Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

DH kicking off as I want to uninvite DMIL/DSIL from Christmas Day

661 replies

Christmasdayissue · 01/12/2025 18:10

NC’d for this. Please can people let me know if they think IABU.

Background - DH and I recently moved into our own home after renting for years and having limited space.

Yesterday we hosted DMIL and DSIL for a roast. Both have stomach problems - fine. However, they spent the hour following the roast sat in our living room openly breaking wind and making no attempt to hide this fact. In front of our two young DC (both found it hilarious). No apology from either of them, the only acknowledgment being ‘well you know we have stomach issues and eating that makes it flare up’.

DH didn’t say anything to them. When I told him after they left that I found it disgusting, he said I was prudish and that they can’t help it. I asked why they couldn’t leave the room. He said it’s good they feel at home and he grew up with them being like that so doesn’t see the issue.

I’ve told him today I don’t want them to come on Christmas Day as planned if that’s how they will behave, and set such an awful example to our DC. He said how dare I threaten that and if I ever thought that was appropriate then he’d simply go out for lunch with them to a pub instead.

OP posts:
Calliopespa · 01/12/2025 21:45

Thedevilhasfinallycaughtupwithhim · 01/12/2025 21:37

Do you fart in bed?

Do you shit in bed?

As a survivor of boarding school dormitories, I can confidently confirm farting in bed is de rigeur for many, as is wafting the covers afterwards.

I am unaware of any bed-shitting incidents.

KaleQueen · 01/12/2025 21:44

KetchUpWithEverythingPls · 01/12/2025 21:18

suddenly you’re the issue not their behaviour.

So what? If it stops them coming round with their disgusting self-induced non-stop farting, then "you being the issue" a small price to pay

Well. Not really. As they’re her in laws for life. And as this thread has shown, lots of people are of the opinion that she’s somehow ‘uptight’ thinking this way. I don’t agree. But if this lovely lady makes a big issue of her in laws farting when it seems she’s the only one with the issue (rightly or not) then who are they going to think is the problem? Husband has already failed to back her. Kids think it’s funny.

Poor OP is just going to have to rise above it and absent herself when they start at Christmas and reduce the invites for food from 2026 onwards would be my advice.

strange25 · 01/12/2025 21:44

I laughed out loud at this, not your issue surrounding it, it just tickled me! You must make a very good roast dinner!

MeTooOverHere · 01/12/2025 21:43

Farting can happen soon after eating due to swallowing air, but gas produced by food fermentation in the large intestine typically occurs one to two hours after a meal. Swallowed air can cause immediate burping or gas that moves into the intestines and is released as flatulence. Gas from food fermentation happens as undigested food residues reach the large intestine and are broken down by bacteria.

Either way, your meal didn't cause it.

Calliopespa · 01/12/2025 21:42

BringBackCatsEyes · 01/12/2025 21:30

And would your parents have loved you finding it so entertaining on Christmas day for an hour?
The odd one, sure, but to be so open about it. It's unpleasant.

Dunno, they had their fun moments, but also their inhibitions. I do remember my Dad would send any of his dc to stand in the bathroom and count to one hundred every time they farted, but I always suspected it was more the numerical skills he was looking to hone. I was curiously unfarty for many years.

Of course all of this would be way beyond the pale anywhere other than within family; but farty grandparents has a certain Roald-Dahlesque appeal.

sprigatito · 01/12/2025 21:42

Thedevilhasfinallycaughtupwithhim · 01/12/2025 21:40

So you can’t see the difference?

I don’t think the difference is as vast as you obviously do tbh…these people are deliberately, repeatedly releasing really smelly gas in someone else’s home. And laughing about it. It’s really, really rude.

Thedevilhasfinallycaughtupwithhim · 01/12/2025 21:40

sprigatito · 01/12/2025 21:39

No, if there’s someone else sharing the bed, and no Confused

So you can’t see the difference?

CheeseIsMyIdol · 01/12/2025 21:40

Christmasdayissue · 01/12/2025 21:35

DH is standing firm this evening. Discussed it once the kids were in bed.

I think ‘my shit doesn’t stink’ apparently!

What an obnoxious remark for him to make.

Standing firm about the pub or about them coming to yours for Christmas? Will he say anything to them ahead of time?

Aside from the unpleasantness, what a horrid example for your children. does he want them to be low-class oafs with no social graces?

sprigatito · 01/12/2025 21:39

Thedevilhasfinallycaughtupwithhim · 01/12/2025 21:37

Do you fart in bed?

Do you shit in bed?

No, if there’s someone else sharing the bed, and no Confused

momtoboys · 01/12/2025 21:38

This hit a nerve with me. If I had been there the first time they did it, I probably would have left my own house and left them to it. I would absolutely tell your DH to take them out for lunch.

Thedevilhasfinallycaughtupwithhim · 01/12/2025 21:37

sprigatito · 01/12/2025 21:37

Tell him you’ll crap in the living room after Christmas dinner and they can all find out whether it stinks? He’s a pig. Unsurprisingly, given that he was raised in a pigpen. 🤮

Do you fart in bed?

Do you shit in bed?

sprigatito · 01/12/2025 21:37

Christmasdayissue · 01/12/2025 21:35

DH is standing firm this evening. Discussed it once the kids were in bed.

I think ‘my shit doesn’t stink’ apparently!

Tell him you’ll crap in the living room after Christmas dinner and they can all find out whether it stinks? He’s a pig. Unsurprisingly, given that he was raised in a pigpen. 🤮

Calliopespa · 01/12/2025 21:37

Dymaxion · 01/12/2025 21:18

I do think that as you age its natural for your anal sphincter to become a bit more flappy, and so allows wind out more easily, add to this, most peoples glutes as they age, become almost blancmange like, so have very little chance of a nice muscular clutch before that gas escapes.

So beautifully put! 😂 I am choosing between "blacmange-like" and "nice muscular clutch" as my favourite phrases on this thread, though flappy anus was also very evocative ( I 'm seeing the nozzle bit on a whoopee cushion).

Christmasdayissue · 01/12/2025 21:35

DH is standing firm this evening. Discussed it once the kids were in bed.

I think ‘my shit doesn’t stink’ apparently!

OP posts:
Soontobe60 · 01/12/2025 21:33

Octavia64 · 01/12/2025 18:13

Did you feed them stuff they are intolerant to?

I’m like that if I eat any dairy products. Easy solution is that people don’t feed me dairy.

Do you need to be fed? Do you not have the ability to choose what food you put in your body?

Dymaxion · 01/12/2025 21:31

North: no one would care

Accidental standing up or bending over fart, absolutely not, doing a Brighouse and Rastrick band impression, yeah I would care.

BringBackCatsEyes · 01/12/2025 21:30

Calliopespa · 01/12/2025 20:09

Honestly, if my grandparents had come at Christmas and farted right through I'd have loved it as a child.

I only once heard my GF let one slip - and when I say one, I think he had been holding several in. He was gardening.

And would your parents have loved you finding it so entertaining on Christmas day for an hour?
The odd one, sure, but to be so open about it. It's unpleasant.

Christmasdayissue · 01/12/2025 21:29

Dymaxion · 01/12/2025 21:18

I do think that as you age its natural for your anal sphincter to become a bit more flappy, and so allows wind out more easily, add to this, most peoples glutes as they age, become almost blancmange like, so have very little chance of a nice muscular clutch before that gas escapes.

DSIL is 30. I don’t think that’s an excuse for her. I’m older than that and manage to control myself.

OP posts:
Cosyblankets · 01/12/2025 21:27

Christmasdayissue · 01/12/2025 18:23

They are grown adults - DH simply arranged it by sending a simple message among the lines of ‘roast Sunday, all ok?’ and they jumped at it. Surely then they’d say if they couldn’t have anything!!

I have intolerances. I can have Sunday roast but not with flour on the roasties and i have to have gluten and dairy free stuffing and gravy. That kind of thing. I just take my own. It's easier.

Thedevilhasfinallycaughtupwithhim · 01/12/2025 21:26

BettysRoasties · 01/12/2025 21:25

South. A oops fart would be ignored. Sitting trumpeting away laughing at your own stink gross.

Giving yourself unstoppable stench because you decided to eat something you know sets you off at someone else’s house again. Gross.

North: no one would care

BuddhaAtSea · 01/12/2025 21:26

I wouldn’t have kept silent about it whilst it was going on. A ‘do you mind?!!’ would have come out before I even thought about it.
Let them go to the pub if they can’t behave like adults.

BettysRoasties · 01/12/2025 21:25

Thedevilhasfinallycaughtupwithhim · 01/12/2025 21:22

Is there a North/ South divide about this or something?
I don’t know a single person who would be upset by this.

South. A oops fart would be ignored. Sitting trumpeting away laughing at your own stink gross.

Giving yourself unstoppable stench because you decided to eat something you know sets you off at someone else’s house again. Gross.

Thedevilhasfinallycaughtupwithhim · 01/12/2025 21:22

Pricelessadvice · 01/12/2025 18:25

Gosh, I couldn’t cope in such an uptight family. We just make a joke of it and move on.

Is there a North/ South divide about this or something?
I don’t know a single person who would be upset by this.

Dymaxion · 01/12/2025 21:18

I do think that as you age its natural for your anal sphincter to become a bit more flappy, and so allows wind out more easily, add to this, most peoples glutes as they age, become almost blancmange like, so have very little chance of a nice muscular clutch before that gas escapes.

KetchUpWithEverythingPls · 01/12/2025 21:18

suddenly you’re the issue not their behaviour.

So what? If it stops them coming round with their disgusting self-induced non-stop farting, then "you being the issue" a small price to pay