Evil “Mother in law” stories abound over on Reddit. There’s even a dedicated sub to the topic! And every so often, one spills into the AITA subreddit. Generally, Reddit sides with the spouse-in-law over the mother; it’s a weird sort of bias the community has.
But THIS one was a well-deserved “NTA” to u/jemmi44, who wondered if she was a jerk for her response to a snooping future mother-in-law.
Check it out below:
I bought a house seven years ago and I met my fiance, Al, four years ago This year he moved in. We’re talking about making it a home for both of us.
But as of now, he hasn’t moved much stuff in, right now 95% of the stuff and furniture in the house is mine.
OP explains that she bought a house several years ago and her fiancé recently moved in. Because he isn’t totally moved yet, most of the stuff is still OP’s.
When his mom comes over, she’s kind of a snoop. He was used to that, but when she comes to our house, it’s so uncomfortable because she’s just going through my stuff.
Because everything is still OP’s, when the fiancé’s mom visits, she snoops in OP’s stuff. It’s weird. So OP mentions it and the mother-in-law has excuses abound. The fiancé is used to it and kind of waves off the snooping.
When I am bothered, she’s like “I was just helping with chores” etc. He says I should just let her because she has “a lot of nervous energy”
One thing she snooped on was actually embarrassing. In my home office, I had a little “affirmation” post it note on my monitor saying “I am smart, I am skilled, I am deserving of great things” It was a silly thing my therapist recommended to get me in a confident mindset before an interview.
Anyway, she made a comment to about my ego…
Then MIL snooped around in OP’s home office and found an affirmation post it note to help pump OP up for an interview. Embarrassing! MIL made a comment and OP … got an idea…
But as a joke, I decided to do it again. I had my best friend over and we got wine drunk and wrote a bunch of “affirmations” to hide.
She and a friend hid fake affirmations all over the house. The list below made me HOWL.
Some were:
Medicine cabinet: My teeth will regrow! I am sharklike and powerful!
Kitchen drawers: I know when to spoon, but I also know when to fork! I am sexy and self assured!
Work desk: I will not just fuck my way to the top of the company, I will fuck my way to the top of the world!
Walk in closet: I am beautiful with clothes and without! Especially without! My boobs are legendary!
There were a bunch more, and my friend and I had a hilarious time writing them.
Ugh, so funny.
Next time my MIL came over she saw a few. And she didn’t acknowledge them to me even though she definitely started acting a little weird about me.
Did MIL see them? Oh, yes she did…
I went to run some errands and when I was out, she confronted Al about the notes and was trying to tell him that I seemed unstable, egotistical, and moving in was a bad idea. She showed him the notes and he didn’t really know what to make of it.
And MIL showed the fiancé the notes! The fiancé was confused and asked OP what was up. OP told him they were just confidence boosts and to make her laugh… then asked the zillion dollar question: How on earth had MIL seen them?
He asked me and I said that they were just some silly private notes to boost my self confidence and make myself laugh; how had she gotten them? Had she been going through my things?
“She was just tidying” was the BS answer.
He said she was just tidying, and saw them. And they were real weird.
I was like ‘have you met me? You should know how weird I am. Anyway if you don’t want your mom seeing my weird shit you’ve got to stop letting her go through my shit”
He asked if I left them on purpose to annoy her, and I admitted that was kinda the joke, but I also have other weird or private shit so what I said about her needing to stop snooping if she didn’t want to find weird crap was still for real.
At this point the fiancé kind of clued in and asked if the notes were just to annoy his mother. OP fessed up and explained that she really needed MIL to quit snooping in her stuff.
He said I was making stuff hard for him, his mom was really protective and adjusting to him moving in with a girlfriend for the first time, and I was agitating her on purpose and making her think I wouldn’t be a good partner, when he wanted her to have the opposite impression of me!
The fiancé said that OP was making his life harder and it led to her wondering on Reddit if she was an ass for this prank.
AITA for the note prank?
So obviously NO, but let’s see what Reddit decreed:
