My MIL Gifted a DNA Kit to My Daughter Because She Wants Her to Find Her “Real Dad”

Having a family often requires being able to navigate complex dynamics. However, it’s not always easy to know what to do. A woman has been facing a problem with her mother-in-law for years, but it suddenly got worse after her MIL decided to act on it. As it involves her own children, she’s feeling lost and decided to turn to social media anonymously in search of advice.

She wrote:

“There is a lot of past with this woman, but I just wanted to get this ongoing issue off my chest to see if I’m not overreacting or doing something wrong.

This is a situation that has been going on for years. I met my now husband when my 14-year-old was a few months old. My daughter knows who her father is, she sees him several times a year and travels to see him since he lives in another state. So she is here most of the time.

The issue is my mother-in-law doesn’t believe she knows her dad or visits him. She always tries to tell me my 14-year-old is somewhere else when I say she’s visiting her dad. She acts like she catches me in a lie and then tries to argue with me about it. She also believes I make my daughter call my husband ’dad’ when this is something she does on her own.

We never refer to the younger kids as half siblings, they are my 14-year-old’s full brother and sisters. MIL always feels the need to correct us, though.”

“MIL told my husband in a conversation yesterday she’s had enough of me ’lying’ to my 14-year-old about who her dad is and since my husband wasn’t going to correct me, MIL got her a DNA kit to get the results. She also had it delivered to our home, and she wanted us to give it to her.

My husband told his mom she was being ridiculous, and my daughter wasn’t getting the test to show what she already knew. MIL told my husband she was over the lies I told to my daughter, and it was going to ruin our relationship when she was older, and she found out the truth. She was trying to look out for her granddaughter since we ’didn’t care.’ She hung up after that.

I’ve been up all night because I’ve let her get into my head again, but I’m also over this constant need for her to prove I’m ’lying’ to my daughter. I just want to throw that DNA kit out, buy something else, put MIL’s name on it and tell MIL her gift never arrived.”

Someone replied to the woman’s call for help with a thoughtful yet candid message:

They wrote:

"Sorry, but I’m confused as to why you and your husband are allowing her to be part of your lives?

She isn’t an emotionally safe person for your 14-year-old, or your other kids. She is playing mind games with your daughter; saying that her biological dad isn’t her dad, saying she shouldn’t be calling your partner dad and never, ever, letting her forget that her siblings are only her half siblings.

She clearly resents that you brought a child in to your relationship with your husband, and is playing passive-aggressive mind games with your child.

Teenage years are where kids are trying to figure out who they are as a person before heading in to adulthood. This is a huge stage in child development and your MIL is planting doubts about her paternity, and shaking the foundations of her family with you and creating a divide by constantly pointing out that your partner isn’t ’dad’ and her siblings aren’t proper siblings, only half ones.

Why are you letting her do this to your child?

Your child may be OK now (and I truly hope she is), but your MIL is already showing that she’s going to get more and more devious and nasty about this. She will, eventually, cause emotional damage to your child and, in turn, your family unit.

If your husband is the one insisting on keeping MIL in your lives, then please show him this comment.

She’s sneaky and has been doing this covertly, but she is doing more damage than either of you have realized yet.

She needs to be kept away from your family. Yes, even her biological grandkids, because she’s already sowing the seeds of ’14-year-old isn’t your real sister,’ which is also very damaging for them.

It sucks that she behaves this way, but you’ve tried to talk to her and stop her from creating this harm, and her response was to steamroll you and send a DNA kit to your home as a ’birthday present.’

You need a good period of no contact. At least a few months. Tell MIL that her passive-aggressive behavior about your daughter is not welcome. You are a family unit. There are no ’half siblings’ just siblings. Your daughter has her biological dad AND a dad in your family too.

You will talk to her in a few months, once she’s had time to reflect on why she would be being so cruel to your oldest child. If she can stop with the nastiness, then you can start to rebuild a relationship. If not, then you can’t allow someone to emotionally damage your children with her weird obsession any longer.

I’m begging you both to please protect your kids from this woman. She is harmful to them.

Please don’t think I am criticizing you. MIL is clearly sneaky and manipulative, and has been covert about her disdain for you bringing a child in to the relationship with your husband.

My frustration is with her for being so awful. I am being very clear and blunt in pointing it out because I know how difficult it is to see clearly in the midst of being manipulated, and when family ties are involved.

It is easy for me to see and say this as an outsider, but I have been the one in the middle of family toxicity, and it doesn’t look anything like as clear-cut when you’re in your position.

Sending much strength and love."

Conflicts with mothers-in-law are unfortunately common, with even minor incidents being able to escalate into major disagreements. For example, one woman faced tension when her mother-in-law became emotional after seeing her son washing dishes. Later, the woman overheard her mother-in-law making negative comments about her. Read their full story here.