Woman cuts ties with MIL after she demands paternity test because baby looks 'too much like her.' AITA? + UPDATE
"AITA for going NC with MIL after she convinced my husband to ask for a paternity test because our baby looks too much like me?"
Sorry, this is gonna be a long one. And I apologize in advance for any spelling mistakes, English isn’t my first language. 4 months ago me (31f) and my husband «Mark» (32m) welcomed our first child, our daughter «Sophia».
Me and Mark have been together for 10 years, and married 6 years. Getting pregnant wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, we were trying for two years before it finally happened, and I miscarried four times during those years.
My parents died when I was 15 and I lived with my grandparents until I was 18 and started at college. My MIL has been like a mother to me and had been an amazing support ever since me and Mark got together.
She made dinners and called daily to check up on me after the miscarriages! When Sophia was born the first thing MIL did when she came to visit was to check up on how I was doing after the birth before focusing on Sophia. I remember thinking I had the best MIL anyone could ask for.
She was the first person we told about our pregnancy (at week 18), and she was over the moon about becoming a grandma. The first four weeks after we got home from the hospital she moved in with us to help out with Sophia.
She was so helpful and always made sure she didn’t overstep in any way. My MIL always talked about how Sophia was a mini version of me, and told everyone about how my daughter was a true copy of me.
Mark was in love with our little girl and did everything he could to help out. He came home early everyday to spend as much time as he could with Sophia and me. Everything seemed perfect, this was what we had wanted for so long.
All he could talk about was how perfect our little girl was and how much she looked like me. He even found some old pictures of me and made a photo collage of me and her as babies to put on the wall.
After my MIL moved home I think I saw her a couple of times, and would only speak to her if I called her. But tbh I didn’t think much of it as I was busy with being a mother. After the first two months Mark started getting more distant and coming home late.
He started to spend a lot of time at his mothers house as he said she needed help with some renovations in her house. I appreciated all the help MIL had given us so I decided to not complain about it, even though I was exhausted from never getting a hour to myself anymore.
Right after Sophia turned 3 months Mark came home and said we needed to talk. He sat me down and told me he wanted a paternity test, because his mother thinks our child looked too much like me and nothing like him.
My jaw was on the floor and I felt something inside me break. He doubled down with saying he agreed with Sophia looking like me and nothing like him and that MIL had told him I probably cheated with someone who has some of the same features as me.
MIL claims that their family genes are super strong and Sophia should have some of Marks features if she was his. After he was done talking I couldn’t get a word out I just started crying.
It feels like the biggest betrayal that they both accuse me of cheating, and the reason being my daughter looks too much like me?? He told me he was sorry but his mother got into his head and he couldn’t let it go, and it was constantly on his mind.
I just felt defeated by the whole situation and agreed to the paternity test. Although I told him that when the test came back telling Sophia is his daughter, I wanted nothing to do with MIL. And we would have to start couple counseling if there was any hope at all for this relationship to be saved.
Fast forward to now, the test came back a week ago, and surprise surprise, she is his daughter. He had this look of relief, before the guilt and panic hit him and he started to apologize to me over and over again.
I told him he needed to tell his mother and then tell her we needed a break from her. Surprisingly he was all for it and I could hear him yelling at her for making him doubt me and telling her we didn’t want any contact for a while.
Mark blocked her number after hanging up so she started to call and text me. It switched from that she was sorry, and I was a horrible for not seeing it from her point of view and taking away her family. I blocked her too, but some of his extended family has messaged both Mark and me calling us cold hearted ah for cutting MIL out the way we have.
I have started to doubt my decision, thinking I was too harsh after being hurt. Maybe I made a mistake by distancing ourselves from MIL, after all she was just looking out for her only son. So, AITA?
The OP later added:
I failed to mention that his last long term relationship ended because his ex cheated at him. His mother also divorced his father due to infidelity. That doesn’t make it okay, but that’s the reason I didn’t hand him divorce papers the second he asked for a paternity test.
I know he has a lot of trust issues, and so does his mother.. he has been in therapy before because of his issues and has contacted his psychiatrist and gonna start up therapy again, and we are also going to our first couple counseling later this week.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
Your MIL may be a problem but ultimately your husband went along with it and that is a much much bigger problem.
Yeah hes not innocent. Especially after all her miscarriages and need for support????? Holy crap. I could never.
NTA, but you really need to hold your husband accountable, not just MIL. She might have brought it up, but he ran with it. After years of trying for a baby, he accused you of getting pregnant from an affair, passing off the baby as his, and planning to lie to him for the rest of your life.
Personally I wouldn't be able to stay married to someone who suddenly thought so little of me just because of something his mommy said. If you can get past it, you're probably a better person than I am.
If I was you I would’ve had divorce papers ready to hand him right after he saw the results of the paternity test. And even if I decided to keep his sorry ass around for the sake of my daughter, I’d be done with that MIL. It is highly likely that a little girl is going to end up looking like her mom! NTA.
Can you imagine if this was before DNA testing? Husband would be convinced by his mom that OP cheated, the kid wasn't his, and that would be it. OP would be known as the unfaithful wife for the rest of her life! MIL is a jerk..
A little over one month later, the OP returned with an update.
First of all a lot of you were saying I should have given my husband divorce papers along with the result of the paternity test. If it wasn’t for his past I would have done it. That being said he has been my rock during the circus our life has become.
Like a lot of you did foresee my MIL did not react well to us going nc with her. She told his whole family that I made my husband going nc with her because I was jealous of their close bond.
She told them I had threatened him with kidnapping and drowning our daughter. His family blew up my phone with calls and nasty messages, it got so bad that I had to change my number and deactivate my fb account.
5 weeks ago child protective services came to our house after getting an anonymous tips about me physically abusing Sophia. We got cleared quick,but I was so overwhelmed and drained after all of this.
Me and my husband agreed that I would take Sophia with me and visit my friend for a week. He stayed at home and did everything in his power trying to inform his relatives of the real story. Several of his family members were mortified and flabbergasted about the whole situation. Most of them did try to apologize.
I wish I could say that that was the end of it, but this was only the start. The day after I left to visit my friend my MIL came to our house. She was banging at the door screaming for us to let her in, and that I couldn’t keep her grandchild and her son away from her.
My husband was at work so we both saw the whole thing through our security camera. She stayed outside our house for about a hour and only left because our neighbor threatened to call the cops.
My husband called the cops later that day trying to report his mother but was told she hadn’t really done anything wrong and since she wasn’t posing a threat they couldn’t do anything. That was until two days later.
My husband woke up to noises from Sophia’s room, and then a scream and the sound of a door being slammed open. From what he told me he jumped out of bed running to the bedroom door to lock it, while he called the cops.
Seconds after he locked the door, his mother started to pull the door, hitting and kicking it while screaming that we couldn’t keep her away from her grandchild. She screamed that no matter what she was gonna get Sophia.
The cops arrived while she was still kicking and screaming, and she was arrested for breaking in and threatening our family. She had used her spare key to lock herself in, my husband and the police thinks that she tried to kidnap Sophia.
Saying I was scared out of my mind is an understatement. I had a full blown panic attack when my husband called me about it. We hadn’t told anyone where I was so my husband asked me to stay put at my friends house and not come home. He would try to figure out what to do.
Later that week we agreed that we should move, go nc with his family and keep our address hidden. My husband talked with his boss and he explained the situation and was offered to move city and got a couple of weeks of so we could have some time to find somewhere to live and get everything in order.
At the moment our old house is out for sale, we have moved to another city, and we are trying to make this new house our home and putting our life back together piece by piece. Right now my life feels like a really bad movie and I still can’t understand how my life got turned upside down so fast, and why my MIL snapped.
We are both seeing a therapist, my panic attacks are still pretty bad, and probably will be for a while. We are mourning the life we had. We are both trying to heal and do everything we can to make life as normal as possible for our daughter’s sake.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's update:
…if you knew your MIL had a spare key…WHY WOULDN'T YOU CHANGE THE LOCKS?…
This reads like a mish-mash of various popular AITAH tropes. Controlling MIL that turns psycho, spineless husband, paternity tests that make no sense, phones blowing up etc.
I don't want to victim blame here but,
She tried to break into your house, weaponized the police against you and had a spare key the whole time and you didn't change the locks?!?