In a particularly clear case of someone not being “the a–hole” on everyone’s favorite drama-filled Reddit forum, a woman asked if she was in the wrong for walking right out of the airport when she found out her mother-in-law was coming on her vacation.
The post describes the woman’s fraught relationship with a mother-in-law who seems like she’s never even heard of the concept of personal boundaries.
The OP started with an example of her MIL’s strange behavior, including the time “she LITERALLY dyed her hair purple just like mine and when everyone pointed out how ridiculous she looked, she actually blamed me and accused me of trying to make a joke out of her.”
Then the OP and her husband decided to plan a vacation. From the get-go, her MIL tried to force her way into this vacation and would not take no for an answer. It got to the point that she even threatened to make a fake report to the police to stop the vacation from happening at all if she wasn’t allowed to tag along.
“So, anyways, my husband and I took 2 weeks off work to go visit some places out of the country – tourism in other words. Thing is I was the one who saved up for and arranged for the trip (my husband was responsible for booking the tickets).”
“My husband’s mom wanted to come along and threw temper tantrums when I said no. She called, texted, sent people to talk to me into letting her come, even threatened to call the police and make some complaint up to get us to stay if she can’t come.”
“My husband said we should just take her but I told him he was wrong to tell her about the trip in the first place. He gave me an ultimatum and said he wouldn’t go if she can’t come and I told him I’d gladly call his bluff which made him take his words back and say ‘FINE! I will tell her to stop it because we won’t take her.’”
Unfortunately, that was not the end of it. Her husband lied to her, booked his mother’s ticket behind her back, and then roped the entire family into freaking out on her when she refused to be strong-armed into a vacation that no one would want.
“He lead me to the waiting area and first thing I saw was his mom standing there with her luggage. I froze in my spot, I felt a cold wave washing over me and I was fuming inside. She and my husband were hugging and that’s when I quietly turned around and started walking towards the exit. My husband followed me while shouting at me to stop. He tried to stop me but I told him off the harshest way possible.”
“He tried to say I was overreacting and that his mom was there “anyway” and I should let it go and not mess the trip up for us. I told him he and his mom could still go and that I was going home.”
“I went home and sobbed into my dog’s fur for several minutes. It turned out he booked her a ticket without me knowing. An hour later, he came home yelling and raging about how pathetic and spiteful I was to walk out and go home and ruin the trip last minute.”
“I told him he caused this to happen. He said that I was being so hard on his mom it’s ridiculous. I refused to fight any more but he kept on berating me then called my family to tell them that the trip was cancelled and that it was because of me.
My family said that I shouldn’t have ruined it for myself and should’ve sucked it up and done my best to enjoy. Did I really overreact?”