1. Darwin
My husband’s family is very religious. I’m not, but I have no problem with faith. A few months after our wedding, my brother-in-law and his family came over with their kids, who found a book about dinosaurs on the shelf. They loved it, so I gave it to them. The next day, my sister-in-law called me furious, saying what "filth" I had given her children. She said it was disrespectful of me to fill their heads with "nonsense" like evolution, and she wouldn’t forgive me until I apologized. I told her I couldn’t do that, and then she and her husband blocked me everywhere. My husband blocked them too, and we haven’t spoken since (three years now).
2. The Key
One night we woke up to someone in the apartment. I thought it was a burglar, but it turned out to be my wife’s psychotic sister, who decided to "sleep over" because she didn’t feel like taking the bus back to the suburbs after a party. Without telling us, she made a copy of our apartment key!
3. Mice
My sister-in-law lives in a big house and kindly offered to store my wedding dress. Years later, when I asked for it, she said the mice had eaten it. (They hadn’t chewed anything else in the house, just my dress.) I said it wasn’t a big deal—I only needed a few scraps to sew something for my little girl (a toy, a small pillow, etc.). She insisted the mice had eaten it all. I later learned from my father-in-law that she had thrown it away just weeks after our wedding.
4. The Sister
My wife’s younger sister gets clingy when she’s drunk. At a party, she sat on my lap and started "riding" me. I jumped up so suddenly she fell backward and hit her head on the coffee table. She had to get stitches, and since then my mother-in-law hasn’t spoken to me. (Honestly, I’m not too bothered.)
5. Tough Cookie
I have irritable bowel syndrome, so I can’t eat everything. My husband’s rural family constantly rolls their eyes, acting like I’m just being picky. Once, my brother-in-law patted his (110 kg) wife on the shoulder and proudly told me, "Marcsi eats anything," then told my husband he could’ve chosen a more "tough" bride.
6. Real Mom
During Christmas dinner, my husband’s three sisters talked within earshot about how, in their opinion, "you’re not a real mother" if you have a C-section and don’t breastfeed. They knew I had labored for three days before the doctor decided on a C-section and how hard it was for me not to have milk and not be able to nurse my son. I spent Christmas Eve crying in the bathroom.
7. Military Thing
My sister-in-law is a pacifist, and even though I told her I’m an engineer who’s never held a weapon, she always asks what it was like when I supposedly "killed poor locals defending their land" during my deployment in Afghanistan.
8. Compensation
My husband’s useless younger brother was "looking for work" in town, which meant he stayed in our guest room for two months doing nothing but eating us out of house and home and lounging in bed. When I was in labor with our second child and we had to go to the hospital, we asked him to put our four-year-old son to bed. (The kid was already bathed and in pajamas; he just needed a bedtime story.) When we got home, my brother-in-law said he’d checked online how much a babysitter costs and that we owed him $60. My husband told him we’d deduct it from his two months’ rent and food. Luckily, he moved out a few days later.
9. Photos
After our engagement party, my sister-in-law sent naked photos of herself to my younger brother on Facebook. My brother, who was chatting happily all evening with his wife.
10. Distance
My husband’s older brother fell for our niece. He was 32, she was 16. He started showing up at the stores where she shopped and waited for her at school. It ended with a police report and a restraining order, but my mother-in-law still doesn’t understand why we "blew the whole thing out of proportion."
