Future MIL (54F) called me (23F) stupid and now I’m considering calling off the wedding. How do I approach the situation?

A Reddit user shares a heart-wrenching story about overhearing her future mother-in-law mock her intelligence and her fiancé joining in the laughter. Now uncertain about her relationship, she’s debating whether to confront the issue, accept it as a misunderstanding, or even call off the wedding. Read the original story below for the full details.

‘ Future MIL (54F) called me (23F) stupid and now I’m considering calling off the wedding. How do I approach the situation?’

I (23F) am engaged to John (24M). We are together for 5 years. We want to get married in july 2025. I always thought that his family liked me because we get along well. He has two older brothers (26M,29M), both married. Honestly, I was very excited to have them all as my in laws. They were always kind to me.

His parents hosted a small barbecue last weekend only for the family. So it was the mom (54F), dad (59M), brothers (26M, 29M) and their wives (27F, 27F). I was the last person who showed up because I had to work late.

I entered the house and when I was walking towards the back of the house into the backyard I heard John’s mom talking about me. To be honest she wasn’t talking about me, more like mocking me. I heard her say in a high pitched voice „How does the sun work? Where should I put the fork?

Why does nobody like me? How do I wipe my ass?”. I just stood there. I had this sinking feeling. I couldn’t move, so I just stood there. And I heard them all laughing. One of the wives said „I actually don’t mind her always asking questions.

I think it’s cute” and it made me feel hopeful that they will say something like „yeah sure we’re just playing, we love that”. But none of them did. Instead the mom replied „It’s not cute. She’s just stupid.” After that they laughed again. I heard John laughing. My heart kind of broke in that moment because he didn’t even say one positive thing.

He didn’t defend me. He just laughed. I quietly turned around and left the house. I texted John that I got sick and have to stay home. Now I’m wondering how should I approach this situation. We live together and I sleep in the guest bedroom for now and I use the excuse that I don’t want him to get sick from being around me.

I can’t ignore him forever and I can’t pretend to be sick anymore, because it’s been too long. I’m not sure how do i proceed. Maybe it was just a misunderstanding. I’m considering talking to them about this, but I’m also worried that they won’t be honest with me. I can’t marry him if he really thinks I’m stupid.

But I also can’t marry into a family who think so little of me. But maybe it was a joke and I shouldn’t take it so seriously… I’m so torn apart and everyday I convince myself a bit more that it’s okay and sometimes we should all laugh about ourselves. Now i feel like i’m just going crazy. I would really appreciate some advice.

Here’s how people reacted to the post:

Beck2010 −  Tell John what you heard. Tell him of all the things you heard, his reaction hurt you the most. Tell him you cannot believe how cruel his mother was, and his laughter and failure to stand up for you was like a knife in the heart.

Then, ask him: “Why should I marry you? Someone who is comfortable laughing at me when they think I can’t hear them? You know I ask questions to better understand something. The smartest person in the room is the person who knows they don’t know everything and is not afraid to ask.

When I heard everyone, all I could hear was ignorance, unkindness, a lack of grace, and no love whatsoever. How very graceful of you and your family to mock someone.” Frankly, I’d call off the wedding.

ConfusedAt63 −  They were laughing at you behind your back. If he says anything along the lines of: that is how they are, get over it, it is not a big deal, you are too sensitive . . Anything, that excuses their behavior, then he is really asking you to accept it.

He asking you to give your permission for it to continue and your silence is your permission for it to continue. If they can’t say it to your face, that tells you a world of information about the kind of people they are.

If you want to see how things really are, confront them about this and see what happens, their reactions will tell you everything you need to know about all of them and will be helpful in making such a big decision.

It will show you how they deal with conflict which will be a good indication of what you will be getting yourself into should you marry this guy. They will be a part of your life for as long as they are alive, you need to know if you can tolerate being a part of his family.

BriefHorror −  He thinks you’re stupid and you would be to stay with someone who fundamentally betrayed you like that. However I think you sound sweet. Ask questions it’s how you learn and good luck.

Hadespuppy −  To answer some of your questions, peas are good for ducks, they really love frozen ones, and it’s fun watching them gobble them up. Black holes are weird.

To an outside observer, time appears to slow down and eventually stop at the event horizon (what happens beyond that is speculation, I don’t think we have the physics to explain it yet). But to someone near the black hole, time would seem to pass normally, because they too are slowing down.

It has a lot of math, but you can skim those bits and still understand the gist of it, I think. Seeing colours is something philosophers and psychologists have been arguing for ages, and we will probably never really know.

Barring disability, we all detect the same range of wavelengths, and societally we have agreed on basic divisions of those wavelengths to different colours along the spectrum.

People arguing whether a certain colour is more blue or green probably stems from where exactly they each placed those divisions when they were learning colours more than something in their eyes being different.

But whether we are actually seeing the same wavelengths the same way, like, if I hopped into your head, using your eyes and brain, would the world look the same to me? There’s no real way to know that.

Snails – the short answer is evolution. Probably a type of snail with shells split off from slugs and diversified from there while ones without just kept going on and adapting to their environment in different ways. Like how some dinosaurs developed wings and became birds, and the rest didn’t (and then died from an asteroid for the most part).

Edit: I was wrong about this one, thanks to u/TomTraubert for the assist! Terrestrial slugs actually evolved from terrestrial snails, which evolved from aquatic snails. Simply put, shells helped sweetwater snails to move on land by protecting them from dehydration.

We know that the evolution from land snail to land slug actually took place 12 seperate times! Slugs have tiny internal remnants of shells, and there’s even some ‘in-between’ snails with small shells that don’t fit their whole body (Duadebardia brevipes).

Light bulbs depends. Are you talking like the halogen light bulbs that still have a filament but the bulb is filled with halogen gas? Or neon and fluorescent ones where there is just gas, no filament? Halogen – basically the same as any filament bulb.

Electricity goes through, the filament is much thinner than the copper wires bringing the pier to it, so the electricity sort of “backs up”. It can’t pass through the filament as easily, but more is still flowing all the time.

So instead of all that energy just flowing through the wire filament, some of it is converted to heat energy, making the filament heat up until it glows red hot. Unfortunately what also happens is that with all this heat, some of the tungsten from the filament evaporates

(technically sublimates, since it’s going from a solid straight to a gas) and deposits on the inside of the light bulb. That’s why old light bulbs tend to look like they have darker glass. Eventually, enough of the tungsten is evaporated that the filament gets too fragile and breaks.

In a halogen light bulb, they put a little bit of a halogen gas in the bulb, which causes a chemical reaction to occur. The tungsten evaporates, reacts with the gas to produce a new chemical that then reacts with the hot filament, depositing the tungsten back where it belongs and allowing the gas molecules to return to their original form.

This makes them last longer. And because the filaments are made more durable, they can operate at a higher temperature which means they put out more light. Neon/fluorescent – bulbs are just gas, with an electrode at each end, and a mix of gasses in the tube between.

Electricity flows to one of the electrodes, and since it has nowhere to go, the energy reacts with the gas molecules. They get excited and produce a glow, but in glowing lose the electron they had picked up, but that electron is picked up by another gas molecule, etc etc until the whole thing is glowing.

Different mixes of gas produce different colours. At the far end, the other electrode picks up dropped electrons, which flow through it as electricity again, completing the loop. I think there might be a few differences between neon, fluorescent,

and like sodium lamps that are usually used for floodlights and the like, but the basic mechanics are the same as far as I know. Hope that helped, and also your possible future family are jerks. Intellectual curiosity is awesome.

As long as you aren’t like, constantly interrupting conversations to ask questions and disrupting the flow of someone’s story or something like that, you’re fine, they’re jerks. If you are interrupting a lot,

maybe work on keeping the questions for later, when there’s a natural break in the discussion, or approaching someone who mentioned a thing you want to know more about afterwards to ask if they can either help you or point you to good resources where you can learn for yourself.

the_greengrace −  I’m sorry you experienced that. I’m sorry his mom is a terrible person. I’m sorry you’re hurting. But you’re not overreacting and you’re not oversensitive. Those were mean things to say, mocking is not okay.

Not only that but she’s been lying to your face this whole time and acting kind and accepting when she’s cruel and hateful. The rest of them co-signed her cruelty with their passiveness and laughter. *Don’t marry in to that family.*

But here is some advice- find your voice. Stand up for yourself. Learn to handle conflict head on. Avoidance will bring you nothing but pain and suffering. Work on yourself before your next relationship. Become the you who would confront your fiancé immediately when he got home.

Become the person who doesn’t lie and say they are sick to avoid confrontation or sleeps in the guest room to avoid showing you are hurt. Have the confrontation, show the hurt.

Expect to be treated with kindness and honesty. Invite that by being kind to yourself and being honest with others about how you feel. Do all that and your next relationship will be much healthier. This one would have ended in heartbreak and divorce eventually. Leave and feel good about it.

Jca666 −  You were handed a gift. You saw these rotten people for who they really are. Only an i**ot would assume they know everything and criticize someone who questions things – don’t change yourself!. Cancel the wedding and move on. Ex-FMiL sounds like a d**wit – let’s refer to her as “Mrs. Potato Head”

0091dit −  John laughed. That is all the information needed to make up your mind. You sound like a gentle delicate inquisitive person. You didn’t confront him. Most women would; where I am from, there would typically be a huge scandal on the spot. You are young and you deserve much better than this mess.

I_am_wood_dog −  Wedding is off and John is done for laughing with them instead of standing up for you ! They do NOT deserve you ! Please walk away from these toxic back stabbing people. They did you a huge favor and showed you who they really are !

notsoreligiousnow −  Missed opportunity. It would have been beautiful to embarrass tf out of all of them by not saying anything. Just walking up to John, return the ring and walk out. Still, stop hiding. Give that spineless worm his ring back and remove him and his stupid family from your life.

Wisebutt98 −  One of the reasons I did not marry a long-time GF was the way her family treated me. In the end, I married a woman whose family genuinely liked me. It’s made all the difference in my life, mental health and marriage. Frankly, I’d end this relationship for the MIL alone, no matter how the fiancé atones.

When the person you trust most doesn’t stand up for you, how do you address the betrayal? Should she confront her fiancé and his family or reconsider her future with them entirely? What would you do in her shoes? Share your thoughts below!

For those who want to read the sequel: https://aita.pics/hrjvn