Op tells tales of her insane mother-in-law, Dittle, who does very little for those around her but demands a lot—starting with her faking an accent she insists she’s always had. It quickly devolves into utter chaos. Posted by u/dstill.

My 41F husband’s 54M mother lives with us. Last Friday, we all sat down to breakfast together and she started talking to us in an English accent. We laughed, and my husband asked her if she liked last night’s movie so much that she decided to become British. We had watched My Fair Lady.

She acted like she had no idea what we were talking about and said, “This is how I’ve always talked.”

We still thought it was a joke and laughed, but she became upset and claimed she thought we were playing a prank on her. She insisted that her voice is no different than it ever was. Her accent has always been Southern.

She didn’t believe us until my husband pulled out his phone, recorded her voice, and played it back to her. She made a big show of being upset and confused and went to her room to lie down. My husband was upset and wanted to call off work to take his mother to the doctor. His father had dementia, so that’s where his mind went first.

She ended up insisting that she needed to rest and wouldn’t let him take her anywhere, so he went to work after all. I use quotation marks and skeptical language here because she is a bad actress and it’s easy to tell when she is lying or exaggerating. I’ve always suspected that she is a compulsive liar. My husband doesn’t see it.

We returned home to find that she had printed out the Wikipedia page on foreign accent syndrome and a news article about a woman who has it. She is now insisting that she developed this syndrome because of a very minor accident that happened in a parking lot four weeks ago. The two cars pulled out at once and they bumped fenders. She didn’t complain of any injuries at the time. This collision led to my husband and me telling her she cannot drive our cars anymore. She doesn’t have her own car and she would borrow mine infrequently.

She has also claimed more than once that she can feel her brain bleed. She believes—or wants us to believe—that she received some sort of brain injury four weeks ago and it’s only showing up now. My husband and I are caretakers for my mother-in-law. She had a very difficult recovery from a hip replacement and she might never be fully independent again. She can’t walk without a cane and she can’t stand for long periods of time.

She is insisting on being taken to doctors to get some answers, but she keeps crying and claiming that we think there is something wrong with her whenever we suggest taking her anywhere. If her brain is really bleeding, she needs to go to the ER. She won’t let us take her anywhere to get tested. No MRI, no CAT scan. She won’t see a therapist or anyone who might give her medication, and she refuses to be tested.

We think she needs help. My husband has cried the last two nights because he is so stressed out about his mother and her refusal to get help. She has been frustrating and impossible to deal with. We’re worried that this is her way of dealing with losing her independence and mobility or that she is just old and truly losing her marbles. Every day we wait nervously for her to start talking, and every day her voice comes out as a bad English accent.

We have begged her to see a neurologist or even just a therapist, and she refuses. She will only seek help if it’s on her terms, but she won’t even share what those terms are. We’re at the end of our rope here.

UPDATE (Two Weeks Later)

Need advice for being my mother-in-law’s caretaker? I don’t browse this sub or look at Reddit much at all. I posted about my mother-in-law in another sub and I got really bad advice that amounted to kidnapping her. A few commenters suggested this sub. I think I am mostly using this as a way to vent rather than look for meaningful advice. Be warned, this might be really long.

My husband’s mother has had a rough year and I do have a lot of sympathy for her. Her husband died about a year ago and he had been suffering for a long time. He was in and out of the hospital for about three years before he died. This ended up being expensive and drained their retirement fund, which wasn’t large to begin with from what I can tell.

My mother-in-law had to have hip replacement surgery four months later and then she fell while she was still recovering and had to have surgery again. When she fell, she couldn’t get to the phone and thankfully she was found by a neighbor. This event was traumatic for her and my husband. So, we drove down to her state and brought her to our home to recover. We have set up a room on the ground floor of our house and she’s been staying with us ever since.

She is still unable to walk without a cane or walker and she can’t stand for long periods of time. She doesn’t do much toward maintaining the household, which we don’t really mind. We have been very understanding. Things were uneventful for a long time. I taught her how to operate our Roku and that kept her occupied for months.

We have had to take on the cost of her care, which isn’t a problem for us financially but does grind my gears a bit. At first, it was trips to the doctor and the cost of extra food and a slight increase in utilities. But lately, she has been manipulating us into taking her to get treatments that she claims to need for her arthritis or her hip. One time, the treatment she needed was a pedicure. Yes, she made me get a pedicure with her for medical reasons.

I have noticed that she loves medical attention. She faked a major medical event four weeks after she was in a minor car accident and then refused to let us take her to the ER even as she was telling us she could feel her brain bleed. That whole story is a giant disaster that I don’t want to get into because this is already so long.

She is still faking symptoms, but I have finally admitted to myself that I just don’t believe her. She is claiming she has foreign accent syndrome. I can’t entertain this bull crap anymore. It’s fake and I have started ignoring it. We finally took her to the ER. She had an MRI and several other tests. And then we followed up with a neurologist. She was given a clean bill of health. She frequently forgets to change her accent. It is a ploy for attention and I’m tired of her taking me and my husband for fools.

The other thing I have noticed is that when she wants something, she comes up with stupid justifications for it that don’t make sense. She has to add a layer of bull crap to everything, even if it’s a reasonable request. My husband is used to it and doesn’t bat an eye, but it has become my biggest pet peeve.

I wish she would just tell me that she wants fettuccine alfredo for dinner instead of telling me that she must have fettuccine alfredo because the other meal I had planned contains too much—insert nonsense here—and it will aggravate her arthritis. She does this with every request, no matter how small. The other day, she insisted on turning off the radio in my car because the car radio makes her carsick. I drive her around constantly, and she has never complained about it.

The thing that I need the most advice on is how we handle being her caretakers, even though she truly doesn’t need to be taken care of. She would be able to function on her own with some help, but she doesn’t have the money to do so. She sold her house to pay for her husband’s medical care and their credit card debt. She doesn’t have a home to go to. We either have to foot the bill ourselves or take the cheaper option, which is to let her live with us.

Her other children don’t have space for her. She has been complaining lately that she feels like a child and doesn’t get to be an adult, and I do understand why she feels that way. I stopped letting her use my car after the fender bender. Ever since then, she has been lashing out because it’s hitting home for her that she is losing her independence. I won’t risk my car again to make her feel better because I worry that she could kill herself or someone else next time.

She asked us to make a checking account for her so that she has her own money to spend how she sees fit since now she has to ask us for everything. I don’t like that idea, but my husband is considering it just because she is being such a pain in the rear lately. She has been finding ways to spend our money out of spite. She figured out that she can rent movies on the Roku instead of watching the free options. And she somehow spent about $200 on movies and TV shows within one week. She also abused the privilege when we let her use our Amazon Prime account and bought $500 worth of things that are cluttering our small home.

We give her everything she needs, and I feel like giving her a debit card is rewarding her bad behavior. She is driving me crazy, and I want her out of my house. I hate not having my home to myself, and I hate how often she makes my husband worry himself sick over her. She enjoys making him worry. She makes me so angry and I can’t pretend that she doesn’t forever.

I used to invite friends over a lot, but I can’t anymore. For one, if I invited my friends over for cocktails, it would be to complain about her. The other problem is that she either gets excited to see people and inserts herself into every conversation and then says something rude or inappropriate, or she gets angry that we have people over and finds ways to sulk very visibly. She makes it too awkward for it to be worthwhile.

I also haven’t gotten to enjoy the summer activities I usually enjoy because she can’t or won’t do them. We either have to leave her at home and have fun by ourselves—which makes her sulk and act out by charging money to our Roku—or we all stay home and stay bored together. I spend a lot of time with my husband, but it’s not quality time. I don’t know what I’m asking for here, other than for some people to tell me that sucks. This is so long, but I’m leaving out so much backstory and so many of her little ways of making trouble.

Edit: I wanted to mention that we have taken away her ability to spend our money through Amazon Prime or a Roku player.

SECOND UPDATE (Three Days Later)

I might strangle her. First, I want to thank everyone who gave advice and support on my last post. I’ve been doing a lot of research and I had a nice sit down with my husband so we could talk it over. He agreed that we need a game plan. He told me that he knows how stressful his mother can be and that he definitely doesn’t want this to be permanent either. I needed to hear that from him because frankly I haven’t seen much evidence that this situation bothers him.

We agreed that he will handle all the financial details because we think it will go over better if I’m not involved, as his mother openly resents me. We will have a much easier time if she cooperates. I told him that I understand he is sensitive to her grief, but that’s no reason to treat a grown woman like a child, even if she behaves like one sometimes. We can’t give in to it. That’s not a healthy way to grieve.

I also said that I think she would be happier back in her hometown and in a more independent setting. We agreed to have a talk with his mother soon and involve his siblings in the future. We had this talk over dinner—nothing fancy, just fast food. And when we returned, his mother cried because we hadn’t brought her with us. Never mind that when we told her we were going out, she enthusiastically agreed that we deserve a little husband-and-wife time. We had also brought her food, which she decided was our way of rubbing it in her face that we’d gone out.

My husband stood up to her, which was shocking to us both. He told her that she is manufacturing reasons to be upset, that our one-hour outing to Panera wasn’t the event of the year, and that she needs to suck it up and appreciate that our lives can’t revolve around her every hour of the day.

She started sobbing, and he just left the room. She turned on me and said, “I know your little date was just your way of convincing him to abandon his mother. You want him to turn on me so that you can have your house to yourself.”

I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I told her that she is a guest in our house, not a resident, and she should act like it. I left the room and tried to read a book, but ended up angrily reading the same page over and over until I had to give up and go to sleep.

An hour or so later, she knocked on our bedroom door and demanded the Roku back. I told her we sold it—which is a lie—and she told me I’m a “vindictive beach.” I need this woman out of my house.

THIRD UPDATE (One Day Later)

I’m hiding in my room from my mother-in-law. Bear with me. I’m still learning how to use the abbreviations and might get some things wrong. I’ve also decided that unless it’s taken, I will call her “Do Little.” Firstly, because of the My Fair Lady routine she’s pulling. Secondly, because she does very little around the house. Also, this is long, so sorry for that.

My husband and I usually have a nice breakfast on Sundays and make something more interesting than the usual oatmeal and coffee. We hoped that having some pancakes might put my mother-in-law in a better mood to hear what we had to say. I was completely silent and let my husband do the talking, but I sat close enough to him to nudge his foot if I had to. We had talked about it beforehand and decided that it’s best if we leave our feelings out of it—even though it’s a large factor—and keep the focus on her own welfare and happiness.

He did an excellent job. He is great with people and is in a line of work that requires him to give people news that they might not want to hear, so I was never worried about him.

He told her that he has noticed how bored and unhappy she is living here and that it’s time to discuss her next living situation.

She said, “I’m fine here, really.”

And he said, “No, you’re not fine. You have no friends here. The only family you have in this state is us, and you are starting to resent us.”

“I don’t resent you.”

“You do, and it’s not worth denying it. You called my wife a ‘beach’ yesterday.”

“I was just mad at her.”

“Because you are unhappy here. You need a home of your own. No one enjoys being a guest in someone else’s home for too long. You would be happier with a place to call your own and some independence.”

This part went in circles for a long time and she kept saying that she really is fine here. And then he’d point out evidence that she’s not fine and she’d agree but say it doesn’t matter. He also said that he wants to go ahead and do as much research as possible into what benefits she qualifies for. She took this as him lecturing her on how she got into such a financial mess, which isn’t what he was doing at all. She launched into a speech about how his father’s health problems cost them a lot of money—blah blah blah.

My husband cut her off and said, “I know, which is exactly why we need to look into what benefits you qualify for. Dad worked hard his whole life and he would want you to be taken care of.”

This seemed to hit home for her. She finally said, “I can’t help but feel unwanted.”

(It sounded like “I can’t help but feel unhaunted.” That’s her attempt at an English accent.)

My husband, bless him, said, “You’re right. We don’t want you to live here forever. I don’t think you do either.”

She nodded and accepted it, and we continued to awkwardly eat our pancakes. The rest of the meal was totally silent. I got up to clean the dishes and she didn’t move from the table at all. I had to clear her plate from in front of her, and she refused to make eye contact or say anything to either of us.

Later in the day, around noon, she asked me to go on a walk with her. This is odd for two reasons. One, she avoids walking like the plague. Two, she tries to avoid spending time with me unless she needs something. So, I went.

She brought the walking tool that makes her look the most pathetic and feeble. She has two walkers and two canes, and she brought the walker with wheels that she hasn’t used in months. She started crying and slowly toddling along with her redundant walker and telling me how her son used to be so kind and she’s not sure what happened. She claimed that he used to promise her that he’d take care of her when he was a little boy. She asked me if I could do anything to convince him not to do this to her.

I said, “That’s not how our marriage works. He and I are a team and I don’t want to undermine him.”

She started sobbing and said, “Of course, I should have known. It was your idea. You want me out?”

I said, “Look, you were only ever supposed to be here for a while. You’ve been here for a very long time. We have fulfilled our promise to you. I understand that moving to a new place is a big transition and we will make it easy on you as long as you let us.”

She started wailing and a neighbor came out of his house to check on us. He asked if she was okay.

I said, “Yes, she is just upset because she is moving soon.”

He said, “Okay, I’m glad she’s not hurt—and would you please move on because you are really scaring my young daughter.”

We try to be good neighbors and that was a bit mortifying for me. I suggested that we head back and she refused. We slowly moved around the cul-de-sac, which is not large, and it took us an additional twenty minutes to walk about fifty yards. She would dramatically collapse over her walker every few feet and try to be quiet with heaving fake sobs.

We got to the house and she parked in front of the TV and said, “What’s the saddest movie you can think of?”

I said, “Why do you want to watch a sad movie?”

“Oh, because I need to cry. When I’m this sad, I need to cry a lot to feel better again.”

I suggested Googling some sad movies and then I fled upstairs where I am now. I have decided that I am ordering Chinese for dinner. I can’t handle another family meal today. My husband can take Dittle’s order and go pick it up. I’m not walking through that living room again.

FOURTH UPDATE (Three Days Later)

She broke our TV. Dittle broke the TV. She told us that she tried to carry it to her room from the living room and she dropped it. This happened hours ago when we were both at work. She left it where she dropped it and didn’t bother calling or texting us about it. No apology either. We never told her she could move our TV into her bedroom and she didn’t ask. I don’t know why a 76-year-old who walks with a cane thought she could lift our flat screen and carry it across the house.

My husband put it in his car and he’s going to dispose of it tomorrow. She asked me if we could order Chinese for dinner again.

I said, “I’m not stopping you.”

She CPFed. Just learned that one. She wanted me to pay for it. Not happening.

FIFTH UPDATE (Nine Days Later)

We’re touring places with Dittle. It’s actually going well. To any of you who have a stubborn elder in your life who doesn’t want to move into assisted living, I just want to give you this piece of advice: talk to the facilities before you go. Tell them a bit about the person they’ll be meeting. This does two things. In my limited experience, it will show you how much they care about remembering and using that information.

We went to a facility where they didn’t remember my call and got Dittle’s name wrong. She wasn’t impressed. Another place greeted her by name when we arrived and had arranged for DooLittle to meet another resident who also loves quilting so she could talk about their quilters guild. They’re going to be so much better equipped to help your relative feel comfortable. If they know that the person touring is resistant to the idea and know their reasons for it, they can talk to them about that.

We met a lot of people who are clearly experienced and care a lot. We also met some people who don’t seem to give a crap. Dittle ended up visiting the lovely woman’s room to see some of her quilts. And in the process, she got to see what the living arrangements are like.

These people are clearly experienced with matching residents to activities and even people they would like and making the experience comfortable. We loved it. This place has different types of living situations with different levels of care all on one property. If she loves it but finds that she needs a higher level of care, she can move into a different building and still be around her friends. It’s at the top of her list.

Things are really looking up. It’s also not too much of a drive for my sisters-in-law. The other place we didn’t like was closer as the crow flies, but the drive there was miserable. This one is farther, but a much more direct route along a highway. It’s about a 25-minute drive. That’s close enough to visit, but not close enough to visit every day.

SIXTH UPDATE (Three Days Later)

Highlights from the weekend with Dittle. I’m heading home with my husband and his mother. We both took a few days off from work to be able to drive DooLittle down to her hometown to tour some retirement communities and assisted living facilities. My husband also wanted to see his family, especially his brother-in-law, so we took some extra time to spend with them.

I’m glad we did. We needed the break from DooLittle. I’m sitting in the backseat of my own car because DooLittle needed the passenger seat for medical reasons. She originally wanted to tour places near us, but we pointed out that her daughters, grandkids, and friends wouldn’t be able to visit her.

She said, “But you’ll visit me all the time.”

My husband, bless him, said, “Define ‘all the time.’”

We managed to convince her that no, we will not be visiting her every single day. Maybe once a week if she’s lucky. Personally, I need a period of separation first. So, we went. She cried at least once a day. It was usually because she thinks we are trying to get rid of her. We are. We so are.

Once she cried because the seat belt was stuck and she said that God clearly didn’t want her to get into the car that day. My husband got frustrated and she cried more. I fixed her seat belt. It was just the child lock and we went.

That was on the way to the first retirement community on our list. Dittle needed to go to Cracker Barrel for medical reasons. She also needed dessert for medical reasons. She also locked herself into her hotel room and wouldn’t come out once—probably for medical reasons. My husband called her and said we bought donuts. Would she like one? It worked.

We toured a great place that even Dittle liked. There are several types of living arrangements there. She wants the biggest and fanciest one. She can’t quite afford it. So, we’re gently pushing her toward a living situation that is very similar and within her means—baby steps.

We arranged a bit of a reunion with DooLittle’s family and friends. And I think that helped her realize that her support system is there. She was happy to see her daughters and friends. The only snag was that she was really awful to her son-in-law who lost his job.

Dittle has this gigantic long-arm sewing machine that has been taking up space in my living room. It’s too big to fit into the room we made up for her. She shrieks at me if I get too close to it. The damn thing is the most valuable asset she has left. She claims that almost none of the living situations have enough room for her sewing machine. They do, and she won’t ever give up the sewing machine.

This morning we were supposed to see one more place before heading home and Dittle refused to go. Her reasoning was that she has seen too many now. If she sees one more, they will get it all mixed up in her head. She needs to stop now or she will never be able to choose one.

Okay, Do Little. We’re tired, too. We can go home now. The last place was a bit of a drive from her family anyway. Her accent very mysteriously disappeared many times over the weekend. The common theme seems to be that she loses the accent around people she wants to make a good impression on. This is very interesting to me. I will be writing the New England Journal of Medicine about my findings on foreign accent syndrome. Winky face.

SEVENTH UPDATE (Nine Days Later)

We have a move-out date. Dittle’s days in my house are numbered. She’s going to live in a retirement community. It’s going to be paid for 100% by her benefits. We’re not footing the bill.

She wants us to give her an allowance so she can have extra money for fun stuff. I told her she owes us money, not the other way around. She told me this is elder abuse.

“Go ahead and make some calls, Do Little. I’m sure they’ll be sympathetic to your plight.”

This morning, she asked me if I was ever going to get around to losing some weight. I just smiled and ate my breakfast. I don’t care what she says or does anymore. I’m almost free.

She also wants us to buy her a pullout sofa so her grandkids can visit her. I have serious doubts that her grandkids, who live twenty minutes away, want to have sleepovers with Grandma. The ones who live in town by now are teenage boys. I think that will be a hard sell. She thinks they will want to stay with her all the time and that she needs a pullout sofa.

My husband said he is going to wait on furniture shopping until after she moves in to make things easier. In reality, he is worried she will make this sofa her hill to die on and refuse to move. He doesn’t intend to buy the sofa. I want to take her shopping, pick out a sofa, note the cost of it, and immediately transfer that exact amount of money into our vacation fund.

Another thing: I have been noting every single horrible thing she has said to me in a notebook. I show it to my husband at the end of each day. He is very sorry and will be working off the BS his mother put me through for months with foot rubs and letting me pick the movie. I need her gone. My hair has been falling out from the stress. I didn’t know it was until I saw a friend who hadn’t seen me in a while. I went home and looked in the mirror and it’s definitely thinner at the front and around my part. It’s possible that I’m just getting old, but I blame Dittle. If anyone has advice, let me know. I booked an appointment with a salon to see what I can do about it.

EIGHTH UPDATE (Five Days Later)

Dittle is crying because I won’t do her laundry. Also, I’m a sick person. Dittle complained to me that she doesn’t have enough clean clothes. I told her that the washer and dryer are empty, so she can wash them right now if she wants to.

She told me she can’t.

I asked why.

She said, “You know why. I have so many medical concerns.”

I said, “Explain to me exactly why you can’t put some clothes into a washing machine and press a button. Your hip has healed. Your doctor has told you that you need to be more active, and yet you don’t. I think you just like bossing me around in my own home.”

This is the most direct I’ve probably ever been with her. Dittle burst into tears and told me that she can’t stand being an old woman because old women are treated like garbage. She said she can’t wait until I’m old so that I have to live through it too. I asked her how exactly I’m mistreating her. I only said she should do her own laundry.

She just said, “You want me to do things that are hard for me because you enjoy watching a poor old woman struggle. You’re a sick person.”

I want to tell her that only one of us has been faking an English accent for weeks to get attention and it’s not me, but I bit my tongue. Our washer and dryer are raised. You don’t even have to bend or stoop to put clothes in. I could understand if that were the case, but we had our laundry room modified to accommodate my mother-in-law and she still refuses to lift a finger to help.

I texted my husband and he told me not to do her laundry. He said he’ll talk to her when he gets home. I’m tired of her telling me that I’m abusive toward her. I am her personal maid, chauffeur, assistant, and chef. I do so much every day for this woman on top of working full-time at a stressful job. I’m done. She can either help out or she can eat a sandwich tonight.

I want my house back. Edit: DooLittle is going to a retirement home. That is taken care of. They cannot take her until a current resident moves out and they clean the apartment. So, it’s going to be 3 to 4 weeks until she’s gone.

NINTH UPDATE (Four Days Later)

Dittle said some particularly hateful things. So, my husband is treating me like a queen in front of her. Ha. Dittle said some awful things about how my husband never loved me enough to have children with me. She said she doesn’t consider me a daughter-in-law because I never had any of her grandkids. My brothers-in-law are family in a way that I’m not. Also, my husband’s ex-wife is still her daughter-in-law.

She lied. She said that she loves my husband’s ex and that they talk all the time. No one talks to DooLan. I know for a fact that they were never close in the first place. She also said some things about the age gap between me and my husband. We are thirteen years apart. I’m forty-one and he’s fifty-four.

She said, “I don’t understand it. You don’t even have any of the benefits of a younger model.”

Some of the things she said painted my husband as a pervert. I never wanted kids, and my husband already had two kids who were nearly adults when we met. He didn’t want to have a kid in diapers and two more kids in college. Neither of us regrets it. I think Dittle was hoping that I’d feel bad that I never had kids, but I don’t. Either way, in insulting me, she also insulted my husband.

I recorded the whole damn thing. I have a phone app. As soon as she started spewing, I pulled it out and started recording. When he got home, I had him listen to the whole thing. He was disgusted. She ate a peanut butter sandwich that night.

I booked an appointment at a salon that is more expensive than I would usually spend, but he told me I deserve it. He also got me some sort of voucher for a facial. I’ve never gotten a facial before, so this will be fun for me. He made sure to give it to me in front of her. I also got a nice mani/pedi and I’ve been wearing sandals to show it off as much as possible. F Do.

TENTH UPDATE (Five Days Later)

DooLittle’s special diet. I have chosen a patron saint. Her name is Poppaea Sabina. She wasn’t a saint at all. She was the second wife of Nero. There are many versions of the story, but all that is known is that her mother-in-law mysteriously died and she may have been responsible.

Dittle has been complaining even more than usual about her stomach. She claims that my food is too acidic and that she needs dairy to counteract it. I have mentioned before that she claims she needs dessert for medical reasons. To sum it up, she claims after most meals that her stomach contents are too acidic and that she needs something creamy to counteract the acid or she will throw up.

Anything with whipped cream will do, but cheesecake is best. If you try to explain that her stomach is full of hydrochloric acid, which she needs to digest, she says that the food she ate added to the acidity and that it’s just too acidic for her to handle. Now, if you explain that the law of averages makes that impossible unless she is eating something more acidic than stomach acid, she pretends she is a stomach-acid expert and that you are a—

She has not thrown up once, even when she claimed she was minutes away from puking. I found a lovely printout on the internet for something called the BRAT diet. It stands for bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. I love that it spells “brat.” The printout is on our fridge, and I bought everything she needs. My husband rolled his eyes, but he’s letting me torture her. She will be out of here soon, and I want to make it clear that she will not be living high and mighty if she tries to come back.

ELEVENTH UPDATE (Nineteen Days Later)

I may as well tell you all what Dittle has done. We’ll never be on speaking terms again. Long post.

On Friday, I arrived home from work and something was wrong. There were puddles on the floor. Water was dripping down the walls and the ceiling was warped with bubbles of water trapped in it. I realized that a pipe must have burst and I flew into a panic. The first thing I did was get to the breaker box and turn off the electricity to the house.

I called my husband crying and told him to call a plumber to come out immediately. I ran upstairs to get some old towels to try to save our hardwood floors from water damage. In all of this, I forgot about Dittle completely. When I got to my bedroom, she was sleeping on my bed. You know when you can tell someone is pretending to be asleep? She woke up and put on a fake groggy voice and said, “Oh no, I must have dozed off while I was drawing a bath.”

That’s when I realized I could hear the bath running. I ran into the master bathroom and the tub was overflowing. The overflow drain was plugged with a washcloth. Water was flowing from the tiled bathroom and sinking into the carpeted master bedroom. The carpet from the master bedroom to the stairs was completely saturated with water. Water was trickling from the top of the stairs to the first story below.

The master suite is directly above the living room and the ceiling was warped and looked like it would buckle any minute. There were places where the ceiling looked like it had exploded. I believe she did this on purpose. The amount of water damage looks like a pipe burst somewhere, not like a bathtub was slowly spilling over during a short nap. I think she turned the bathtub on as soon as we left the house on Friday morning.

The way she woke up and immediately knew she had flooded the house by leaving the bathtub running was suspicious. I’m supposed to believe she woke up and had her alibi ready before her eyes were fully open. What she said wasn’t an answer to a question. I had just walked in. She had an answer ready to a question she knew I would ask. Does this make sense or am I being crazy?

I turned off the bathtub and just started screaming bloody murder at Dittle. I told her to get out and that she is never setting foot in this house again. She kept saying, “I’m sorry. It was an accident,” and I kept screaming at her. She left the bedroom, went downstairs to her room, and tried to lock herself in.

I screamed through the door that there’s no hiding from what she did. She said through the door that she was scared of me and that she would wait for my husband to get home.

I told her that my husband is the one she should be scared of.

He arrived home minutes later as I was mopping up puddles with towels and blankets, crying my eyes out. He started crying, too. This man never cries. This house was a big project that we worked on for years. We spent many weekends making improvements to the house together. This house is our baby.

I told him either he can deal with his mother or I will. He went to her room and got her to open the door. He asked her what things she needed in order to survive the night. She started crying and said she didn’t want to go.

He said, “We all have to. The ceiling might collapse. Pack some things. I’m taking you to a hotel.”

She still refused. He got me and said, “Can you pack some stuff for her?”

I obliged. I know her medications and where to find them. They all went into a shopping bag with a change of clothes and some extra underwear. He told her that she could leave now and spend the night at a hotel or refuse and spend the night in jail. She chose the hotel. He drove her to the crappiest motel in town and paid for one night. Apparently, she cried. I hope there were bedbugs.

Our lives have been turned upside down. A lot of our possessions have been ruined. The real genius of Dittle’s revenge is that we live in a state that was affected by flooding recently. There aren’t any contractors available. Our insurance is paying for us to live somewhere temporarily, but it could be a very long time before we get to be reunited with our house. We are both devastated.

The house meant a lot to us. We spent our weekend ripping out drywall and trying to dry out the house. The hardwood floors might actually make it. We had movers come and get the furniture that survived. We’re doing what we can to prevent it from getting worse, but the mold has already started growing. The house is a disaster.

TWELFTH UPDATE (Six Days Later)

Dittle is gone. She is in her home state. I had some hesitation about posting this because, frankly, I received some unhealthy comments on my last post. I appreciate that many of you are angry on my behalf. It has been heartwarming to get so much reasonable advice and support. Thank you to those who messaged me with recommendations for mitigation companies and contractors.

I also received some disturbing and violent comments. I’m already having problems keeping my anger in check and comments egging me on to get revenge or even commit crimes are not helpful. Please don’t post those kinds of things. I don’t want to read them.

I am posting to update those of you who are so worried on our behalf. We are making lots of progress and it looks like insurance will take care of most of it. My husband and I couldn’t bring ourselves to deal with her in person. We truly don’t ever want to see her again. We coordinated with my husband’s sisters and decided that the best thing to do would be to ship her things directly to one of them.

I packed her things in boxes. Most of her things survived. The guest bedroom didn’t have much damage. Anything that was left in the living room or front hall was wet. We also have a closet in the front hall where we keep shoes and coats. Every single shoe got wet, so most of hers were ruined. We didn’t want her to accuse us of stealing or throwing away her things, so we packed them anyway. I want her to see the damage that she did.

Anything of hers that got wet was dried but not washed. Some of them smell like mold. Good. Let her do her own laundry for a change. We mailed it all to one of my husband’s sisters. It was only three moving boxes’ worth of stuff. I didn’t mail her fabric stash because it was so completely ruined that it wouldn’t be worth the shipping. They were in a plastic Rubbermaid that wasn’t closed. So, the fabric sat in a few inches of water under some rotting ceiling for a few days and became a mold factory.

She also has some antique furniture that we have had to keep here. We have decided that if she wants it badly enough, she can pay the moving fees. Shipping furniture isn’t cheap.

My sister-in-law called Dittle and told her that her things were being shipped to her home state. Dittle started calling both of our phones over and over. We got calls from her motel phone as well. Eventually, she convinced a sister-in-law to call us on her behalf. She wanted us to arrange her travel and cover her travel costs.

Apparently, the sisters-in-law refused and she thought we should do it because we kicked her out. I told her that I’m not paying for a plane ticket, and the sister-in-law told us that she actually wanted us to drive her. It’s unlikely that I could stand being in a car with a woman who destroyed my house and the past year of my life for seven hours. I’m sure she hoped to corner my husband and try to put a bug in his ear for an entire day. Nice try, but it’s not happening.

My husband and I talked about it and agreed that I would pick her up and drive her. She just didn’t know that I was driving her to the Greyhound bus station. I waited until I saw her bus leave with her in it. That bus ride was eleven hours. I hope she enjoyed it.

The cleanup is going well. We finally got professionals to come out to do water and mold mitigation. The house needs to be as dry as a bone before we start replacing drywall. We have hired professionals to safely remove the ceilings that are in danger of collapsing, and we will be hiring contractors to put in new ceilings once we can. My husband and I will hang the drywall on the walls ourselves. The rooms that had ruined carpet will be getting new flooring.

To cheer ourselves up, we have been looking at options for new flooring in the master bedroom. I just want to go ahead and say that I am not looking for advice right now. We have a handle on things. I just wanted to update all of you who were so heartbroken on our behalf. We are going to be just fine. I’m seeing a therapist and so is my husband.

THIRTEENTH UPDATE (Three Weeks Later)

Dittle is still causing misery from afar. We haven’t seen or spoken to Dittle since the incident, but she has been causing trouble that has reached us. I’ve mentioned that my husband has two sisters. One of them has a history of being crappy about money. She will try to make us feel guilty for having money or try to get us to pay more than our share because she thinks that’s only fair.

We always shut it down and it hasn’t been a big problem in years—especially because we don’t see her that often. We are doing a lot of the repairs ourselves. This isn’t a cost-saving measure; it’s a time-saving measure. Irma, Harvey, and company have destroyed so many homes that getting a contractor in a timely fashion is just not going to happen. The simple things that any idiot can do are going to be done by us, and we are relying on professionals to do the rest.

My husband is using the opportunity to add things that were never a part of the house since insurance will only pay for things we already had. He wants to build an al cove. He needs a project to focus on and he needs to feel useful. So, I am supporting it and helping out.

We got a call from my sister-in-law saying that her unemployed husband has nothing better to do, so he can come out and help us hang drywall and move stuff around for a week or two. We asked them over and over whether they were sure and offered to pay for all meals and transportation costs. We don’t need him, but any help is welcome.

We get a call back later asking what rate we would be charging. Dittle concocted the whole plan. She decided to convince my sister-in-law that we should hire our brother-in-law to help us in the house. We should pay him out of pocket for work that our insurance would otherwise cover. My brother-in-law is not a professional. Why would we pay for amateur work when we can get professional work paid for?

I told her that she was asking too much of us. She said that my brother-in-law is family and family needs to be helped out.

I said, “We’re the ones who just lost our home.”

And she said, “Do little told me you’d say that. She warned me that you would turn this into a sob story.”

I’m glad my husband was next to me because that conversation was just unbelievable. I’m not sure he would have believed it if I told him. I could see with each phone call I got from her that Dittle had gotten to her a little bit more. At first, she was eager to help and asking what she could do, but Dittle got her claws in. I have noticed the same with the other sister as well. She has started saying things like, “Well, it sucks, but you aren’t exactly bankrupt.”

We had planned to go down and see the whole family for Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was a condition we agreed to in order to get Doolittle to cooperate with moving to her retirement community. It’s not happening now. We gave a lame excuse about being too busy with the house to go. They know the truth is that we can’t see Doolittle and we are pissed at them for swinging between sympathetic and apathetic twice a day.

Dittle made an awful comment about her son-in-law’s cancer, and my sister-in-law still doesn’t seem to realize how toxic she is. The sisters are also in the middle of a huge fight and not speaking to each other. Dittle caused that one by manipulating one into believing that the other owes her money. She has fractured the whole family very effectively. They are going to have a miserable Thanksgiving this year.

FOURTEENTH UPDATE (One Month Later)

Dittle has a boyfriend. Yes, you read that right. Someone is willingly dating DooLittle. He sent my husband an email. The email said that he is DooLittle’s significant other and that he was disappointed to hear he won’t be meeting him for Thanksgiving. There was some tish about holidays, forgiveness, and being Christlike.

Apparently, he hasn’t known DooLittle for long. My husband had a disgusted look on his face as he read it and still looked perturbed when he went to bed. There’s something unsavory about any man who would date—who in their right mind lectures a middle-aged man about manners, especially one they haven’t met, and especially based on their authority as your mom’s boyfriend of a few weeks?

In other news, we are now no contact with both sisters-in-law. This means we’re no contact with the whole family on that side since they control most communication. They have been nasty and selfish to us, and we have better things to worry about. For example, creating new email accounts.

FIFTEENTH UPDATE (One Month Later)

Dittle’s boyfriend never existed. Update: we are hosting our nephew. My husband is meeting him halfway. He is probably getting a bicycle from us and we’re going to go camping because we truly don’t have space. Thank you for all the suggestions. We will certainly be taking some of the advice.

My sister-in-law has been told that our nephew is earning money for college applications from us and touring a local college campus. Both are true, but not the main reason for the visit.

It was fake. The weird part is that it wasn’t DooLittle who was behind it. Not completely. It turns out that my sister-in-law made the account for her and let Dittle dictate. She was ratted out by her own son, our nephew, who thinks his mom is a crazy jerk. My sister-in-law has a habit of squeezing us for favors, especially in the form of financial contributions.

She has a son who is about to go to college next year, and the poor kid can’t wait to be free. It seems like their house is a miserable place for him. He is a sweet kid and asked us if we could host him for the Christmas break because he couldn’t stand another minute at home or at DooLittle’s smelly apartment in the retirement community. He wants to take a bus all the way here. He must be desperate.

It seems that Dittle loathes being alone and harasses her daughters to keep her company. And my sister-in-law just makes her son, who is eighteen and would prefer doing just about anything else, go visit her so that she’ll shut up. Remember that effing pullout sofa that Dittle wanted? Well, she got it. Nephew is its prisoner on an almost weekly basis.

Nephew is a great kid. He lived with us for a summer once. He has always thought my husband is the cool uncle—which is an ego stroke that he doesn’t need—and he has been in contact because my husband was some kind of mentor for his senior project. Recently, he started sharing details of what life at home is like. He sounds miserable. His dad is unemployed and blames everyone but himself. His mom is stressed and takes it out on everyone. And now he has to see Dittle multiple times a week. The poor kid. I feel for him.

He had some interesting tidbits about DooLittle. He said she has started to claim that her accent comes on when she is stressed out and she starts talking in a phony English accent as a way to guilt people for stressing her out. She also tells everyone that it was permanent when she lived with me because I was so horrible to her. She also made a best friend and then alienated her within a few short weeks. They don’t speak now.

We told our nephew that we don’t have a house at the moment and that Christmas dinner will probably be Chinese takeout at best. He said that sounds great and that he would like to help us paint or whatever else. Have you ever heard something so sad? This kid is willing to trade free labor for a drama-free holiday. We don’t have space to host our nephew, but we want to do something, anything, to make the next few months more bearable before he starts college.

Does anyone have any clever ideas? I hate to contribute financially to my sister-in-law or DooLittle in any way. I only want to do something that will benefit our nephew and only our nephew. I’m sorry if this isn’t the right content for this sub as it focuses on our nephew a lot.

SIXTEENTH UPDATE (One Month, One Week Later)

God bless my nephew. I’ve mentioned that we hosted our nephew over the Christmas break and did some camping with him. He’s a good kid and doesn’t deserve the crap that his mother and Dittle put him through.

Over the break, I was moving things around a bit to try to make space for an air mattress in our apartment—temporary until the house is repaired, so it’s full of boxes—and I decided to double-check that my valuables were all in order. I had gotten advice from this sub to hide my jewelry and anything of value from my mother-in-law because she might do something vindictive. I checked and it was all there, except for a necklace that my husband had gotten me years ago that had already been missing for months.

I felt so guilty about it that I didn’t tell my husband because I was still searching for it periodically, hoping it would turn up. Nephew asked me if I needed any help and I said, “Oh, don’t worry about it. This necklace has been missing for a while and I can’t find it. If it’s anywhere, it’s probably in this box.”

I described it and we took apart my jewelry box looking for it, but had no luck. I got a text message yesterday from nephew. It was: “Hey, Aunt, remind me—what did your necklace look like?” and a photo of what was very clearly my necklace. I told him that the back of the pendant had my anniversary engraved on it. And sure enough, it was mine. He was at Dittle’s stinky apartment. She had the necklace sitting in a jewelry dish in plain view.

I never assumed that it was stolen. I assumed that I had lost it. I had emptied vacuum bags to look for it. I had felt like a crappy and ungrateful wife for losing my husband’s lovely anniversary gift. Nephew took it. He didn’t say anything to her. He just took it. I’m going to Venmo him some money to cover shipping costs. I am worried that Dittle will notice that it’s missing and claim that an employee stole from her. So, I plan on somehow reaching out to prevent this from affecting anyone who already has the sorry task of dealing with her.

SEVENTEENTH UPDATE (Eleven Days Later)

We have moved back into our house. I’m back in my living room surrounded by boxes. Today, I installed the curtain rods and tomorrow I will hang our art up. It’s beginning to look like a home again. The house looks brand new. You would never know that it didn’t have a ceiling in some places for a few months.

We used this opportunity to really make sure we loved everything before we moved back in. We changed the paint colors in most of the house, replaced the flooring upstairs, and my talented husband built a gorgeous al cove in our living room. I finally got the reading nook I’ve wanted since I was a little girl. The carpets are gone, and now we have hardwood floors or tile throughout the entire house. I hope I never have to paint another ceiling ever again. I also hope I can have a reprieve from caulking for a while.

I spent more time cleaning paint out of my hair than I care to remember. My husband cut himself several times while building the al cove. He injured his back and spent days lying just so, using ice or heating pads. We both went to work with paint stuck to our hands and arms a few times. We still had a lot of fun. We work so well together. Dittle can’t take that from us.

We both agree that we hold some resentment toward the bathtub that ruined our house, so we had it replaced. Despite the expenses associated with the house, we saved some money while living in the temporary apartment. We certainly didn’t break even, but it didn’t cost what a major renovation would have. Insurance covered most of the damage, and we spent our own money on some fun stuff. We are the type who think picking out new staircase spindles is fun. We’re boring like that.

My necklace was safely returned to me in the mail. I’m wearing it right now. I will feel better if I know exactly where it is for a few days. The best thing about being back home is knowing that DooLittle will never set foot in our house again. We have a doorbell with a camera, so if she shows up—doubtful, since she lives seven hours away and has no car—we can simply not answer.

I’m sorry this update doesn’t involve Dittle very much. We haven’t spoken to her at all since we kicked her out. My husband’s last words to her were, “Don’t ever speak to me or my wife ever again.” My last words to her were, “If you say a single word, I will let you out of the car right here.” The last communication of sorts was us sending her moldy clothes and shoes. We are both happy with it staying that way.

We did therapy for a while. We outlined what we will do if DooLittle has a major medical emergency and what we will do if his sisters beg for more money. We’re prepared. I think we’ve got this.

EIGHTEENTH UPDATE (One Month, Two Weeks Later)

I love my husband, but his family is another story. My mother-in-law is Dittle. I mostly post in JustNoMIL. We are no contact and will never speak to her again. Dittle destroyed our house so badly that we couldn’t safely live there for three months. We moved back in and we’re still doing some work here and there.

I have two sisters-in-law. Both are married with kids and live in the same town seven hours away. One sister-in-law is angry, selfish, and tries to get money out of us at any opportunity. Her son, our nephew, begs us to host him when he has breaks from school because he is so miserable at home. This is complicated because we don’t really want contact with his parents, but we also love our nephew and want to help him if we can.

Our nephew got into his top-choice college. It happens to be in our city. He hasn’t made a decision yet because out-of-state tuition is high. Now, my sister-in-law has cooked up a plan to get her son in-state tuition. She thinks my husband and I should let her, her unemployed husband, and her son move in with us. The paint isn’t even dry on our house. We hate to let down our nephew, but this is 100% not happening.

I’ve done my research and it seems that this wouldn’t even qualify my nephew for in-state rates unless they live here for at least twelve months. I just can’t believe that my sister-in-law is so selfish that she thinks we should let her family mooch off us after the year that we’ve had. She is insane. She is also pushing us to do a family vacation, which she feels my husband and I should pay for.

NINETEENTH UPDATE (Four Months Later)

My sister-in-law is manufacturing a crisis because she wants us to subsidize her son’s education. We have a great nephew who has horrible parents. The nephew is a smart kid and got into a good school in our city. It’s a big city and the university isn’t actually that close to us, but that hasn’t stopped his parents from trying to convince us to let their son live with us so he can commute.

He will pay out-of-state tuition, which isn’t cheap. The nephew is going to start his first semester in August. He’s been to orientation and should have a dorm assignment by now. I got a call from my sister-in-law claiming that the nephew isn’t going to have a dorm room after all because the university accepted too many students and they can’t fit them. He will live in overflow housing and it will be a horrible environment to study in because it’s several boys in one room.

She even tried to convince me that he could get in trouble if just one of those boys has drugs or alcohol in the room. She seems to think that all the residents will be implicated if one kid messes up. I’m sure she doesn’t believe this. It’s just an attempt to convince me.

I replied that we already told her we can’t take him in and that while it sounds like his arrangements aren’t ideal, that’s what living in a college dorm is like. He’ll make friends more easily if he’s on campus and it would be a long and dangerous commute if he lived with us. Plus, he doesn’t have a car.

My sister-in-law said they could afford a car for him if they were saving money on the dorm fees and meal plan. I told her it wouldn’t be free for him to live here. She ignored this and talked over me. I finally said I’d talk to my husband about it and we hung up.

My husband and I called the nephew and spoke to him. His overflow housing is an extra-large room with three kids instead of two. The horror. He was so embarrassed that his mom called us and said he would prefer to live on campus and make friends. We asked him what the dorm and meal plan cost and he told us. If my sister-in-law bothers us again, we will send her our rent prices and make sure they are at least as expensive as the dorm and meal plan.

This isn’t the first time she’s tried to squeeze us. She also sent me emails all summer with links to vacation rentals that the whole family can fit into. We’d be paying for the whole thing, of course. Sounds great. We vacationed by ourselves and she threw a hissy fit when she found out.

TWENTIETH UPDATE (Three Months Later)

Help. My mother-in-law Dittle is in need of a place to stay and my sister-in-law is threatening us. What can we do legally?

My mother-in-law is an awful person. She lived with us for about a year and destroyed our house by leaving a bathtub faucet running. We had to kick her out and she has been living at a retirement community ever since. The retirement community is in another state. She has been living there because it’s close to her daughters and friends.

One of my sisters-in-law is a mooch. She is always trying to find ways to get my husband and me to spend money on her or her kids. This sister-in-law has been calling us and threatening to drive Dittle seven hours to our house and just leave her on our front porch. She believes that will make us responsible for her. I don’t know the details. All we know is what my sister-in-law has told us and she is a liar.

She says that Dittle has been kicked out and needs a new place to live. We swore that we would never speak to this woman again and that she would never set foot on our property again. If she is left on our porch, I don’t know what to do. She is an old lady who uses a cane or a walker. The police probably would not be amused that we won’t let my husband’s mother inside. She is good at making herself look pathetic and frail to cause trouble. She has accused us of abusing her in the past and often threatens to claim elder abuse to law enforcement.

I have suggested that we leave for the weekend so that the house is empty. I don’t believe that my sister-in-law would leave her mother at an empty house—as bad of a person as she is.

Up in the comments: we have been no contact with Dittle since she destroyed our house. We only speak to my sister-in-law if it concerns our nephew, who is a freshman in college at a school near us. We were trying to be nice because we love our nephew and his mother backs off a little if she thinks we’re keeping an eye on him. We usually hear from her less than once a month, but ever since her son moved here, she contacts us about once a week. She was bearable in small doses.

We haven’t paid anything for Dittle’s care since she left. It turned out that she wasn’t taking advantage of a lot of benefits that her husband left behind just because she was too lazy to bother. We are traveling for Christmas and not telling his family that we’re leaving or where. We are actually a bit worried about letting them know the house is empty for extended periods of time.

There was an incident a couple of months ago where my brother-in-law tried to get into our house when we were out of town. Here is what happened. My husband and I were out of town. Our nephew asked us if we would be interested in attending Parents Weekend at his university because he thought it would be too far for his parents to travel. We said, sorry, but we can’t because we had made plans to leave town that weekend. That meant that our nephew knew we were gone. He must have mentioned it to his parents, who did end up coming to Parents Weekend.

We have a garage with a code. Our nephew knows the garage code. My brother-in-law left his wife and son to hang out on campus and drove to our house. When he reached the house, he tried to guess the garage code and failed. And then he called our nephew and asked for the garage code. Our nephew refused to give the code. My brother-in-law started yelling through the phone in our driveway. A neighbor noticed and took a video and texted it to my husband.

My husband and I were busy and didn’t see it right away, but by the time we responded, the neighbor had already told our brother-in-law to get lost. We called and asked our brother-in-law what the hell he was doing. He said he shouldn’t have to pay for a hotel since we’re so close by and he could watch the house for us. They didn’t ask or mention this once and had even told their son that they had hotel reservations. The whole thing was utter baloney.

Editor’s note: That was OP’s last post, dated October 2018. She has not made any more posts or updates since then, so it’s uncertain what happened with Dittle afterward—but hopefully she never had to see or speak to her again.