16 Relatives Whose Quirks Could Make Even a Stone Statue Lose Its Temper

Relatives are often eager to help us, but they aren’t always able to cope with their own problems first. Their “politeness” often makes us blush, while their logic has nothing to do with common sense.

Bright Side realized that even the nicest relatives may have some quirks that don’t abide by the laws of logic, and you can find proof of this phenomenon while reading these stories.

• My mother-in-law was embarrassed to buy personal hygiene products for herself, and she asked me to do it as her future daughter-in-law. I went out and bought her a year’s worth of the sanitary pads she liked. I wrapped them up so pretty, so they looked like an extravagant gift. Then, I left them at the reception desk where she worked. How was it my fault that she opened them at work? Needless to say, she convinced her son that I wasn’t an appropriate marriage material. But since I was the breadwinner, I wasn’t upset that our relationship ended. © Jane Bradley / Quora
• My husband passed away 3 years after we got married, so I was left alone with our young son. I had no intention of dating anyone at this time. For 2 years, I just went from home to work and back, spent all my time with my son, and sometimes went out with my friends. But my “compassionate” mother-in-law decided to bring me back to life. By the way, I didn’t communicate with her at all and she blamed me for whatever she could. But she found a dating advertisement in some magazine, wrote a letter on her behalf, and attached my photo. I knew nothing about this when I got a 6-page-long letter from a man who was 12 years older than me. He wrote about how great he was, and how many pigs and hectares of land he owns. He claimed that I could still do something with my life, at the age of 23. I explained to him that I wasn’t going to get married, made a scene with my mother-in-law, and took back all my photos. © olga.optimistka / Pikabu

The mother-in-law is always right.

• In spite of all our attempts to explain it to her, my mother-in-law couldn’t figure out how to use the names of people in her address book, and she usually just typed out phone numbers instead. My wife’s number is one digit different from her own number. So she sent an SMS to herself, thinking it was her daughter (my wife).

“Dinner?”, she gets an text back immediately. “Dinner?”

“What?”, she replies. Her phone dings immediately. “What?”

She thought that her daughter was making fun of her, so she came to our house that evening to ask what was wrong. After looking through her phone, we figured out that she was talking to herself with text messages. © thedragon4453 / Reddit

• My husband and I lived separately from my mother-in-law in a house nearby. But our windows were located diagonally from each other. My mother-in-law would come over every morning to tell me off, saying that I hadn’t taken care of my husband while he was getting ready for work. He usually quietly got up, got dressed, made his lunch, had breakfast, and then left the house, while I was sleeping with a child. He didn’t turn on the light in our bedroom, only in the hallway. But it turned out that she thought I was supposed to get up, turn on the lights everywhere, dress him, feed him, pack his lunch, kiss him goodbye, etc. My mother-in-law watched us every morning. Until I made a big fuss about it. © amaryllis7944 / Pikabu

• I love my mother-in-law, but she isn’t a very practical person. Her son and husband are always doing things for her. Once, we went shopping together and I was driving her car. When we bought everything we needed, she asked if we could put gas in the car. I said, “Yeah, sure.” I was pregnant at the time, so I thought that she would put the gas in the car herself. But she looked at me for a few seconds, and then asked me if I could do it. It turned out that she had never done it before, even though she had been driving for 15 years. © Daniela Arvesuk / Quora
• When I was a kid and my parents were away at work, my sister and I were alone in the house. I was 8 years old and she was 12. Our mom always told us that until the house was clean, we weren’t allowed to go out for a walk. By the way, the Charmed TV series was crazy popular back then. And every person who watched it probably remembers that each one of the sisters was possessed by spirits from time to time. My sister was constantly pretending that she was possessed and I was the only one who could save her. But to do that, I’d have to clean the house. So I was scared and crying, but still doing all the cleaning. © Overheard / Vk

• My husband and I once went out to get ice cream. Our kid decided to stay with my father- and mother-in-law. We returned home an hour later and saw that the front door was unlocked and the house was in pitch darkness. My in-laws were sleeping soundly in their room, and my kid was sitting in our room totally scared. He said that they sent him out of their room and closed the door. We were stunned. What if my kid went out into the street looking for us? © unknown / Quora

• We invited my brother-in-law with my sister to a party at my house. He had already exhibited some strange behavior, but this situation took the cake. My wife, a fantastic baker, had spent the previous weeks creating wonderful confections, and then, on the day of the event, placed trays of them all around the kitchen, dining, and living rooms. At one point, she pulled me aside and said, “It’s really odd, but cookies keep disappearing almost as soon as I put them out.” She left the room, and I saw my brother-in-law stuffing his pockets with these cookies. What he couldn’t fit, he put into a bookcase in the living room. He had already stashed a fair supply. I walked over to him and I told him to take the cookies he had already had and get out of my house. He never came back. © Gerry Jurrens / Quora

• My mother-in-law bought all of her daughters-in-law a bracelet with a diamond in it. I thought it was pretty, but I never wear much jewelry. I get nervous about wearing anything but costume jewelry, because I am prone to losing things. Regardless, whenever I was around my mother-in-law, I tried to remember to wear it. A few years later, she approached me and offered to buy my bracelet back. I was shocked and asked her, “Why?” She said that her another daughter-in-law had lost her bracelet and was very upset about it. So she thought she could give my bracelet to her. © Anne Riley / Quora

"My mother-in-law kept complaining that her tablet wouldn’t charge."

• My mother-in-law asked me to stop by and pick up her vacuum cleaner from my sister-in-law’s house and bring it down to her house. My sister-in-law lives over 100 miles from my house, and my mother-in-law lives in the opposite direction around 500 miles away. She was seriously offended when I declined to drive a total of 1200 miles to bring her this vacuum cleaner and wouldn’t speak to me for at least 2 months after that. © Mickie McCord / Quora

• My parents-in-law came to stay at our house to take care of our 2 children while my husband and I were abroad. We had a fairly well-appointed guest room for them. Upon our return from this trip, I went to the basement to do laundry. At the bottom of the basement steps, there was this big wad of something. I realized it was the lovely tufted wool rug from the guest room that they had literally mashed up and thrown to the bottom of the basement stairs. But when I went up to their room, I realized that they had completely rearranged it, moving every single piece of furniture, including putting a heavy TV on a table in front of a window where a kid could easily launch it. They had also replaced a light fixture in the kitchen. I still can’t imagine the desire to change something in a house without asking the owners first. © Tricia Chitwood / Quora

• The first weird thing happened right after my wedding. My mother-in-law got too involved in our family life, she was constantly checking our closets and our fridge, taking my husband’s shirts to iron them, and buying him the rest of his clothes, including his underwear. I was getting tired of the weak character of a person who was supposed to be my “rock,” so we decided to drive to the coast for a vacation. My mother-in-law begged us to stop by so we could have a snack and didn’t have to eat on the road. After my husband’s parents gave us a bunch of unsolicited advice, they brought us a cup of coffee, a portion of omelet, and a piece of pie for my husband. And suggested I wash the dishes after he was done eating. And the most shocking part was that he actually sat at the table and started eating, looking at me sadly. We got divorced pretty soon after that incident. © PushkaPampushka / Pikabu

What pranks have your relatives pulled? How did you manage to resolve a family conflict with them?