How to be the \u2018Perfect\u2019 Mother-in-Law<\/a>,\u201d a manual for overbearing moms looking to change things up \u2014 said she urges quarreling parties to explore various avenues toward possible reconciliation, before lopping off a branch of the family tree.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cI increasingly see adult children moving to no contact too quickly, before attempting clear communication, setting firm boundaries, and attempting meaningful repair,\u201d Koeppel added. \u201cEstrangement should be a last resort, not a first response.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jesse and Hazel claim they tried everything \u2014 reasoning, compromising and avoiding hot-button conversations with his parents \u2014 even after his mom shamed Hazel ahead of their big day.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried on my wedding dress for her, and she said, \u2018Oh wow. That\u2019s really something. It makes you look really fat,\u2019\u201d recalled Hazel, who\u2019s 5-foot-3 and weighed 90 pounds at the time. \u201cShe said, \u2018Maybe consider wearing a belt to hide your stomach.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, there were other offenses allegedly committed by both of her in-laws after she and Jesse tied the knot and welcomed a now 3-year-old daughter, Hazel said.\u00a0<\/p>\nBrooklyn Beckham, shown with Nicola Peltz, has covered up an anchor tattoo, featuring the word \u201cDAD.\u201d Jam Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nBrooklyn\u2019s ink is still clearly visible on his right bicep in this image. BACKGRID<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThere was the time they waited until she went to the bathroom to snap family pictures with Jesse and their daughter, or the shocking moment her mother-in-law admitted to parking outside of their apartment to \u201ccatch a glimpse\u201d of any action going on in their marital bedroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI finally said, \u2018Enough is enough,\u2019\u201d Jesse recalled. He told The Post his mother\u2019s animosity toward Hazel stemmed from sheer jealousy \u2014 charged by a fear of being replaced by another woman in his life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI gave my parents an ultimatum: either get healthy through therapy or we\u2019re done,\u201d he recounted. \u201cThey said, \u2018No.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The Sterns, who are expecting their second child, say they\u2019re peacefully building their own family without his parents.<\/p>\n
So, Jesse bid his mother and father \u2014 along with his younger siblings \u2014 a final farewell.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was hard, really hard. But I don\u2019t regret it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s okay to set boundaries, and if your family is not okay with those boundaries you set, you don\u2019t have to be around them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Granny\u2019s gone rogue\u00a0<\/h2>\n Marie and her husband Rob, from New York, went no contact with his parents in June 2011 \u2014 almost 15 years before giving family the old heave-ho was\u00a0en vogue<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\nThe couple, who chose not to disclose their last name to The Post for privacy reasons, slammed the gate on Rob\u2019s mom after she removed their 5-month-old baby from their house without Marie\u2019s permission.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe begged to babysit our daughter when I went back to work, and I reluctantly agreed with the [proviso] that she come to our house and watch the baby here,\u201d said Marie, an office worker. \u201cOne day, I came home and found out she\u2019d been taking my daughter to her house every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a first-time mom, I was livid.\u201d<\/p>\nBrooklyn says he and Nicola are planning to move forward in peace without his parents. Instagram\/ Nicola Peltz Beckham<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\nMarie immediately called her mother-in-law and left a voicemail saying she no longer needed her to babysit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next thing I know, my in-laws storm into my house, and both start coming after me and my husband,\u201d she said. \u201cI told them, \u2018You\u2019ll never see us again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
And Marie, with the full support of Rob, has remained firm on that vow for nearly two decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rob was not available to provide The Post with a comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But speaking on behalf of her husband, Marie said, \u201cRob is 100% fine with being no contact.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him I don\u2019t want anything to do with them, but he can maintain a relationship,\u201d she said, alleging that her in-laws treated Rob poorly his entire life. \u201cBut he\u2019s, like, \u2018Nope, I support you. You\u2019re my wife. You\u2019re my family. I\u2019m not giving it up for them.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s a real\u00a0pistol<\/em><\/h2>\nJulia Paul\u2019s mother-in-law had been gunning for her since the moment they met in January 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy husband\u2019s mom is very controlling and extremely racist,\u201d Julia, a married mom of one, from the Midwest, told The Post. \u201cShe\u2019d leave Facebook comments saying, \u2018I hope someone knocks [Julia\u2019s] nose off,\u2019 and \u2018I want to be in the labor and delivery room when [Julia] is giving birth just to see her in pain.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The viciousness \u2014 compounded by a fierce dispute over money and the family business \u2014 became too much for Julia\u2019s husband, Jerry, to bear. He slowly, but surely, began to pull away from his mother in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And that made mama mad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Julia says her mother-in-law, whom she chose not to name, began making bogus 911 calls, accusing Jerry of breaking into her house that December. The madness reached a fever pitch in January 2024, when the police arrived at her mother-in-law\u2019s home to allegedly find her brandishing a firearm while standing on her front lawn.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe wouldn\u2019t put the gun down, and the police had to draw their guns on her,\u201d Julia claimed.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\u2018Estrangement should be a last resort, not a first response.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
NYC psychotherapist and author\u00a0Lesley Koeppel<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\nShe and Jerry went full no contact with her mother-in-law shortly after the harrowing incident. They have not spoken to her for nearly two years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really sad \u2014 my husband can\u2019t have a relationship with his mom, and my son can\u2019t have one with his grandmother,\u201d said Julia, who regularly shares her \u201cmother-in-law trauma\u201d\u00a0with her growing swarm of social media fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe f\u2014ked my life up so bad for so many years. I was under so much mental stress,\u201d she lamented to The Post. \u201cI\u2019m glad that we don\u2019t talk to her. I wouldn\u2019t want all that animosity in my child\u2019s life.\u201d<\/p>\n
A motherlode of lies<\/h2>\n Darius Pete always dreamed of having a big family with his loving wife, Selena, and his mother at his side.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But when the 26-year-old learned that his mom was stabbing him in the back, falsely telling Selena he\u2019d been cheating on her with an ex-girlfriend in an attempt to ruin their romance ahead of their 2023 wedding, Darius found himself in a living nightmare.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI confronted my mom, who can be very manipulative and would always try to pull me away from Selena to regain her control over me,\u201d the Gen Zer, a first responder in Columbus, Ohio, told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI laid it all out, telling her we needed some distance \u2014 meaning no communication,\u201d added Darius, noting that the veto came as a relief to Selena, 26, who\u2019d fall physically ill at the mere thought of seeing her mother-in-law.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI would feel intense anxiety, my stomach would be in knots, and I\u2019d break out with really bad cold sores,\u201d groaned Selena, a mom of one and lifestyle content creator. \u201cI had a really bad episode after we got married. Donovan went full no contact because it was just too much.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the sweethearts have no interest in refreshing their soured relationship with his mom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSelena and I are at peace,\u201d said Darius, who\u2019s been happily estranged from his mother and extended family for two years. \u201cSeeing my wife go through physical pain because of my mom hurt me \u2014 like I was subjecting her to that toxicity, hoping things would eventually work out.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last thing I said to my mom was, \u2018I love you, but this isn\u2019t going to work,\u2019 said Darius. \u201cAnd that\u2019s how it ended.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Completely severing ties to his mother and father wasn\u2019t easy for Jesse Stern.\u00a0 But according to the 25-year-old Utahn, it was the only option. Jesse, along with his wife Hazel, spent years enduring a difficult relationship he describes as \u201cdeath by 1,000 cuts,\u201d from fat shaming to prying into the couple\u2019s sex life and more. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2268672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[323472,21751,70626,34719,25404,333992,21818,323473,307441,349350,29282],"class_list":["post-2268671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-brooklyn-beckham","tag-celebrities","tag-celebrity-families","tag-david-beckham","tag-exclusive","tag-family-feuds","tag-lifestyle","tag-nicola-peltz","tag-parenting","tag-parenting-advice","tag-victoria-beckham"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/\u2018No-contact-culture-is-ripping-apart-families-as-Beckham-drama.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2268671"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2268673,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268671\/revisions\/2268673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2268672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2268671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2268671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2268671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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