Unexpectedly, a mother of two set off a heated family argument by discovering long-kept secrets in her own house.
She coveredtly installed a recording device, and after making an astonishing discovery, she forbade her mother-in-law from ever again seeing her children.
The husband’s loyalty, however, remained torn between his wife and his mother, intensifying the tension within the family.
On March 23, 2021, an anonymous female contributor turned to the “AITA” subreddit to share her story. The woman had been married for five years, and her mother-in-law had always lived with them. This living arrangement caused significant tension in their home because, in the mother-in-law’s eyes, the woman had stolen her son.
The mother-in-law had no boundaries; she would meddle in any part of their lives and use her husband as leverage whenever she felt like it. The mother had two children: her daughter was only six months old and her first son was two years old.
Her daughter would smile at her mother-in-law, but she never got a smile in return. Rather, the older woman looked at her with a silent, simmering anger.
What Made the Woman Install a Recording Device at Home?
While the husband worked from home, the woman found a part-time job, leaving the kids with him during her work hours. After a while, she noticed a drastic change in her daughter’s behavior. The child refused to feed herself, even when hungry.
Aware that her husband would probably ignore her observations and suspicious of her MIL’s influence, the woman made the covert decision to document their home life.
She once overheard her mother-in-law berating her husband for hours on end during a conversation.
Later, she heard her mother-in-law verbally abusing her children, referring to them as “little pigs” and spewing derogatory insults. The woman’s young son was called a monkey and a pig, while her daughter was told she was hated, and her crying was mocked. “She [spent] around 6 hours talking to my babies like that and verbally [a_busing] them,” said the woman of her MIL.
How Did the Woman’s Husband React?
Confronting her husband with the audio evidence, he initially criticized her for recording their private conversations. When I talked to my husband about what happened and made him listen to the audio, first he told me that I was out of limit and I was out of character to put a [recorder] in the house,” noted the wife.
Subsequently, the spouse of the woman minimized the circumstances, maintaining that his mother was the source of the issue, not the kids. He justified his mother’s actions and stood up for her. The woman decided that she would no longer permit her mother-in-law to play a role in her children’s lives without adult supervision, in spite of his response.
[My husband] told me that I can be mad at his mother, but the kids are not mad at her, I am the one who has a problem with his mother but the kids don’t have any problem with her and [it’s] petty of me to not allow her to see the kids again,” shared the woman. „He also said that I have to do the right thing, her mom is still the [kids’] grandmother, the kids must have a relationship with her and I have to let go.”
Two weeks after the incident, the woman’s mother-in-law returned to their home country. It had been six months since then, and she was due to return soon. Finally, her husband decided to find a separate apartment for his mother. Despite this, the woman still harbored deep resentment due to the hurtful words her children endured.
Consequently, she chose not to let the kids visit their grandmother, aligning her decision with her own choice not to interact with her. At the same time, the mother of two wondered if she was wrong for not letting her MIL see her children.
The woman expressed her gratitude to everyone for their support and comments in a brief update to her original Reddit account. She was tempted to doubt herself occasionally, but she never wavered in her decision in spite of her husband’s deceptive actions. She stood firm and was confident in her decisions, standing up for her kids no matter what the cost.