Relationships,CouplesFEB 4, 2025

Woman Rethinks Her Engagement After MIL’s 2-Month Stay Turns Into 6-Month Torture

Parents moving in with their adult children isn't strange when they're getting older. In fact, around 30% of seniors move back in with their children. However, when the children have just recently moved out themselves and haven't even begun their married lives, it's a bit stranger.

One MIL moved in with her son and her soon-to-be daughter-in-law, but the young woman wasn't very on board with the idea. As it was technically her apartment, she gradually felt more and more frustrated with the intruder MIL. It got so bad that she started considering moving out and leaving her fiancé for good.

More info: Reddit

A MIL made a woman's life a nightmare after moving in with her son and overstaying her welcome

Image credits: GaudiLab (not the actual photo)

Because it was her apartment, the young woman wondered whether she should just move out

Image credits: lucigerma (not the actual photo)

Image credits: ThrowAwayMoveAway129

A few days later, the woman posted an update: she had decided to move out after all

Four days after her original post, Redditor u/ThrowAwayMoveAway129 posted an update. Unfortunately, the couple wasn't able to work things out, so the woman decided to move out. They haven't officially broken up yet, but the OP has little hope they will reconcile.

The woman didn't just up and leave; she tried discussing the issue with her fiancé one last time. "I wanted to give him one more chance to pick us over his mom," she wrote, saying she did it so she could tell herself that she did at least give him an opportunity.

The fiancé, however, repeated the same thing: he agreed his mother wasn't being nice, but there was no other choice, even if it was uncomfortable for everyone. The author reiterated how unfair it was that she was covering two-thirds of the rent when three people were living there, but the BF repeated the same old line: his mom's in a tough spot at the moment.

The woman then asked why her future MIL had so little money: where did all her possessions go when she moved? Apparently, the MIL's ex-husband bought her out of the equity of their house. And before she moved in with her son and his fiancée, she was working full-time as a teacher and living in a small apartment. "So, she should not have had to tap into the divorce settlement money very much," the OP explained.

Image credits: davidpereiras (not the actual photo)

The fiancé was surprised by her decision and seemed to worry more about helping his mother than his crumbling relationship

Regardless of his mother's financial situation, the woman still gave her fiancé an ultimatum: she'll only be paying 25% of the rent from now on and nothing else, no utilities and no food. The news caught her fiancé off guard: "He seemed really shocked that I wasn't [prioritizing] his mom," the OP writes.

Apparently, he kept saying things like, "What about my mom?" and "What am I going to tell her?" The man was seemingly under the impression that he and his fiancée were a team in supporting his mother, but failed to see that the two women didn't have a strong and loving relationship.

Going forward, there's only one way the woman sees herself reconciling with her now ex-fiancé, and the chances of even that happening seem very slim. "He'd have to prove that he's going to have my back going forward and will set boundaries with his mom. I told him that just to avoid more drama, but I don't see a future in which we are together," she admits.

In the worst-case scenario, the woman is prepared to get her ex-fiancé and his mother evicted. If they don't pay their part of the rent or do something stupid, she plans to tell the leasing office that his mother has moved in. And that is prohibited on the lease. "Honestly, getting evicted would solve a lot of my problems right now so it's a pretty valid threat, I think," she writes.

"So, that's it. I'm leaving and I really don't care how that affects them," she ended her update.