My mother-in-law is… a bit of a character. She’s not a bad person, per se. But for some reason, she just doesn’t seem to like me — or rather, she doesn’t seem to like the decisions I make. She always questions the decisions I make. Yet she also clearly favours my sister-in-law. She can make the exact same decision as me or buy the same thing as me, but [Mother-In-Law] will question me for it while praising [Sister-In-Law] for it.

Other than this odd quirk of hers, she’s a perfectly fine person. She dotes on all her grandkids equally and is otherwise civil and well-behaved.

One day, [Mother-In-Law] is over, dropping our kids off after taking them out for the day so we could finish redecorating the kitchen.

We’ve almost finished, so we show her what we’ve done. Things go well until she sees that we have purchased an electric tin opener.

Mother-In-Law: “Why did you get an electric one? What if the power goes out?”

Me: “We have good old-fashioned ones in the drawer just in case.”

Mother-In-Law: “Well, then, why do you need an electric one? It just seems so wasteful.”

On and on she goes, making one disparaging remark after another about the tin opener. Eventually, my husband tells her to cut it out; it’s our house, our money, and our decision. 

I’m fortunate that pretty much everyone in the family will call her out on her nonsense — even my father-in-law. Whenever it happens, [Mother-In-Law] waves it off and says we’re reading too much into it, or we’re being too sensitive, and she was just trying to help.

A few weeks later, we’re over at [Sister-In-Law]’s house for a barbeque. I’m with [Mother-In-Law] and [Sister-In-Law] in the kitchen helping to put together the side dishes. That’s when I notice that [Sister-In-Law] has bought the exact same electric tin opener as me. We lock eyes and she grins mischievously. I know what she’s about to do, so I play along.

Me: “Oh, is that a new tin opener?”

Sister-In-Law: “Yes, I just bought it.”

[Mother-in-law] turns, looks at the tin opener, and smiles.

Mother-In-Law: “Oh, what a nifty little thing. It fits in so well with the kitchen. And it’ll be so much easier to open tins.”

Me: “Oh, but what if the power goes out?”

Mother-In-Law: “Nonsense. I’m sure she’s got manual ones in the drawer just in case.”

Sister-In-Law: “Oh, so you like it?”

Mother-In-Law: “Yes, it’s lovely.”

Sister-In-Law: “That’s strange. It’s the same one [My Name] bought. And you didn’t like it very much.”

Seeing she had been called out, [Mother-In-Law] stormed out without a word. After she had sulked for a while, she acted like nothing had happened.

No, she didn’t learn anything. To this day, no matter how many times she is called out, she still does it.

Now, I may have painted her like a monster, but as I said, other than this bizarre quirk of hers, she’s okay. In fact, she even took care of me during my difficult pregnancy with our second child. She just seems to have issues with certain things I choose to do or choose to buy.

Nobody can figure out why she does it. [Sister-In-Law] is my husband’s brother’s wife, so it’s not like the favouritism stems from the fact that [Sister-In-Law] is her biological daughter. The two don’t even have that much in common. If anything, [Mother-In-Law] and I have more in common. We support the same football team, we read the same sort of books, and we even share a few hobbies. So, your guess is as good as mine.

My nine-year-old niece is an amputee. About four years ago, she was involved in a car accident which caused her right arm to be amputated below the elbow and her right leg to be amputated above the knee. My sister is a single mom and works a very demanding job, so [Niece] often stays with us, whether it’s for a few hours or a night or weeks at a time. She gets along very well with my kids, boy-girl twins just a year older than her. 

Last year, [Sister] had to travel around Thanksgiving for work. [Niece] is here often enough that my in-laws consider her their “honorary granddaughter”, so it was only natural that they invited her to Thanksgiving at their house. Thanksgiving consisted of my family, [Niece], my in-laws, my husband’s sister, her kids, my husband’s brother, and my husband’s two aunts — his father’s younger sisters.

My husband’s sister and parents had met [Niece] before; his brother and aunts hadn’t. His aunts can be a bit nosy, and they comment about everything, getting into everyone’s business. I’d never been a fan, but my husband’s family mostly tolerated it. I could easily imagine them making weird statements about [Niece] about how she eats a lot of food, how skinny she is (moving a prosthetic leg with a knee joint is a lot of work, and she needs a lot of energy to keep it up), or the different ways she’s adapted to eat with one arm.

I’ve already yelled at them about saying stuff about my kids — that they’re too pale and should go outside more, or that they’re too young to have glasses and should go outside more. (Both are statements that also apply to [Niece].) [Niece] is pretty shy and sensitive, and understandably, she dislikes when other people stare at her or make rude remarks.

My husband and I decided to head off his aunts by letting them know first that [Niece] was an amputee and to refrain from their usual comments. I think we could have been gentler with our warning. Both aunts got very offended.

One of them refused to attend Thanksgiving. The other one showed up. She was there when we arrived, and from that moment, she started making a big deal about how offended she was that we would even suggest that she’d make rude comments — all while making exactly the sort of comments we were afraid she’d make. She wouldn’t stop complaining. She insulted my husband and me to our faces for offending her.

While my mother-in-law was in the kitchen by herself, my husband’s fifteen-year-old niece took the other kids outside, and my father-in-law laid down the law. He told [Aunt] she had one chance to prove she could handle Thanksgiving. The next words out of her mouth were an “apology” where she referred to my niece as “the cripple”. (Luckily, the kids were well outside at this point.) My father-in-law kicked her out before any food had even been served.

[Niece] felt super bad that she had “ruined” everyone’s Thanksgiving. Literally no one felt that way, and others kept trying to convince her that she was actually completely in the right, but [Niece] wouldn’t listen and spent about ten minutes gently crying in my son’s chest. It seemed to be very overwhelming for her, so after a quick and quiet meal, we left early.

A few days later, when [Sister] came back, [Niece] still blamed herself, despite my and [Sister]’s best efforts.

Only two weeks after Thanksgiving, my father-in-law sent [Niece] an invitation for Thanksgiving the next year, promising that “Ol’ Grand-Auntie Meanieface” wouldn’t be in attendance. After that, she felt much better.

We just had Thanksgiving yesterday, with [Sister] and [Niece] both invited, and [Niece] had a lovely time. My father-in-law revealed that he finally stopped talking to [Aunt] and barely talks to the aunt who didn’t attend, saying what had happened with [Niece] was the final straw.

This story reminded me of when I told my brother-in-law that my sister was giving birth. I called him on speakerphone from my sister’s room.

Me: “Hey, [Brother-In-Law], come to the hospital quick! [Sister] is giving birth now! 

Brother-In-Law: *In a panic* “What?! She’s giving birth? To a baby?”

My sister looked enraged at the phone. 

Me: “No, a puppy. Of course, it’s a baby. Now, if you want to live to meet your kid, I suggest you hurry up before she murders you.”

From the water breaking to the baby coming out, it was less than an hour.

My husband invited his siblings over for dinner and a game night. I cleaned up the food while they set up a game in the other room. I had a migraine coming on, so I excused myself to lie down. A few minutes passed before I heard them yelling. 

Sister: “No, that’s not how you play that card!”

Brother: “Yes, it is! Just read it!”

Me: *Texting my husband* “Please keep it down? My head is pounding.”

Husband: *From the other room* “Guys, lower your voices. [My Name] has a headache.”

A few minutes passed.

Brother: “You’re cheating! Stop!”

Sister: *Louder* “I am not! You—”

Husband: “Stop yelling or you’re leaving! It’s a card game.”

I laughed at the irony of my husband yelling at them to stop yelling, but they quieted down again — for a few minutes.

Brother: “I quit! I’m not playing with her if she—”

Husband: “That’s it. Everybody out.”

Brother: “Why?”

Husband: “You have been warned twice to stop yelling and you continue. Go home.”

Sister: *Still yelling* “Yeah, but—”

Husband: “No. Trust me when I say you do not want [My Name] to come out here with her migraine.”

Brother: *Yelling* “If [Sister] would just play fair, it—”

I stomped out, wrapped in my blanket.

Me: “SHUT. THE. F***. UP. Get out of my house. Get out right now.”

Sister: “No, but—”

Me: “I fed you, I cleaned up after you, you were told repeatedly to keep it down, and you’re still screaming. Shut the f*** up and leave.”

All three of them stared at the table.

Sister: *Quietly* “We’ll be quiet. I’m sorry. Whose turn is it?”

Me: “No, you can come back another day. I’m not dealing with any more sound tonight.”

Husband: “Go on, guys. I’ll clean up the game.”

They both left, heads low. [Husband] cleaned up the game and came to bed with a bottle of water.

The next day, both siblings texted an apology and asked if they could come back for another dinner and game night. They brought pizza, cleaned up after themselves, and kept it down!

This happened about thirty years ago when our children were toddlers. My husband was an E5 in the Air Force and I was a stay-at-home mom, so money was tight, to say the least. My mother-in-law was coming to visit for the first time since my father-in-law had passed, and we wanted her to have a nice time, so we squeezed the budget relentlessly for months to have some extra funds while she was here.

[Mother-In-Law]’s lifelong friend was a snowbird with a winter place in Port Richey about an hour away, and we invited her to dinner so the “girls” could catch up. Dinner went well, and as beverages were enjoyed, [Friend] crashed on our couch. 

The next morning over breakfast, we made plans to visit Coquina Beach to search for shark teeth. This sounded great to [Friend], and she decided to join us. We covered all expenses, including lunch at a nice restaurant on the pier. By the time we got home, cleaned up, and enjoyed the stew I had left in the crock-pot, we were tired, and [Friend] crashed on our couch.

The next morning over breakfast, we were making plans to go to the Dali Museum in Saint Petersburg. This sounded wonderful to [Friend] so she accompanied us. We covered entry fees and lunch at a nice restaurant.

Rinse and repeat for nine days. [Friend] never offered to buy groceries or pick up a tab. We had worked hard to be prepared for one extra person; having two was devastating our budget. 

On the morning of the ninth day, I asked [Friend] if she thought she would be here for dinner as the roast I had planned was not adequate. [Friend] was furious and offended that I would say such a thing to my mother-in-law’s oldest friend. She stormed out. 

She never spoke to me again.