "She walked in my house that my husband picked out, while I was inside a kitchen cabinet getting it ready for refinishing, and told my helper, 'I can't believe she moved him into this dump!' Yeah, there's a reason he's my ex."
10. "Never referring to you by name or directly. My MIL always talks to my husband ABOUT me even when I'm right there."
11. "We have been together for almost four years now. My MIL refused to recognize our relationship and has called me his 'girlfriend' SEVERAL times after our engagement. She told him it wasn't a good idea for us to buy a house together and that he should wait longer to do so. We secretly eloped last year and are wedding planning now. She has mentioned many times that I seem to want this (marriage) more than he does...little does she know that he's the one that took me to the courthouse."
12. "If he'd try to get off of the phone because we were in the middle of a date, his mom would try to guilt him to stay on the line, saying things like 'It's fine, you don't want to talk to me, I get it.' Now, she's at our home so often, she's attempted to act like she lives with us. She'd SHOWER at our house instead of at her own. Whenever her roommate would go on vacation, she'd assume she was SLEEPING OVER at our place so she didn't get 'too lonely.' We're now expecting our first child. She has already directly gone against my wishes; I can't help but worry that she's going to actively put my child in danger because she doesn't want to do as I ask and 'be wrong.' She SAYS she won't undermine our parenting, but I don't believe it. If you sense ANY red flags early on, just run because they're only going to get 'redder' when she drops the guise of 'behaving' in front of you."
13. "Not me but my friend from work. She went to her boyfriend's house for the first time for a backyard barbecue. His mom was disappointed that she wasn't the same nationality as they were, but knew it was serious because it was the first time he had brought a girl over to meet the family. My friend asked her (as it turned out) future mother-in-law where the bathroom was. The woman answered: 'In the house.' She wasn't joking."
14. "My MIL showed me pictures of my husband's ex-girlfriend the first time we met and compared me to the ex in every way imaginable throughout the night. My husband later told me that his mom didn’t even like his ex and was equally awful to her. Love my husband, and I have no regrets marrying him, but my MIL is a piece of work."
15. "She cries to manipulate him and is always the victim! Always calls him, meddles in, and thinks you’re never good enough for him. Will sweet talk him and is just the sweet and concerned mom. Sides with him no matter what and is all her kids' best friend. Tells them only what they want to hear to their face and makes nasty side comments about their spouse with an innocent smile, yet sends them loving messages all the time since she’s full of 'love.'"
16. "When I was heavily pregnant and veryyy emotional, and during a 'casual' chat while my then-boyfriend was at work, his mom told me she hated the name I chose for my child. I named him after my deceased father. Not to mention, this is the same woman who threw a baby shower with all of her friends, and when I asked where my family was, I got called ungrateful."
17. "She doesn’t like you, and he doesn’t stick up for you. Girl, run!!! Or, if she cries to manipulate him, or if she ignores you."
18. And finally, "Don’t put up with jealousy. My MIL was jealous I was really skinny and fit. Every morning (we lived together), she would tell me how unfair it was as she would eat waffles, and I would have a smoothie. A couple of months into living together, I started to put on a lot of weight. I went from 115 pounds to 140 in a few months. I was super concerned; so was my husband. My mental health went down as I wasn’t comfortable in my body and was covered in new stretch marks. I went to my doctor, and he told me I was pre-diabetic."
