These Fathers-In-Law Are Total Monsters
Family relationships can be hard enough to manage under ordinary circumstances. So imagine how much worse that gets when one member of the family makes it a point to be disagreeable, irrational, and just downright difficult on a regular basis. And, when that person is your father-in-law, you might as well just kiss your hopes of escaping drama goodbye the day that knot gets tied. Here are 50 stories about some of the worst fathers-in-law—and in some cases, fathers—of all time!
1. Here’s What You’re Gonna Do...
My ex-father-in-law used to call us up all the time and tell us exactly how we were going to handle something.
Whatever the thing was that needed to be handled, he would automatically start instructing us on what we should do.
He had no regard whatsoever for what we thought of it. Not even as much as a question about it.
At the time when he first started doing this, I was engaged to my ex, a college graduate, and I had been largely living on my own for a while with the exception of summers with my parents between school years.
As a result, I was not used to letting anyone have a say in my day-to-day decision-making, so I was a little taken aback by my father-in-law’s presumptuous antics.
So when he did this, I just smiled sweetly through the phone at him and then researched exactly how I wanted to handle something on the computers in the library of my grad school.
This continued throughout the marriage and one of the reasons my ex finally had me adulting for him is that my ex-father-in-law would call and badger him about doing something and list out the steps.
My ex would come to me freaking out and telling me about all the things that his father had told him to do, adding a few random ones too, due to his paranoia. I would call up his father, find out what he actually said, and then tell him how I was going to handle it my own way. I always made sure to thank him sweetly for his concern while inwardly rolling my eyes so hard that they fell out and rolled across the kitchen. But it wasn’t that terrible—until…
15 years into the marriage, we're stuck living with them after my ex lost his job and my ex's car stopped working.
My father-in-law comes to me one day and tells me to give him my financial information so that he can fill out the papers for the loan for a new one.
At this point, I'm in my mid-30 and was already irritated to be living with my ex's parents when I had lived on my own for so long, so his demand did not make me happy.
I mean, I had bought four cars on my own before and the paperwork was not difficult. I told him sweetly that *I* would be filling out the paperwork, not him, and if I needed any information from him, I would let him know.
I might have come across a little bit forcefully to him, which was intentional on my part, because my ex-mother-in-law quickly came over and tried to chew me out for “
yelling at him.”
Speaking to him forcefully apparently did something, though, because he let me deal with my own affairs from then on with no comment on his part.
But seriously? Your kid is 40 years old. If he can't fill out the papers for a car loan, you did something wrong with him.
The only reason my ex's sibling learned to adult was that they got married, and it was incredibly embarrassing for them to have their daddy doing all their financial stuff and poking into their lives on such a regular basis.
2. The End Of An Era
So my ex recently decided to randomly break up with me after six years of being together. He did so without even trying to make it work. He instead started dating a work colleague of his within a week. Then, yesterday, my ex came by to discuss some things with me. During this visit, he got super angry and aggressive towards me—but that was just the start of my nightmare.
He then called his mother, who is an absolute angel in my view, but unfortunately, it wasn’t long before she decided to pass the buck along and call my ridiculous excuse for an ex-father-in-law to get him involved.
They both started heading over to intervene. My father-in-law arrived first and he started screaming at me because I wasn’t willing to just give up our joint house so that I could live in student housing instead?!
I replied that I am totally willing to move when I find something suitable, but that I was under no circumstances going to move into student housing just because it was easy and quick.
I have a perfect house here, and my ex is basically ruining my life, so I am not interested in downgrading my entire lifestyle just for his short-term comfort and benefit.
My ex’s dad then got aggressive. He tried to act intimidating and started blocking the only exit in the room while cornering me.
Then, my ex-mother-in-law arrived and told him to leave me alone and that she would talk to me in a peaceful and mature manner.
We talked for about 30 minutes and we actually managed to clear up a lot of things.
She totally regretted calling her husband into the situation. My ex is now staying at my mother-in-law’s for the next week, which is a total blessing in my book right now as he had initially voiced a pretty strong refusal to do so.
He also told a lot of lies about the situation, mostly in his own favor, as you can probably imagine.
But the ending of all of this is that I don't ever want to see my ex-father-in-law again. I told my ex-husband and he agreed that I shouldn’t have to. And if he does show up, he'll see my wrath—which I couldn't show yesterday because I was fighting off a cold and a shoulder infection. I finally got rid of him. I sure hope my next in-laws won’t be insane. Cheers, everyone!
3. Grabbing Your Attention
My 24-year-old boyfriend and I have been together for seven years. I know his family quite well. I have never experienced this sort of inappropriate behavior from my father-in-law before, and I’m very shocked and unsure of what to do about it.
So a month ago, I went on a weekend trip to a cottage with my boyfriend’s family.
My boyfriend has two older sisters with husbands and kids, as well as a younger brother, and of course, his parents, who had paid for the trip.
On the second day, when we returned from a long walk, everyone was quite tired, so we chilled and had some snacks.
My boyfriend and father-in-law were sitting on a couch together, and I sat in a chair.
At one point, I stood up and leaned over the table in front of their couch to grab some snacks, and I suddenly felt a smack on my butt.
I thought to myself: “What the heck? My boyfriend knows that I don’t like him doing things like this in public.”
In private it’s fine, but why on earth would he do that right in front of members of his own family?
Even though I was confused, I did not want to be dramatic in front of everyone, so I just turned around and semi-jokingly said: “You’re not allowed to do that.” He then just kept silent and pointed at his father, who sat there grinning. I was now very confused but still didn’t want to be dramatic. So, I tried keeping the joking tone while saying: “You surely aren’t allowed to do that either.” It was so uncomfortable—and then it got worse.
My father-in-law now almost braggingly said to my mother-in-law, who was also in the room but reading a book on her own: “
I just smacked this girl’s butt and she thought it was her boyfriend!” My mother-in-law frowned and said: “Don’t smack her butt!”
But my father-in-law just continued to grin and said: “Well, it had the effect that I wanted it to have.”
I found that sentence to be very weird and unpleasant. I didn’t know how to react to the situation because I wasn’t completely sure if this was some sort of family humor that I so far hadn’t been privy to, and I did not want to be the “
prudish” outsider who ruined it. Not knowing what to do with myself, I sat down on an empty couch and found something to read.
Shortly after, my boyfriend went shopping with his mom, so I felt kind of abandoned. I tried to keep myself away from my father-in-law as much as I could until they came back.
So I went into another room to prepare some entertainment for the children that my boyfriend and I had promised to make.
When my boyfriend came home from the shopping, we took a walk.
During this walk, I told him how I felt about the situation with his father. My boyfriend told me that in the moment, he had been too shocked to react, as he had never seen his father do anything like that before.
He added, though, that he was disgusted by the situation and wished that he had stood up for me. The incident was not mentioned for the rest of the weekend.
After a month, I am still disgusted by the fact that my father-in-law did that to me. It felt objectifying and just wrong.
It turned a situation where I had previously felt very comfortable being completely myself around his family into one where I don’t even want to be around them at all.
I’m very cautious whenever I walk by a sitting male person.
This is even true within my own family. I know that I have a big butt. It’s a family thing that we are all rather small around the waist but with large hips.
And thus, I also get very self-conscious about my body type, and the last thing I want is for random people to start grabbing my butt without my consent.
This is my first and only serious relationship that I’ve ever had. I really don’t want it to get ruined by a completely uncalled-for incident like this.
4. Baby, You’re A Firework
About a month ago, my father-in-law got upset at us for not spending the night watching his daughter and take her to school in the morning, because I had a final exam at 7:00 in the morning the next day.
He then proceeded to take money out of my boyfriend's bank account, just to be a jerk, and then asserted that my boyfriend should have made me take an Uber or take the bus to the exam rather than drive me, as we had previously agreed to.
My father-in-law makes a point of saying that me getting to my final exam on time was not his priority.
Since then, I've made it a point not to go over to his house over the holidays. He didn't have his daughter at his house until a few days ago, but at some point, while my boyfriend and I were out, his dad texted him and said he had another Christmas gift for him.
We decided to swing by and pick it up. While we were there, my father-in-law asked if my boyfriend wanted to go to the gym with him.
Of course, my father-in-law asks if I'm willing to watch the kiddo while they go, saying they'll be back in about 90 minutes.
I'd already talked at length to my boyfriend about how I felt about being roped into babysitting and then left indefinitely at the house while my father-in-law takes advantage of the situation.
My boyfriend confirms that they're just going to have a quick workout and then come right back, so I agree. Additionally, my boyfriend's younger brother was home from college as well, and also in the house, so ostensibly there was someone else there to take over when my boyfriend got back. Well, it turns out I was totally wrong.
His younger brother goes and grabs some Subway sandwiches for us, but then proceeds to head off to the computer room, leaving me alone with the little one.
I don't mind initially, until I overhear him on the phone with my father-in-law, telling him that he has dinner plans with his girlfriend.
I'm immediately suspicious. Sure enough, within a couple of minutes, the brother comes in and asks if it would be okay if I watch the little one while he and my father-in-law go grocery shopping?
He knew straight up that I was not okay with it, but in my head, I knew that I was going to use this to drive my grievances home later on, so I said yes.
My boyfriend could hear the sheer disdain in my voice and tried to talk to me about it, but at that point, the little one was hovering around and I was not trying to argue about it in front of her.
So I brush him off and tell him to just hurry up. Little brother also takes the chance to go over to his girlfriend's house. Fast forward.
It's 10:00 PM. My father-in-law and boyfriend get back. As we're leaving, the little one jumps into my arms and pleads with me not to go.
The younger brother also tells my father-in-law that he did nothing while they were gone, and that I was handling the little one the entire time.
I see my father-in-law make a face out of the corner of my eye.
He's clearly very pleased that his daughter and I get along, because it makes her look forward to coming over to his house.
My father-in-law at no point thanks me for staying an extra three hours to watch his daughter. The plan is moving along nicely.
Flash forward to this morning. My father-in-law wants to go to a local amusement park for a fireworks show at around 6:00, and also wants to hit the gym with his sons before taking off for the event.
I'm super tired from the night before, which was my friend's birthday, and I tell my boyfriend straight up that I don't want to go, but that if his little brother's girlfriend goes, then I would go as well so he wouldn't be stuck alone with his father-in-law.
My boyfriend says not to worry about it, and that I should just stay home, rest, and enjoy my day. He leaves on that note.
About four hours ago, my boyfriend sends me a text message saying that all of a sudden my father-in-law is telling him it'd be “okay” for him to break off from the family and go pick me up "if he wants," because little brother's girlfriend isn't coming either and the little one is bugging him hard about me being there. My father-in-law was even willing to pay for my ticket and dinner.
I knew exactly what to say to ruin his day. "Nope. Tell him I have other priorities for New Year’s Eve and the rest of the winter break." My boyfriend just messaged me saying that the little one has been sulking nonstop since my father-in-law told her that I wouldn't be coming. Apparently, he promised her that I would be there without ever actually asking me if I wanted to come along with them for the night, and all she wants to do is go home and play with blocks.
She doesn't want to stay for the fireworks because she's "already seen them,” i.e. with me. My boyfriend is trying not to laugh the whole time that he’s hearing this.
The moral of the story? Don’t promise your little ones that someone will be going with them to an amusement park on New Year’s Eve without ever asking or inviting them first, then subtly trying to pressure their boyfriend into convincing them to come out when they don't show up with him.
You do that, it’s pretty much on you if you are left stuck dealing with a sulking eight-year-old while your other kid tries not to lose his mind laughing.
