At this point, we don’t need to tell you that relationships with people are tricky. Family ones aren’t an exception. There are many ways to improve or ruin these relationships and some of them can be fairly small. 

Like a prank. The family we’re talking about today had their boat rocked, just because their son’s wife decided to play a prank on their 10-year-old. The family disliked this move so much that they decided to prank her themselves, but they went too far and made the son cut contact with them. 

More info: Reddit

Before pranking someone, you should always think about what this joke might bring, and even then, you can’t always anticipate its consequences

Image credits:  Ketut Subiyanto / Pexels (not the actual photo)

One day, the author’s wife decided to prank his little sister by putting on a Krampus look-alike mask and scaring her

Image credits: Wolfgang / Freepik (not the actual photo)

This infuriated the girl’s mom, as she didn’t like that the woman sneaked up on her while she was sleeping

Image credits: Nice-Ad8511

So, she screamed at the woman that she was merely her son’s wife and not a ‘true’ family member

The original poster (OP) has a 10-year-old sister, Liv. She’s a shy, well-behaved kid, who gets sassy and outgoing with her close family members, but is more reserved with others. For example, the OP’s wife Zoe – they have a fine, but not close relationship. 

What you should also know about the author’s sister is that she hates the movie “Krampus,” as it terrified her when she was little. It’s a Christmas comedy horror film about a boy unleashing the festive demon upon his family. Liv isn’t the first person to be scared by this movie; here on Reddit, another individual shared a similar experience. 

Recently, the OP and his wife were staying over at his family’s place. The wife found a Halloween mask similar to how Krampus looks and decided it would be funny to prank her husband’s sister by waking her up wearing it. 

The girl didn’t think it was funny. Her mom didn’t think so either – she barged into the room and threatened the woman that if she ever stepped into her sleeping daughter’s room again, they’d have problems. The woman tried explaining that it was a harmless prank and that she thought she was doing something similar to the girl’s dad. 

Image credits: freepik / Freepik (not the actual photo)

This prompted the mom to tell her she wasn’t the girl’s family, and thus the prank wasn’t appropriate. This infuriated Zoe, especially because her husband didn’t jump in to defend her. Apparently, he didn’t because he kind of agreed with what his mom said. While the woman was his family since they were married, she wasn’t his family’s family. 

The question of whether a person becomes a member of their spouse’s family is debatable. It all comes down to what the family believes in. For instance, if they’re very thoroughly following the Bible’s word, that means they’re not a family. As this Quora answer pointed out, the Bible says that when a man and a woman get married, they’re creating a new household, meaning they are no longer part of their previous families. 

Yet, it’s quite unlikely that many people follow this that straightforwardly, as removing yourself from the rest of your family after marriage seems extreme. Another netizen suggests a completely different point of view. 

This one states that by legally getting married, people add themselves to other families and become their in-laws. Even though there are no legal responsibilities involved, it still paints them as a family. 

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So, as you can see, it depends on what values a family bases their lives on. It also depends on their inner dynamics. That means that no one was either wrong or right in the dispute described in the story.

The husband didn’t jump to his wife’s defense, because he understood where his mom was coming from

Sometime after the argument, the husband came back home and found his wife nearly having a panic attack

Image credits: Nice-Ad8511

Apparently, his family decided to get revenge for her prank and staged a break-in, which terrified her, causing the man to fully cut off his family

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Either way, it wasn’t the end of it all. One day, the OP came back home and found his wife on the verge of a panic attack. Apparently, as revenge for her prank on Liv, the family decided to prank Zoe. 

The woman was home alone when family members and friends staged a break-in. They had ski masks and ropes, so it really freaked the woman out, as she thought she was going to be hurt. Then, the girl popped out giggling and Zoe understood that it was all a prank. Quite a sadistic one, isn’t it? 

Well, that’s exactly what the OP thought. He was so mad about it that he hit his stepdad, told his mom he’d never forgive her, and left to live at a motel while they were between places. 

Image credits: MART PRODUCTION / Pexels (not the actual photo)

People online fully understood where he was coming from with such a reaction. Traumatizing someone with a break-in isn’t a fun prank. Some shared just how much they despise pranks overall, as they abuse relationship balance, and this situation proved just how messed up they can be. 

Well, as someone in the comments said, pranks should confuse, not abuse, and it’s clear here that this prank didn’t do that. Yes, maybe the woman shouldn’t have pranked the girl in the first place, as they’re not that close, but she didn’t deserve the way they repaid her. 

If you’re now wondering if you’ve ever crossed a line with your prank, FindLaw has provided a checklist for that. First, you should check whether your prank was appropriate for your target — startling a 25-year-old and an 80-year-old is a very different thing. Then, damaging property or trespassing shouldn’t occur during harmless pranks either. Similarly, causing emotional or physical harm to the victim — scarring someone for a joke isn’t funny at all.

Looking at these tips, it seems the OP’s family managed to fail at least 3 out of 4. This makes their revenge prank neither harmless nor justified. But perhaps it was never meant to be?

Sadly, now the relationship between the family members is ruined so badly that it doesn’t matter what kind of values they have. Their view on who is and who isn’t a family member is changed forever. Well, unless something else happens. 

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“That escalated quickly”: people online were flabbergasted by the sudden turn of events but understood why the man got so mad at his family

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