Woman’s Mother-in-Law Moves in During Her Pregnancy, Says She Is ‘Not Making My Pregnancy Pleasant’

A woman who is expecting a baby soon shared how her excitement about extra help from her mother-in-law quickly turned into frustration as the living arrangement began to take a toll.

In a Reddit post, she explained that she had only met her mother-in-law five times before she moved in, due to her living in China.

She wrote, “I have become advanced in spoken Chinese and have spent years studying both the language and the culture. I am pregnant and plan to give my son a Chinese middle name and raise him immersed in the culture. My MIL will watch him when I return to work. In exchange, she lives with us and we cover all her expenses.”

However, things haven’t gone smoothly, with the woman revealing that her mother-in-law is making her pregnancy far from enjoyable.

“She constantly comments on how I shouldn’t drink cold water or eat cold food because it could harm my baby,” she shared. “She believes the baby will die if I’m too happy or ‘too anything.’ I’ve tried gently telling her that this constant criticism makes me anxious, but it hasn’t stopped. It’s especially hard because I had a previous miscarriage and she’s aware of that.”

She went on to say, “I try to speak Chinese with her as much as I can, but she often interrupts conversations my husband and I are having to speak to him in a dialect I don’t understand. I can tell she’s talking about me because I recognize my name in that dialect.”

The woman also mentioned that her mother-in-law frequently joins her and her husband on dates, making it difficult for them to have private time together.

“My husband doesn’t want to be the middleman, which I respect, but I wish he would set boundaries or stand up for me,” she said.

“I truly empathize with her situation and feel awful for being upset, but I’m grieving the pregnancy experience I had hoped for. This is really hurting my mental health and our marriage. I don’t know what to do. It feels like nothing I want matters.”

Other Reddit users encouraged her to assert herself, with one advising, “I suggest you let yourself be the bad guy. Step into your own power. Don’t be polite when she makes weird comments. Tell her you’d prefer to go on dates alone. You’ll feel better once you stand up for yourself — even better than if your husband did it, which he should do anyway.”