10 Family Squabbles No One Expected to End That Way

You don’t get to pick your family, for better or worse. You’re born into a mix of personalities, each with their own strengths, quirks, and imperfections. The path with these people is anything but straight — it’s a journey full of highs that warm your heart and lows that test your patience. Yet, it’s this unpredictable ride that creates bonds of love, frustration, and everything in between.

• My girlfriend and her two kids were living with my girlfriend’s mother. She was always telling my girlfriend she is a terrible parent. Well, one day, the girlfriend’s mother decides she doesn’t like her daughter and grandkids hanging out with me, so she throws all of their stuff into plastic bags and kicks my girlfriend and her 7 & 8 year old out. My girlfriend and I had already been talking about them moving in with me when summer hit, but her mom hates me so much that she takes it out on her daughter and grandkids.
  Fast forward to last week. I propose, the girls and woman I love accept. When she tells her mom, the lunatic sends her a crazy email about how she is the worst parent in the world, and how she doesn’t want to ever see my fiancee again, and how she is looking forward to seeing the girls when they are 18, unless cps takes them first. © LoganAvatar / Reddit

• My best friend got married, the bride’s side of the family said they would pay for the wedding if it was within reason. So they kept everything within reason. Instead of paying for the wedding, the bride’s family spent the money on a vacation and didn’t tell them. So they had to postpone their wedding because nothing was paid for.
  So my friend and his wife eventually paid for the wedding themselves. When the big day finally came, the bride’s family gave $150 and an I.O.U in a card saying, “We owe you a better gift.” The family has a boat, a jag, and took another vacation that year. © fenixqns / Reddit

• I have a very devoted mother. She would do anything for her kids. My sister called her one day, saying she had health issues and needed $5000 for the surgery that she’s going to need. She tells my mom everything: who the doctor is, and what they are going to do.
  My mom in tears rushes to take out a loan and immediately heads to pay for it, where, as you might have guessed, finds out my sister lied about the whole thing. When my mom calls her to ask her what’s going on, my sister yells at her for going to the doctor’s office first and not just giving her the money and hangs up on her. © crunknizzle / Reddit

• My father asked my mother for a divorce on my birthday. He took everything they had in their home, and started dating a 20-year-old. I took out a $6000 loan to refurnish a house I started renting with my mother who passed away 2 months after moving in.
  In her final email, she told my father to give me the life insurance, so I can pay the loan back. He took off with it. He bought a truck and a stereo. He left me broke, with a debt I couldn’t pay and a little brother to take care of. © nee178 / Reddit

• My dad started working abroad as soon as he got out of high school. He didn’t really spend money, but instead just sent it all back to his mom to keep for him, or use in the event of an emergency. She used the money to keep up with bills, then sold their farm and made a bunch of money.
  Fast-forward a couple of years. My dad married my mom. They had my little brother, who was born with respiratory issues. My dad asked to borrow money from his mom to pay the medical bills, which were obscene. She told him no and that he shouldn’t have had a kid if he couldn’t afford it. © Dovienya / Reddit

• My friend was made to pay rent to his parents by the time he was 14. He never saw a movie until he was 15, and always worn handed-down clothes. He grew up poor, or so he thought, and paid his own way through college. Then, years after graduating, he discovered his parents were loaded. © frugaldutchman / Reddit

• It was Christmastime, and my boyfriend got some gifts from his father and his father’s girlfriend for Christmas. His sister got much, much more, due to her being really spoiled. The next day, his father took all of his gifts back to the store to buy his sister some more stuff. © lmpetigo / Reddit

• Many years ago, I allowed my brother-in-law to stay with us temporarily as he lost his job and his apartment and had nowhere else to go. He acts nice in the beginning. We go out of town for a few weeks and he is eager to watch the house for us. We come back, he has changed all the locks. We knock and knock and he refuses to answer. Suddenly cops pull up and he had successfully evicted us from our own property. Had to rent another place for 6 weeks until we could go through legal proceedings and get back in. When we did get back in he had trashed the house. Poored milk and eggs on the carpets, put raw chicken inside the walls, stolen all the plugs and fixtures, ceiling fans, etc. Called the cops again and was told it was a domestic/civil issue and to take him to small claims court. © sirdomino / Reddit

• My dad once made a rocking horse for my niece. He carved it out of several pieces of wood, hand braided the tail and mane out of rope that he painstakingly unwound, and hand painted it.
  It was a beautiful toy that would have lasted for generations.
  One day her father was too lazy to go out and chop wood, so he smashed it up and threw it into the fire. © dewright23 / Reddit

• After my dad’s wife died, her mother (who lived with us) heard that my Dad was planning to sell the house, move somewhere smaller and pay for her to go into sheltered housing. So one day when he was out at work, she took my step-mum’s ashes and scattered them all over the garden. Then, when my dad went ballistic trying to find his wife’s remains, she said “Well now you can’t leave here and you can’t make me leave.”
  I can’t describe the change in my dad after we moved out and got that old witch out of our lives. © kitnel / Reddit

Every family has secrets. Some are kept from others, and some are hidden even within the family. Sometimes, things get so difficult that without learning an important lesson, the problems can’t be fixed.