Reddit Stories - The BETRAYAL_ Seizing the Reins of Mil's 50th Bash from SABOTAGING RELATIVES_
Episode Date: September 6, 2025#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayal #familydrama #50thbirthday #partyplanning #sabotage Summary:Discover the drama-filled tale of taking charge of a mother-in-law's 50th birthday bash away fro...m scheming relatives. Betrayal, family dynamics, and party planning collide in this riveting story. Tags:redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, betrayal, familydrama, 50thbirthday, partyplanning, sabotage, drama, relationships, celebration, eventplanning, conflict, inlaws, birthdayparty, planning, familyrelationships, schemingBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.
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I hope you enjoy this story.
My relatives undermine the lavish 50th celebration I organized for Mill,
so I assumed control of the gathering for my own benefit and now there's no birthday.
I, a 26-year-old female, have been wed to my husband, 29M, for almost three years now
and I've always known that my husband's family doesn't really like me.
My husband has two younger twin sisters, 23F, and a younger brother, 21M,
and none of them seemed to like me very much.
The same goes for my mother-in-law as well.
I've never been able to figure out why exactly they dislike me so much,
but I was determined to fix it since I wanted to build a good relationship with my in-laws.
So I decided to plan my Mills' 50th birthday party this year.
My husband advised me against it, saying that if his family doesn't seem to like me,
then I should just let it be instead of going out of my way to be nice and win them over,
but I ignored it since I really wanted to be on good terms with them.
I'm just a people person and I couldn't stand the thought that these people seemed to dislike
me for no apparent reason and I had to make it right.
So a few days ago, I started planning for the party and even tried to get my husband's siblings
involved but they weren't interested at all and told me to do it all myself if I wanted to.
I booked one of my mill's favorite restaurants where she and her late husband used to go
on dates all the time and paid for all the food and decor well in advance.
In fact, I even overlooked it all myself and made sure that all of it was up.
to my mother-in-law's taste and standards as she was really particular about things like these.
I even invited a few of her closest friends and some of our relatives after consulting my husband
regarding who she'd want there. Basically, I paid for everything and planned it all out on my
own with a little help from my husband while her own kids did absolutely nothing to help and didn't
even contribute financially. Yesterday, on the eve of her birthday, we visited her even though
my husband didn't want to. Anyway, once we got there, we noticed that,
her other kids were already there and they looked pretty surprised to see us but didn't say anything.
After a bit of small talk, I finally came to the point and told her that we'd be expecting
her at the restaurant and the evening tomorrow since we had something planned for her. She smiled
and thanked my husband for it, but he told her that it was all me and I was the one she should be
thanking. Her face soured instantly and I was pretty confused for a second. I told her that I'd
invited all her close friends and some of her family members and I'd made sure that I picked
out all her favorite food as well, in an attempt to get her to acknowledge my efforts.
But a nasty look took over her face and she proceeded to say thanks in the most false sugar-coated
tone before telling me that while she appreciated my efforts, she was sorry that I wouldn't
be attending. I was shocked and asked her why, to which she replied that she wanted her 50th
to be special so she wanted it to be a family-only event and while she did consider her friends
as family, she didn't consider me family at all so she'd appreciated if I made myself scarce the
next day. My husband and I looked shocked to the core and I realized, in that moment, that he'd
been right all along and I never should have put in any effort at all since she was clearly
never going to appreciate any of it ever. My husband's siblings, on the other hand,
looked like they were going to burst out laughing any second which is what pissed me off
even more. So I got up, told her that she could go to hell and if she dared to show up tomorrow
then out of security escort her out.
That wipe the smug looks off all their faces
and my mother-in-law told me that I was being cold and cruel
so I just laughed in her face and said that it was pretty rich coming from her.
After a bit of back and forth where she tried to convince me that I was wrong,
I told her that she didn't deserve anything nice and that my decision was final.
She and her kids looked furious and right before I left,
she started crying, probably as a last-ditch effort to make me feel sorry but I didn't care anymore.
I was livid on the drive home and tried to cancel the reservation, but since it was too late,
there was nothing I could do.
My husband looked pretty uncomfortable about this whole thing but refused to make any comment
apart from saying that I did the right thing and then went out for a smoke once we got home
which was fine by me since he'd never been too expressive when it came to his family and preferred
to stay out of these things and moreover.
I was the one who had ignored his advice so it was nice of him to not rub it in my face.
Anyway, since I'd already paid for the place and food, I decided to cancel all the invites
which was pretty last minute and ticked off a lot of the guests but they were mostly my
mill's friends so I didn't care. Instead, I called over some of my own friends to make it all
worth it since I was pretty annoyed about everything that had happened. My husband also joined
in and I also got him to invite a few of his friends so that we could party. We got rid of the
decor just in time before they came and had a total blast. I posted all the pictures after I came
back home today and my sister-in-law texted me saying that I'd ruined her mother's birthday and said
that it was incredibly selfish of me to use the venue for myself especially when I knew how much
it meant to my mother-in-law. I don't feel particularly sorry about what I did and think it was
perfectly reasonable, though I'm just hoping I'm right. Ida for canceling my mother-in-law's
birthday party that I'd planned after she told me that I wasn't welcomed there? Update 1.
I told my husband about the message's sister had sent to me and asked him if I should apologize
to his family and he said absolutely not. In fact, he told me that he'd had enough of their
behavior and thought that it would be for the best if we decided to cut them off entirely.
This was a huge deal since his family relied on him a lot for money and stuff, especially my
mother-in-law. My husband is relatively well off and runs his own company so cutting his mother
off would mean that she'd have to rely on her other kids instead which was a problem as
my husband's siblings were good for nothing and all switched jobs every few months.
Truth be told, all of them were very dependent on them for money and stuff so this was a huge
decision. I'd tried to discourage him from doing so, but he was pretty adamant.
I'm sure that there's something deeper at play here because truth be told, I've always noticed
that his family grew apart from him the longer we dated, and by the time we were getting
married, he was quite detached from his family. It wasn't his own fault since I remember him
telling me several times that he would invite his family over for dinner while we were dating
and even in the initial stages of our marriage, but they'd always make up some excuse to avoid
it. I was sure that I was part of the reason as well and that was another factor that made me so
desperate to build a relationship with my in-law so that my husband could also reconnect with
his family. I'm quite sure that there's something that my husband isn't telling me or
hasn't told me because he's not the kind of person to simply abandon his family. He used to tell
me earlier about how much family meant to him and so this sudden decision, although fair and light of
how my mother-in-law treated me a couple of days back, is very strange and out of character for him.
I'm determined to get to the bottom of this because I don't want my husband to be miserable because
of me or resent me in the future. I'm just hoping that he finally feels comfortable enough to
tell me what made him take such a drastic measure now. Update 2 after a lot of pestering him,
my husband finally opened up as to why he's cutting his family off after all these years.
I knew that his father had passed away when he was 21 and his siblings were all in school
back then.
His mother had never worked a day in her life so naturally.
It was on him to get to work and be the breadwinner of the family since the money his
dad had left them wouldn't be enough to cover it all.
He worked hard day and night and finally, when he was around 23, he found some investors
for his startup and things finally started looking up for him.
He went from just getting by to flourishing which was great for him but it made his family
immensely lazy and materialistic. Now that he was making more money, they started getting more
and more dependent on him, but he didn't say anything about it or protest since he felt that he owed
them this as this is what his father would have wanted him to do. They also treated his girlfriends
quite badly since they believed that having other people in his life would distract him and his
sole aim should be to provide for his family. This is why when he met me and it became clear
that I wasn't someone they could just mistreat and drive away since I was just that determined to be
with my husband, they started getting annoyed by my very existence and tried to poison my husband
against me. However, by then, he'd had enough and there was a lot of fighting and bickering while
we were dating that happened behind my back where his family wanted him to break up with me
but he was intent on marrying me. Eventually, they started distancing him from themselves in an
attempt to guilt-trip him but they still came to him for money. This tactic also failed to break us
apart and several years later, here we are, still doing strong. After the whole birthday fiasco,
my husband told me that while his sister texted me to guilt-trip me, his mother had called him
up to do the same to him and was trying to emotionally manipulate him into leaving me since I'd
insulted her. That's why he decided that he'd had enough of this and it was time to let go.
I'm still in shock that his family put him through all of this even though he was the one who's
been supporting them throughout and I've pretty much lost any respect I ever had for them
because they're just plain greedy.
I'm really happy that I decided to stick it out with my husband
despite his family's attempts to separate us and drive me away so they could hog his money.
Truth be told, I don't care how much money he is because I love him for who he is
and his bank balance has nothing to do with it.
Now that I know the whole story, I'm surprised that he was able to put up with this
and even keep it all a secret from me for so long to spare my feelings since I'd wanted
to have a good bond with my in-laws, but he knew that was never going to happen.
I think he's making the right decision now and that his family deserves to get cut off.
They're incredibly selfish and greedy and have no respect for the one man who had their back for so long against all odds.
Update 3. Today, my husband finally called his mother up and told her that he doesn't want to hear from her or his siblings unless they change their ways and they'll also have to find their own source of income since he isn't going to continue supporting them his entire life.
Just as I'd expected, this decision was met with uproar on their end and I could hear my mother-in-law
screaming at my husband even though his phone wasn't even on loudspeaker.
There was a pretty nasty argument that broke out between them and since I was in the same room
as my husband, I heard every single word of it. My mother-in-law, obviously, tried to blame me
for this and said that I must have influenced his decision to cut them off somehow. She also accused
me of trying to break their family apart and said that my husband shouldn't let himself get manipulated
by his wife. Again, the irony of her telling my husband to not allow himself to get manipulated
was pretty funny to me. Obviously, my husband defended me to the best of his abilities and even
told her that his siblings need to find decent jobs because they're all adults now and it's pretty
pathetic that they still have to rely on him to provide for them. She started accusing my husband
of letting the money and power of being in such a high-paying position get to his head and that I was
also probably encouraging him to cut his family off, which is why he was treating his own blood.
so cruelly. It was all classic manipulation and emotional blackmail to keep him under her thumb,
but I wasn't going to let that happen anymore. Now that I knew what she and her other kids had been up to,
when things started getting too heated and I could see my husband getting flustered and
teary-eyed out of sheer frustration, I decided to intervene. I told her that my husband's mind was
made up and if she and her kids didn't get in line soon then they'd be losing my husband's support
forever. Now the ball was in their court.
They could either behave like decent human beings and respect me and my husband to continue being
in our lives or they could be the blood-sucking materialistic aws that they were and get cut
out of my husband's life entirely.
Having said that, I hung up and muted all notifications on my husband's phone so that he
wouldn't have to deal with them for a while and had time to calm down.
It's been an hour since the call ended and we've kept our phones aside to watch a movie
and keep ourselves distracted for now.
Update 4, since harassing my husband and ruining his day wasn't enough, my mill decided to bother me instead.
After the movie ended, my husband decided to finish up some pending work and I decided to check my phone.
I had several missed calls from my mother-in-law and innumerable texts saying absolutely disgusting
things to me that were full of curse words from my husband's siblings.
I wasn't surprised in the least, though, since this is exactly what I had expected they'd do.
I just took screenshots of it all for later and ignored it.
I continued to reply to work emails and stuff for the next ten minutes,
but that's when my mother-in-law called again and I accidentally ended up accepting the call.
She then proceeded to say the nastiest things about me and my upbringing,
calling me a manipulative and selfish gold digger who was out to ruin my husband.
I didn't even respond to any of her accusations and simply waited for her to be done with it.
When she finally seemed to run out of steam, I told her that every
Everything that she accused me of doing was things that she herself was guilty of so before pointing
fingers. She should probably just introspect a little. I also told her that I was glad that my
husband was finally getting rid of freeloaders like her and her other kids since they didn't
deserve to even breathe the same air as he did. Then I hung up and blocked her and my husband's
siblings everywhere that I possibly could, so that they couldn't get to me anymore. It's just sad
that people are willing to stoop so low just to be able to avoid doing any work for themselves.
I haven't told my husband about his mother calling me up yet because I just don't want to stress him out even more.
But if this happens again, then I'll definitely be letting him know and ensuring that they're out of our lives forever.
They have absolutely no right to disturb our peace in this manner.
I don't know what they're going to do next, but I'm sure that my mother-in-law is definitely not going to stop until and unless we decide to take legal action against her or something.
I'm praying that it doesn't have to come to that since that'll be a huge ordeal for my husband,
emotionally, but if it does, I'm ready to make sure that we see it through.
They're not messing with my husband anymore, that's for sure.
Update 5, almost two weeks have passed since the last update and so much has happened since then.
After I blocked my mother-in-law, my husband and I had dinner and went off to sleep,
hoping that there'd be some peace and quiet the next day.
But the very next day, my mother-in-law showed up at our doorstep with her three grown
children and demanded an explanation for everything that had been said and done so far.
She looked pretty angry and so did my husband's siblings and I knew for a fact that this was going
to be very stressful for my husband. I decided to stay in the room, despite their protestations,
saying that I had no right to be there because this was a family issue and I'm not family.
I let them know that they were intruding upon my privacy and were standing under my roof so they
had no right to tell me if I could stay or not. Then, they started verbally attacking my
husband, bombarding him with accusations of being selfish and unreasonable and even going to the
extent of saying that he was abandoning his family just to keep his wife happy.
My husband had stayed silent and was already looking pretty red in the face so I knew that
was my cue to take over since my husband is a really sensitive man, especially when it comes
to his family and loved ones. I knew that he wouldn't be able to fight them and defend himself
against their false accusations and manipulation because that's how soft-hearted and kind he was.
and while they were just using him for his money, he genuinely and truly did love his family.
So I told him to compose himself and told his family to leave because they were pissing me off
and more importantly, they were making my husband cry.
My mother-in-law started arguing with me, saying that I don't get to push her around,
especially in her son's house, and that she can stay for as long as she wants to.
She still didn't stop speaking to my husband, even though he looked pretty upset with everything.
It was disgusting to see that she couldn't care less about her own son's feelings and what
mattered to her most was the money.
So she started telling him that she hadn't raised him like this and that she was disappointed
that he was choosing his wife over his own family.
His brother even said that the only duty he should be fulfilling was that of a son and a brother
since I was a gold digger anyway and didn't deserve to have a husband like him in the first
place.
That pissed me off and I lost my cool at that point.
I snapped at him and told him exactly what I thought.
of the lot of them. They were all lazy, good-for-nothing idiots who were surviving solely on the
kindness and generosity of my husband since they themselves were incapable of doing anything for themselves
and that they were pretty much the definition of gold diggers. Moreover, not only were they
hovering around my husband constantly for money, but they also had the audacity to be so
ungrateful and target him after all that he's done for them. They were stunned into being silent
and I could see that they were struggling to fight back but had nothing to say. Taking it
advantage of that, I told them to get out before I reported them to the cops for showing up
uninvited and then refusing to leave. So they left, but my mother-in-law still believed that she
could convince my husband to choose them over me, so she said that his father would be disappointed
had he been alive to witness the way they'd been treated by their eldest son today.
I thought it was really just low and disgusting to play that card constantly to emotionally
blackmail my husband and by the time they'd driven away, I could see that my husband was
barely holding it together. He started sobbing uncontrollably as soon as they left and I had to
spend hours calming him down. I felt terrible about this whole thing and wished that I'd never
tried to throw my mother-in-law a birthday party in the first place at all. But then again,
that was what had led to this kind of worms being opened and I'm grateful that this happened
sooner rather than later. Anyway, after his family left, I blocked them everywhere from his phone
and social media as well and made sure that they couldn't get to us online. After he had calmed
down enough, I told him that it was about time that we started looking into lawyers because I was
sure this wouldn't be the last that we would be hearing from his mother and siblings.
And he agreed with that because as much as he hated to admit it, he was well aware that his family
was willing to go to any lengths to get some money out of him. So we started looking for family
lawyers, just to be on the safe side. And we were definitely right to have done that because,
within days of that fight, my mother-in-law sent us a legal notice demanding that he pay them
an extravagant sum of money as compensation for stealing tons and tons of money from them after
his father's death to start his business. It was appalling to me that she and her children were
willing to lie about something so huge and defame my husband. He'd never taken a single dollar
from whatever his father had left them but had only used money that he'd earned himself.
He was completely self-made and even claiming such a thing was an insult to his integrity
and I was furious that they dared to propagate such a lie.
And since my husband's company is a pretty big one, it got a lot of people talking as well
which did affect his business too and that was dumb on their part.
However, we were able to prove after almost two weeks that they were lying and not one
word of their claims was true.
So now, they're the ones who have to pay us a huge fine for trying to defame us and jeopardize
my husband's career.
Last I heard, my mother-in-law and her kids had been ostracized by the rest of the family because of their nasty little stunt.
And all three of those lazy idiots are scrambling to find jobs so that they can pay the bills that my husband has been taking care of so far.
I'm glad that this is happening to them because they totally and absolutely deserve this.
We can finally move past this whole episode and forget about them altogether.
My husband and I are a lot happier now and I intend to keep it this way forever.
