And you think your mother-in-law is bad.

Last week, a Reddit user asked the public what the craziest thing their MIL had ever said or done to them.

The thread was swiftly inundated with terrifying anecdotes.

We’ve selected the 14 most shocking ones. They might make your jaw drop or you might be nodding along in recognition.

Here we go….

1. My ex MIL thought that only irrepressibly horny women wore tampons and that tampons could make you want sex too much so they were best avoided so as not to have illicit desires at improper times. She was appalled when I went grocery shopping with her sister and bought tampons. Apparently I embarrassed her. I wish I was joking.

2. I said the word “lesbian” during a conversation in front of my (now-ex) MIL and my then 2 year old daughter. MIL flipped out and yelled that I’d make my kid gay if I said that word in front of her too many times.

5. My MIL is extremely negative and can find fault with anything. When she stays with us it's a nonstop litany of complaints. My favourite example was when we went to the Holocaust Museum for an exhibit on Nazi propaganda art. When we came out, an employee of the museum asked us what we thought of the exhibit. My MIL told him, "It wasn't my cup of tea. Too depressing, and I think there was too much about Hitler."

6. My MIL stole a stack of our wedding invitations to send to her friends that we weren't inviting. We wanted a small, intimate wedding with only people we knew and loved. I hardly knew a soul there.

7. My MIL wrote her son a letter a week before we got married telling him to think very carefully about what he was doing, as he needed to be sure he was marrying someone he loved and trusted. (We had been together for 6 very happy years at this point!) She later walked out of our wedding in tears, drove home (7 hours away!) without saying anything to anyone and then followed that up by emailing me saying she didn't know what my husband (her son) saw in me. I refused to have anything to do with her until she apologised to me, it was a lovely year of no contact with her at all. But then I got pregnant and she came crawling back. We have built a relationship of sorts now, though I feel on her part she still hates me but doesn't want to do anything to jeopardise the detente we've reached in case we don't let her see our daughter any more. (Which I would never do, I want my baby to love her granny even if think she's the devil incarnate). I still don't let her babysit though.

8. My MIL once told my husband he was not allowed to eat the Lean Cuisines in the freezer (we were at her house) because those were all for me. She filled an entire freezer with Lean Cuisines for me and then banned anyone else from eating them.

9. This wasn't said to me directly. When my fiancé let his parents know that he was planning on marrying me, the conversation went like this:

SO: Mum. Dad. I want to let you know that I really love Sarah. More than anyone I've been with in my life. And that I really think I want to marry her.

SO's Mum: Really? You love her more than you loved Amy?

SO: Wait... what? Seriously? Did you seriously just say that?

SO's Mum (getting weepy): I really loved Amy. I miss Amy...

Amy is the girlfriend my SO dumped six years ago. SIX YEARS AGO. Later, he chewed his mum out and told her how offended he was. She said she just "wanted to check to make sure."

10. On my wedding day, she told me I looked beautiful but not as beautiful as her daughter.

11. She and I don't talk anymore, but she has said all sorts of horrible things about me. She's called me crazy (because his family found out that I was on antidepressants for two years), a whore, a slut, tells my fiance to break up with me all the time, and loves spreading rumours about me that have no basis in reality. For example, she told everyone I was pregnant, that I was still contacting my ex, and that I am using my fiance and will dump him when I'm "done with him". Sigh.

12. When I first met my MIL, the first thing she said to me when we were alone together,"It's weird that you're not a redhead. He usually goes for redheads." I told her "that IS weird. I usually go for redheads, too."

13. She keeps calling me by his ex's name... it's super awkward.

14. My MIL referred to me as "The Whore of Babylon" after she figured out I was living with her son (we had moved in together over two years earlier, she's just slow. We had been dating six years, having been high school sweethearts). I was "inviting the devil into [our] den of iniquity." She's nice to my face now that I have a grandchild as leverage.

Do you have any horror stories about your mother-in-law?

CLICK THROUGH for some memes saying what we are always thinking about MILS:

Want more? Try these:

Is your mother-in-law on this list?

Is it normal that… I won't let my mother-in-law babysit our kids?