The Mothers in Law

Even before my wife and I started to think about kids, her mother has wanted us to name a son after her father. Let's say the name is Sherman. It's not actually Sherman, but think of something equally... generational. Or old-fashioned, perhaps. The important thing is, from day one, I have absolutely hated the name.

At the end of 2020, my wife and I welcomed a baby boy to the world. Hooray! But since the day we announced the gender, her mother ramped up the Sherman campaign. You might even say it was to the point of scorched earth. Luckily my wife and I gave each other 10 "no questions asked rejects" when it came to names. Obviously Sherman was the first to go. Ultimately we named our son something we both really liked... let's say his name is Alexander.

Over the past three months, my mother-in-law has been a constant presence. In the beginning, that was a really nice thing. Having an extra pair of hands was a godsend when the wife was waking up every hour to breastfeed and I was doing laundry, bottles, and 5sing on a never-ending loop. And frankly, it continues to help - she makes us dinner, she takes care of the baby, etc.

But you can probably guess where this story is going. With increasing frequency over the last few weeks, she's taking to calling our son "Sherm" or "Lil Sherm". She never calls him Alexander or Alex. The first dozen times I let it slide. The next dozen times it started to grate on me. The next dozen times, I started to remind her to call him by the right now in a joking way. The next dozen times, I reminded her in a matter of fact way to call him the right name. All throughout, I've told the wife about my building annoyance . We have a tacit agreement that we would handle our own families and she said she would talk to her mother about it. To be honest, I don't know when she did or how forceful she was, but clearly nothing had changed.

Today, I blew up at my mother-in-law. I told her how disrespectful it was to me and Alex that she continued to call him by the wrong name. That I didn't want him to be confused about his actual name. That she should call him by his real name or not come by anymore.

She didn't really say much in response. I think she said something about how she's just been trying to help. She got her things, said bye to my wife, and left. My wife thinks I'm overreacting. She says it's just a nickname - no different from "buddy" or "pal". Now she's especially upset because there's more stu

So I had a baby in September. She’s the first grandchild on either side so obviously everyone is all over her. We’ll call my baby Daisy

Both my parents and my in laws gave us different outfits for thanksgiving at different times. My parents gave me a little onesie and a overall dress with a turkey on it. It was pretty cute.

My mother in law on the other hand gave us a onesie and a pair of pants, and the onesie said “I’m here because moms turkey got stuffed.” (I actually got rid of it because that’s gross)

We decided to split thanksgiving between the houses (everyone quarantined beforehand, tested negative, etc) and my mother in law immediately saw that Daisy wasn’t wearing the shirt she bought, and asked what had happened. I tried to dodge the question because I don’t want to cause a tense situation, but my mother in law kept badgering me about it, not even wanting to hold Daisy because she wasn’t wearing her outfit.

Thanksgiving lunch was really tense and when we left, my mother in law texted me and said it was very rude that Daisy wasn’t wearing the outfit she bought her and demanded to know why. I finally told her it was because I didn’t want to put my 2 month old in a shirt that had a sexual innuendo on it, and looking back at photos of her first holiday, I didn’t want that outfit involved. She called me a killjoy and rude so I just left her on read.

I feel like I’m the asshole because i could have just humored her for an hour and not have documented the outfit and that it was a gift.

My fiancé says he supported not putting Daisy in the outfit, and that it made him feel gross too.

Am I the asshole?

Edit: I realize I called him my fiancé in the post, but we got married last month. I’m just not used to saying husband yet. Just to clarify if i call him the 2 interchangeably. It’s an adjustment

Title might be confusing but hear me out.

When me and husband are at MIL's place, she cooks 80% of the time. I get that it's her house, her rules. But, when food is ready, she always keeps tasting it, and serving it with the same spoon on our plates. I hate that.

This weekend hubby and I made a super delicious dinner, and I took it out of the oven and left it to rest. Next thing when I'm coming back to the kitchen, MIL stands there and eats directly from the pot. I don't only find it improper and disgusting, but it's absolutely not acceptable for me eating directly from a food what's everyones. I just don't wanna eat from the same pot, same bowl whatever as she eats. Why she can't just take a portion to a plate and eat from there?

My husband doesn't see anything wrong with it, of course she raised him this way... But for me, it's disgusting. Am I overreacting? I don't wanna be rude, because she does her way, but next time I will see that she sticks her saliva-wrapped spoon in my food I'm gonna refuse to eat. Am I not reasonable here? How can I address it without being rude?

Tl;dr: My mother in law keeps eating in the same food as us, and I find it disgusting. Husband says it's okay. How can I address this issue?

Update..

Some of you may have seen my previous post.

TD;LR my mom (65F) often talks about my husband (34M) in a negative way. Whether it's his weight or that he is disrespectful to her. My husband has been snarky with her yes. But it comes from a place of feeling domineered in his own home. So from his side there is dislike and a lack of respect.

She made a comment implying that because of my husband.. she is very worried about me and our daughter.

(Thank you so much for reading this.)

We flew my parents down for christmas.

My mom was dominating and being very intense and it was just a disaster. My husband wasnt having any of it.

To cut a long story short

We were on our way home from the park and my mom (after I asked her to just be understanding that my toddler is tired so please dont get annoyed if she gets cranky.. because her and my dad had very annoyed faces when she had a bit of a tantrum.)

So in response to this she started having a melt down in the car on the way home. 95% about my husband and how rude he is to her and immediately after that she said "I am very worried about you and (my daughters name)!

She was emotional she was talking about my husband and it fits 100% with the context of what she was saying that she was referring to my husband.

So I just said.. Please stop it now.

And the car ride home was silent besides me directing my dad on how to get home.

My dad was driving and he said nothing. I remember the conversation and everything perfectly clearly.

Anyway we got home and I put my daughter to sleep. I told my mom this isnt working and that im going to fly them home earlier.

I also let my mom know in response to what she said in the car.. I adore my husband. And that I am very happy and I have a great life because of my husband.

She then continued about snarky comments made and and I said I'm not discussing my husband further etc etc.. and she then started sobbing because of financial problems they have.

I will leave in a comment exactly what happened that led to that comment of my mom about her being worried and why I am sure she was referring to my husband if you did not see my previous post.

Anyway, My husband left the family whatsapp group. Blocked their numbers.

A couple days later I sent my mom a message explaining that I need her to take responsibility for what she did. I told her I told my husband because I felt it was something I couldnt keep from him and that I cant have her implying things in a neg

So my mother in law has a life long record of taking drugs and stealing. One day, years ago, I told me wife it was the last straw for me and that I want nothing to do with her mother. I continued to get along with her for my wife's sake. It's her mother and I can u derstand she still wants her in her life. I don't like it but I do it for her.

Yesterday, while I was at work, I received a message off my wife that just said "my mums staying with us tonight". Her mother had been living with her nanna who kicked her out after a disagreement. I told my wife she could stay one night but told her I wasn't happy about it and didn't want to stay under the same roof as her, so I decided I would sleep on my sisters couch for the night.

When I asked why her mother couldn't stay with her boyfriend, she simply replied "because she doesn't want to".

Now my wife has said that because I decided to stay out for the night not to bother coming back. She says I'm out of order for staying out and for expecting her mum to live on the streets.

It now seems her mum is there to stay, and my wife has told me not to bother returning. When I said I wanted to see my kids and she can't keep them from me, she accused me of twisting things.

Am I really the asshole for not wanting to stay there while she stayed? And Am I the ass hole for not wanting her to stay any longer?

So I'm mexican, grew up with my mom telling me all the white people hated us because to them anyone whos not white is trash. She was not happy (in the beginning) that my then boyfriend now husband was white and explicitly told me that if I ever went anywhere near his mom i was to act like I was in the presence of the queen so she wouldn't call the cops on me to have me deported (which wouldn't have happened because I was born here).

Why am I telling you this? Well because I ended up marrying the man and obviously got close to his mom (as in a spent a lot of time in her house) and she very quickly noticed how uncomfortable I was around her and mentioned to hubby. He explained to her why and she decided to prove me and my mom wrong about her alleged racism by telling me the story of the one time she had to deal with racists herself

You see, mother in law wasn't just any server, she was one of the top servers at one of the top chains of semi-luxurious restaurants, so obviously a lot of the people that went in were well-enough off and thought they were untouchable and could get away with anything.

So in comes this table who decides their server is just a little too black. They take it upon themselves to let the poor young man know just how much his blackness bothered them before demanding a new server. Child goes to the back and (like everyone else who's ever worked in a restaurant) starts venting on his way to a manager.

My mother in law, a petite, blonde-haired, green-eyed white lady, hears this and walks behind the kid to let the manager know that she'll be taking the table.

And so she does, with her manager off to the side watching. She goes out there, gives them her best smile and friendliest greetings. She asked if they've been there before and they say yes and they'll just be ordering their favorite dishes. She says ok and waits for them to order, but doesn't write anything down.

One of the well off ladies notices and asks if she really has a good memory as this is an a la carte place, they all have orders on the large side and there's at least five people. How does my mother in law respond?? :

MIL: I don't need to write your order because I won't be putting it in. I just wanted to show you how a decent human being is supposed to treat others, even when they don't like the other person.

With that she turned around to walk away. They stop her to demand the big boss in the building, to which she responded to by pointing out her manager: the big

We had our little one and it was only my wife and I. Due to birth complications I was the one taking care of the baby for for 2.5 months. I was the one making and feeding formula, cleaning poop etc. He also had gas problems because of which he needed a lot of comforting. By the time my in-laws arrived, I had really good bonding with the child. I was training him to be self reliant since his gas issues were gone. He had started sleeping in the crib without a fuss.

Now I have rejoined work and my MIL has taken over. For the most part I really like it and am happy they are here. They don't speak the same language as I do and the only way for us to communicate is in english in which her proficiency is limited.

Now coming to the problem. She refuses to put the baby down. He sleeps on her and is constantly over fed. He is being fed every hour which means he drinks less per feed. This is problematic since we need him to increase his appetite because looking at the data I can see that he sleeps longer if his night time feed is bigger.

I have brought this up with my wife who is on the same page. She brought it up with MIL who then started crying(like actual tears). I really want our child to be self reliant. But they have a different mindset and I'm unsure if I'm being too involved in this and should leave it be of if I should put my foot down.

I'm also worried that after this when my parents arrive if they do things that irk my spouse she will then give me raising this as an example.

Am I being an asshole here reddit?

EDIT:
Just to add, I work from home so I am always there and I can see this happen so it drives me extra insane.

Well. There you have it. We've known for a while but things were looking pretty good. Now she's going to have to stop chemo because her GI is destroyed due to the chemo and its a fast acting bone cancer.

I'm due 4/2, which is a long time away when you're at the end of your life, but MIL and FIL have decided that they will catch a redeye (assuming she's able, and I realize thats a big assumption, but they're also planning on taking the do-or-die approach, since its her only shot) as soon as it happens in order to meet the baby.

Obviously the big issue here is Covid. My own mom, who will be fully vaccinated for Covid by then, isn't coming up until the baby is closer to 3 weeks old, and will be quarantining and testing.

My husband thinks it'll be okay, and I feel kind of stuck here. This is her only chance to meet her grandchild before she dies and any day could mean the difference between being able to come and being unable to. But I'm also terrified.

I don't even know what I'm trying to get here, if I want advice or not. I'm just so devastated at the entire situation and I feel so broken.

I am dealing with the most jealous woman on the planet. This MIL copies everything that her daughter & I do, get, buy, eat, you mane it. She haw to have whatever we have, even thought she does not even know what it is. On more than one occasion my wife & I have discussed something that we want within earshot of her3 and she says "I want one... what is it?" That just about sums it up. We order something through the drive through, she asks what my wife is ordering and copies the same order. Then she put it into the refrigerator at home (where she lives with us 7 has been for the past 2 years), until it spoils and she throws it away. It does not mater if she uses it, eats it, as long as she has what we have is all that matters. She has even gotten the same thing that we have, but insists that the one we have is better and that the one we have is better than hers, even though it is the exact same thing. Any time she gets something and we get something similar after she says "that is the one I wanted".

This, in addition to her constant lying, pretentious attitude, & she will throw my wife under the bus at a moments notice to make herself look good is an all day every day process. She is 75 years old, still stuffs her bra, wears butt padding, all to compete with the way my wife looks.

I knew that there would be no bar that she would not crawl under when I saw her steal her 9 year old nephews blinking Rudolph nose to put on her own dear statue one Christmas. Things have mysteriously vanished from our house when they have been something that she wants but can't get. She will use our condiments & put them away completely empty & deny that she ever used them. She has gotten ready to throw stuff away that she no longer has interest in & when she finds out that my wife would like them, because they were still in the box, brand new, never used but she has grown tired of them, she will either hide them or "change her mind' about giving them to my wife.

When my wife & I were first dating, we went to a discount department store & I caught her mother peaking around the corner to see what my wife was interested in, whatever item she picked up and as soon as my wife put it back (because she could not afford it) She rushes over & grabs it, buys it, and shoves it in my wifes face to show her that she got it, then throws it in a closet, or box never to be seen again. The only reason she gets up in the morning is to try to make everyone a

https://imgur.com/a/rJj41GS

My mother-in-law has been gifting me various fermented and pickled foods since she knows I like them. Christmas got me pickled quail eggs and extremely spicy pickles, and my birthday has left me with a tin of Surströmming -- fermented Swedish herring.

Have any folks here partaken (perhaps enjoyed) Surströmming and have any advice on how to prep and/or eat it? Double points if anyone has made their own -- I certainly won't be but I'd love to hear about it.

My sister gave me some advice tonight I am pondering.

Background - Like many of you, I have a strained relationship with my mother in law. She isn't awful, and she probably has good intentions, but she has done some weird things over the years - either thoughtless things, annoying things, or mildly hurtful things. My husband unfortunately doesn't seem to "go to bat" for me. Partly because he is not a confrontational person, but mostly he feels that thus far she hasn't done anything egregious and he feels she just isn't aware of how she comes across. And honestly, he is probably right. She is just a weird person who we both believe does have good intentions. So he probably hasn't felt the need to really call her out. I, on the other hand, am totally transparent in my relationships and if something pisses me off I will say it! As a result I am constantly feeling like I want to call her out - but I generally don't. I usually just seethe about it and complain to my husband.

Today I decided it isn't healthy for me to seethe so I drafted a letter to my MIL about a recent situation I am pissed about and sent it to my sister. Her advice to me was this: "DO NOT send that letter. Do not go to bat with your mother in law. It is never worth it. Let your husband do the battling." I said, "What if he doesn't go to battle?" She says, "He hasn't gone to battle because he is a peacemaker but also because he probably feels she hasn't done anything malicious - just annoying or mildly hurtful things. When she does do something awful, just have faith that he will stand up for you. But your job is to keep the peace with your in laws and put on a smiling face because that is best for your marriage. How would you feel if he wrote a letter like that to Mom or Dad?" I told her that I would be pissed. She said, "Exactly. You don't want to be the problem daughter in law. If you create drama and tension it might never be something you come back on. Blood is thicker than water. They will forgive him if he attacks them but they may never forgive you." She also told me that the best thing to do with my in laws is ask myself "Is what I am doing bringing us one step closer together or further apart?" She also really emphasized that I need to focus on making peace with my in laws for my marriage's sake, grit my teeth and bear it while realizing it's what it best for my husband that we have peaceful relationships.

What do you guys think of her advice? I am thinking of taking it.

Flo Barnett - Shelly's mom

How did Flo Barnett managed to shoot herself three times in the chest and once in the head — with a long rifle — in what the County Medical Examiner ruled was a suicide.

We got a call in the middle of the night that my mother-in-law (f 70) died. It was very unexpected - massive heart attack in her sleep. By sunrise me (m 48) and my wife (f 46) were making the 3 hours drive to MILs house to convene with my wife's siblings. FIL died a few years ago. We spent the day mourning, looking at photos, and making calls to friends and family. At bedtime my wife (f 46) announced she wanted to sleep in her mother's bed. I had assumed we would use the guest bedroom. The idea of sleeping in the same bed my MIL had died in less than 24 hours previously was horrible to me. It just gave me the willies on so many levels. So I politely asked if my wife was sure about this. She was. I expressed my apprehension. She was unsympathetic. She'd sleep there alone. Sure, fine, whatever, she said. And so that's what we did. The next morning she said she slept well and the topic of me sleeping in the guest room didn't come up. We drove home that afternoon. About a week later my wife told me how hurt she was that I didn't join her in her mother's bed. She said it was the most insensitive thing I've done in 18 years being married. She feels her need for comfort should have outweighed my apprehension and I should have sucked it up to support her. And that I am the Asshole for it. I do feel bad about not being there for her, but I don't agree it was an asshole move. I think it was creepy to sleep in that bed and expecting me to sleep there was unreasonable. What say you?