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Nobody likes having their privacy invaded; boundaries are of utmost importance, even within families.
It does seem that, on this topic, many people struggle with an overbearing mother-in-law (MIL) who has no respect for these boundaries, but this latest story we're sharing oversteps the mark by a long mile!
A wife took to the Reddit AITA (Am I The Asshole) board to ask if she's out of line for catching out her MIL after suspecting that she'd been snooping through the marital bedroom. How did she do this? With a fake positive pregnancy test! Read on for the full post...
"My MIL moved in with us a month ago. I began to notice my stuff in the bedroom being touched. Furniture rearranged, stuff moved et cetera...
I felt like I was going crazy because my husband is the only one who has access to the bedroom and he doesn't usually touch nor come near my things. I figured it must be his mom walking in and snooping on my personal things. I told my husband and he said his mom would never...I had a huge hunch but couldn't instal a cam in the bedroom to catch her in act.
So, I got me one of those fake postive pregnancy tests and threw it in the bedroom's trashcan. note the trashcan was placed in the corner near the closet.
Literally the next day after I got to work, I got tons of calls and texts from my inlaws "congratulating" me for my "pregnancy". My husband came over to my workplace and was all worked up about it asking since when I was pregnant, and why I didn't tell him. I asked how he found out and he said his mom found the positive test in the trashcan in the bedroom. I asked if his answer just confirmed that she's been snooping in the bedroom all along. He had a "realization" moment but demanded we stick to the bigger issue, I said there was no bigger issue because the positive test was fake and this whole thing was done to expose my MIL's snooping. he was not convinced. he had me take an actual test right infront of him and he was livid asking how could I lie about such thing and break his mom's heart since I know...very well that she longs for kids. I got a lot of shit because of this from him, his mom and family now calling me a liar and manipulator.
AITA?
important info: nothing gets takes or goes missing from the bedroom. just to be clear."
Find the original post here on Reddit.
What was the general consensus?
The poster was voted NTA (Not The Asshole) by a huge majority of Reddit readers who were enraged at the behaviour of her MIL, husband and family! A whopping 46k people upvoted this comment, making it the top comment;
"NTA, but ordering a lock for the door and kicking MIL out seems easier. If you WERE preg, how dare she announce it. So many red flags, one of you needs to go and it shouldn’t have to be you."
Our verdict...
There's so much to unpick here, so bear with us...
We know that pranks involving poistive pregnancy tests are a sensitive topic amongst the parents in our community, especially for those who've experienced baby loss. However, in this instance, we think that this method was actually pretty clever and doesn't invalidate/make light of struggles to become/stay pregnant. In fact, in a way, it actually serves to highlight the importance of being sensitive over this because, just as the top comment pointed out, what if this woman was genuinely pregnant, eventually had a miscarriage but had wanted to announce later on to avoid having to share bad news? If she had genuinely been pregnant, her MIL had already spread the news across the family without giving her son and daughter-in-law a chance to announce in their own time.
This is atrocious behaviour that oversteps the mark and the fact that the posters family can't see past their disappointment that there's not really a baby coming, and that they'd been tricked, shows their lack of emotional literacy. It's bad enough announcing someone else's pregnancy, and we've not even addressed the original issue of the MIL going through her son and daughter-in-law's bedroom yet! On that front, we mirror what the top comment suggested; kick her out and put a lock on the door, and perhaps kick the husband out too if he continues to side with his errant family.
Finally; going through someone elses rubbish is revolting, but doing out of pure nosiness just screams 'RED FLAGS' to us about the MIL as an individual, this is very concerning behaviour so even if the marriage continues, major action is needed here to create and reinforce new, much stricter boundaries, at the risk of cutting her off if the toxic behaviour continues.
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