Generally speaking, wives and their mothers-in-law have had a difficult time getting along over the years (just ask JLo and Jane Fonda). When it comes down to it, some mothers simply have a difficult time letting go.
Bearing this in mind, wives might even come to expect the odd argument here and there. But what you never anticipate is to hear your mother-in-law tell your husband to stop being monogamous .
Mothers have a very special bond with their sons.
Much in the same way that no man is ever good enough for daddy’s little girl, no woman on earth can ever measure up or meet the expectations a mother has for her son.
While a mother’s intentions may come from a good place, when left unchecked they can become overbearing.
This was certainly the case for one anonymous Reddit user, who recently took to the internet to ask for coping mechanisms for her overbearing mother-in-law.
In an anonymous post, the wife revealed some of the troublesome behavior she’d begun to notice from her MIL.
For example, when she was dropping her husband off at the United States Military Entrance Processing Station, his mother called and said , “No one can love you as much as your mom.”
“So, is she saying I can’t possibly love him enough, who says that?” the wife asked exacerbated.
On its own, you might be forgiven for thinking that this was just a harmless loving comment. But it turns out that this is just one example of a repetitious pattern of negative behavior.
The MIL often makes snide remarks insinuating that the wife is using her son for money.
Which is both ironic and laughable, considering that she (the wife) is the breadwinner for their family. Her mother-in-law also has some incredibly outdated ideas surrounding gender roles in relationships.
When she discovered her son was “forced” to watch his kids for a few hours a week, she reportedly “rolled her eyes.”
As if the idea of a man staying home with the kids while a woman went off to work was somehow abhorrently wrong. This isn’t 1955, Karen — get with the program.
What’s even worse is the MIL even tried to convince her son to not get married.
The mother-in-law’s reasoning was that “people aren’t meant to be monogamous .”
I’d ask the mother-in-law how her husband is doing, but for some strange reason, I think I already know the answer.
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Shockingly enough, the wife agreed — monogamy isn’t for everyone.
But she then went on to clarify how she and her husband “are intelligent beings that can pick what kind of lifestyle suits .”
Am I missing something here? What kind of mother would want her son to live a polyamorous lifestyle?
Overwhelmingly, people seemed to side with the wife.
“Children are meant to grow up and move on,” a fellow Redditor wrote . “No less love, but lives of their own.”
A baby bird can’t live in the nest forever. Sooner or later, it has to learn to fly on its own.
Another user remarked how mothers do this as a means to control their sons.
“They only baby them because if they didn’t know how to do anything, they can control their sons forever,” they reasoned .
Either that or this mother-in-law has a real reverse Oedipus complex.
What most people seemed to agree on was the fact that the wife needed to desperately make her feelings known.
She agreed to do so, but only after her husband returned from Basic Training. Hopefully, his mother won’t have already poisoned his mind by the time he returns home to her.
