My mother-in-law said, “Oops.” It was customary when she brought a cake with my husband’s ex’s name on it for my birthday, but my husband brings a cake to my mother-in-law’s birthday with the names of his father’s lovers. For context, my mother-in-law and I don’t have a good relationship. She didn’t like it at all.

 She doesn’t think she’s good enough for her son. The same old story. And like many other mothers-in-law, she’s stuck with her ex-daughter-in-law, convinced that woman was the perfect match for her son, even though my husband’s ex-wife was her biggest bully for a very long time, and it took a lot of therapy to get out of that relationship and eventually get over it.

 But just because Alice, my mother-in-law, set my husband up with her, and because that woman, let’s call her Kaili, was the daughter of one of her close friends, she remains convinced that Kaili is the perfect woman for my husband and that I am the worst decision he’s ever made. My husband is 32 and I am 35, and we’ve both been married before.

 My husband got married at 23 after dating Caili for a year. And it wasn’t because he wanted to marry her after just a year, it was because both of his parents wanted them to get married as soon as possible and basically pressured them to do so. At 26, he finally decided to file for divorce because he’d had enough of Caili and her antics because she was a horrible person.

 He’s told me everything about his previous relationship, and honestly, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. It’s for a separate Rédit story, but my husband won’t write one. In short, this woman had serious anger issues, threw tantrums about everything, refused to work, and overspent constantly, not caring how it affected her finances or her husband.

On top of that, she insisted she wanted a child, even though she’d proven herself incapable of being a good mother. But for some delusional reason, everyone believed having a baby would magically solve all the problems they were having—everyone except my husband, who kept putting it off as long as he could. He made excuses because he really didn’t want to have a baby with her unless he was sure she could improve her character.

 And when it became clear she wasn’t going to change, he decided to file for divorce after three long years of tolerating her. After that, he was single for a long time. He focused solely on his work and healing, which wasn’t an easy process given how upset his mother was with him. But since he has no siblings and his father is no longer with him, he was forced to maintain contact with his mother because they only have each other as family.

 She insisted that she should go back to Kili, apologize, and fix everything. Even though Kili seemed perfectly happy, she made her life incredibly difficult during the divorce, demanding an absurd amount of child support. Luckily, she had a good lawyer. She got away with a reasonable amount.

 But for Kaili, I’d say even 50 cents would be too much because he’s a horrible person from everything I’ve heard. Anyway, that was him and how he got divorced. With me, it was much more painful because I married my high school sweetheart when I was 22. We spent six wonderful years together and even had a son before he eventually passed away after a long battle with illness.

 So for both of us to move on and find each other was a huge thing, because I never thought I’d find love again, and he wasn’t even looking for it. But we met through work about four years ago and got married six months ago. Everyone has been pretty happy for us, all with the exception of Alice, who can’t stand me because I make all sorts of silly excuses, like she thinks I’m too old for her son, or having a son, etc.

 Also, the fact that I’m still in contact with my ex-in-laws is considered disrespectful to my husband, although he doesn’t seem to mind. And basically, she doesn’t like me and is constantly making digs at me and trying to belittle me. And since I know my husband can’t exactly cut her out of our lives just like that, I tolerate it.

 Although we’ve had our verbal battles, with air support from my husband who finally silences her, I guess my husband had had enough. Basically, two weeks ago I celebrated my birthday, and obviously Alice had to do something to ruin it, so she decided to bring out a cake, even though we hadn’t discussed it. I was surprised.

 But I knew nothing good could come from a cake from my mother-in-law. I didn’t expect it to be poisoned, but I did expect it to make a ticking noise or something. I put my ear to the box, but the surprise came when I had the chance to read what was written on the cake. There was all her meanness compressed into sugary icing and in horrible handwriting.

I had the cake made, but she was the one who wrote Caila’s name and frosted it instead of mine, and obviously everyone got really uncomfortable seeing it and no one knew what to say. Then she pretended to realize her mistake, quote unquote, because I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a mistake at all and she meant to do it to put me in my place.

He pretended to see that he was wrong and started laughing, saying it was just out of habit and that I shouldn’t take it personally. And I responded in the same tone, telling him not to take it personally, to be such an idiot, because we all know what he’s like and it’s not like we’re surprised. Everyone laughed, and we carried on with the evening, which I think dealt the biggest blow to his ego.

 I thought I was hoping this would ruin my day, but other than the insult, I didn’t really care too much about it. Everyone was nice enough to move on and pretend nothing had happened. Someone even took the frosting with her name on it and ate it while my mother-in-law turned green with fury.

 And she sulked all night because I guess the cake didn’t have the desired effect of creating drama and making me explode. But after everyone left, my husband was really upset. He kept telling me he wasn’t going to let her get away with this, and I thought he was going to talk to her or something, but then he didn’t, and I was really confused.

 But eventually I forgot about it, although I was a little worried because I’d never seen him like that before. He always responded to his mother and was supportive, but that day he was pretty upset. Then he calmed down a bit, and I thought he’d forgotten about it, but as you can tell from the title, he hadn’t forgotten at all.

 I’d just been planning a way to get back at her. And he did it because, wow, what he did was crazy. My mother-in-law and I had birthdays only two weeks apart, which was pretty convenient for what my husband had been planning, because that way what had happened on my birthday was still pretty fresh in everyone’s minds, at least the shared guests.

 Plus, I wanted to hit back in kind, to do something similar. So on Alice’s birthday, my husband decided to bring out a cake, and this time, instead of her name, it had four or five names belonging to other women. And for a second, I was quite confused until I recognized one of the names.

 I noticed one of the names belonged to my late father-in-law’s mistress, and I instantly knew what I’d done. For context, my father-in-law was practically a serial cheater, and until he died of a heart attack eight years ago, he was practically in constant pursuit of other women. And my husband had told me that his childhood was basically filled with fights between his parents because his mother was always upset that her husband couldn’t be faithful to her.

 She couldn’t even leave because then, where would she go? And her father was also constantly upset because he felt like he’d been trapped in this marriage he didn’t even want in the first place. And it was all for their child, even though he hadn’t been ready to have a baby when Alice decided she was going to continue with the pregnancy.

 The worst part is that his parents didn’t even bother to hide these fights from him. His father constantly blamed him for their unhappiness, and his mother, although she tried to be there for him, couldn’t help but vent to him all the time. And obviously, that’s extremely inappropriate behavior toward your son, ranting to him about your husband’s mistresses, but that’s how their family worked.

 Naturally, my husband grew up hating his father and resenting his mother, but he still treated them well until that birthday party. When I saw that name, I realized that one of the mistresses had had an on-again, off-again relationship with my father-in-law, and he’d even left her something in his will.

 So naturally, it was a huge blow to Alice when she realized what that cake was going to be. She looked totally betrayed when my husband brought it out, but unlike her, my husband didn’t try to play it innocent or laugh it off like he had no idea what he was doing. I was pretty nervous too, and so was everyone else, and no one knew what to say, so we left it up to mother and son.

 Obviously, it took Alice a few seconds to compose herself, but then she immediately started yelling at her son, hurling insults. And he just told her that it was out of habit for him too, because those names were all he’d heard growing up, since she had no sense of boundaries and didn’t know what to talk to her son about in his childhood, and that even now she had no idea how to behave in front of people or how to be nice to the woman he loved.

 He called her bitter and jealous to her face. He told her that just because he’d never been able to find love in his life, he was upset that he’d ever been able to find someone else, and that the only reason he was constantly trying to put me down was because I was secure in who I was instead of being miserable all the time and couldn’t stand it.

 Honestly, even I was surprised he said it to her face in front of so many people. And then she started crying, but instead of trying to comfort her, he just asked me to follow him because he was leaving and he was already fed up with her, that he didn’t want anything to do with her. So I did. I wasn’t going to stay at that birthday party, which, unlike mine, was actually ruined.

 So that was a few days ago and since then we’ve had numerous calls from the rest of my husband’s family, telling us that my mother-in-law had a complete meltdown at her birthday party and they literally had to rush her to the doctor because she apparently couldn’t breathe and seemed to be having some kind of seizure or something.

Everyone has been trying to contact me and my husband, telling us that we need to talk to her because my husband’s joke—although I don’t call it a joke—went too far. But my husband has made it very clear that he wants nothing to do with her. At least not right now. But everyone has been telling him that’s not the solution right now, because what she needs is to talk to him.

 She needs to see him and work things out with him, because this is more of a mental issue than a physical ailment. Something I believe, because if there’s one thing my mother-in-law has had all this time, it’s mental issues. Maybe she never even had a mind, so I don’t feel one bit sorry for her. My only regret is that my husband might end up resenting me in the future if something happens to his mother and he’s not there for her.

 Why here? Despite everything that’s happened, I know he still loves his mom because that’s the reason we’ve had to put up with her up until now. I mean, if he didn’t love his mom, he wouldn’t have put up with her for so many years. I know he does, and I feel like he’s choosing to leave her behind for me. So if something were to happen, God forbid, I wouldn’t want to be held responsible for it.

 And I know my husband isn’t the kind of man who would do something like that. He’s a good man, and that’s why I love him. But at the end of the day, you never know. I know I’m not the bad guy here. This isn’t what it’s about. Nothing that happened on my birthday or hers was my fault. Maybe my response to her on my birthday, which I can say humiliated her.

 But no one could blame me for that either, when it was a valid response to this woman’s nonsense. And what my husband did, well, it’s been a cumulative mess. From what he did recently to everything else he’s done over the years, even before I was in his life.

 I just don’t want to get caught in the middle and have it destroy my marriage. Edit: Okay. A lot of people wanted to know how my mother-in-law related to my son. And let me tell you, it’s not like I was actively going around saying mean things to him or anything, I definitely wouldn’t have tolerated that. I just meant that I wasn’t nice to him in the sense that I was indifferent toward him.

 And I don’t know, he doesn’t seem to mind, but I found it very strange. I can understand him not liking me, but my son hasn’t done anything. He’s 11, so he’s not a little kid; he can handle himself. And when he first met Alice, he came home and told me he had the feeling the older lady didn’t like him.

 And from that moment on, he never made an effort to talk to her or get along or anything. He ignores her back, and I think it’s good that he’s asserting himself at such a young age because he knows that person doesn’t seem to want him around, and he just stays away, not caring what that person might think of him or forcing his company on that person.

 At the same time, I also find it very sad because at 11 years old, he shouldn’t have to deal with any of this. I’m fortunate that my husband makes up for all of this by showering my son with extra love. Honestly, they’re practically best friends now. Obviously, we both still miss my late husband dearly, and he will always be the father of my son and the first love of my life.

 But at the same time, I think my husband is doing a great job, being the second great love of my life and my son’s stepfather. So yes, I basically have no complaints about him, and he’s always been good to my son, but Alice, not so much. But like I said, I guess I care more about her than him because my son doesn’t really seem to care whether Alice loves him or not.

 He doesn’t even give her the time when she comes over. And now that she hasn’t come over in a couple of days, he doesn’t even seem to notice or ask about her. So, honestly, good for him. I’m proud to have a son who knows himself so well, who is so confident for his age, and yes, I admire him immensely. Update one. I talked to my husband about everything that’s been weighing on my conscience because I decided the best way to deal with all of this would be to just talk to him and let him know how I feel.

 Instead of dealing with all of this on my own and keeping it all to myself because I didn’t want to burden him even more, I thought it would be best to just get it out of the way. And I’m so thankful I made the decision to do so. Most of the comments suggested just talking to him, and honestly, the only reason I hadn’t been doing that was, like I said, because I didn’t want to burden him even more and didn’t want to put him on the spot or anything.

But a couple of hours ago, I decided to finally rip off the band-aid, and we sat down to have a discussion about all of this. My son was spending the day with his paternal grandparents, so it was the perfect time to bring him up because we were home alone, and even if we had a fight, at least we could talk about our feelings openly and wouldn’t have to tiptoe around the topic.

 So yes, I told him everything I’d discussed in my original post, and he listened silently. He was quiet for a couple of seconds after I finished speaking, and then he told me he truly respected the fact that I’d thought this through so deeply, and that it showed he’d done the right thing by marrying me because I was a caring person. That’s why he loves me so much.

 Obviously, that was very sweet of him. But then he moved on to the hardest part, telling me that while he respected how I felt, he wanted me to know that this decision he’d made to cut his mother out of his life wasn’t entirely because of me. It was because his mother, in general, had always been pretty toxic toward him, and he needed to do something about it because he couldn’t constantly put up with it and then expect my son and me to put up with it too because we’re not even his flesh and blood.

So why should we have to pay the price for him being too attached to her? It doesn’t seem fair to either of us. And more importantly, he’d realized that what he’d been doing to himself wasn’t fair either. And that’s when I saw the emotional dams finally break, because I’d been holding back so much simply to avoid drama and confrontation.

But I guess my husband was tired of holding it all in and holding it all together, so he let himself break down, and I let him cry. And then he explained to me that even though I was the reason he finally decided to cut his mother out of his life, he decided this wasn’t just good for the three of us—for me, for him, and for my son.

He realized that, more importantly, this was something he needed to do to fix his own life. Because at the end of the day, as much as he wanted to be able to fully love his mom, as much as he was attached to her, she was still ultimately not a good person.

 And worst of all, she wasn’t even trying. She’d never tried to be a good mother when he was a kid, and neither of his parents had even tried to give him a good life. No one bothered to do normal things for him. They were all too caught up in their own drama and their own lives. And he didn’t want to be that kind of person, especially now that he felt like he was a father figure to someone.

 I wanted to be able to be a good father, and that meant not having someone around who couldn’t stand my son, because he truly believed my son was his son too. And I know my son also sees my husband as a father figure, and that made me very happy. And on top of this, he also told me that he wanted to be true to himself and want to do what was right for himself, too, because that would be the only way to keep his family happy and together.

 And when he said that, he needed to comfort me because I was the one crying because I got quite emotional. In the end, we hugged and decided that we were going to uphold his decision to have no contact with his mother. That woman had never even tried to become a good person, and now she was simply going to have to face the consequences of what she had done throughout her life.

 It was going to be hard for her, but that was the whole point. She’s never made things easy for other people, so, well, no one can say this isn’t well-deserved, and I think that’s completely fine. After all, sometimes people need to prioritize themselves, too, and I think that’s totally fine. Update two.

 It’s been six months since my last update, and well, I have a new life update. My husband and I are expecting. I never thought this would happen again. Honestly, biologically, I thought it would be really difficult, but I just started my second trimester, and so far it’s been going pretty well.

 When we found out, we were quite confused, but then I realized I really wanted to do this, and so we chose to go through with the pregnancy. I’m truly extremely happy to have been blessed with this opportunity, especially when I least expected it. But I am happy that I’m having a baby again, and it’s definitely going to be hard on my body and even harder for me to make room for everything in my life again.

Given my hectic career and everything, but given how supportive my husband is right now, I can only imagine how supportive he’ll be when the baby comes. So I’m not too worried. Anyway, we made the announcement on social media a couple of weeks ago, and shortly after, Alice tried to reach out to me.

 She didn’t call or text my husband. She contacted me directly. In one text, she said she was truly sorry for everything that had happened, but now that I was pregnant again, she really wanted a second chance and would do anything to make it all right again. We hadn’t spoken in months, especially after everything that had happened at her birthday party and everything.

 So this was definitely out of the blue. But I talked to my husband, and we decided we’re going to give it a second chance. No joke. There’s no way we can bring his toxicity around my pregnancy and our new child. We don’t want to bring a boy or girl, we don’t know yet, into the world for my mother-in-law to poison early on.

 We still don’t trust her, and we don’t know if we ever will. I mean, this woman hasn’t done anything to change our minds about her. She hasn’t done anything new, I’ll admit, but I don’t think she deserves our trust either. She hasn’t taken our refusal well, which came with my husband’s response, as he wanted to respond to his mother.

 We’ve told her straight out that we don’t want her in our son’s life. Believe me, that’s what this could mean for us: more harassment from her and others who think doing this to a grandmother is wrong. But since everyone else has stopped, when we asked them to respect our wishes to break up with her, we hope this won’t be any different.

 You already know about our issues with her, so it would be nice not to have to cut off any more people. Edit: My son has taken the news of my pregnancy quite well. He’s excited about having a brother or sister, as he wants to be the big brother. Update three: We knew my mother-in-law wasn’t going to take the news of not getting to meet her grandchild well, since we now know my son will have a little brother.

 But imagining that Alice would do what she did is beyond our imagination. Luckily, she hasn’t done anything against us, and I don’t think she ever will, but she has gotten into legal trouble after attacking one of my father-in-law’s ex-lovers. Basically, she had a list of them that was even longer than the cake.

 My husband didn’t know about those names, but we suspect that was because Alice had no confirmation that they were his lovers, only suspicions. But he attacked one of the women on the list, the one my husband and I believe had the biggest affair with his father, and brutally attacked her, hospitalizing her with some pretty serious injuries. She’s fine at the moment, though I’m not exactly on the side of someone who would butt into a marriage.

 According to her statement to the police, she yelled at him while beating him that he was a horrible woman, because she had not only taken her husband from her, but also her son. Again, I’m not on the side of the mistress, but the one who took his son was none other than my own mother-in-law. In other words, she was the one who talked about these things with my husband for years.

 She was also the one who couldn’t stop talking about my husband’s ex. To make things even more twisted, the list of names we believe could be possible lovers also included my husband’s ex-mother-in-law, my mother-in-law’s friend, the mother of his ex. At this point, we don’t know if my mother-in-law has simply lost her mind completely or if she actually suspected her.

 But here’s the thing. She’s not in jail for the beating. Someone has posted her bail. But she’ll face trial soon. Unfortunately, it will be long after I give birth in a few weeks. Update four. I’m now a mother for the second time, and things are going very well for my family.

 My husband is happy to be a biological father, but he hasn’t stopped loving his stepson, even though he now has his own. He doesn’t even see him as a stepson, but to make it clear who I’m talking about, I call him that. They continue to do their things together. He also helps with the baby. And our family of four is very happy. The good thing is that during the birth and the days afterward, we haven’t had to deal with my mother-in-law at all.

 Alice has been busy preparing for her trial, and we haven’t been bothered by her. It’s been a blessing because we didn’t want to be the target of someone determined to beat another person to the point of sending them to the hospital. Her trial is now over, and she was sentenced to six months in prison and a year of probation afterward.

 He still has four months left to serve, in addition to financially compensating my father-in-law’s mistress. This woman had received a small portion of the inheritance, from what I understand, so now she’ll receive another portion from my mother-in-law. That can’t be pleasant for Alice, but it’s not as if she’ll be able to approach him after getting out of prison.

 There’s still a restraining order against her, and if she breaks it, she’ll surely be sent back to prison. I really hope this is the last update and Alice has learned her lesson. I don’t want to come back in a year telling everyone that my mother-in-law got out of prison with tattoos on her arms and is now on a mission to hunt down all the mistresses.