AITAH for telling my MIL she wasn’t allowed to touch anything in my kitchen again without permission?

A Reddit user shared their frustration with their mother-in-law’s behavior during her Christmas visit. Despite being told about the pre-planned meals and carefully bought ingredients, the MIL repeatedly consumed key items like cheese, orange juice, and adult beverages, even after being asked to stop. The situation came to a head when the MIL ate half the ricotta cheese needed for a Christmas meal, prompting the user to lose their temper and lay down strict boundaries.

Now, with the holiday still ongoing, the user wonders if they were too harsh and created unnecessary tension. Read the story below to weigh in on whether the user’s reaction was justified or excessive.

‘ AITAH for telling my MIL she wasn’t allowed to touch anything in my kitchen again without permission?’

My (27f) mother in law (50f) is visiting for Christmas this year. Prior to her visiting, I put together a list of meals we would eat while she visited, including our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meal, in order to avoid going to the grocery store an unnecessary amount of times while she visited and did a huge grocery pickup of over $400 including ingredients for the pre-planned meals, a ton of snacks, mimosa ingredients for Christmas, and a box of adult beverages for myself.

After I picked her up from the airport, I also took her to the store so she could buy her own adult beverages and anything else she needed for her visit. I specifically told her I was making a ham and macaroni and cheese on Christmas Eve and a lasagna on Christmas and that I had bought us each a bottle of Champagne and a carton of OJ for mimosas on Christmas.

This morning (2 days before Christmas), she told me she had stole a few of my drinks because she ran out last night and needed a few to help her sleep. I was irritated to find that she drank SEVEN of my 12 pack of drinks but still said that was okay and ran to the store to get more drinks. It took me an hour to drive to a store 3 minutes from my house, grab the drinks, checkout, and drive home due to the number of people doing last minute Christmas shopping.

After I got home, I saw that she was taking bites out of one of the block of cheese I needed for the Mac & cheese. Thankfully I had extra cheese because I was going to put out cheese and crackers as an appetizer on Christmas but decided it wasn’t worth going back to the store for. I asked her to please not eat anymore of the cheese because I needed it and she responded with “oh okay” and seemed annoyed.

Within an hour, I noticed one of the orange juice cartons was sitting on the counter and when I went to go asses the damage, I discovered the carton was nearly empty. I reminded her the orange juice was for the mimosas on Christmas and she responded again with “oh okay”. Not even an hour after this, I noticed the ricotta cheese in my fridge had food on the side of the container so I opened it and it was half eaten.

I lost it on her and said that she was not to touch another thing in my kitchen again without asking first because she could have very easily have just ruined our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meal had I not realized she was eating the ingredients. She stared at me blankly for a few seconds and said “sorry I didn’t realize you needed any of that”.

I ended up having to go back out to replace the ricotta cheese and other items she ate which thankfully only took me a half hour but now I’m feeling guilty for yelling at her, especially because she’ll be at my house for 3 more full days and I feel like I’ve created tension between us until she leaves. So AITAH?

I also feel like it’s necessary to mention that I have other family coming for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and the other meals I planned to make while she’s here would not been enough to feed everyone so I couldn’t have just made something else.

UPDATE: My mother in law left two days ago. I want to mention that my husband works 55 hours a week and only had Christmas Day off while she was visiting so I don’t blame him for her actions. He was 100% on my side when I let him know what happened and he did have a talk with her. After that, she did start to ask prior to eating things however she was very sarcastic and made an “it’s you, not me” comment when she thought I couldn’t hear her.

Other than that, she had the audacity to tell me on the 26th that she had a disappointing Christmas even though I bought her plane ticket to come visit, shower steamers, face masks, a simply modern cup, a custom hoodie, a black sweater (she specifically requested), and made her a handprint canvas with my kids handprints, as well as a scrabble tile canvas with all her grandchildren’s names on it.

Meanwhile she gifted me an outfit and then repeatedly told me “if you don’t like it, I’ll take it back because it’s cute and I really wanted it” so I ended up giving it back because at that point I really didn’t want it. Also, my husband didn’t really do much for me so it’s not like she had a right to be jealous of gifts that I received.

After she left, I went to go use my brand new shark vacmop (my Christmas gift to myself) and discovered that she had used it to clean up grease and left it to harden in the machine. It took me about 45 minutes to clean it all out. Thankfully, it didn’t damage it but it’s most likely going to smell like grease for a while. I’ve also been finding other little things she left me throughout my house (chips in the couch cushions, my living room and playroom remotes hiding in my guest room, coffee stains on my bathroom wall, and random stains on my guess room carpet).

My husband and I discussed it and she will not be welcome to stay at my house again in the future. Thank you to everyone who commented and said I wasn’t the AH, and to those of you who think I was, maybe “it’s you, not me” and y’all should learn to be better house guests because at this point I’m confident that I did everything I should have an she took advantage of my kindness. Happy New Years!

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

Front_Rip4064 −  NTA. Regardless of the time of year – you ask before you grab anything from someone else’s kitchen, in case it’s reserved for a specific use. That’s just basic manners.

RandomReddit9791 −  NTA. Where was your husband in all this? He should’ve set these boundaries with his mom and he should’ve been going back to the store to replace what she ate.

enchylatta −  NTA – the woman is a lush and is obviously unable to exercise any self control. It is totally reasonable for you to tell her that she can’t eat ANYTHING without asking you because you need to food for meals for the ENTIRE FAMILY over the next few days. Opening blocks of cheese? Eating tubs of ricotta?! It would drive me crazy. Is she drunk?

How can she not realize that you need the ingredients in the kitchen to prepare meals? Did she think the plan was just for everyone to free range graze all week? Tell her son to keep her in check. Maybe he can take her out to a buffet for the afternoon.

MethodMaven −  NTA. Your MIL is probably an a**oholic. I guess your dh was working or doing something away from the home? If he was around, and he was aware of what his mom was doing, he has no spine.

JustUgh2323 −  Wait—what?!? She was taking bites out of the block of cheese? Not cutting off bites but like actually biting off the actual block of cheese? Oh hell no. That’s worse than drinking directly from the carton IMO.

grayblue_grrl −  If she isn’t in control of her eating and drinking – then she should be going to the store. Sounds worse than having teenagers in the house. You didn’t create the tension, she did. And your husband should be the one taking her to the store to replace s**t she’s eaten and while there she can get stuff she wants.. NTA.

bookishmama_76 −  NTA – who the hell eats ricotta out of the container????

Rowana133 −  NTA. Who just helps themselves to whatever in the fridge without even asking? Also 7 drinks and all that food? Jesus. She doesn’t sound very healthy.

AnneFromBoston −  Instead of having her stay in your home in the future, make her a reservation in a motel. Feel free to explain that until she learns to be considerate of you and your other guests, a motel will be where she stays.

Con4America −  NTA. She is doing this on purpose. No one eats Ricotta cheese straight from the tub with nothing else.