He Always Told Us What to Do
My ex-father-in-law used to call us up all the time and tell us exactly how we were going to handle something. Whatever the thing was that needed to be handled, he would automatically start instructing us on what we should do. He had no regard whatsoever for what we thought of it.
Not even as much as a question about it. At the time when he first started doing this, I was engaged to my ex, a college graduate, and I had been largely living on my own for a while with the exception of summers with my parents between school years.
As a result, I was not used to letting anyone have a say in my day-to-day decision-making, so I was a little taken aback by my father-in-law’s presumptuous antics.
So when he did this, I just smiled sweetly through the phone at him and then researched exactly how I wanted to handle something on the computers in the library of my grad school.
This continued throughout the marriage and one of the reasons my ex finally had me adulting for him is that my ex-father-in-law would call and badger him about doing something and list out the steps.
My ex would come to me freaking out and telling me about all the things that his father had told him to do, adding a few random ones too, due to his paranoia. I would call up his father, find out what he actually said, and then tell him how I was going to handle it my own way.
I always made sure to thank him sweetly for his concern while inwardly rolling my eyes so hard that they fell out and rolled across the kitchen. But it wasn’t that terrible—until…
15 years into the marriage, we’re stuck living with them after my ex lost his job and my ex’s car stopped working. My father-in-law comes to me one day and tells me to give him my financial information so that he can fill out the papers for the loan for a new one.
At this point, I’m in my mid-30 and was already irritated to be living with my ex’s parents when I had lived on my own for so long, so his demand did not make me happy.
I mean, I had bought four cars on my own before and the paperwork was not difficult. I told him sweetly that *I* would be filling out the paperwork, not him, and if I needed any information from him, I would let him know.
I might have come across a little bit forcefully to him, which was intentional on my part, because my ex-mother-in-law quickly came over and tried to chew me out for “yelling at him.”
Speaking to him forcefully apparently did something, though, because he let me deal with my own affairs from then on with no comment on his part. But seriously? Your kid is 40 years old. If he can’t fill out the papers for a car loan, you did something wrong with him.
The only reason my ex’s sibling learned to adult was that they got married, and it was incredibly embarrassing for them to have their daddy doing all their financial stuff and poking into their lives on such a regular basis. Story credit: Reddit / [deleted]