Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl made headlines recently when he announced on Instagram that he’d fathered a baby girl “outside my marriage”. Grohl didn’t say whether he’d leave his marriage to be a “loving and supportive parent” to his new daughter. But his wife of over 20 years has recently been spotted without her wedding ring.
Grohl’s confession might have been quite triggering for one woman, whose husband stepped out on her a few years ago. The woman was two months pregnant when she found out her husband was having an affair, and had made his mistress pregnant as well. In a wicked twist of karma, the man’s dying mother teamed up with his ex-wife to teach him one last very costly lesson.
Amelie’s husband walked out on her after getting his co-worker pregnant, leaving her to raise their 5-year-old child alone
Image credits: Elina Fairytale / Pexels (not the actual photo)
The man’s mother was livid when she found out, and cut contact with her son immediately
Image credits: cottonbro studio / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Gerardo Manzano / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: throwaway_inherit8
Image credits: cottonbro studio / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Mother-in-laws often get a bad rep for siding with their children, no matter what
Mother-in-laws have been the butt of jokes for centuries. And are often portrayed in a negative light in books, movies, and songs. Ernie K-Doe’s 1961 song “Mother-in-Law” hit number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and R&B chart. “Mother-in-law, mother-in-law… The worst person I know. Mother-in-law, mother-in-law… She worries me so,” sang K-Doe. Some people have referred to their MIL as “monster-in-law“.
Even Pope Francis has made mother-in-law jokes. In public. In 2015, thousands erupted into laughter as the pope addressed them in America. “Families quarrel and sometimes plates can fly and children bring headaches, and I won’t speak about mother-in-laws,” quipped the head of the Catholic church.
But in 2022, the pope came to the defence of “the other woman”, when he asked people to be kinder to their mother-in-laws. The pontiff told the audience that mother-in-laws are often the victims of “cliches”, and called for compassion.
“I’m not saying we see [the mother-in-law] as the devil, but she is always presented in a pejorative way. But the mother-in-law is the mother of your husband and the mother of your wife,” preached the then 84-year-old. He also reminded women to respect their mother-in-laws, as they’d “given birth to your spouse”.
“We say to ourselves ‘the further away your mother-in-law is, the better’. But no – she’s a mother, she’s an elderly person,” added the pope. “One of the most beautiful things for a woman is to have grandchildren. When her children have children, it brings her to life again.” The pope might have been onto something because as Amelie wrote in her post, her mother-in-law loves “her grandson more than anything.”
Image credits: RDNE Stock project / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Some might be surprised that Amelie’s mother-in-law cut ties with her own son
Geoffrey Greif is a professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. He says mother-in-laws are often portrayed as overbearing and interfering. Because of this, daughter-in-laws might want to keep them at bay. Greif cautions people not to do this. Fortunately Amelie didn’t, so she was able to get the support she needed when her ex left her. And her own son was able to maintain a close relationship with his paternal grandmother.
Greif also explained why some mother-in-laws work extra hard to stay in the “good books”. “When grandchildren come along, in most families the mothers provide access to the children and the MIL may feel she has to play her cards right to keep that access,” said Greif.
When Greif conducted research on the topic, he found that contrary to popular belief, most “daughters-in-law feel positive about their relationship with their mothers-in-law at the beginning of the marriage to their husbands”. He had surveyed 351 women, asking various questions about their relationship with their mother-in-laws.
His 2019 paper titled “Women and Their Mothers-in-Law: Triangles, Ambiguity, and Relationship Quality” noted six factors that determine how well a woman would get along with their mother-in-law. They included shared interests, the amount of time the two spend together, how close the daughter-in-law is to her husband’s father, what the DIL thinks about her husband’s relationship with his mom, whether the daughter-in-law feels caught between her husband and her mother-in-law, and whether the MIL is close to another child-in-law.
Amelie and her mom-in-law must have ticked many of those boxes. In the end, their relationship weathered the storm . And her ex was left with a mother who “despises her son and his mistress” for tearing apart the family.
Amelie later revealed that her ex’s mom was leaving him $100 and a “cuckoo clock he used to be scared of as a child”
Some people felt the “affair baby” shouldn’t be the one paying the price
Amelie later responded to those who left mean comments, and detailed just how nasty her ex-husband’s mistress had been
