Navigating visits with in-laws can be difficult sometimes no matter how much we like them – they’re just not family, you know?

But when your new father-in-law acts like a strange child around your kids, it can be hard to know how to react.

This mom has never taken her kids to meet her mother-in-law.

We are currently visiting my husband’s mom who we haven’t seen in 5 years.

We decided to do a small trip so she could meet the kids and we could all catch up and because we felt slightly bad for not going to her wedding.

They planned a trip and were warned her new husband “wasn’t good with kids.”

MIL did warn us ahead of time that her husband, who we’ve never met, has a very hard time with kids, so don’t take it personally if he needs to remove himself.

That turned out to be an understatement.

Well he doesn’t so much remove himself as sulk and compete with the kids.

He seems to have a very hard time with sharing MILs attention.

Whenever the kids interact with her, he has to rub his head all over her, cling to her, keep putting his mouth on her, etc.

MIL seems to feel bad for him and will rub his head like he is a dog.

And his behavior got weirder and weirder.

She took some time off from work to visit us. He has been complaining that he misses her and he’s lonely (they work together).

MIL apologized to him and rubbed his stupid head again.

The kids were being a little loud the other day and I was trying to get them under control.

He was sitting there sulking and MIL asked why he seems so sad and he said he was lonely, so she had to go cuddle him and kept being like aww it’s alright.

So, she decided to treat him like he was acting.

I find this really childish and off putting. today I was handing out juice boxes to my kids.

He was whining to MIL and I think he couldn’t hear him, but he was whining about being snowed in with the kids and how he hates having to wear pants.

MIL was just petting his head because I think she legit thinks he is a dog.

I went over and handed him a juice box.

He looked at me confused and I said well the adults were having coffee, so I thought the kids might want some juice.

He didn’t like it, and her mother-in-law called her rude.

The room was really silent and it was uncomfortable.

He asked MIL if he had her blessing to go and dump the juice out in my luggage.

She tried to diffuse but later told my husband that I’m rude.

I think Reddit might have a hard time with this one.

The top comment wishes they could say NTA.

Maybe longer between visits isn’t a bad thing.

They say she could have offered him a dog biscuit instead.

Rude, sure. Also funny.

Fetish or not there were kids in the room.

I would have had a hard time with this, too.

Maybe that makes me rude, too.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.