My mother in law is driving me crazy
So, my mother-in-law is driving me crazy and I need to get this off my chest. My husband and I just got married—we’re Pakistani, and my family, my husband, and I paid for everything, including the wedding album. His family is tiny, and everyone who was there is in the album, but when I showed her she absolutely lost her mind: slamming the book down so hard it shook the table, manhandling it like it was garbage, and screaming the house down that it’s all my aunties and my side. It was too much for me—I started to shout back, and my husband had to take me upstairs and tell me to go up there to get away from it all.
I live with her and my husband right now (we can’t afford to move out yet). After that fight, I went to stay at my mom’s, and my husband’s been on my side—he’s barely speaking to his mom because he knows she was way out of line.
This isn’t the first time she’s screamed at me—I’ve let it go before—but this was the worst by far. I told her my husband and I picked the pictures together, and she snapped back “I said I’d pick my family, he picked yours.” I said I did tell him to include their family, but those were the only pictures we had of them. Plus, it was my photographer—we usually get one for the boy’s side and one for the girl’s in Pakistani weddings, but they decided not to. That’s not my problem, but she kept crying about it and saying I should’ve made him add more of their family.
Before I even brought the album over, she was already saying “leave it here, make sure you leave it at this house”—but when I actually showed up to show her, she was delaying and didn’t even seem excited to see it.
The thing is, she didn’t pay a cent for the wedding but tells people she contributed a ton. She’s always putting me down: I make my husband fresh meals every day after his 13-hour shifts, but she’ll yell that I’m too slow and should just give him frozen food (even though she only makes frozen stuff for her own husband, or makes us cook for the whole house of 5 men). Once I passed my husband a heavy bag because my arm hurt, and she screamed that I should be helping him instead. She also listens at our door when we’re intimate—so creepy.
She demands hugs and kisses from me and my sister-in-law (who’s 7 months pregnant and also treated like garbage by her), but gets mad when my husband shows me affection, saying to keep it in the bedroom. She kisses my husband’s cheeks in front of me but flips if he does the same to me.
My father-in-law is great—he tells my husband all the time how lucky he is to have me, but he can’t stand up to her because she just screams until everyone shuts up. My sister-in-law is moving out soon, which makes me sad because she’s my support system there.
I know I’ll have to go back eventually because my husband can’t cook and won’t eat otherwise, but I’m dreading the awkwardness and her attitude. Just need some advice on how to handle this until we can move out.