A garden can take years to nurture and shape into something that feels like your own. Throughout that process, it becomes more than just plants and soil—it’s a portrait of your home and the work that goes into building it.
Everyone has their own vision of how a garden should look, which is why any uninvited change can feel deeply disruptive.
Reddit user Tragic-Mushroom shared a story on r/TwoHotTakes that left many stunned and sympathetic: after returning from a holiday, the woman realized her mother-in-law, who was supposed to take care of her dog, had also done some landscaping and completely changed how the yard looked.
Gardening isn’t just a hobby, it’s a personal endeavor we get really attached to
Image credits: wavebreakmedia_micro / freepik (not the actual photo)
So, when someone takes it upon themselves to change our garden, it feels like an invasion of our space
Image credits: gpointstudio / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Shaiith / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Tragic-Mushroom
The relationship with your mother-in-law requires patience and effort
According to licensed relationship and sex therapist Michelle Herzog, LMFT, CST, it’s important to establish boundaries early on to maintain a healthy relationship with your mother-in-law. This includes communicating your needs and preferences respectfully and also being willing to compromise when necessary.
There’s a lot at stake here because “once you enter into a marriage, that relationship becomes the most important thing to protect from outside influences,” Herzog says.
With that in mind, you have to be patient with your mother-in-law and yourself. The therapist recommends striving to “approach challenges with empathy and understanding,” which “can especially be important when your new spouse has a complicated relationship with their family.”
“Whether it’s cooking, gardening, or watching a favorite TV show, finding common ground can help foster a deeper connection and create a deeper bond,” Herzog adds.
But there’s no guarantee it’ll work out
However, as we saw from this particular case, sometimes, things just don’t work out. Dr. Madeleine A. Fugère, a professor of social psychology at Eastern Connecticut State University, says one possible reason for this is a mother’s unconscious internalized discouragement of her son’s long-term relationships.
“For men, monogamous, long-term relationships may not have been desirable during most of their evolutionary history. According to evolutionary theory, men and women have differing optimal mating strategies to ensure that their genes are perpetuated through future generations,” she explains.
“Strictly evolutionarily speaking, a man’s best mating strategy may be a series of short-term relationships with different women in order to ensure that his genes will be passed on.”
“[While] a woman’s best strategy may be to find a mate who will provide for her over the long term and help to raise and care for future offspring … The interference of a mother-in-law in her son and daughter-in-law’s relationship may reflect a mother’s unconscious desire to help her son ‘spread his seed,'” Fugère says.
Whatever the actual reason for the disagreement might be, if tension arises, women shouldn’t try to fake a relationship that is just not there.
“Yes, they’re legally your parents-in-law, but are they really treating you like family?” asks Dr. Yvonne K. Fulbright, a certified sexuality educator and sexologist. “You don’t need to refer to your in-laws as ‘Dad’ or ‘Mother,’ if there is no intimacy or warmth that warrants the use of the terms.”
While initial attempts to engage them should be courteous, the problem with being too polite is that you don’t establish the necessary boundaries, and in turn, you aren’t able to communicate how deep the problems are and how troubled you are.
Most of the people who read the woman’s story believe her mother-in-law had no right to make all of those changes
Some, however, think the most important part is that the lady had good intentions
Image credits: vh-studio / freepik (not the actual photo)
Eventually, the woman confronted her mother-in-law about the garden
Image credits: gpointstudio / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: tan4ikk / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: syda_productions / freepik (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Tragic-Mushroom
And it sounded like she was avoiding responsibility
