My type-A mother-in-law opened all my wedding gifts while I was on my honeymoon – I came back to even more surprises
A NEWLYWED had a nasty surprise after her honeymoon when she realized her mother-in-law had opened her wedding gifts.
The woman posted on Reddit asking for guidance about the incident.
Social media users were horrified by her mother-in-law’s behavior and said it was way out of line.
Reddit user Arch_quinn shared her experience on the Just No MIL forum, which provides advice and support for people struggling with their partner’s mother’s behavior.
The post garnered a lot of attention, with 2,200 upvotes and 92 comments.
“My type-A mother-in-law tried to ‘help’ and completely overstepped,” she said.
“She and my father-in-law opened every single wedding present my husband and I received, threw every box away, and proceeded to ‘reorganize’ the entire kitchen,” she continued.
The woman was leaving the country for her honeymoon in Italy when her mother-in-law called and asked if she could help with any post-wedding organization.
The bride suggested that it would be helpful if she could swap out her old crockery for the new plates and bowls she received as a wedding present, and the same for the toaster.
Instead, her mother-in-law opened every present the happy couple had been gifted and destroyed the packaging.
This left the original poster confused about which gift came from whom and rendered her unable to return any unsuitable items.
“I now can’t find anything in my kitchen and the process of looking usually leads to finding out they moved or threw away something important to me,” she said.
“I feel so violated while also feeling overwhelmed by the task of trying to get things back to how they were.”
The revelation of having all of her wedding gifts opened and her kitchen reorganized left the women “crying on the floor.”
“My safe space has been taken away from me and I don’t know how to fix it,” she wrote.
“I keep trying to let it go, but now the insurmountable task of writing a hundred thank-you notes is even more painful and miserable.”
Responders didn’t try to hide the shock they experienced when faced with the mother-in-law’s actions.
“People know better than to open the gifts of others. This woman would never receive a wrapped gift from me again. Get her an etiquette for dummies book for her next birthday,” wrote one poster.
“This is so heartbreaking! They absolutely need to apologize and feel remorse for what they did. Don’t let them come over for a long, long time,” said another.
Many comments suggested changing the locks to prevent her in-laws from entering the house without her knowledge in the future.
“Make sure she has no access. No emergency keys and change locks or codes if needed,” suggested one responder.
Reddit users said that the original poster’s husband should speak to his mother and lead the charge on returning the kitchen to its previous state.
“Your husband should be livid. He needs to have a conversation about how invasive and disrespectful this was and boundaries need to be established and upheld for the future,” a poster wrote.
“Your husband should pull your kitchen apart and reorganize it all, while you sit and instruct him while drinking a beverage of your choice,” said another.
One commenter had an ingenious solution to the problem.
“Call out your MIL in your thank you notes, apologizing that you can’t properly thank people for their individual gifts because the cards and boxes were tossed. Now everyone knows what she did,” they said.