My own Beckham-Peltz moment: my mother-in-law didn’t congratulate me on her grandson’s birth.
Family disputes bring hurt, resentment and disappointment. Lisa Herring-Rogers knows the feeling only too well, having not spoken to her husband’s mother for over a year.
The Devil doesn’t wear Prada, the devil is my mother-in-law.
Until now, I’ve never formally called my mother-in-law a devil. It was one of my colleagues who first gave her that title. They know me – my family, my personality – and now, they know all about her too.
The Beckham family feud has played out in public through carefully worded statements, curated Instagram posts and pointed silences. When reports emerged that Brooklyn Beckham had blocked his parents on Instagram, it felt like a modern shorthand for a much older kind of fracture. Social media has simply given family fallouts a new, more visible language – one where distance is measured in muted Stories, unfollowed accounts and carefully managed silences.
Beneath that previous polish sits something far more familiar to many women: the quiet, corrosive tension of a mother-in-law relationship that never truly healed. Watching the Beckham-Peltz rift unfold, I recognised the same patterns in my own life. Physical distance widening alongside emotional estrangement, conversations reduced to formalities and the quiet understanding that something fundamental had shifted, even if no one would say it out loud.
But I will… because I’ve lived my own version of it – just without the celebrity spotlight.
Some mothers don’t take a shine to whoever their son chooses. But it wasn’t like that for me. When I first started dating my now-husband, my relationship with his mother was warm. I visited her home, did the dishes, helped with the dog – all the little things a thoughtful girlfriend does. I adored her son, so it felt natural to care for her too.
Everything changed when my husband proposed in June 2021. Suddenly, I was no longer just his partner – I was a competitor. She made everything about herself: where she would sit at the wedding, what she would wear, who she would bring. At times, it felt as though it was her wedding, not ours.
There had been warning signs – odd incidents that should have rung alarm bells. She’d even tried to disrupt her daughter’s wedding in Greece, a real-life Monster-in-Law moment. But I told myself not to panic; my husband could handle his mother’s theatrics, so I stepped back.
Our wedding day was magical. She sulked in group photos and missed our first dance, but the day was ours, despite her drama.
After the honeymoon, I discovered I was pregnant. Initially, things were fine. But that Christmas, hosting both her and my parents, everything unravelled. Exhausted, I went to lie down, only to overhear her complaining to my husband that I hadn’t spoken to her enough, implying I was rude and lazy. I was pregnant.
