“Where Does She Get the Audacity?” — Mother-in-Law Created Baby Registry for HERSELF

The movie Monster in Law exists for a reason — and it's sadly because the trope of the overbearing mother-in-law is one that sadly seems to be rooted in reality, which is something that a lot of young brides can attest to.

It's difficult to understand exactly where the enmity comes from that so many women have toward the partners that their sons choose — perhaps it's from an overprotective place born out of worry that no one will be able to provide their sweet baby they care for so much with the love they believe he deserves.

Or perhaps it's from a place of sheer jealousy — they're no longer the most important woman in their boy's life and they want to flex those Oedipal muscles in front of this young woman who managed to sweep their boy off his feet. Maybe the nightmare MIL in question had one of the best times of her life when she was pregnant with her son and there were people doting on her left and right and ever since that "peak" she's never been as happy since.

Perhaps it's a combination of all of the above, but like TikToker Madi Cochrane (@madicochrane) can attest, monster-in-laws are very much a real phenomenon, and she revealed a few terrible things her ex-MIL subjected her to while she was married to the woman's son. This includes setting up a baby shower gift registry while Madi was pregnant — but the gifts were for the mother-in-law, not the baby.

"Here are the five things my ex's mom did that hurt me the most," Madi says into the camera of her video, before continuing, "these are the top five things that I had like a really hard time forgetting. Number one: she told me that I couldn't hold my child because it wasn't my time."

She added: "On this day we did our child exchange and then shortly thereafter my child had a doctor's appointment. As I walk in my child notices me, sees me, sitting in the stroller, he starts crying, starts reaching for me, so I walk over there and I am told — do not touch him, you are not allowed to hold him, it is not your parenting time."

Madi explained how the callous comment snowballed into a greater argument: "Now this started a big altercation in the waiting room and eventually my mom, you know, stuck up for me and then she was kind of blamed for starting it, but in reality, she was just sticking up for me and her grandchild, 'cause that's just not right, ever." she said.

In addition to trying to tell a crying child's mother that she wasn't allowed to hold her baby because it technically wasn't under the custody "time" (as if the baby was a timeshare property), there were other things Madi's former mother-in-law did that rubbed her the wrong way.

In fact, it seems like her mother-in-law did a few controlling things where she attempted to prevent Madi's child from interacting with her: "Number two: she turned my child's face and hid it so he wouldn't see me while at the grocery store."

"She then talked about doing this to some of her acquaintances while having a conversation."

The TikToker went on to say that her ex-MIL exhibited some possessive tendencies over Madi's kid before he was even born: "Number three: when I was pregnant, she told me that I was not allowed to go out of state with her unborn grandchild. I got my doctor's permission so I did and that really set her off."

It kept getting worse, however. Not only did she try telling Madi what to do with her child and attempted to separate her from her baby, but she also utilized her pregnancy as a means of trying to zhuzh up her own home decor.

Indeed, she set up gift registries for the child, but placed items on those registries that she wanted and wouldn't benefit the kid at all: "Number four, she made multiple baby registries in hers and my ex's names. Multiple. Registries. Including ones like thebump.com all for items like for her and her home."

"And I get it if ... my ex wanted to like you know, pick out things for the house or whatever, like, that's awesome. He had no idea ... he didn't know," she said, intimating that her former mother-in-law was using her own son's name to try and extricate some swag from folks.

However, she says that she saved the most heartrending one for last: "Now this one really tore up my heart strings because me knowing, me knowing when I heard this it was just heartbreaking."

Madi went on to explain the discovery about her MIL that devastated her so much: "She had asked for prayers for me in a prayer group with sadness in her heart because my baby did not belong to her son and she felt very saddened that my child would be without a father. She said that."

Madi says that despite all of this, and even intimating that her child was fathered by someone other than her ex-MIL's son during their marriage, that she has "forgiven her in her heart."

"I've never gotten an apology for anything but I've forgiven. But that doesn't mean you're not gonna forget because there are some things as a mom that you will just never forget."

To top it all off, in another post about her toxic ex-MIL, Madi says that her MIL ended up throwing a completely separate baby shower ... for herself as a mother-in-law, as the kids' grandma, once Madi was pregnant.

Madi wrote in a caption for the video that her experiences with her former MIL are things she brings up with her therapist: "I notice myself still discussing these things in therapy because as an adult and mom of four now, I don’t see how any of this was ever OK. If you are dealing with anything like this, please know that you are not alone and it is OK to set boundaries and walk away. I wish I would’ve done that much sooner."