In a healthy family, children and parents know that they love each other.

Imagine growing up in a situation where you don’t have parental love. As an adult, would you know what it means to love a parent?

In this story, one woman isn’t sure how to know if she loves her mother-in-law, and she feels pretty bad about it.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITAH – mother in law keeps saying “I love you”

Mother in law keeps saying “I love you”

Backstory: I’m 36; my dad died when I was 16 (but only saw on weekends a couple times a month after age 8 since my parents separated) and my mother has borderline personality disorder – we do not have a relationship and haven’t really since I was 17.

I’ve never had “parents” as an adult and I don’t even know what it would be like to have a parent.

It’s weird now having a mother in law and feeling like an adult actually cares about me.

She doesn’t know what it means to love a parent.

I got married 2 years ago and my mother in law keeps saying “I love you.”

She’s so nice and I do CARE about her, I just don’t know how to say I love you back or even if I do love her.

I don’t feel like I know what it means to “love” a parent, and it feels so weird – like if I said it it would be like I don’t mean it.

It’s hard to explain.

Her mother-in-law is upset about it.

She’s noticed I don’t type/say it back and recently brought it up to my husband.

I feel bad, but I also don’t know what to do.

My husband said I could just say it back but very time I think about it I feel super weird.

Idk if it’s because I don’t love her or if I just have trauma around the whole parents thing.

It’s different with her friends.

I feel guilty because I tell my friends I love them, but not my Mother in law.

Am I broken? AITAH?

Should I just say it even if I don’t want to? I don’t want to hurt her but I also don’t really wan to say it back because I don’t know how it feels… 😞

That sounds like a sad childhood not to know how it feels to love a parent.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

She’s lucky to have a good mother-in-law.

She shouldn’t feel forced to say “I love you.”

It probably wouldn’t be a lie to say “I love you.”

Here’s another suggestion.

Not everyone knows how to express their feelings with words.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.