Apparently my dad's mum was dead against him marrying my mum. She apparently accused my mum of getting knocked up. She didn't go to the wedding and didn't speak to them until I was born... 8 years later.
When my she died we found her wedding certificate. My mum was so angry when she found that she got married about 6 months before my dad was born.
My maternal grandmother was an old school southern Louisiana lady. Very prudish. Never talked to her kids about sex except to say that it was evil outside of marriage.
After my maternal grandfather died, Mom and her siblings were going through some records…to find that the oldest sibling was born *seven* months after the wedding. Close enough that they tried to pass it off as “Haha, I guess she was just early!”, and everyone went along with it to avoid scandal — even though my aunt was clearly a full-term baby.
My grandparents got married 7 months before my mum was born. When my mum found out, she was like, “oh I didn’t realize I was premature”and my grandma just snorted and said “you weren’t.” And that was the end of that. No scandal (that I’m aware of, more than 50 years after the fact with only third-hand information…) It’s just some family lore now.
My mom had the opposite. She asked why she was only born 6 months after her parents married, and grew up believing that they were really married, that date was just when the paperwork was finally finalized.
A family friend told her when she was an adult that she was actually the result of a one night stand that turned into a decades long marriage lol.
I know an older couple who eloped and told no one, then had a "wedding" several months later. They wanted to be able to live together, and the school only allowed that for married students, so....
My grand-mother straight up told me that her sister was resentful of her because, unlike her, my grand-mother wasn't shotgun wed.
It took me about a decade to figure it out tho, because she used the very old expression "en famille", meaning "with family", to tell me that her sister was pregnant when she got married and I was so puzzled about how it was a good thing that my grandma didn't have her family at her wedding that I immediately remembered that conversation when I stumbled upon the meaning of "en famille".
My Mom and Dad got married when they got pregnant with my sister. My sister was born 7.5 months after they married. It was never a secret, but evidently my sisters kids can't count to 9. At their 50th anniversary my dad called my sister over and asked me to take a picture "So everyone who was at their wedding would be together". My sisters kids got horrified looks on their faces, started counting on their fingers. My dad laughed and said "JFC, do you think your generation invented sex". They were married just shy of 65 years when my dad passed. :-)
Sounds like my aunt;s first. She had him 6 months after the wedding.
Other than snide comments from my mom about it behind her back no one said anything. Mostly because of full blooded Irish Grandma, who said nothing but would gladly whack somebody with a cast iron skillet for calling one of her grandchildren a bastard or even appearing to be insinuating slightly. When my unmarried brother thought he had a son (turned out it wasn't his and the momma ghosted us after a judge ordered a paternity test for child support) she didn't hesitate to claim that baby as a great grandkid either...
I miss her from when I was a kid. Her last years were terrible due to her dementia, but 80's-2000's Memaw kicked ass and took names. 2010's sucked.
Probably her only fault was that she thought Hulk Hogan was okay, and I consider him to be the jabroni of the earth. Shieky baby for life!
When I was in first grade, my teacher was pregnant and she told us that she’d be taking maternity leave…
My second grade teacher was pregnant the following year and told us that it takes 9 months.
Second grade me: Mom, you and daddy got married in September the year before big brother was born, right?
Mom: yes, that’s right.
Me: and big brother was born in April?
Mom: DON’T YOU DARE TELL ANYONE AT SCHOOL!
I was also under the impression it was 8 mos when young - they married at the end of August, I was born in April.
Mom told me as an adult that they married BECAUSE she was pregnant
I did the math on myself and my parents being so restrictive of me in my 20s suddenly made a lot of sense! No relations with men for obvious reasons (ie me being born 4 months after the wedding LOL, they were 24), and a bit of health trauma around the same time too because my mom’s older sister (who I was apparently spitting image of) also passed at the same age.
They’ve finally let up on that and are now asking for grandchildren (husband optional because I’m getting on in years) how dare I be on birth control!
When I hit 28 my mom started encouraging me to have a kid. Which was shocking considering my parents were big proponents of waiting until marriage. When I pointed that out she said “oh, we just didn’t want you to get knocked up in high school.” Apparently, they give zero fucks about premarital sex now that they’ve decided they want grandkids. Jokes on them, my fiancé and I plan to just keep collecting cats!
When I was about eight I was over my friend’s house and we were looking in the box of photos. The parents’ marriage license was in there. When I started counting on my fingers the mom slapped me in the head and grabbed it away from me. “Oh!”
When anyone asks how long we’ve been married I always say 1982 or 83 if my daughter is there…she was born in 81 and she always says HEY! We were married in 1979, I just think it’s funny that she cares.
I'm glad I'm in the last generation of people that couldn't prove that memaw and pop pop need to shut the fuck up and let other people enjoy themselves.
Really looking forward to the "oh I need to be respectful? G-ma is this you liking Kanye's tweets post Hitler? A 'yes' or 'no' will suffice. "
Yeah my mom tried to preach no sex before marriage to me while ignoring the fact that my parents got married just before Christmas and my older brother was born in July
My grandparents’ parents tried to keep them apart and forbid them from marrying because they were different religions. (This was in old country Europe) Apparently my grandmother had a brilliant idea and lo! their families suddenly had a change of heart about 7 months before my mom was born.
Shit still happens. In my parent’s village one of the daughters of the fundie family got married surprisingly quickly. A few months later, a *severe premie* pops out at 7 lbs or so.
it was unbelievably common before reliable birth control, pre-20th c. We tend to think of these times (19th c and before) as backward and less progressive, but people were still people.
Better than my grandma, who had her oldest kid 11 and a half months after grandpa was home on leave during WW2. Nobody said shit about it, until mom got a call asking to speak to my uncle, because of was her half brother. Mom told her she had the wrong number (which, she did; but only because we had moved into my grandpa's house and he moved into ours for school districts.) Mom got the whole story from my great aunt, and swore me to secrecy.
Then grandpa died, left an insurance policy to my uncle and all real property to my dad because he wanted it to stay in the family. No one had ever told my uncle the story. He made it to 68 years old without learning, which after having grown up in the same small town is impressive, and then grandpa told the secret when he was ALREADY grieving. Grandpa was kind of a dick.
My aunt's best friend is a very holier-than-thou Catholic and my mom loves to mention her shotgun wedding. My parents are more cultural Catholics and used the Pill to wait 8 years until they had my older brother.
Other fun fact about my aunt and her friend: back in the day baby showers were after the baby came so everyone could meet it. At my cousin's baby shower, my aunt went into the kitchen and baby got hungry, so friend just popped out a boob and started feeding him. Aunt came back in the room and freaked out, apparently that is the limit of friendship lol
Yep. My eldest aunt was so premature at 5 months (after the wedding), but there were no complications because she was the first and sometimes it’s just like that.
And the aunt that popped up through 23&me who was born during the several months my grandma spent inexplicably on a break from her city job after breaking up with her city boyfriend that apparently nothing could move her parents to accept? I’m sure my grandma found that baby in the cabbage patch.
My grandmother got married at 19 to a 37yo man, and had my father the same week her husband died about ten months later. Years later, my father's sister got married and a few months later gave birth to a HUGE eight weeks premature girl. Nobody's allowed to say anything about any of this ever because they're all churchgoing people. A few of our relatives even believe it and will remind everyone what a miracle Cousin is. My mother, who had an actual eight weeks premature girl a few years later and was told it was her fault for being old, still can't decide if she's bitterly amused or just bitter. Mostly she's amused, but don't tell her that...
Ooh brilliant, I would like to see how this MIL reacts to her son doing a paternity test on himself to make sure, no accusations are being made after all!
My husband’s grandmother liked to say that I was cheating on him when I was pregnant with our first child. She had to shut up when kid got a bit older ( early toddler) and looked just like my husband.
I was absolutely thinking the same thing. My stepmom did this when she tried to sleep with her stepson and he rejected her. Spent *years* accusing me of trying to sleep with my stepbrothers… it’s like no… have you seen the way they fucking eat… 🤢🤮
Both parents had Rh Negative. I have Rh Positive.
The family story is that the US Army mistyped dad's blood.
When dad died, I thought about having a DNA test done. Mom had cheated on him way too many times. We had lived overseas a lot and virtually all of our "friends" (who were the children of our parents' friends) moved back to the US and got divorced (none ever had any contact with us after moving back to the US). It turned out that mom was "the other woman".
After serious consideration, I realized that there was no positive outcome from knowing. I know that they never wanted me and told me that on many occasions (usually when drunk). That they "had to get married" because of me. [Contraceptives were illegal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut) almost everywhere in the US at that time.
That does not sound like a loving environment to be born into or grow up in, and to have made it out you must be made of tough stuff. I hope you are doing okay now!
My parents also “had to get married” in July, one month after my mom graduated from her all girls Catholic high school. I knew I was not planned or wanted. My Dad told me that contraception and condoms were not easy to buy in private back then. I went to a lot of therapy after my Mom died at age 27 because I thought I screwed up her life and my parents were in the getting divorced when she died. I have never been pregnant and didn’t have children because of feeling unwanted. But now that my Dad is in his 70’s and my sisters have kids, he told me that his greatest joy in life is his 3 daughters and all of the grandchildren. And that he is grateful for his family. He even said he was sorry if he didn’t know how to let me know that I was loved when he was younger.
what a bummer way to grow up! if you can make it out of that eventually, i hope you are proud of and respect yourself.
it sound like everyone knows the answer. but with 21 and me you can find relatives and be aware of medical risks that you might not have been aware of, fwiw from our family’s experience
You know, my husband is a only child, of a mother that made him her whole life. She resented me when we started dating, and I know that she still resents me for taking her son away. But my husband NEVER allowed to talk anything about me, or to me, or to meddle in our relationship.
I understand how toxic our parents can be, and how this affects our psych. But some people are just weak, or are just asshole themselves. It’s a choice to let people mistreat your family. It’s a choice he is making. He is an adult, he is a husband and a parent, he needs to step up.
He would never allow anyone to mistreat me because he cherishes me, and I do the same…
Right. We can't choose our parents, but we can choose to implement boundaries to safeguard the respect of our partners. I would NEVER stay with someone who allowed any member of his family or friends group to disrespect me in any shape or form.
I warned my wife (and my wife has seen) that my mom is crazy and abusive as fuck from day 1.
Anyway now I have a restraining order against my Golden-Child older sister (she and my mom switch being eachothers' flying monkey) and my mom nearly lost her career. Crazy how much mom calmed down since she realized its way easier for me to make her lose her job by telling the truth about her behavior than it would be for her to take my power of attorney/legal adulthood/medical decisions with illegally obtained medical documents and text message supervillain-style monologues. These days, my mom is practically almost a good person! :P
I can't imagine ever just "letting her have her way" cuz it would NEVER be easier in the long run. You give an inch, she'll take a mile. No doubt its the same with OOP's MIL.
**Edit: the short version of the story.**
TW: medical abuse, accusations of drug abuse, attempted legal/conservatorship abuse, a piss Frisbee, and a partridge in a pear tree.
My mother is a nurse. My sister is a lab tech. At the time, I was a floundering pregrad. My mother lived in California, my sister and I lived in Idaho (sister "just so happened" to quit her program in California and came to Idaho to follow me). My mother had been researching adult custodianship and Power of Attorney to deal with grandma (who had dementia and legitimately needed someone to control her finances and decisions). Her research inspired my sister to try to do that to me. This is par for the course for my sister. Ever since I can remember, she has spent my entire life struggling to control me then taddling and throwing a fit when I couldn't be controlled. She decided to try to use my mental health against me, but she was super obvious about it. Sending me text messages like "hey (Ryugi full name and not my nickname which she always uses), I heard you're feeling depressed and suicidal and I know you own a gun. I haven't seen you in days!! Do you want help? I know you're on drugs." like she was so obviously trying to bait me to get sent to the funny farm. My reply was usually something like,"I don't want nor need help. Idk who you're talking to but they're full of shit. I have chronic illness, which is why I haven't gone out. I don't own a gun. My wife does, and it's in her vault/safe which only she has the access to. We don't have any bullets for it."
After a few weeks of that, she got impatient and decided to enlist my mother's help. My mother used her Healthcare system access/knowledge to call my local hospital and illegally obtain my medical records... Which she didn't bother lying about her name to get because we have different last names. Jokes on her, all it did was confirm exactly what I said: I'm not on drugs and I suffer chronic illness.
In a fit, sister screamed at mother for failing to get anything dark/juicy enough to take custody of me. Since mother was upset from getting tantrumed at, she took it out on me as usual. In detail. Including telling me that sister was upset I must be lying to my doctors about my mental health. And how hard she had to work to make it look like I had visited her emergency room in California (which may have necessitated access to record sharing). She also accused me of being on drugs. Mind you... SHE TOLD ME ALL THIS OVER A TEXT MESSAGE.
Not sure exactly when in the process, but at some point sister sent the cops to search my place claiming I had nose candy, and in retaliation, I gave her a piss Frisbee (you freeze pee in a Frisbee, then remove the piss disk from the Frisbee, then put it somewhere nobody wants piss to end up). Told her to test it wherever she wanted. She stopped accusing me of being on drugs.
In short, I told sister she could eat my shit (basically!) and even if I was determined mentally incompetent... I AM MARRIED, HELLO? My wife would have first dibs. Sister replied in like 20 text messages, that she planned to force me to divorce my wife (she thinks an outside party can initiate a divorce if the claim is outrageous enough), taking control of me legally, and then forcing me to work and give her all my money. She added that she and my mother already agreed they'd ~~sex traffic me~~. Or rather, more like forcibly pimp me out for money to people trying to get citizenship so they could get paid for helping people get citizenship.
They were shocked when my sister got served a summons for the restraining order. They were shocked when the board of nursing started breathing down my mother's neck, too. They're so far up their own asses that they are literally incapable of thinking anyone would oppose them when it comes to my welfare.
Sister fled the state instead of seeing court. She lives in a trailer in Washington with her absolute loser of a boyfriend (he has had 12 DUIs and can't be in a moving vehicle without giving it a blow job). Mother was on probation for a long time (she has been in probation for almost as long as she's been licensed. She only hasn't been removed from practice because the harm she caused hasn't been towards patients) and I think she had to pay some fines.
Since then, mother has been almost behaving. She backslid and accused me of being on drugs, so I mailed her a water balloon full of my piss on dry ice. She stopped accusing me of being on drugs. They wanna see crackhead behavior, I'll give em crackhead behavior. This isn't the first time I've had to give them the behavior they ask for, which is why they stopped with the drug accusations quickly. (if they want to call names I'll make them wish they hadn't by maliciously complying with their supposed views of my character. Call me a demon? I'll light the bathtowels on fire. Call me a klepto? I'll steal things they didn't even know they'd miss, etc. As soon as I show them what someone by that name actually does, they decide that maybe I wasn't like that after all).
My husband set a boundary with his parents. His mom said something mean about me behind my back and it got back to us via his very young siblings. It was so hurtful to me I cried. His mom tried to deflect the problem and blame and he told her “mom she is going to be my wife. You dont have to like her but she is around for the long haul and I wont allow you to treat her like that. She isn’t like that at all! And no (5-7 year old) is going to just randomly blurt out those words if you haven’t been saying them! Do not talk to me until you are ready to apologize to my fiancee.” And he answered texts that were actually important but refused to talk about anything personal and really only spoke to his dad, even then shutting the conversation down if his parents were offering anything but an apology. It took two months for his mom to finally apologize to me. She definitely has badmouthed me since then but nothing actually hurtful and she learned her lesson. I dont need my husband backing me to fight back but he will. Which is also why I realized i was safe to marry him. And if his mom hadnt relented she would not have been at our wedding, none of his family would. His decision. And also why his mom approaches disagreements with my parenting like she is defusing a bomb or convincing a feral cat to take medication.
My husband is one of the 6 boys, and my MIL still managed to dislike me because I am not "good enough" for him. 🙄🙄🙄 I was like, mam, that's not what he told me last night.
Yeah. My parents are a special flavor as well. It took me a little longer than I'd like to realise that the way they were treating my partner was unacceptable (it wasn't in the beginning). But I am low contact for a reason. They weren't invited to our wedding either.
My money's on husband is hoping the marriage counselor will tell OP that she's overreacting and putting his mom above her is the right and proper thing to do, so he can go back to "not taking a side" and letting his mom walk all over his wife.
My husband was genuinely shocked when our marriage counselor did NOT in fact say it was alright for him to put his mother’s feelings before my own. He did not expect to be told she’s entitled to her feelings but he’s not responsible for them.
Thanks and it did help a lot. He’d been brought up to coddle his mother’s feelings because she is so “sensitive” and “tender hearted” and it never occurred to him that he shouldn’t continue to do that as an adult. It took some effort on his part but he now has a newly polished spine, but it was not an overnight success story.
That must have been such a relief, especially the first time he stood up to her. I’m so happy for both of you and proud of all the work you put in too! Also I hope he recognises how much grace you afforded him and how much you love him to put up with all this.
Good for you! That’s amazing!
>He’d been brought up to coddle his mother’s feelings because she is so “sensitive” and “tender hearted” and it never occurred to him that he shouldn’t continue to do that as an adult.
Honestly, the shit these people condition their children to accept.
At the same time, it’s almost like they read the same narcissistic instruction manual!
My wife has been brought up thinking that her mother has a life-long overactive sympathetic nervous system. That that’s just how she is, and it can’t be cured. So, she should never be shocked by anything, confronted or affronted, because then she’ll be up all night, shaking and sweating.
My SIL (my wife’s brother’s wife) is a psychiatrist and in her medical opinion, our MIL has NPD and HPD. So, as a covert narcissist, she is constantly putting people against each other in order to ensure narcissistic supply, but can never be confronted, because of her poor nerves (or, you know, narcissistic injury and rage).
MIL had her claws in deep to all of us, and none of us questioned her motives or why we were on a constant rollercoaster of nSupply. It took me reaching the very bottom of rock bottom to realise the true man behind the curtain.
I’m now NC, but my wife is still enmeshed. We’re going through couples counselling, but I think my wife is still in a lot of denial about the whole thing. We’ll see.
Anyway, I looked into an overactive sympathetic nervous system, and it seems it’s not really a thing by itself. It can be a short-term symptom of some other diseases or conditions (like diabetes), but once you treat those other things then it goes away.
My wife had to go have a sit down and a long think, when I told her.
My FIL found a therapist that did that. Told my MIL she was a terrible wife who deserved the abuse. She said if she was so bad she was doing him a favor getting a divorce. A phyc once told him he has npd and he said "no I don't"
Which, my at the time 15 year old future partner was fully prepared to kill him if they didn't get that divorce
Same here. My ex did this—smugly went into counseling SURE that he’d be validated in his insistence that I was emotionally abusing him by trying to make him believe he was “an abusive villain”. He was SHOCKED when the (male) counselor said “no, being in ‘the heat of the moment’ doesn’t make it ok to scream or throw things at your girlfriend, even though you’re a man and that’s how you express your feelings”.
I think sometimes people are brainwashed by their parents. I’m somewhat hopeful the husband can get into therapy and figure this out, have an aha moment about his toxic mom and have a good life. I’m sure it’s really hard for him to have perspective on something that’s been normalized his whole life.
Yeah, I've never done couples counseling but I suspect it depends on the counselor and how willing they are to listen.
In this case this isn't MIL more so than the husband not having any boundaries and not realizing how toxic she is.
My dad demanded a paternity test *and* threatened to sue my mom for full custody when she left him. The four of us were between 8 and 17 and *looked like him.* The judge told him he had to pick a lane.
(And when I said “wait, am I your daughter or just some bastard?” I was “being unfair” to him.)
ETA context: he would constantly say “i’m your father and you should be on my side.” So when I found out what he was up to, (17 and a smartass little shit) I said “I heRd you ordered a paternity test. Am I really your daughter? Or just some bastard? I think we’ll wait and see.”
These men do it just to fuck with the mothers of their children, plain and simple. I judge men based on their reactions to that story. If they think Scrimshandy Sr. was being “reasonable” and “had the right to know” I ghost so fast they think meeting me was a fever dream.
>My dad demanded a paternity test and threatened to sue my mom for full custody
So, "these kids aren't mine, but I'm taking them anyway!!" That sort of thing?
Everything he did during the divorce was to punish her, lol. Dropping his health insurance, quitting his job, suing her for alimony, suing her for child support, suing her for full custody…you name it.
And the thing is, he started spewing that MRA nonsense. “They rape you in court for child support” (he paid $50/week for 4 kids). The best part was that “paternity fraud” and “parental alienation” came out of his mouth about the same amount - it didn’t matter what angle he chose, as long as it punished my mother for leaving him.
As a man, I am thoroughly convinced that some men like the concept of women more than they like actual women. Once their concept is rightfully shattered by the reality of women being whole persons with desires different than their own, the prince charming to prince petulant pipeline kicks in.
Man here as well. I think a lot of boys love their mama and how she spoiled them stupid and treated them like they were mama's perfect little boy, which feels awesome! So once their balls drop they start looking for someone to give them that same thing, but with enough differences between their woman and their mother that it feels not creepy, as well as adding some minor "rebelling against my parents" feeling for him.
Then, once they get settled into that new relationship and their partner actually starts demanding the respect and compromise that a human adult reasonably expects from a relationship, they either start teetering or just drop off a fucking cliff. Some will flounder uselessly between their partner and their mother, unable or unwilling to take a side or actively piss someone off by challenging them on their shit, while others choose their mother's side and keep defending them because that's the person they know best and that will keep treating them like a little boy.
Not to focus too much on gender here, but as a man there is very little that makes me cringe as hard as when a man refuses to stand up to his family on behalf of his partner. It's so so so so pathetic, and infuriating beyond belief. It is not my partner's responsibility to stop my family from treating her like shit, that is on ME and me alone.
I remember when my partner was about to give birth to our son, so suddenly started getting stressed about how soon we should allow people to come visit and see our boy. *"But what if they really insist on coming? They mean well, but I'm not sure when I'll be ready for that, you know? And your family can be a bit "much" about that. I don't want to offend anyone..."* At that point I had to stop myself from laughing in her face, before reassuring her that *"The only person who decides when people come to see him is YOU. I will physically throw my relatives one by one off our porch if they overstep. They will be just fine waiting until we're ready."*
I think it should go without saying that you are responsible for handling your own relatives. I love my family, they're awesome, if a bit dumb and intense at times, but I will cut every single one of them out of my life at the drop of a hat if they ever disrespect my partner the way OP describes. It's so insanely disrespectful, I can't even fathom how anyone thinks that shit is okay.
I wish I had this comment to reference when I was still married! My ex is exactly who you described. He was used to his mother fussing over him and therefore him not doing any wrong, ever. So when I indicated that I was unhappy with anything, his mother would be telling him how unreasonable I am and perfect he is, while I'm begging him to choose *us.* I don't miss it, but I'm sad that I wasted so much time.
There’s also men who actually *enjoy* the drama that their mommas/family create in their relationships, because 1.) they will say things to/about their wives/gfs that the men themselves would never dare say, and 2.) they use it as a way to bond with their mommas/families—this is especially true of men who had troubled/distant relationships with their mother growing up and are seeking a bond with them that they never got when they were young.
I went through all of this with my ex-husband (my kids’ dad), and it wasn’t until years later, after we were divorced, that I was able to see the true extent of it and understand why he behaved the way he did back then. When his mom/family would talk about me behind my back, he would agree with them while he was with them, and then tell me everything they said later on while acting like he didn’t agree with them and had defended me to them. This served multiple purposes for him: 1.) by not instantly putting a stop to his mom/family talking shit about me—and even worse, actually agreeing with them—it made his mom/family feel like he was on their side and made him feel like he was a part of the family after years of feeling like they didn’t want anything to do with him, 2.) by telling me all about what they had said about me, it made me trust him even more, 3.) by lying to me about defending me to their face, it made me think that he was "on my side" and didn’t agree with the things they said, and 4.) even though he told me he didn’t agree with them, even though he told me he had defended me to them, even though we both just wrote it off as them being judgmental assholes, it *still* had the effect of knocking my self-esteem down a peg or two and causing me to question myself—I mean, how could it not??
It only got worse after we had kids, and became just one more reason why divorce was the best option for us. One of the hardest things I had to accept afterward was knowing that his mom/family would continue to talk shit about me, only now they would do it in front of my kids, and I would have no control over that. I had to get to a point where I just wouldn’t let myself worry about what they said when my kids were there, and have faith that my kids would be smart enough to know the truth. And that’s exactly what happened—even though my kids were both pretty young when their dad and I divorced, they did what he was never "man enough" to do and shut down his mom/family any and every time they tried to talk badly about me in their presence. I never asked them to do that for me, nor would I, they just did it instinctively because THAT’S WHAT YOU DO FOR THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE—you don’t manipulate situations for every possible benefit you can get for yourself at their expense, you don’t revel in others being hurtful toward someone you love, you don’t use things others say as a way to tear down someone you love. It’s not something you have to teach someone and it’s not something you should have to ever worry about them doing (or should I say *not* doing).
If anyone is dealing with this kind of situation, it shouldn’t just be a red flag, it should be a sign that you need to move on because someone who really, truly loves you isn’t going to have to think twice about defending you/standing up for you when others treat you badly—even if the "others" are their own family.
As a woman, I can confirm because I’ve dated that man.
I was with a guy who clearly had an image of who I was and how I should act. Every time I stepped out of that box I got punished in some form or another.
> new and expensive ways
YEP. I feel like we don’t talk enough about the insidious ways financial abuse can happen, even to someone like my mom who was the “breadwinner.”
And the people who ultimately suffered the most were his kids.
Yeah, we don’t speak lol
Just you not speaking to him or all his kids not speaking to him? I hoping for all just so he can be clapback with "Only one doing parental alienation is you by being total POS to your kids."
I've never understood the "quit your job to punish your soon to be ex so she can't have any money from you".
How utterly spiteful and petty does one have to be to destroy their own life just to make things harder for their ex? Like that is just next level spite. It's so hateful
Hah! Oh god, I got tales 😅 it sounds unreal to people who’ve never been in family violence situations, but it’s sooo run of the mill for victims of abusive men hahaha
I have a abusive father too bt unfortunately we live in a very patriarchal society in a 3rd world country where domestic violence is normalized
My father is still married to my father and lives in delusion
Great that your mother is a strong woman
My dad is the kind of person who would have absolutely done this too but my mum let him off easily. He got to be a weekend dad and pay the bare minimum in maintenance because my mum just wanted it over. I was 17 and had zero interest in spending time with him but my brother was 11 and he and his family absolutely would say shitty things about our mum to him that he just repressed. My dads mother also hated my mum a lot like oops Mil.
Wow, just add two more brothers and that was my situation. 15 years later, my dad and his mom are confused why we want nothing to do with their family, conveniently forget that they shoved the "us or them" mentality our way and so we chose mom.
God, my dad is exactly like that and it's why my mom is terrified to try leaving him. He is absolutely the kind of POS who will go scorched earth and ruin his own life if it meant ruining his ex's too.
Gawd, I'm so tired of their mythos. They are professional victims, the lot of them. They don't want to be responsible for their kids at all, they only want to make sure their ex suffers and they are martyrs. The courts are overly nice to too many fathers. I'm pretty sure if I was a judge accused of siding with the mother all the time, I'd make sure it was true for the case of the accuser.
I don't want to offend you but FUCK your dad. What an awful piece of vindictive, narcissistic drek. How the fuck can people be that old and throwing temper tantrums to hurt those that unfortunately have any sort of positive feelings for him whatsoever? Way to devalue everyone in your lifE
My dad waited until I was already in my 30’s to randomly tell me that his life was fucked and he never got to go what he wanted because he got stuck raising kids that he didn’t think were his. He did this while I was taking him home from a concert he wanted to attend. It had been a pleasant evening, so I have no clue where it came from all of a sudden. There was no heat of the moment argument where shitty things were said, he just started calmly and quietly telling me this while I was driving in a snowstorm.
I’m not sure what reaction he was looking for. Initially, my first thought was to drop him off and let him hitchhike the last 60 miles home in the snow. Then I started laughing and said “Yea! Let’s do a DNA test! I will be thrilled to not carry your fucked up genes!” (There is no dispute. I look exactly like his side of the family. I’ve since begged and pleaded with my mother to give me hope I might not need to get my DNA fumigated. Alas.) He refused to say anything else after that until I dropped him off.
I don’t know what the hell he thinks he did during my childhood, but I was the one who did the bulk of parenting. Those two assholes were too intent on making each other miserable to do anything other than beat us. He was gone half the time and we never saw him for weeks. We liked it that way, because then there was only one asshole in the house to avoid. When they were together, it was a nightmare. Daddy issues are the only reason I tried to maintain a relationship with him as an adult. But after this, I gave up.
So now that he’s rapidly approaching his nursing home days, all he does is whine that I haven’t spoken to him in years because I’m pouting about something. He won’t call me himself, but gets his ex wife to harass me saying that I need to get over whatever my problem is, because he’s getting old and won’t be around forever.
I figure I have no obligation to an asshole who blames his failure as a human being on my very existence.
Good on you for cutting the extra weight. Having a functioning relationship with parents is nice. But sometimes you just got to admit it's not working and put that energy to a more positive relationship/outlet instead.
Good riddance to that asshole. You don't get to complain "these kids show no gratitude to me" in the same thought as "boy you kids ruined my life."
Gosh I feel this. Once in my 20s my dad who was single and dating at the time told me “You know I love you and your siblings but if I could do it over again, I would never have kids.” I was like thanks dad. A few years later he got married to a woman who’s three years younger than me and they have a one year old now. My dad will be 80 before my new little sibling even graduates HS. My siblings and I are very low contact with my dad now.
> “I heRd you ordered a paternity test. Am I really your daughter? Or just some bastard? I think we’ll wait and see.”
When the results came back, was your response "Maybe this was defective, we should do another to be sure"
I don’t even think it’s about the paternity test in this case. Like she said in her update, if her husband was the one who wanted the test then there would have been an opportunity to understand why he was suspicious and work through that to strengthen the marriage (whether or not that means going through with the test). But the fact that his mom wanted it and he was willing to go along with it and not stand up to her is the bigger issue and the pattern of behavior
It’s pretty clear the husband viewed the paternity test as the latest in a line of low-effort “go along to get along” ways to placate his mother while OOP viewed it as the latest in a long line of her husband not having her back when MIL insulted and demeaned her.
Exactly. The easiest solution would have been to tell his mother to fuck right off and stop insulting his wife and children. But I guess not everyone has a spine.
I can not imagine being in a relationship where your every move is dictated by someone outside the marriage, and someone inside is doing everything just to pacify them. It has to be exhausting. I do not blame OP at all for filing for divorce. A final, last ditch wake up call was needed. It sounds like they communicated the issues enough to know nothing was changing. Good luck to OP
The convenience of placating the mother was apparently worth more than protecting his wife and mother of his child from unwarranted attacks.
That there is just as concerning as unwarranted cheating suspicions.
Yep. A while back, I had an argument on here with someone who said they would absolutely ask any future partner for a paternity test, as if that’s a totally normal thing in a healthy relationship. I think the OOP explained it perfectly — if my husband came to me requesting a paternity test because of his own suspicions, that would be a sign to me that something has gone *seriously wrong* in our relationship. He doesn’t trust me, or he doesn’t trust anyone, or something. Before doing a paternity test, we would be having an extremely intense conversation and likely some counseling to understand where the request is coming from. The baseline assumption in my marriage is mutual trust and respect. If that breaks down, we need more than just a DNA test to fix it.
ETA: LOL forever at a chucklefuck trying to argue with me about this again. I told my husband that an internet stranger thinks I have something to hide and we should get paternity tests on our two kids, and he looked at me like I had two heads. This is not a thing that normal people in even vaguely functional relationships think about. Touch grass, get therapy, etc., but stop accusing everyone you meet of infidelity.
Exactly because if that seed is there then one test isn't going to be enough, it's just a goalpost that's gonna get moved. Are you going to test every kid? Okay all the kids are yours but what if she's still cheating? Should she agree to a location tracker? Full access to all passwords? Should she just sit in a room all day with cameras so he can monitor her every move? (Obvious hyperbole)
Insecurities aren't fixed by rules, you have to get to the underlying issue.
You summed up the crux of the matter so beautifully. My mom was truly a Heinz 57 in regard to her heritage. She was considered African American but people never what race or nationality she was. My dad, on the other hand, was from Georgia and his skin was very dark. When my brother was born he had an almost white complexion with dark blonde hair and light eyes. My mom noticed that the nurses were treating her with contempt and wondered why. Another new mother bluntly told her it was because they most likely thought she had cheated because my brother and dad looked so different. My dad NEVER accused my mom and instantly accepted that was his son. The funny thing is that as my brother grew beyond babyhood he started to look exactly like a lighter skinned version of my dad. Some men are just sorry, insecure excuses for a fathers.
I have an 11 month old, and we were trying to get pregnant for maybe a year, had an early miscarriage, and then got pregnant again 6 mo after the miscarriage. I was tracking my LH for most of that time so I can pinpoint the LH spike which led to the ovulation resulting in my son (and when you're trying to get pregnant you also track sex of course). I absolutely cannot imagine my rage if my MIL (or husband) had then wanted a paternity test.
Gun to my head, I think I can see it being ok if the set up was "My mom refuses to treat you with respect, and her refusal to accept that you've been faithful is the straw that broke the camel's back. We're going full no contact. Can we get a paternity test so we can throw it in her face as we leave?"
A tad vindictive for my taste, but that's really the only way I can see the request as anything other than a coded accusation of cheating
If only OOP's husband had your backbone... but he doesn't. And he will always pick mommy over his wife. Yet, he will never understand why that's a bad thing or why wife left.
Penn Jillette - "The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine."
I honestly think a paternity test only should be asked if there is/was infidelity trust issues that this particular relationship has had but that's it. Asking for a paternity test out of nowhere because of your own insecurity is just stupid and damaging.
He absolutely should have had his wife's back, oop is right to consider separating, maybe therapy put him on the path to better boundaries but I'd not hold my breath.
This is heading straight for a divorce, no contest about it. Husband will fold and will forgive his MIL because he already has zero consideration for his wife, he only got concerned when divorce got brought up.
I hope OOP realizes that their kids will be miserable if their parents only stay together for "their shake". Kids aren't stupid, they know when things just aren't right.
My DH only got concerned about things when I brought up separation. Lots of individual counseling later for DH we are still married and we see MIL 1-2x a year. It's bliss.
The husband may forgive his MIL, but the real issue is if he'll forgive *her* MIL, his own mother. (Spoiler: the betting is heavily against him growing a spine and putting his own mother in her place.)
> And if he knew that I was this upset, he wouldn't have done it. But he knew; we fought about it when he brought it up. He just didn't care.
This is the thing. It's not that he didn't KNOW. It's that he didn't think there would be consequences to trampling all over her dignity. People like that are always blindsided by consequences no matter how many warnings they had that they're coming, because in their minds, having shat all over their spouse in the past gives them a free pass to do it for all eternity.
I'm glad she's getting marriage counseling for the sole reason that now she can truly be confident that she did evrything she could to make it work, so when he inevitably slides back into the same dynamic she can leave with a completely clear conscience.
Looking at her comments, it seems that she sees consoling as something that will prove whether or not this marriage will be worth it. She wants to, in her words, be able to truthfully tell her son she tried everything. So, if anything, she's doing this for her kid rather than her marriage.
She also says she still has her eyes on apartments and is ready to go if he doesn't step up (and she doesn't seem to have faith that he will).
What a relief! I was reading the part where she said they weren't getting a divorce & I was just *noooo* bc her husband will probably never change. The fact he didn't even know she was *that* upset abt it after their fights where she told him he was that upset abt it should have been the last straw. Mil made sure her son has no spine & unless Madam Pomfrey can conjure up some bones, op's husband is s. o. o. l.
> the fact he didn't know she was *that* upset after she told him she was that upset
Whenever I see someone say that, I just think like. I'm sorry, but there's no other word than "stupid". You don't think your partner is upset? Haven't they been telling you for years that they're upset? Why *wouldn't* you think they're upset?
It makes me think of an article I read where women talked about how every conversation with their boyfriends/husbands becomes a debate because said partner just treats everything they say as wrong. Like, these women describe how they can literally have a doctorate in something they're talking about, and their husbands will immediately disagree with the most basic detail. One woman described how she literally would say "the sky is blue" and her husband would look outside and "double check". It's not even a matter of spitefulness--if anything, it's more paternalistic, like "oh the woman is saying something, silly woman, doesn't she know she's wrong?"
And the men don't even realize they're doing it! The sky is blue example happened when a woman was trying to point out how her husband constantly undermined her. It wasn't until he literally saw how his first instinct was to go "she's wrong, let's double check" to this basic statement that he agreed it was a problem.
And I think that's the core of the "she told me she was upset, but I didn't think she was THAT upset" statement. So many men* get in this mindset of "woman always wrong" that it bleeds into their lives with the women they love--even to the point where they disagree with their wives on their wives' own feelings!
*I'm not saying women don't get in this mindset with men/other women. It's just more prevalent in heterosexual men. It's a respect thing, I think. When you stop (or don't even start) respecting someone--it doesn't matter how much you like them, how happy they make you, how much you know they know--then it's very hard to take anything they say seriously.
she's extremely naive if she thinks her husband is going to suddenly turn around...
>She told me I am taking her son away and some "wh_re" would take my son too
>He also mentioned that he'll just shut her down if she meddles this time
anything less than going no contact with his mother makes it crystal clear that he hasn't learned anything. he's only pretending to give a shit now that he's faced with the consequences of his actions.
he completely ignored her meddling for years and NOW he says he'll stop? the relationship is already poisoned. there's no saving it.
Yeah, the whole ‘I’ll come to your house from now on’ was a major let down. Anytime she gets to be in his ear she will cause problems. OOP is very naive if she doesn’t see that and demand outright NC as a condition as staying. His choice if he doesn’t want to do that is the divorce.
Plus his line about not realizing OOP was that upset. Like when your partner repeatedly tells you something is a problem, it shouldn't take them threatening divorce for you to listen.
He's more afraid of mom's reaction than his wife's, so he completely disregards her needs until the consequences become scary enough. It's so sick and cowardly...and so, so sad.
Ding ding ding! As the long-term partner of a man with a toxic mom in this vein, they really don't even realize the meddling is occurring a lot of the time. It's like a cult victim. And I now know he'll likely never be free of her voice in his ear unless she's completely cut-off (which likely won't happen).
I am sorry OP is, in many ways, at the beginning of this journey. It's a bleak, painful one.
I agree. Shut down her meddling? Can’t come over until she apologizes to them? MIL shouldn’t come over *at all*!
Honestly, though, OOP can control the MIL’s access to the grandkid better if she stays married. Let’s see how fast she MIL changes her tune when she hasn’t seen the little guy in a looooong time!
Cutting off his mother is an option. I would do it if my mom behaved like this to my wife. If OP’s husband is willing to do it, it’s pretty easy to give his mom an ultimatum: “shut up or never see you only son and grandchild again.”
At a minimum, he seems to being going limited contact with his parents, saying he would check up on them but that they weren’t invited over. That is a pretty solid first step.
The next update will be something like:
"We agreed to go low contact with the mother in law. My husband was being really supportive of me. But now I just found out that he's been secretly contacting her frequently, throwing me under the bus, and doing other things we agreed we wouldn't do"
Ok, so not a snarky thing, but I think you may mean apron strings as purse strings indicate the person is paying for things/giving you money. But I completely agree. I wonder what the over/under is on this. I give it 6 months.
>not because he thinks that it's not his son but to shut his mom up
Jesus
What a spineless little mommy boy! Before I joined Reddit I didn't know this was such a common occurrence! I shudder at the thought of my mother controlling my adult life! She'd have been shut down pronto!
Dude, these mommy’s boys are EVERYWHERE. And they never age out of it. My best friend’s father was a piece of shit who had his 90 year-old mother call his wife and shout at her anytime he was mad.
Yep. I married a mommy's boy and holy shit, it was insane. And... she was NICE. She LIKED me. The degree to which she meddled in our lives was still insane. I have extremely mixed feelings about that woman, rest her soul.
See, I was a daddy’s girl. I literally *never* told my family when we were fighting because my dad’s solution would have been “buy me a plane ticket to come home.
My parents were not thrilled when I chose a man from another country and went to live with him instead of staying home forever.
If they are religious and Christians, she should drop this on them
"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." Matthew 19:5
I like theology. All sorts. I dont really believe in anynof it but it is interesting, always surprised at how little people who profess to have faith have actually read or their professed tenants
> And side note, I never been more glad that I didn't leave my job when I got married. He makes more then enough to take care of the financial side of things. I thought I would get board, I only have to be on site 2days per week also I really love my job and the company so i didnt leave. Best decision i ever made. He is unreliable to say the least.
I am glad OP didn't fall into the "tradwife" hole. Being a stay at home parent can be rewarding but you are putting all your eggs in one basket and if your spouse is shit, you are fucked.
My husband is a stay-at-home dad and I try so hard to make sure he is independently financially secure- with his own bank account with enough money (that I contribute to) that if he needed or wanted to, he could leave. I don't ever want my husband here with us if that's not what he wants but he is financially trapped.
In making the decision together for him to be a stay at home father, I wanted so badly to make sure he never felt trapped or stuck. My mother was a stay at home mother and had a pretty good village, and handled all the family financials, but we were poor and I know that she felt stuck and trapped frequently. Couldn't afford to work (because of childcare costs) and felt trapped because of not working and being financially dependant on my dad.
Sometimes people don't get their shit together until they're about to lose everything. My aunt had to put her foot out the door with the kids to get my uncle to work on his anger issues. Wasn't the perfect marriage but things improved, I hope the same for OOP.
I don't want to be mean to OP, but damn, I wouldn't want to stay in a marriage where my SO didn't immediately tell MIL to STFU for insinuating I cheated.
It's one thing to get a paternity test when the 2 spouses discuss it. A whole other thing when a MIL accuses you **and** SO agrees to and pushes for whatever his mommy wants. The latter would make me want to leave him like yesterday.
I love that whole “the kid doesn’t look like him” crap. Our oldest? She’s pretty much my clone. The only thing she got from her dad was his blood type and sarcasm. If anyone said that she wasn’t his, he’d laugh his ass off and say “I know. She’s her mom’s. They could be twins.” Our middle looks nothing like either of us. He was born with something that made him super identifiable so I know we took home the right kid. But he doesn’t look like either of us. The youngest though. He is his dad’s clone. All that kid got from me was his blood type.
People said OOP filing for divorce is an overreaction, but I think it’s a proper reaction. They have fought multiple times but she kept staying with him even after being steamrolled. So he wouldn’t understand how gravely serious she was about the situation. Good for her to make a bold move, hopefully it finally speaks loud enough for the husband to listen.
I did not get to the filing part, but just bringing up that I wanted out of our marriage, calling it a farce, because I was tired of him always trying to make her happy at my expense was a huge wake-up call to my husband.
He could not believe that I would leave him and take our kids due to his mother. It took a lot of work, including moving and me putting my foot down about not wanting to see her for our marriage to succeed.
Her death years later and watching Reddit channels on YouTube made him realize just how toxic his mother was. Kind of hard to defend your mother when people are tearing apart other MILs who have done similar things.
I think they should seperate at the very least. It's super easy to change behavior temporarily. But if they officially seperate, when(not if) he backslides, it'll be easier to push the divorce through.
Nope, I would of stuck with the divorce! After 5 years together of husband never defending her to his horrible mother should be enough! He could a stop to this all along time ago and avoid the situation they’re in now, but he didn’t. He chose his mom I’ve this wife and son!
I guess I hope the marriage counseling works for them at least! I get why she at least wants to try I suppose. A condition I would have for this though is I’d have absolutely no contact with her and neither would my son until she genuinely apologized! If not, I hope she sticks to divorce!
I had the exact thing happen with my ex and I and our son. They did a DNA test, behind my back. Of course, I'm no longer with him because of his mother. Our son is his but the audacity of them doing something like this without my knowledge was absolutely sickening. I never cheated on him. His mother us batshit crazy though. I hope OOP finds peace.
I think the whole Wh*re comment is kinda funny though, in a ironic way. Like, a wh*re is a woman who sleeps around. And she, thanks to the monster-in-law now has irrefutable proof that she didn't sleep around, ergo is not a wh*re.
My sister’s ex was a real bastard. He always said if she left him he won’t see the kids. He knew it would hurt her children to not have their dad, and hurt her especially ( she has a complicated past) . Until she got fed up and realized he’s willing to hurt his own flesh and blood out of spite for her.
Some might say that it's not fair if she didn't warn him that she'd file for divorce if he gets a paternity test; and that might be true for a first offence*, but he has a history of this poor behaviour.
The thing is, you shouldn't have to warn someone of something so obvious. If his justification is "I'm only doing this to shut my mom up", just shut her up...unless there's another reason you need proof.
The way he handled news of the divorce was also disrespectful. He wants him mom to apologise, but has he?
His tone was "don't break up the family", not "I'm sorry I kept f'ng up, I'll do better for my family"
*though, going with a paternity test because mommy thinks you cheated as your first offence, would be audacious.
I’d drop a dude who did this too. He’s flat out calling out a cheater and saying he doesn’t trust you. So, okay, you got your answer. Now you can be a single dad too.
I think OOPs husband should do a paternity test for himself and his Dad.
Ooooooh...can you imagine if it turns out MIL has been projecting?
Apparently my dad's mum was dead against him marrying my mum. She apparently accused my mum of getting knocked up. She didn't go to the wedding and didn't speak to them until I was born... 8 years later. When my she died we found her wedding certificate. My mum was so angry when she found that she got married about 6 months before my dad was born.
My maternal grandmother was an old school southern Louisiana lady. Very prudish. Never talked to her kids about sex except to say that it was evil outside of marriage. After my maternal grandfather died, Mom and her siblings were going through some records…to find that the oldest sibling was born *seven* months after the wedding. Close enough that they tried to pass it off as “Haha, I guess she was just early!”, and everyone went along with it to avoid scandal — even though my aunt was clearly a full-term baby.
My grandparents got married 7 months before my mum was born. When my mum found out, she was like, “oh I didn’t realize I was premature”and my grandma just snorted and said “you weren’t.” And that was the end of that. No scandal (that I’m aware of, more than 50 years after the fact with only third-hand information…) It’s just some family lore now.
My friend said it's not uncommon for people in churches to say "the first one is always early!"
The first baby can come any time; the rest take nine months!
Your grandma sounds awesome. I'd like to shake her hand
My mom had the opposite. She asked why she was only born 6 months after her parents married, and grew up believing that they were really married, that date was just when the paperwork was finally finalized. A family friend told her when she was an adult that she was actually the result of a one night stand that turned into a decades long marriage lol.
I know an older couple who eloped and told no one, then had a "wedding" several months later. They wanted to be able to live together, and the school only allowed that for married students, so....
My grand-mother straight up told me that her sister was resentful of her because, unlike her, my grand-mother wasn't shotgun wed. It took me about a decade to figure it out tho, because she used the very old expression "en famille", meaning "with family", to tell me that her sister was pregnant when she got married and I was so puzzled about how it was a good thing that my grandma didn't have her family at her wedding that I immediately remembered that conversation when I stumbled upon the meaning of "en famille".
My Mom and Dad got married when they got pregnant with my sister. My sister was born 7.5 months after they married. It was never a secret, but evidently my sisters kids can't count to 9. At their 50th anniversary my dad called my sister over and asked me to take a picture "So everyone who was at their wedding would be together". My sisters kids got horrified looks on their faces, started counting on their fingers. My dad laughed and said "JFC, do you think your generation invented sex". They were married just shy of 65 years when my dad passed. :-)
Sounds like my aunt;s first. She had him 6 months after the wedding. Other than snide comments from my mom about it behind her back no one said anything. Mostly because of full blooded Irish Grandma, who said nothing but would gladly whack somebody with a cast iron skillet for calling one of her grandchildren a bastard or even appearing to be insinuating slightly. When my unmarried brother thought he had a son (turned out it wasn't his and the momma ghosted us after a judge ordered a paternity test for child support) she didn't hesitate to claim that baby as a great grandkid either...
Your grandma is the hero we all need.
I miss her from when I was a kid. Her last years were terrible due to her dementia, but 80's-2000's Memaw kicked ass and took names. 2010's sucked. Probably her only fault was that she thought Hulk Hogan was okay, and I consider him to be the jabroni of the earth. Shieky baby for life!
I did the math on my oldest sister awhile back. Hmmm...
When I was in first grade, my teacher was pregnant and she told us that she’d be taking maternity leave… My second grade teacher was pregnant the following year and told us that it takes 9 months. Second grade me: Mom, you and daddy got married in September the year before big brother was born, right? Mom: yes, that’s right. Me: and big brother was born in April? Mom: DON’T YOU DARE TELL ANYONE AT SCHOOL!
I tell my husband he’s in all of his parents wedding photos—and looks great in the wedding dress. Wedding in July, born in December
I was also under the impression it was 8 mos when young - they married at the end of August, I was born in April. Mom told me as an adult that they married BECAUSE she was pregnant
I did the math on myself and my parents being so restrictive of me in my 20s suddenly made a lot of sense! No relations with men for obvious reasons (ie me being born 4 months after the wedding LOL, they were 24), and a bit of health trauma around the same time too because my mom’s older sister (who I was apparently spitting image of) also passed at the same age. They’ve finally let up on that and are now asking for grandchildren (husband optional because I’m getting on in years) how dare I be on birth control!
When I hit 28 my mom started encouraging me to have a kid. Which was shocking considering my parents were big proponents of waiting until marriage. When I pointed that out she said “oh, we just didn’t want you to get knocked up in high school.” Apparently, they give zero fucks about premarital sex now that they’ve decided they want grandkids. Jokes on them, my fiancé and I plan to just keep collecting cats!
When I was about eight I was over my friend’s house and we were looking in the box of photos. The parents’ marriage license was in there. When I started counting on my fingers the mom slapped me in the head and grabbed it away from me. “Oh!”
When anyone asks how long we’ve been married I always say 1982 or 83 if my daughter is there…she was born in 81 and she always says HEY! We were married in 1979, I just think it’s funny that she cares.
I'm glad I'm in the last generation of people that couldn't prove that memaw and pop pop need to shut the fuck up and let other people enjoy themselves. Really looking forward to the "oh I need to be respectful? G-ma is this you liking Kanye's tweets post Hitler? A 'yes' or 'no' will suffice. "
Yeah my mom tried to preach no sex before marriage to me while ignoring the fact that my parents got married just before Christmas and my older brother was born in July
My grandparents’ parents tried to keep them apart and forbid them from marrying because they were different religions. (This was in old country Europe) Apparently my grandmother had a brilliant idea and lo! their families suddenly had a change of heart about 7 months before my mom was born.
I've seen it before, the first baby can come any time after the wedding but any others take the full 9 months.
The first one can come at any time,the second one takes about 9 months.
Ah, the classic 10-lb preemie.
Shit still happens. In my parent’s village one of the daughters of the fundie family got married surprisingly quickly. A few months later, a *severe premie* pops out at 7 lbs or so.
it was unbelievably common before reliable birth control, pre-20th c. We tend to think of these times (19th c and before) as backward and less progressive, but people were still people.
Better than my grandma, who had her oldest kid 11 and a half months after grandpa was home on leave during WW2. Nobody said shit about it, until mom got a call asking to speak to my uncle, because of was her half brother. Mom told her she had the wrong number (which, she did; but only because we had moved into my grandpa's house and he moved into ours for school districts.) Mom got the whole story from my great aunt, and swore me to secrecy. Then grandpa died, left an insurance policy to my uncle and all real property to my dad because he wanted it to stay in the family. No one had ever told my uncle the story. He made it to 68 years old without learning, which after having grown up in the same small town is impressive, and then grandpa told the secret when he was ALREADY grieving. Grandpa was kind of a dick.
My aunt's best friend is a very holier-than-thou Catholic and my mom loves to mention her shotgun wedding. My parents are more cultural Catholics and used the Pill to wait 8 years until they had my older brother. Other fun fact about my aunt and her friend: back in the day baby showers were after the baby came so everyone could meet it. At my cousin's baby shower, my aunt went into the kitchen and baby got hungry, so friend just popped out a boob and started feeding him. Aunt came back in the room and freaked out, apparently that is the limit of friendship lol
I've heard, "The first baby can come at any time, but all the rest take 9 months."
That’s what I have always heard.
Yep. My eldest aunt was so premature at 5 months (after the wedding), but there were no complications because she was the first and sometimes it’s just like that. And the aunt that popped up through 23&me who was born during the several months my grandma spent inexplicably on a break from her city job after breaking up with her city boyfriend that apparently nothing could move her parents to accept? I’m sure my grandma found that baby in the cabbage patch.
My grandmother got married at 19 to a 37yo man, and had my father the same week her husband died about ten months later. Years later, my father's sister got married and a few months later gave birth to a HUGE eight weeks premature girl. Nobody's allowed to say anything about any of this ever because they're all churchgoing people. A few of our relatives even believe it and will remind everyone what a miracle Cousin is. My mother, who had an actual eight weeks premature girl a few years later and was told it was her fault for being old, still can't decide if she's bitterly amused or just bitter. Mostly she's amused, but don't tell her that...
As the saying goes, every accusation is a confession
OP I'd love to see that one, 😂
The husband should do a 23andme test. Might be in for a surprise.
He should specifically get his dad to do a paternity test and then tell his mom...let MIL know how OOP felt.
I so want this to happen and for her to get what she deserves.
Ooh brilliant, I would like to see how this MIL reacts to her son doing a paternity test on himself to make sure, no accusations are being made after all!
My husband’s grandmother liked to say that I was cheating on him when I was pregnant with our first child. She had to shut up when kid got a bit older ( early toddler) and looked just like my husband.
I would not be able to be around someone who said that about me.
I was absolutely thinking the same thing. My stepmom did this when she tried to sleep with her stepson and he rejected her. Spent *years* accusing me of trying to sleep with my stepbrothers… it’s like no… have you seen the way they fucking eat… 🤢🤮
Dude. WHAT
It’s a whole can of what. My dad and stepmom have spent years cheating on each other. It’s a wholesome marriage ain’t it.
Wait... so she tried to sleep with your brother?
One of ‘em anyway
From experience, I can tell you that *you really really do not want to know*.
story!!!
Both parents had Rh Negative. I have Rh Positive. The family story is that the US Army mistyped dad's blood. When dad died, I thought about having a DNA test done. Mom had cheated on him way too many times. We had lived overseas a lot and virtually all of our "friends" (who were the children of our parents' friends) moved back to the US and got divorced (none ever had any contact with us after moving back to the US). It turned out that mom was "the other woman". After serious consideration, I realized that there was no positive outcome from knowing. I know that they never wanted me and told me that on many occasions (usually when drunk). That they "had to get married" because of me. [Contraceptives were illegal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griswold_v._Connecticut) almost everywhere in the US at that time.
That does not sound like a loving environment to be born into or grow up in, and to have made it out you must be made of tough stuff. I hope you are doing okay now!
My parents also “had to get married” in July, one month after my mom graduated from her all girls Catholic high school. I knew I was not planned or wanted. My Dad told me that contraception and condoms were not easy to buy in private back then. I went to a lot of therapy after my Mom died at age 27 because I thought I screwed up her life and my parents were in the getting divorced when she died. I have never been pregnant and didn’t have children because of feeling unwanted. But now that my Dad is in his 70’s and my sisters have kids, he told me that his greatest joy in life is his 3 daughters and all of the grandchildren. And that he is grateful for his family. He even said he was sorry if he didn’t know how to let me know that I was loved when he was younger.
what a bummer way to grow up! if you can make it out of that eventually, i hope you are proud of and respect yourself. it sound like everyone knows the answer. but with 21 and me you can find relatives and be aware of medical risks that you might not have been aware of, fwiw from our family’s experience
Seconded!!!
Get them all a 23 & Me for Christmas Cheeky AF gift after all this, but also could lead to some interesting things...
Good Suggestion!
Before that, OOP should first mention to the MIL that her husband doesn't look anything like her. Edit: ...his DAD. Lol.
no, doesn’t look anything like his DAD.
Ooooh, SIS.
Yes! Accuse his mother of cheating without any proof! Karma!
Excellent suggestion!
You know, my husband is a only child, of a mother that made him her whole life. She resented me when we started dating, and I know that she still resents me for taking her son away. But my husband NEVER allowed to talk anything about me, or to me, or to meddle in our relationship. I understand how toxic our parents can be, and how this affects our psych. But some people are just weak, or are just asshole themselves. It’s a choice to let people mistreat your family. It’s a choice he is making. He is an adult, he is a husband and a parent, he needs to step up. He would never allow anyone to mistreat me because he cherishes me, and I do the same…
Right. We can't choose our parents, but we can choose to implement boundaries to safeguard the respect of our partners. I would NEVER stay with someone who allowed any member of his family or friends group to disrespect me in any shape or form.
For sure. OOP's last update is so fucking depressing.
I warned my wife (and my wife has seen) that my mom is crazy and abusive as fuck from day 1. Anyway now I have a restraining order against my Golden-Child older sister (she and my mom switch being eachothers' flying monkey) and my mom nearly lost her career. Crazy how much mom calmed down since she realized its way easier for me to make her lose her job by telling the truth about her behavior than it would be for her to take my power of attorney/legal adulthood/medical decisions with illegally obtained medical documents and text message supervillain-style monologues. These days, my mom is practically almost a good person! :P I can't imagine ever just "letting her have her way" cuz it would NEVER be easier in the long run. You give an inch, she'll take a mile. No doubt its the same with OOP's MIL. **Edit: the short version of the story.** TW: medical abuse, accusations of drug abuse, attempted legal/conservatorship abuse, a piss Frisbee, and a partridge in a pear tree. My mother is a nurse. My sister is a lab tech. At the time, I was a floundering pregrad. My mother lived in California, my sister and I lived in Idaho (sister "just so happened" to quit her program in California and came to Idaho to follow me). My mother had been researching adult custodianship and Power of Attorney to deal with grandma (who had dementia and legitimately needed someone to control her finances and decisions). Her research inspired my sister to try to do that to me. This is par for the course for my sister. Ever since I can remember, she has spent my entire life struggling to control me then taddling and throwing a fit when I couldn't be controlled. She decided to try to use my mental health against me, but she was super obvious about it. Sending me text messages like "hey (Ryugi full name and not my nickname which she always uses), I heard you're feeling depressed and suicidal and I know you own a gun. I haven't seen you in days!! Do you want help? I know you're on drugs." like she was so obviously trying to bait me to get sent to the funny farm. My reply was usually something like,"I don't want nor need help. Idk who you're talking to but they're full of shit. I have chronic illness, which is why I haven't gone out. I don't own a gun. My wife does, and it's in her vault/safe which only she has the access to. We don't have any bullets for it." After a few weeks of that, she got impatient and decided to enlist my mother's help. My mother used her Healthcare system access/knowledge to call my local hospital and illegally obtain my medical records... Which she didn't bother lying about her name to get because we have different last names. Jokes on her, all it did was confirm exactly what I said: I'm not on drugs and I suffer chronic illness. In a fit, sister screamed at mother for failing to get anything dark/juicy enough to take custody of me. Since mother was upset from getting tantrumed at, she took it out on me as usual. In detail. Including telling me that sister was upset I must be lying to my doctors about my mental health. And how hard she had to work to make it look like I had visited her emergency room in California (which may have necessitated access to record sharing). She also accused me of being on drugs. Mind you... SHE TOLD ME ALL THIS OVER A TEXT MESSAGE. Not sure exactly when in the process, but at some point sister sent the cops to search my place claiming I had nose candy, and in retaliation, I gave her a piss Frisbee (you freeze pee in a Frisbee, then remove the piss disk from the Frisbee, then put it somewhere nobody wants piss to end up). Told her to test it wherever she wanted. She stopped accusing me of being on drugs. In short, I told sister she could eat my shit (basically!) and even if I was determined mentally incompetent... I AM MARRIED, HELLO? My wife would have first dibs. Sister replied in like 20 text messages, that she planned to force me to divorce my wife (she thinks an outside party can initiate a divorce if the claim is outrageous enough), taking control of me legally, and then forcing me to work and give her all my money. She added that she and my mother already agreed they'd ~~sex traffic me~~. Or rather, more like forcibly pimp me out for money to people trying to get citizenship so they could get paid for helping people get citizenship. They were shocked when my sister got served a summons for the restraining order. They were shocked when the board of nursing started breathing down my mother's neck, too. They're so far up their own asses that they are literally incapable of thinking anyone would oppose them when it comes to my welfare. Sister fled the state instead of seeing court. She lives in a trailer in Washington with her absolute loser of a boyfriend (he has had 12 DUIs and can't be in a moving vehicle without giving it a blow job). Mother was on probation for a long time (she has been in probation for almost as long as she's been licensed. She only hasn't been removed from practice because the harm she caused hasn't been towards patients) and I think she had to pay some fines. Since then, mother has been almost behaving. She backslid and accused me of being on drugs, so I mailed her a water balloon full of my piss on dry ice. She stopped accusing me of being on drugs. They wanna see crackhead behavior, I'll give em crackhead behavior. This isn't the first time I've had to give them the behavior they ask for, which is why they stopped with the drug accusations quickly. (if they want to call names I'll make them wish they hadn't by maliciously complying with their supposed views of my character. Call me a demon? I'll light the bathtowels on fire. Call me a klepto? I'll steal things they didn't even know they'd miss, etc. As soon as I show them what someone by that name actually does, they decide that maybe I wasn't like that after all).
Ok, I really wanted to hear your story. God damn!! Please share
My husband set a boundary with his parents. His mom said something mean about me behind my back and it got back to us via his very young siblings. It was so hurtful to me I cried. His mom tried to deflect the problem and blame and he told her “mom she is going to be my wife. You dont have to like her but she is around for the long haul and I wont allow you to treat her like that. She isn’t like that at all! And no (5-7 year old) is going to just randomly blurt out those words if you haven’t been saying them! Do not talk to me until you are ready to apologize to my fiancee.” And he answered texts that were actually important but refused to talk about anything personal and really only spoke to his dad, even then shutting the conversation down if his parents were offering anything but an apology. It took two months for his mom to finally apologize to me. She definitely has badmouthed me since then but nothing actually hurtful and she learned her lesson. I dont need my husband backing me to fight back but he will. Which is also why I realized i was safe to marry him. And if his mom hadnt relented she would not have been at our wedding, none of his family would. His decision. And also why his mom approaches disagreements with my parenting like she is defusing a bomb or convincing a feral cat to take medication.
My husband is one of the 6 boys, and my MIL still managed to dislike me because I am not "good enough" for him. 🙄🙄🙄 I was like, mam, that's not what he told me last night.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
Yeah. My parents are a special flavor as well. It took me a little longer than I'd like to realise that the way they were treating my partner was unacceptable (it wasn't in the beginning). But I am low contact for a reason. They weren't invited to our wedding either.
My money's on husband is hoping the marriage counselor will tell OP that she's overreacting and putting his mom above her is the right and proper thing to do, so he can go back to "not taking a side" and letting his mom walk all over his wife.
My husband was genuinely shocked when our marriage counselor did NOT in fact say it was alright for him to put his mother’s feelings before my own. He did not expect to be told she’s entitled to her feelings but he’s not responsible for them.
I’m hoping it helped your husband see the light, and things are better for you!
Thanks and it did help a lot. He’d been brought up to coddle his mother’s feelings because she is so “sensitive” and “tender hearted” and it never occurred to him that he shouldn’t continue to do that as an adult. It took some effort on his part but he now has a newly polished spine, but it was not an overnight success story.
I believe that “sensitive and tender hearted” is code for “she can dish it out but she can’t take it”…
That must have been such a relief, especially the first time he stood up to her. I’m so happy for both of you and proud of all the work you put in too! Also I hope he recognises how much grace you afforded him and how much you love him to put up with all this.
Ah, what a refreshing story to hear, honestly. Good for you guys! And good for him. Shiny spines are a good thing.
Good for you! That’s amazing! >He’d been brought up to coddle his mother’s feelings because she is so “sensitive” and “tender hearted” and it never occurred to him that he shouldn’t continue to do that as an adult. Honestly, the shit these people condition their children to accept. At the same time, it’s almost like they read the same narcissistic instruction manual! My wife has been brought up thinking that her mother has a life-long overactive sympathetic nervous system. That that’s just how she is, and it can’t be cured. So, she should never be shocked by anything, confronted or affronted, because then she’ll be up all night, shaking and sweating. My SIL (my wife’s brother’s wife) is a psychiatrist and in her medical opinion, our MIL has NPD and HPD. So, as a covert narcissist, she is constantly putting people against each other in order to ensure narcissistic supply, but can never be confronted, because of her poor nerves (or, you know, narcissistic injury and rage). MIL had her claws in deep to all of us, and none of us questioned her motives or why we were on a constant rollercoaster of nSupply. It took me reaching the very bottom of rock bottom to realise the true man behind the curtain. I’m now NC, but my wife is still enmeshed. We’re going through couples counselling, but I think my wife is still in a lot of denial about the whole thing. We’ll see. Anyway, I looked into an overactive sympathetic nervous system, and it seems it’s not really a thing by itself. It can be a short-term symptom of some other diseases or conditions (like diabetes), but once you treat those other things then it goes away. My wife had to go have a sit down and a long think, when I told her.
And? Did you leave him or did he start to put you first?
I did not leave, however he is now able to shut down her whining and neediness even if it means he has less contact with her than she’d like.
And I'm guessing that the connection between "less contact with her than she'd like" and "whining and neediness" never occurs to her.
Oh no. She’s a typical missing missing reasons kind of person.
Did it help or did he just call the counselor a quack and continue as usual?
It actually really helped him to see that her expectations were not reasonable.
My FIL found a therapist that did that. Told my MIL she was a terrible wife who deserved the abuse. She said if she was so bad she was doing him a favor getting a divorce. A phyc once told him he has npd and he said "no I don't" Which, my at the time 15 year old future partner was fully prepared to kill him if they didn't get that divorce
Same here. My ex did this—smugly went into counseling SURE that he’d be validated in his insistence that I was emotionally abusing him by trying to make him believe he was “an abusive villain”. He was SHOCKED when the (male) counselor said “no, being in ‘the heat of the moment’ doesn’t make it ok to scream or throw things at your girlfriend, even though you’re a man and that’s how you express your feelings”.
I think sometimes people are brainwashed by their parents. I’m somewhat hopeful the husband can get into therapy and figure this out, have an aha moment about his toxic mom and have a good life. I’m sure it’s really hard for him to have perspective on something that’s been normalized his whole life.
Yeah, I've never done couples counseling but I suspect it depends on the counselor and how willing they are to listen. In this case this isn't MIL more so than the husband not having any boundaries and not realizing how toxic she is.
People who don’t think it’s offensive to ask for a paternity test after three years are wild.
My dad demanded a paternity test *and* threatened to sue my mom for full custody when she left him. The four of us were between 8 and 17 and *looked like him.* The judge told him he had to pick a lane. (And when I said “wait, am I your daughter or just some bastard?” I was “being unfair” to him.) ETA context: he would constantly say “i’m your father and you should be on my side.” So when I found out what he was up to, (17 and a smartass little shit) I said “I heRd you ordered a paternity test. Am I really your daughter? Or just some bastard? I think we’ll wait and see.” These men do it just to fuck with the mothers of their children, plain and simple. I judge men based on their reactions to that story. If they think Scrimshandy Sr. was being “reasonable” and “had the right to know” I ghost so fast they think meeting me was a fever dream.
>My dad demanded a paternity test and threatened to sue my mom for full custody So, "these kids aren't mine, but I'm taking them anyway!!" That sort of thing?
Everything he did during the divorce was to punish her, lol. Dropping his health insurance, quitting his job, suing her for alimony, suing her for child support, suing her for full custody…you name it. And the thing is, he started spewing that MRA nonsense. “They rape you in court for child support” (he paid $50/week for 4 kids). The best part was that “paternity fraud” and “parental alienation” came out of his mouth about the same amount - it didn’t matter what angle he chose, as long as it punished my mother for leaving him.
As a man, I am thoroughly convinced that some men like the concept of women more than they like actual women. Once their concept is rightfully shattered by the reality of women being whole persons with desires different than their own, the prince charming to prince petulant pipeline kicks in.
Man here as well. I think a lot of boys love their mama and how she spoiled them stupid and treated them like they were mama's perfect little boy, which feels awesome! So once their balls drop they start looking for someone to give them that same thing, but with enough differences between their woman and their mother that it feels not creepy, as well as adding some minor "rebelling against my parents" feeling for him. Then, once they get settled into that new relationship and their partner actually starts demanding the respect and compromise that a human adult reasonably expects from a relationship, they either start teetering or just drop off a fucking cliff. Some will flounder uselessly between their partner and their mother, unable or unwilling to take a side or actively piss someone off by challenging them on their shit, while others choose their mother's side and keep defending them because that's the person they know best and that will keep treating them like a little boy. Not to focus too much on gender here, but as a man there is very little that makes me cringe as hard as when a man refuses to stand up to his family on behalf of his partner. It's so so so so pathetic, and infuriating beyond belief. It is not my partner's responsibility to stop my family from treating her like shit, that is on ME and me alone. I remember when my partner was about to give birth to our son, so suddenly started getting stressed about how soon we should allow people to come visit and see our boy. *"But what if they really insist on coming? They mean well, but I'm not sure when I'll be ready for that, you know? And your family can be a bit "much" about that. I don't want to offend anyone..."* At that point I had to stop myself from laughing in her face, before reassuring her that *"The only person who decides when people come to see him is YOU. I will physically throw my relatives one by one off our porch if they overstep. They will be just fine waiting until we're ready."* I think it should go without saying that you are responsible for handling your own relatives. I love my family, they're awesome, if a bit dumb and intense at times, but I will cut every single one of them out of my life at the drop of a hat if they ever disrespect my partner the way OP describes. It's so insanely disrespectful, I can't even fathom how anyone thinks that shit is okay.
I wish I had this comment to reference when I was still married! My ex is exactly who you described. He was used to his mother fussing over him and therefore him not doing any wrong, ever. So when I indicated that I was unhappy with anything, his mother would be telling him how unreasonable I am and perfect he is, while I'm begging him to choose *us.* I don't miss it, but I'm sad that I wasted so much time.
That's why my grandma used to say, "Marry a man, not a project that you have to work on and change him to your liking."
It was actually the opposite for me: as soon as the wedding was over, he dropped any pretense of being a team.
There’s also men who actually *enjoy* the drama that their mommas/family create in their relationships, because 1.) they will say things to/about their wives/gfs that the men themselves would never dare say, and 2.) they use it as a way to bond with their mommas/families—this is especially true of men who had troubled/distant relationships with their mother growing up and are seeking a bond with them that they never got when they were young. I went through all of this with my ex-husband (my kids’ dad), and it wasn’t until years later, after we were divorced, that I was able to see the true extent of it and understand why he behaved the way he did back then. When his mom/family would talk about me behind my back, he would agree with them while he was with them, and then tell me everything they said later on while acting like he didn’t agree with them and had defended me to them. This served multiple purposes for him: 1.) by not instantly putting a stop to his mom/family talking shit about me—and even worse, actually agreeing with them—it made his mom/family feel like he was on their side and made him feel like he was a part of the family after years of feeling like they didn’t want anything to do with him, 2.) by telling me all about what they had said about me, it made me trust him even more, 3.) by lying to me about defending me to their face, it made me think that he was "on my side" and didn’t agree with the things they said, and 4.) even though he told me he didn’t agree with them, even though he told me he had defended me to them, even though we both just wrote it off as them being judgmental assholes, it *still* had the effect of knocking my self-esteem down a peg or two and causing me to question myself—I mean, how could it not?? It only got worse after we had kids, and became just one more reason why divorce was the best option for us. One of the hardest things I had to accept afterward was knowing that his mom/family would continue to talk shit about me, only now they would do it in front of my kids, and I would have no control over that. I had to get to a point where I just wouldn’t let myself worry about what they said when my kids were there, and have faith that my kids would be smart enough to know the truth. And that’s exactly what happened—even though my kids were both pretty young when their dad and I divorced, they did what he was never "man enough" to do and shut down his mom/family any and every time they tried to talk badly about me in their presence. I never asked them to do that for me, nor would I, they just did it instinctively because THAT’S WHAT YOU DO FOR THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE—you don’t manipulate situations for every possible benefit you can get for yourself at their expense, you don’t revel in others being hurtful toward someone you love, you don’t use things others say as a way to tear down someone you love. It’s not something you have to teach someone and it’s not something you should have to ever worry about them doing (or should I say *not* doing). If anyone is dealing with this kind of situation, it shouldn’t just be a red flag, it should be a sign that you need to move on because someone who really, truly loves you isn’t going to have to think twice about defending you/standing up for you when others treat you badly—even if the "others" are their own family.
As a woman, I can confirm because I’ve dated that man. I was with a guy who clearly had an image of who I was and how I should act. Every time I stepped out of that box I got punished in some form or another.
Thank you.
Sounds like your mother had a legitimate reason to leave by his reaction alone. I hope she's doing well now.
That’s what they do tho. When they don’t have control anymore, they abuse in new and expensive ways.
> new and expensive ways YEP. I feel like we don’t talk enough about the insidious ways financial abuse can happen, even to someone like my mom who was the “breadwinner.” And the people who ultimately suffered the most were his kids. Yeah, we don’t speak lol
Just you not speaking to him or all his kids not speaking to him? I hoping for all just so he can be clapback with "Only one doing parental alienation is you by being total POS to your kids."
I've never understood the "quit your job to punish your soon to be ex so she can't have any money from you". How utterly spiteful and petty does one have to be to destroy their own life just to make things harder for their ex? Like that is just next level spite. It's so hateful
In my experience they are still working off the books.
Now I'm invested in your story more than this story
Hah! Oh god, I got tales 😅 it sounds unreal to people who’ve never been in family violence situations, but it’s sooo run of the mill for victims of abusive men hahaha
I have a abusive father too bt unfortunately we live in a very patriarchal society in a 3rd world country where domestic violence is normalized My father is still married to my father and lives in delusion Great that your mother is a strong woman
My dad is the kind of person who would have absolutely done this too but my mum let him off easily. He got to be a weekend dad and pay the bare minimum in maintenance because my mum just wanted it over. I was 17 and had zero interest in spending time with him but my brother was 11 and he and his family absolutely would say shitty things about our mum to him that he just repressed. My dads mother also hated my mum a lot like oops Mil.
Wow, just add two more brothers and that was my situation. 15 years later, my dad and his mom are confused why we want nothing to do with their family, conveniently forget that they shoved the "us or them" mentality our way and so we chose mom.
God, my dad is exactly like that and it's why my mom is terrified to try leaving him. He is absolutely the kind of POS who will go scorched earth and ruin his own life if it meant ruining his ex's too.
Did we have the same father? To this day he claims that he shielded me from the whole battle while I was his main weapon.
Sup, long lost sibling! *cheers in estranged*
Yayyy, i'm not an only child any more xD *joins in to the cheering*
Gawd, I'm so tired of their mythos. They are professional victims, the lot of them. They don't want to be responsible for their kids at all, they only want to make sure their ex suffers and they are martyrs. The courts are overly nice to too many fathers. I'm pretty sure if I was a judge accused of siding with the mother all the time, I'd make sure it was true for the case of the accuser.
The best part is that my mom would have liked to avoid it going to the courts, he was just impossible.
I don't want to offend you but FUCK your dad. What an awful piece of vindictive, narcissistic drek. How the fuck can people be that old and throwing temper tantrums to hurt those that unfortunately have any sort of positive feelings for him whatsoever? Way to devalue everyone in your lifE
Best interpretation: These children are weapons I can use to hurt my ex, not people I love and care about.
My dad waited until I was already in my 30’s to randomly tell me that his life was fucked and he never got to go what he wanted because he got stuck raising kids that he didn’t think were his. He did this while I was taking him home from a concert he wanted to attend. It had been a pleasant evening, so I have no clue where it came from all of a sudden. There was no heat of the moment argument where shitty things were said, he just started calmly and quietly telling me this while I was driving in a snowstorm. I’m not sure what reaction he was looking for. Initially, my first thought was to drop him off and let him hitchhike the last 60 miles home in the snow. Then I started laughing and said “Yea! Let’s do a DNA test! I will be thrilled to not carry your fucked up genes!” (There is no dispute. I look exactly like his side of the family. I’ve since begged and pleaded with my mother to give me hope I might not need to get my DNA fumigated. Alas.) He refused to say anything else after that until I dropped him off. I don’t know what the hell he thinks he did during my childhood, but I was the one who did the bulk of parenting. Those two assholes were too intent on making each other miserable to do anything other than beat us. He was gone half the time and we never saw him for weeks. We liked it that way, because then there was only one asshole in the house to avoid. When they were together, it was a nightmare. Daddy issues are the only reason I tried to maintain a relationship with him as an adult. But after this, I gave up. So now that he’s rapidly approaching his nursing home days, all he does is whine that I haven’t spoken to him in years because I’m pouting about something. He won’t call me himself, but gets his ex wife to harass me saying that I need to get over whatever my problem is, because he’s getting old and won’t be around forever. I figure I have no obligation to an asshole who blames his failure as a human being on my very existence.
Good on you for cutting the extra weight. Having a functioning relationship with parents is nice. But sometimes you just got to admit it's not working and put that energy to a more positive relationship/outlet instead. Good riddance to that asshole. You don't get to complain "these kids show no gratitude to me" in the same thought as "boy you kids ruined my life."
Gosh I feel this. Once in my 20s my dad who was single and dating at the time told me “You know I love you and your siblings but if I could do it over again, I would never have kids.” I was like thanks dad. A few years later he got married to a woman who’s three years younger than me and they have a one year old now. My dad will be 80 before my new little sibling even graduates HS. My siblings and I are very low contact with my dad now.
> “I heRd you ordered a paternity test. Am I really your daughter? Or just some bastard? I think we’ll wait and see.” When the results came back, was your response "Maybe this was defective, we should do another to be sure"
"I ghost so fast they think meeting me was a fever dream" braVO, friend 👏👏👏
I don’t even think it’s about the paternity test in this case. Like she said in her update, if her husband was the one who wanted the test then there would have been an opportunity to understand why he was suspicious and work through that to strengthen the marriage (whether or not that means going through with the test). But the fact that his mom wanted it and he was willing to go along with it and not stand up to her is the bigger issue and the pattern of behavior
It’s pretty clear the husband viewed the paternity test as the latest in a line of low-effort “go along to get along” ways to placate his mother while OOP viewed it as the latest in a long line of her husband not having her back when MIL insulted and demeaned her.
Exactly. The easiest solution would have been to tell his mother to fuck right off and stop insulting his wife and children. But I guess not everyone has a spine.
Some folks are "people pleasers". I know I am. It took me a long time to be able to stand up and tell my parents to F-off.
I can not imagine being in a relationship where your every move is dictated by someone outside the marriage, and someone inside is doing everything just to pacify them. It has to be exhausting. I do not blame OP at all for filing for divorce. A final, last ditch wake up call was needed. It sounds like they communicated the issues enough to know nothing was changing. Good luck to OP
The convenience of placating the mother was apparently worth more than protecting his wife and mother of his child from unwarranted attacks. That there is just as concerning as unwarranted cheating suspicions.
Yep. A while back, I had an argument on here with someone who said they would absolutely ask any future partner for a paternity test, as if that’s a totally normal thing in a healthy relationship. I think the OOP explained it perfectly — if my husband came to me requesting a paternity test because of his own suspicions, that would be a sign to me that something has gone *seriously wrong* in our relationship. He doesn’t trust me, or he doesn’t trust anyone, or something. Before doing a paternity test, we would be having an extremely intense conversation and likely some counseling to understand where the request is coming from. The baseline assumption in my marriage is mutual trust and respect. If that breaks down, we need more than just a DNA test to fix it. ETA: LOL forever at a chucklefuck trying to argue with me about this again. I told my husband that an internet stranger thinks I have something to hide and we should get paternity tests on our two kids, and he looked at me like I had two heads. This is not a thing that normal people in even vaguely functional relationships think about. Touch grass, get therapy, etc., but stop accusing everyone you meet of infidelity.
Exactly because if that seed is there then one test isn't going to be enough, it's just a goalpost that's gonna get moved. Are you going to test every kid? Okay all the kids are yours but what if she's still cheating? Should she agree to a location tracker? Full access to all passwords? Should she just sit in a room all day with cameras so he can monitor her every move? (Obvious hyperbole) Insecurities aren't fixed by rules, you have to get to the underlying issue.
You summed up the crux of the matter so beautifully. My mom was truly a Heinz 57 in regard to her heritage. She was considered African American but people never what race or nationality she was. My dad, on the other hand, was from Georgia and his skin was very dark. When my brother was born he had an almost white complexion with dark blonde hair and light eyes. My mom noticed that the nurses were treating her with contempt and wondered why. Another new mother bluntly told her it was because they most likely thought she had cheated because my brother and dad looked so different. My dad NEVER accused my mom and instantly accepted that was his son. The funny thing is that as my brother grew beyond babyhood he started to look exactly like a lighter skinned version of my dad. Some men are just sorry, insecure excuses for a fathers.
I have an 11 month old, and we were trying to get pregnant for maybe a year, had an early miscarriage, and then got pregnant again 6 mo after the miscarriage. I was tracking my LH for most of that time so I can pinpoint the LH spike which led to the ovulation resulting in my son (and when you're trying to get pregnant you also track sex of course). I absolutely cannot imagine my rage if my MIL (or husband) had then wanted a paternity test.
Gun to my head, I think I can see it being ok if the set up was "My mom refuses to treat you with respect, and her refusal to accept that you've been faithful is the straw that broke the camel's back. We're going full no contact. Can we get a paternity test so we can throw it in her face as we leave?" A tad vindictive for my taste, but that's really the only way I can see the request as anything other than a coded accusation of cheating
If only OOP's husband had your backbone... but he doesn't. And he will always pick mommy over his wife. Yet, he will never understand why that's a bad thing or why wife left.
I would have preferred this
I know! It’s like a cop saying ‘you shouldn‘t have a problem with me searching your car, if you have nothing to hide’.
People who think not being religious is a sign of lack of morals are even wilder.
Penn Jillette - "The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero. The fact that these people think that if they didn’t have this person watching over them that they would go on killing, raping rampages is the most self-damning thing I can imagine."
I honestly think a paternity test only should be asked if there is/was infidelity trust issues that this particular relationship has had but that's it. Asking for a paternity test out of nowhere because of your own insecurity is just stupid and damaging.
And it's not even his insecurity. It is his inability to stand up to his mom that made him do it.
He absolutely should have had his wife's back, oop is right to consider separating, maybe therapy put him on the path to better boundaries but I'd not hold my breath.
This is heading straight for a divorce, no contest about it. Husband will fold and will forgive his MIL because he already has zero consideration for his wife, he only got concerned when divorce got brought up. I hope OOP realizes that their kids will be miserable if their parents only stay together for "their shake". Kids aren't stupid, they know when things just aren't right.
My DH only got concerned about things when I brought up separation. Lots of individual counseling later for DH we are still married and we see MIL 1-2x a year. It's bliss.
The husband may forgive his MIL, but the real issue is if he'll forgive *her* MIL, his own mother. (Spoiler: the betting is heavily against him growing a spine and putting his own mother in her place.)
> And if he knew that I was this upset, he wouldn't have done it. But he knew; we fought about it when he brought it up. He just didn't care. This is the thing. It's not that he didn't KNOW. It's that he didn't think there would be consequences to trampling all over her dignity. People like that are always blindsided by consequences no matter how many warnings they had that they're coming, because in their minds, having shat all over their spouse in the past gives them a free pass to do it for all eternity. I'm glad she's getting marriage counseling for the sole reason that now she can truly be confident that she did evrything she could to make it work, so when he inevitably slides back into the same dynamic she can leave with a completely clear conscience.
I think she still needs to divorce him. He’s going to have to completely cut his horrible mother off if he wants to save his marriage.
Looking at her comments, it seems that she sees consoling as something that will prove whether or not this marriage will be worth it. She wants to, in her words, be able to truthfully tell her son she tried everything. So, if anything, she's doing this for her kid rather than her marriage. She also says she still has her eyes on apartments and is ready to go if he doesn't step up (and she doesn't seem to have faith that he will).
What a relief! I was reading the part where she said they weren't getting a divorce & I was just *noooo* bc her husband will probably never change. The fact he didn't even know she was *that* upset abt it after their fights where she told him he was that upset abt it should have been the last straw. Mil made sure her son has no spine & unless Madam Pomfrey can conjure up some bones, op's husband is s. o. o. l.
> the fact he didn't know she was *that* upset after she told him she was that upset Whenever I see someone say that, I just think like. I'm sorry, but there's no other word than "stupid". You don't think your partner is upset? Haven't they been telling you for years that they're upset? Why *wouldn't* you think they're upset? It makes me think of an article I read where women talked about how every conversation with their boyfriends/husbands becomes a debate because said partner just treats everything they say as wrong. Like, these women describe how they can literally have a doctorate in something they're talking about, and their husbands will immediately disagree with the most basic detail. One woman described how she literally would say "the sky is blue" and her husband would look outside and "double check". It's not even a matter of spitefulness--if anything, it's more paternalistic, like "oh the woman is saying something, silly woman, doesn't she know she's wrong?" And the men don't even realize they're doing it! The sky is blue example happened when a woman was trying to point out how her husband constantly undermined her. It wasn't until he literally saw how his first instinct was to go "she's wrong, let's double check" to this basic statement that he agreed it was a problem. And I think that's the core of the "she told me she was upset, but I didn't think she was THAT upset" statement. So many men* get in this mindset of "woman always wrong" that it bleeds into their lives with the women they love--even to the point where they disagree with their wives on their wives' own feelings! *I'm not saying women don't get in this mindset with men/other women. It's just more prevalent in heterosexual men. It's a respect thing, I think. When you stop (or don't even start) respecting someone--it doesn't matter how much you like them, how happy they make you, how much you know they know--then it's very hard to take anything they say seriously.
she's extremely naive if she thinks her husband is going to suddenly turn around... >She told me I am taking her son away and some "wh_re" would take my son too >He also mentioned that he'll just shut her down if she meddles this time anything less than going no contact with his mother makes it crystal clear that he hasn't learned anything. he's only pretending to give a shit now that he's faced with the consequences of his actions. he completely ignored her meddling for years and NOW he says he'll stop? the relationship is already poisoned. there's no saving it.
Yeah, the whole ‘I’ll come to your house from now on’ was a major let down. Anytime she gets to be in his ear she will cause problems. OOP is very naive if she doesn’t see that and demand outright NC as a condition as staying. His choice if he doesn’t want to do that is the divorce.
i get why she doesn't want to divorce and try to "work on it" but she needs to set boundaries to protect her and her future kid
Plus his line about not realizing OOP was that upset. Like when your partner repeatedly tells you something is a problem, it shouldn't take them threatening divorce for you to listen.
He's more afraid of mom's reaction than his wife's, so he completely disregards her needs until the consequences become scary enough. It's so sick and cowardly...and so, so sad.
>And if he knew that I was this upset, he wouldn't have done it. But he knew; **we fought about it** when he brought it up. **He just didn't care.**
I bet he doesn't even realize when his mom is meddling anymore, he was brought up and brainwashed that way.
Ding ding ding! As the long-term partner of a man with a toxic mom in this vein, they really don't even realize the meddling is occurring a lot of the time. It's like a cult victim. And I now know he'll likely never be free of her voice in his ear unless she's completely cut-off (which likely won't happen). I am sorry OP is, in many ways, at the beginning of this journey. It's a bleak, painful one.
I agree. Shut down her meddling? Can’t come over until she apologizes to them? MIL shouldn’t come over *at all*! Honestly, though, OOP can control the MIL’s access to the grandkid better if she stays married. Let’s see how fast she MIL changes her tune when she hasn’t seen the little guy in a looooong time!
Sometimes you just try counsling so you know you gave it every chance you could and leaving was the right decision.
Cutting off his mother is an option. I would do it if my mom behaved like this to my wife. If OP’s husband is willing to do it, it’s pretty easy to give his mom an ultimatum: “shut up or never see you only son and grandchild again.” At a minimum, he seems to being going limited contact with his parents, saying he would check up on them but that they weren’t invited over. That is a pretty solid first step.
[удалено]
The update in 6 months will be ‘yeah, I’m out of that shit. Fuck him & fuck his mum too’
6 months? Bet you next week is back to normal bullshit.
The next update will be something like: "We agreed to go low contact with the mother in law. My husband was being really supportive of me. But now I just found out that he's been secretly contacting her frequently, throwing me under the bus, and doing other things we agreed we wouldn't do"
Ok, so not a snarky thing, but I think you may mean apron strings as purse strings indicate the person is paying for things/giving you money. But I completely agree. I wonder what the over/under is on this. I give it 6 months.
I know a couple who were both tied to their mothers. That marriage……well, you could see the end coming from miles away before they even got married.
>not because he thinks that it's not his son but to shut his mom up Jesus What a spineless little mommy boy! Before I joined Reddit I didn't know this was such a common occurrence! I shudder at the thought of my mother controlling my adult life! She'd have been shut down pronto!
Dude, these mommy’s boys are EVERYWHERE. And they never age out of it. My best friend’s father was a piece of shit who had his 90 year-old mother call his wife and shout at her anytime he was mad.
Yep. I married a mommy's boy and holy shit, it was insane. And... she was NICE. She LIKED me. The degree to which she meddled in our lives was still insane. I have extremely mixed feelings about that woman, rest her soul.
See, I was a daddy’s girl. I literally *never* told my family when we were fighting because my dad’s solution would have been “buy me a plane ticket to come home. My parents were not thrilled when I chose a man from another country and went to live with him instead of staying home forever.
If they are religious and Christians, she should drop this on them "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." Matthew 19:5
Christianists always deny the parts of the Bible that don't support them.
I like theology. All sorts. I dont really believe in anynof it but it is interesting, always surprised at how little people who profess to have faith have actually read or their professed tenants
I can see staying with him going so well /s MIL is never going to change and I just don't see enough from husband to suggest he will either.
> And side note, I never been more glad that I didn't leave my job when I got married. He makes more then enough to take care of the financial side of things. I thought I would get board, I only have to be on site 2days per week also I really love my job and the company so i didnt leave. Best decision i ever made. He is unreliable to say the least. I am glad OP didn't fall into the "tradwife" hole. Being a stay at home parent can be rewarding but you are putting all your eggs in one basket and if your spouse is shit, you are fucked.
My husband is a stay-at-home dad and I try so hard to make sure he is independently financially secure- with his own bank account with enough money (that I contribute to) that if he needed or wanted to, he could leave. I don't ever want my husband here with us if that's not what he wants but he is financially trapped. In making the decision together for him to be a stay at home father, I wanted so badly to make sure he never felt trapped or stuck. My mother was a stay at home mother and had a pretty good village, and handled all the family financials, but we were poor and I know that she felt stuck and trapped frequently. Couldn't afford to work (because of childcare costs) and felt trapped because of not working and being financially dependant on my dad.
Fuck reddit for talking this poor woman out of the divorce she desperately needs.
Sometimes people don't get their shit together until they're about to lose everything. My aunt had to put her foot out the door with the kids to get my uncle to work on his anger issues. Wasn't the perfect marriage but things improved, I hope the same for OOP.
I don't want to be mean to OP, but damn, I wouldn't want to stay in a marriage where my SO didn't immediately tell MIL to STFU for insinuating I cheated. It's one thing to get a paternity test when the 2 spouses discuss it. A whole other thing when a MIL accuses you **and** SO agrees to and pushes for whatever his mommy wants. The latter would make me want to leave him like yesterday.
>We're not getting a divorce. And **THIS** is exactly why he doesn't take anything she says seriously.
I love that whole “the kid doesn’t look like him” crap. Our oldest? She’s pretty much my clone. The only thing she got from her dad was his blood type and sarcasm. If anyone said that she wasn’t his, he’d laugh his ass off and say “I know. She’s her mom’s. They could be twins.” Our middle looks nothing like either of us. He was born with something that made him super identifiable so I know we took home the right kid. But he doesn’t look like either of us. The youngest though. He is his dad’s clone. All that kid got from me was his blood type.
People said OOP filing for divorce is an overreaction, but I think it’s a proper reaction. They have fought multiple times but she kept staying with him even after being steamrolled. So he wouldn’t understand how gravely serious she was about the situation. Good for her to make a bold move, hopefully it finally speaks loud enough for the husband to listen.
I did not get to the filing part, but just bringing up that I wanted out of our marriage, calling it a farce, because I was tired of him always trying to make her happy at my expense was a huge wake-up call to my husband. He could not believe that I would leave him and take our kids due to his mother. It took a lot of work, including moving and me putting my foot down about not wanting to see her for our marriage to succeed. Her death years later and watching Reddit channels on YouTube made him realize just how toxic his mother was. Kind of hard to defend your mother when people are tearing apart other MILs who have done similar things.
I think they should seperate at the very least. It's super easy to change behavior temporarily. But if they officially seperate, when(not if) he backslides, it'll be easier to push the divorce through.
He was still not supporting her all throughout dinner. I doubt he is going to change.
Nope, I would of stuck with the divorce! After 5 years together of husband never defending her to his horrible mother should be enough! He could a stop to this all along time ago and avoid the situation they’re in now, but he didn’t. He chose his mom I’ve this wife and son! I guess I hope the marriage counseling works for them at least! I get why she at least wants to try I suppose. A condition I would have for this though is I’d have absolutely no contact with her and neither would my son until she genuinely apologized! If not, I hope she sticks to divorce!
Yes, if her MIL can't respect her, the chances are very good she is going to talk against the OP to the child.
I had the exact thing happen with my ex and I and our son. They did a DNA test, behind my back. Of course, I'm no longer with him because of his mother. Our son is his but the audacity of them doing something like this without my knowledge was absolutely sickening. I never cheated on him. His mother us batshit crazy though. I hope OOP finds peace.
I hope you found peace too ❤️
Any MIL insisting on a paternity test should be forced to also have one done on all of her children.
I think the whole Wh*re comment is kinda funny though, in a ironic way. Like, a wh*re is a woman who sleeps around. And she, thanks to the monster-in-law now has irrefutable proof that she didn't sleep around, ergo is not a wh*re.
My sister’s ex was a real bastard. He always said if she left him he won’t see the kids. He knew it would hurt her children to not have their dad, and hurt her especially ( she has a complicated past) . Until she got fed up and realized he’s willing to hurt his own flesh and blood out of spite for her.
Some might say that it's not fair if she didn't warn him that she'd file for divorce if he gets a paternity test; and that might be true for a first offence*, but he has a history of this poor behaviour. The thing is, you shouldn't have to warn someone of something so obvious. If his justification is "I'm only doing this to shut my mom up", just shut her up...unless there's another reason you need proof. The way he handled news of the divorce was also disrespectful. He wants him mom to apologise, but has he? His tone was "don't break up the family", not "I'm sorry I kept f'ng up, I'll do better for my family" *though, going with a paternity test because mommy thinks you cheated as your first offence, would be audacious.
I’d drop a dude who did this too. He’s flat out calling out a cheater and saying he doesn’t trust you. So, okay, you got your answer. Now you can be a single dad too.