Sometimes our family knows us better than we know ourselves. Here, in-laws share how they knew that their child’s marriage was completely doomed.
1. Yes, that’s exactly what it is.
When she tried to tell us that cooking meth in a self-made underground complex beneath his shed in the backyard made him a “self-starting entrepreneur.”
1800OopsJew
2. The audacity.
I was the brother-in-law.
She would call me all the time to complain about my brother. She was constantly pulling me aside to have small conversations.
When we went out one time she sat down next to me and asked me, “Which guy in her would you be ok with me cheating on your brother with?
ImFatWannaParty
3. Not the most ideal scenario.
When she was kissing another guy in one of the wedding photos.
It didn’t go over well.
Addicted_To_Spanking
4. The red flags never end.
I thought they’d never make it down the aisle but sadly they did. Some things that tipped me off:
– He wouldn’t have sex with her for two years for reasons that are totally-not-related-to-the-fact that-he’s-attracted-to-men-instead.
– He treats women like crap, including his fiancee.
– It’s his way or the highway ALL THE TIME. Like “either we stay at this hotel or we break up.”
– He put them into debt equal to about 2 years of their COMBINED salaries.
– He bought stuff for himself all the time but wouldn’t buy her a wedding ring.
– He had very specific ideas of what the wedding should look like and wouldn’t let her have any input.
And yet I was considered an negative Nancy for thinking they wouldn’t work out.
Thr4away5s
5. What’s the point of a honeymoon, then?
They started marriage counseling while engaged. The honeymoon involved separate vacations. Thank goodness there were no kids.
Her second marriage was even worse.
wdh662
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6. More into herself than her marriage.
My cousin just got married to his long time girlfriend. She wouldn’t look at her soon to be husband, only at the camera crew, and stopped the vows so they could “get a good picture of her life changing moment”.
Bonus: when the pastor asked if [she] would take [him] to be her lawfully wedded husband, there was a drawn out 10-second pause where she “pretended” to think, made a face, and finally said, “Uhhhh YES” with a hair flip and all.
Lord help the poor guy when his wife likes to check her look in pictures more than looking at her husband during the vows.
T-RexSquirrel
7. At least she now has someone who cares.
My sister dated a guy for years. It was rocky and not healthy in any way, but it was by far the best relationship she’d ever been in. I was coming around to the possibility that he might become my brother-in-law.
She dumped him. Two weeks later she had moved in with a guy who was still very much the junkie she had been trying to stop being herself. He told my Mormon parents stories about wandering around the highway on acid and being cursed in Africa. He had an explosive temper, zero prospects or desire for prospects, and brought out the worst in her. They got married 8 months later.
They stayed married for a decade. She stopped doing drugs (but still drinks, although only occasionally to excess), finished school, went to nursing school, got her master’s.
He kept a job for a few months once. When he fell off the wagon again and stole and sold a bunch of her stuff and then broke into my parents’ place to steal and sell their stuff, they finally divorced. He kept stalking her for a while, mainly looking for fix money. Haven’t heard anything recently, probably because she has a boyfriend who is interested in being a better person and truly cares about her and her well being.
Keytar_gyro
8. Things could have only gotten worse.
Sister-in-law here. I’d say it was when he pushed my sister into a thorn bush over a petty argument the day after they got married.
katieb00p
9. Overreaction.
I’m not a parent but one of my friends made it pretty clear to me her marriage was doomed when she called me for the 3rd time to pick her up from the middle of nowhere. Her husband kicked her out for asking him to watch their son for 30 minutes while she cleaned… I wish I was exaggerating.
05141992
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10. I object!
My mother recently married a man that she knew in high school (they didn’t see each other for 20 years, then reunited and got engaged within 3 months). He had no car, no job, and was living with his dad at 40 years old. She didn’t even know he was an alcoholic until after they were engaged. He slurred through the vows at their wedding!
Vhastings_love96
11. Now I’m not saying she’s a gold digger.
Sister here. Thankfully this marriage never happened; the relationship ended shortly after the proposal, but I knew my brother’s fiancee was a gold digger within an hour of first talking to her.
My brother makes a ton of money, and I’m pretty sure that she latched onto him because she wanted him to pay her credit card and student loan debts.
There were so many red flags, I’m kinda shocked that my brother managed to ignore them all. When I asked her what she liked about my brother, she said, “Uhhhhhh…. well, he has a really high paying job and he’s good at fixing things, so he’s pretty useful, hahaha!!”
She also kept talking about how she was taking time off from medical school, and it became really obvious to me that she was trying to use the marriage as a way to drop out of medical school completely and live off of my brother’s money.
She also spent the entire time talking about designer bags and dresses, and how she’d been taking out loans to buy herself thousands of dollars’ worth of bags. I hung out with her for a few hours, and by the end of it, I was 100% sure she didn’t like him as a person at all. I ended up telling my mom, who told my brother, and he confronted her and she admitted to all of it and they broke up.
901238
12. You can’t help them if they don’t help themselves.
Before she ever got married, when she told us she was going to help him get over his substance abuse problem.
Keenly_disinterested
13. That’ll do it.
When he caught her having sex with a coworker…. on their anniversary.
Punnyusername12
14. Now that’s something to walk into.
I’ll answer for my parents: when my mother walked in to their house and found the husband downstairs looking after their kids, while their daughter was upstairs having (audible) sex with her new boyfriend. (No it wasn’t an open relationship of any variety).
She said she wanted to leave him before that but my parents thought/hoped it was resolvable up until then. Poor guy – he adores the kids, so he just went into blank mode and dealt with it to be with them.
articleofpeace
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15. Something’s missing here.
When they mentioned offhand that they don’t sleep in the same bed, and apparently haven’t had any form of sexual relations in over 6 months.
Random-Miser
16. Oh, what a coincidence!
Not an in-law, but was pretty sure about my buddy getting a divorce when he and his ex-wife would “forget” their wedding bands at home and then all night jokingly/not jokingly tell one another, “Oh look, I forgot my ring! Guess we aren’t really married then!”
They did it constantly and had only been married like 3 months.
Xiutehcuhtli
17. A bad omen.
My sister got married outdoors on a beautiful, calm, blue-sky day. Just as the ceremony started, a big black cloud moved in over the hill. When the minister said, “If anyone objects to these two being married…” a sudden wind came up, blew the set/stage/alter apart, and it started to rain, hard.
I’m pretty sure it was a sign from God, and I’m a devout atheist.
DrunkenGolfer
18. Some people just take, take, take.
The day I met my brother’s soon-to-be wife I knew it wouldn’t last. She was about 10 years younger than him (my age), acted 10 years younger than me, and had a hair trigger for all of her negative emotions. Took them too long to finally split (happened this year) because my brother was “still in love” after not having sex in 6 years and living as roommates for about 7.
He got two great kids out of it but I think he has lost a little of his soul to her.
CleanPlastiqueBaby
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19. Well that’s pretty obvious.
Not an in-law but friend of the bride and groom. I knew it was going to fail the first time the bride hit on my other friend and told him she wished it was him she was with.
devilishlyhomely
20. Get outta here.
Sister-in-law here:
The red flags were many (and neon, possibly visible from space) but the biggest one for me was the day I first met her. She was younger than me (my brother is 10+ years my senior) and she asked me if I thought he’d get a credit card with her. She had a laundry list of things she wanted. I did the math and they were in excess of 10K.
If there is a runner up flag, it’s the day my dad died about two months after I met her (and four months of brother and her being dating). She went into her boss and started a fight, losing her job. She demanded to ride in the family car (cause girlfriend of 4 months totally counts apparently). She told my brother she was pregnant that same day (she had told me at first meeting that she knew she could not get pregnant at all). They were engaged the day of the funeral. She also tried to walk off with some things my very upset mother gave her (I put them back) and called me the b-word twice. I was in my early twenties and had just lost my father. Such a nice woman.
They just divorced this year from what I hear. She’s got some new boy toy and I hope someone stops her before she sucks him dry too.
Posey290
21. Fight with your words, not with heirlooms.
Oh gosh. When she threw my late grand father’s antique camera at my brother’s head while they were fighting. She missed, but broke my mother’s cabinet. Yeesh. Relax, and talk it out folks!
Sitdowncat
22. A minute too late.
I’m not an in-law, but a friend of the bride. I realized things wouldn’t last when AT HER WEDDING RECEPTION she said, “Yeah, I probably shouldn’t have done that.”
youngalice
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23. Yikes.
The day I met my sister in-law she had just started at the same college as me. She had chosen the school because that’s where her boyfriend, a good friend of mine, went.
Skip a year and she and her boyfriend are engaged! Happy day! Skip another two years and we all take a trip to my mom’s place for spring break. Turned out my brother would be in town that weekend. Awesome! I love my brother, but it turns out I wasn’t the only one.
Skip ahead a month. My friend is now single, and his ex-fianc is dating my brother. Then they get engaged, then they get married, then I lost the bet because it only took them a year before they got a divorce (still in the process actually) and not 3-5 years like I had predicted.
Wheresluigi22690
24. Sometimes parents just know.
I realized it the day my son announced their intent, try as I might I couldn’t derail their plans. A year after the wedding they had a son. Wife and I personally drew up the divorce documents in order to protect the boy from his self-destructive mother and hapless father. We ended up raising the grandson who is now in his second year of college.
Thevoicessaid
25. What a train wreck.
Sister-in-law here. I knew when they announced their engagement. I had met her before and she had seemed a little high-strung, a little immature but seemed like an OK person and she and my brother hadn’t been dating very long. I hadn’t seen her in a setting where others were supposed to be the center of attention.
We were at a close family friend’s rehearsal dinner. Brother brought his girlfriend as his date. The groom’s family had picked this nice Italian restaurant that had needed to be reserved months in advance.
Bro’s girlfriend tried to get everyone to change venues because she “felt like Chinese food.” When she didn’t get her way she showed up to the restaurant pouting, arms folded, lower lip out.
She snarled at the waiter that he had better have Pepsi. She ordered the most expensive item on the menu and then refused to eat it. As in it sat there untouched while she scarfed down her fifth Pepsi. Then in a moment of silence from the rest of the table, she slid her engagement ring on her hand under the table lifted it up and screamed, “I’m engaged!!” at the top of her lungs. She said, “I bet you all are sorry now you wouldn’t let me have Chinese on my engagement night.”
My date convinced her to let us take her out for desserts at a little bakery up the street with the goal of getting her out of the restaurant hoping everyone else could give attention to the actual bride and groom of the weekend. As we were leaving, brother’s now fiance turned to my parents, her future in-laws, and said, “Don’t think I don’t know you all don’t like me.”
Griffinsilver