14 In-Law Horror Stories That Will Make You Rethink Family Gatherings

A few weeks ago, I wrote a Reddit round-up about badly behaved in-laws. At the end of the post, I invited the BuzzFeed Community to weigh in with their own experiences, and y'all BROUGHT IT.

And because I'm a *well-behaved-writer* (or, at least, try to be), I won't make you wait to get to the stories.

So here are 14 more anecdotes about people's in-laws doing and saying things they absolutely should not have.

1. "My mother-in-law invited a date for my husband to our wedding reception because 'we would never make it.'"

"We have now been married 50 years."

—Anonymous

2. "Early in my marriage, my in-laws came to visit. My husband and I slept on a sofa bed in the living room and gave them our room. I’d gotten up one morning to start breakfast. My mother-in-law came out of her room and got into bed next to my husband (who wasn’t wearing any clothing). She looked at me and asked, 'Jealous?' as my husband grabbed as much bedding as possible to tuck around him."

"We've now been married 29 years. It helps that they live far away, and we rarely see them.

(Also, the ONLY time she smiled in any wedding photos was in the one she took with my husband, just the two of them)."

—Carol, 54, Illinois

3. "There are two things my ex-husband’s family did that were very strange to me right off the bat. First, during our wedding reception, my in-laws' entire family went to my condo, which my new husband was moving into with me, and trashed it with supposedly 'funny prank things.' They covered all toilet seats, handles, and faucets with Vaseline. They filled our entire bedroom with wadded-up old newspaper, covering the floor, bed, and furniture. They opened and emptied all dry goods in the kitchen, all over the floor, removed all light bulbs, etc., etc., etc."

"I burst into tears when we went to the condo after the wedding to pick up our suitcases for our honeymoon. They had left messages on all the mirrors in my lipstick about how funny the pranks were and how much fun I would have cleaning it up after our trip. I don’t get how this was funny.

Then, when we visited them on our first Christmas as a married couple in their home, we opened gifts, and we were given sets of sheets from all his relatives. Nothing but sheets for the bed. All sheets were strange patterns, like for kids, with Disney prints and pictures of pigs. We had no kids. When I looked confused at my mother-in-law, she said, 'I asked you once if you needed anything for your condo, and you said sheets, so I told everyone that is all you wanted for Christmas.'

I never remember having any conversation like that. Everyone else got beautiful jewelry and new phones, and we gave everyone expensive, thoughtful gifts. I took home five sets of kids' sheets.

I did not see my ex-husband's family often due to living several thousand miles apart, but every time I did, they made sure to pull some similar strange stuff.

My ex has had four wives now, and they all apparently complained to him about his family and their passive-aggressive attitude toward his wives."

—Anonymous

4. "When I was 16, I dated a family friend's son for almost two years; during that time, the family friend (my ex's dad) would smack me on the butt whenever my family came over. it stopped as soon as I dumped the ex."

"I still see them, and it still grosses me out."

— silvercaptain30

5. "My ex-boyfriend's dad once told his WHOLE family (extended family, family friends, etc.) that I was pregnant at a BBQ. I was really just very hungover and couldn't keep any food down that day. Later, he said he had said it as a joke. Yeah, so funny."

— paleurs

6. "My mom’s in-laws initially despised her because my dad was marrying 'beneath his class,' to the point where they not only disowned my dad and stopped talking to him, they didn’t even tell him when his father (who he had been very close to) passed away. Instead, he had to hear about it secondhand months later."

— gaelicmaiden

7. "My mother-in-law told me that I was too controlling and I had no right to tell my child what to do."

"We had asked her not to buy any more black push-up bras for our 10-year-old daughter (that made me 'too controlling'), and we told our daughter not to lie (she said I had no right to tell my child that)."

— britb4319b7e9e

8. "I got pregnant a few months after having COVID (this was in 2021). My boyfriend's mother tried to convince him that the baby wasn't his and that I had been using my mandatory quarantine period to sleep with other men while my boyfriend stayed out of the house..."

"Fortunately, he did not believe her!"

—Anonymous

9. "My fiancé passed earlier this year. We have a two-year-old together. Friends and family rallied together to raise money for funeral expenses and then for us. But my mother-in-law assumed the money would go to her and has kept all the ashes."

"She accused me of manipulating people and harassed my family and me. Not only has our child lost their father, but now the rest of the family, too."

— pasteltrout84

10. "My friend is still married to his wife — they recently had a baby shower for their first baby. The whole time, his mother-in-law was yapping away and crying about how the baby was going to destroy her mother-daughter bond with her daughter. She also cornered my friend's mom and said she hates him because he isn't good enough for her daughter."

"Eventually, she was told to stop, or she'd be kicked out. She spent the rest of the party sulking in a corner and drinking wine.

It's also not the first problem they've had with his in-laws. One afternoon, his mother-in-law let herself into their house and had the gall to be mad when she scared my friend's daughter, who was home alone. My friend's mother-in-law was told to leave and call ahead if she wanted to visit.

I'm hoping my friend's wife will be able to stand up to her parents at some point. She is a lovely person, but her parents constantly ruin any celebrations they're invited to because they don't like my friend and are upset that their daughter is a grown adult."

—Anonymous

11. "The worst thing my in-laws do is bring up politics."

"We are polar opposites when it comes to politics. They can say some pretty offensive things, but they also listen to what I have to say. They're just trying to get me to 'see the light.' It's never going to happen. I feel trapped sometimes in those conversations. I hate it."

— hiddencake55

12. "My ex-mother-in-law invited my then-husband, our daughter, and me to spend Thanksgiving in Arizona, where my then-sister-in-law lived. The mother-in-law said she would take care of all the expenses, which meant that while she and the father-in-law stayed at a fancy B&B, my family was dropped off at the sister-in-law's house. I tried to be grateful; however, I knew the trip was doomed when the first thing the sister-in-law did when we entered the house was scream, 'Shut the f*****g door!'"

"The sister-in-law’s behavior was beyond toxic. She screamed at my then-one-year-old daughter every day for being a one-year-old. She screamed so much that her son had a seizure during the trip due to the stress she caused.

My daughter cried every night because the sister-in-law treated her so badly. The sister-in-law had enough of my daughter’s crying after a couple of nights and kicked a ONE-YEAR-OLD out of her house! We gladly left.

I haven’t seen the psycho since, and my life is better for it."

—Anonymous, Eden Prairie, Minnesota

13. "When my parents got engaged, they went to my dad’s house to tell his parents. His dad said to them, 'It’ll never last.' They just celebrated 31 years."

— hoped407afcd59

14. "My mother-in-law didn’t care for me because I was not as good as my wife’s previous boyfriend. She talked about him all the time. I let it roll off my back. She came to our apartment for X-mas (she’s divorced). It was just the three of us. She gave my wife a cash present and told her, 'That’s so you can move out and get rid of THIS one.'"

"I didn’t argue. I just went to another room to cool off.

Happy ending, though. In a couple of years, we became close. She had anger issues."

—Anonymous

Okay, so sometimes it can get better (yay...). How about you? Do you love your in-laws? Hate them? Tell me about your experiences in the comments or via this Google Form if you would prefer to remain anonymous. Your responses could be featured in a BuzzFeed Community post

Some entries may have been edited for length/clarity.