A woman is embroiled in a family row after giving her mother-in-law a fake house key.
The 34-year-old woman recently purchased a new home with her 37-year-old husband. Her mother-in-law insisted on having an emergency key to their home, but she was reluctant to provide her with one given she had an “emergency key” to their old apartment and walked in on the couple being “intimate” twice.
As the mother-in-law insisted it would only be used in emergencies, the woman gave her a fake key to keep her happy. However later, over Christmas dinner, it was revealed that the mom had tried to enter the house when there was no emergency - leading to her husband’s mother having a “meltdown”.
Posting to Reddit’s Am I The A**hole forum, the woman explained that her mother-in-law is “snoopy” and “annoying”. When she and her husband purchased a new house, the mother-in-law insisted on having a spare key.
The woman wrote: “She promised that she only use it in an emergency but [given] the fact that she had an emergency key to our old apartment and walked in on us being intimate twice (but my husband didn’t think it was big deal) I just couldn’t trust her so I just sent her a fake key (after she kept pushing) and she had a smug on her face after I hand-delivered it to her.”
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But over Christmas, her mother-in-law “angrily” called her out on the fact she was given a fake key.
The woman asked how she knows it’s fake, and the mother-in-law said she tried to enter the house while she and her husband were out.
She reminded her of the promise she made to only use the key in case of an emergency and accused her of breaking their agreement.
And the situation went from bad to worse from there.
She said: “She looked red in the face and the other family started staring and some even laughed at her for the face she made. She suddenly got up from her seat and rushed into the kitchen where she had a huge meltdown so loud the next door neighbours must’ve heard - literally I’ve never heard a 60+ year old woman throw a tantrum like that.”
Dinner, naturally, got awkward at that point, and the Redditor said her husband and his sister “were giving [her] looks”.
And it wasn’t just the mother-in-law that was upset with her. Her husband also threw a strop.
She said: “My husband went off on me in the car and said I lied and manipulated and humiliated and exposed his mom and said he wouldn’t have let me get away with it had he known.
“We had an argument and he is demanding I apologise to his mom for my childish behaviour and for ruining Christmas dinner for the whole family.”
She concluded the post by asking if her handling of the situation was appropriate.
The top comment, with over 45,000 upvotes, reads: “I’d rethink my marriage if my husband put his mother over me.”
Another pointed out that her husband seems to have “no problem” witnessing his wife being humiliated in front of others, while another accused the husband of “enabling and encouraging his mom’s demented behaviour.”
Commenting on the fact she previously walked in on them being “intimate” twice before, one commenter worries the mother-in-law “now has free reign” since the behaviour wasn’t dealt with the first time she walked in. They encouraged the Redditor to set boundaries and potentially seek out marriage counselling. They added: “Solve your husband problem and you will solve your MIL [mother-in-law] problem.”
The original poster said her husband ended up blaming her for it, and accused her of “overreacting” when she confronted his mother.
She wrote: “He blamed me one time for not locking the bedroom door which is something we never do and the second time for when she walked in on us making out in the living room. He said intimate stuff should happen in the bedroom just to be extra careful about people walking in aka his mom and saw no issue with her walking around in the apartment like she lived there.”
In an update, the original poster said she thought she’d show her husband “some pretty helpful comments” on the thread.
But he got mad when he saw it, and called her “nuts” for talking about his family online.
She said: “He demanded my phone so he could delete it but I refused and I went upstairs and into the bedroom. [I’ve] never seen him so agitated and I didn’t think he’d react like that honestly.”
She concluded the post by thanking others for their support and promising to provide an update when she can.
Although she hasn’t updated us yet, we’re left wondering how we’d handle this situation. What would you do?
