To ask what's the most tactless thing anyone has ever said to you?

[Squirrel78]

I've had someone come up to me today gushing "I didn't know you were expecting again?!" I'm not. Don't know who was more mortified - her or me! My stomach has grown over the last few months probably because I don't exercise enough. Now I'm tearful, depressed and embarking on a diet and the only thing that can cheer me up is s bit of shared misery!!

Security bloke at the airport as I was putting my arm brace back on 'ooh, you'd be better off getting it cut off like the soldiers'

FIL 'urrgghhh, that scars horrible, it makes me feel sick'

"when's the baby due?" - a florist asked me 3 weeks after I had my last baby.

"Look at the size of you" - person on the playground.

"Don't go on the beach love" - another person on the playground.

"it's a bit squidgy" - mil poking my pregnant tum.

I'm 24 weeks and 4 days pregnant.

At the wake for my 3 year old son, who was at that point my first and only child, a 'kindly' relative of DS's father pulled us together and told us the best thing we could do now was to get busy trying to have another child...

I nodded numbly and shuffled away, with hindsight I wish I'd agreed with him and told him loudly to clear one of the tables and we'd get started immediately! Still irks me to this day, insensitive fool.

I'm the tactless one unfortunately. In my first job aged about 21. I walked into reception and exclaimed loudly 'Ewww it smells like cheap perfume in here' as the receptionist lowered her arm that was spraying the perfume she had just bought from the local shops.

We had a tfmr at 22 weeks in jan as our dd2 was diagnosed with trisomy 18 (very grim and incompatible with life).

My pil insisted on coming down 2 days after I'd given birth. I was on strong antibiotics after getting an infection during labour. Felt awful. A week before we'd been expecting what we thought was a healthy baby girl.

My fil, over lunch, declared 'you never know, with medical advances these days she might have been ok'. I was so shocked at the time all I managed to say was 'no she wouldn't'.

Now I'm stronger I wish I could say something to him.

A few months after we lost dd2 my mil asked me if I was 'over that traumatic even at the start of the year' to which I said 'you mean loosing and giving birth to R? No, I'll never get over it, I'll just learn to live with it' she cried. Stupid woman.

MyGod Kitty that's terrible. Of course...had he thought to do a bit of research he'd NEVER have said that! I'm so sorry for your loss. Your DD2 was still your DD and is....and there's no "Getting over" that.

Gems from my mother, said when I was under the age of 10:

"I wish you'd never been born."
"I hate you!"
"I love you but I don't like you at all"
"You're just like MIL" (the hate figure of the family - she was a Nazi)
"I don't know how you got an A for this work, it's terrible!"
"Get off me" and constantly turning away when I went to hug her, as a tiny tiny.

And more recently:
"You're fat!"
"It's a good thing you can't have kids - you'd be a crap mother"
etc etc etc

I've told this on here before, but while being wheeled to a delivery room in advanced labour 6 days overdue, after just being told my baby had died, an auxiliary walked past and said to me "Cheer up, things could be worse"...

She didn't know, but for goodness sake, if someone is hysterical on a labour ward you don't know what's going on so you keep your mouth firmly shut.

Oh and after the funeral of my son, my MOTHER said "Never mind, you can always have another one". Yes Mother, that will make up for it...

My mum died in hospital the day of Princess Dianas funeral, nurse watching the funeral on tv 'you won't forget today will you?'

errr, no.

So sorry to read some of the comments made to the bereaved..

I was told by a colleague 'oh no you've got fat' on my first day back from maternity leave.

My mother told me it was my own fault I was bullied at secondary school as "you are not exactly a nice person". She also told my sister when she got her first radio job that nobody would be able to understand her as she spoke too fast and that if her husband ever became successful 'he would leave you'.

The day after a close relative died (very suddenly with no warning) my boss said 'it's just one of those things. You still have to be observed this week.' (Teaching)

Then when I requested a day off for her funeral: 'maybe you can go in the morning and come back for the afternoon. I doubt you need the whole day.'

At a local shop, the woman behind the till asked me if I was my kids grandmother...it was just a very odd thing to assume and then ask!

School disco - the boy I fancied told me I had weird eyes

A lot of nasty things from my mother when she was drunk but that's something I choose to forget as she is dead and I very much wish I could talk to her again

My goodness some of these are just horrible. Some of the ones regarding comments after losing babies are bloody horrible and my mouth has been like this and on the verge of tears at the thought of receiving some stupid comments that these pigs have said.

People are bloody nasty.

Mine aren't that bad. I mentioned to a school friend that I was going to the dentist and she said "ah, are you going to have braces?" "No". "Well your teeth do stick out you know".

I keep being asked when I'm due im not.

On being introduced to a friends partner for the first time on a school trip..
Him- 'so, what do you do?'
Me- 'I'm at home with the kids'
Him-'if you were my wife, I'd take you out the back and shoot you'
(This from a man sporting a mullet, stonewashed jeans and a leather jacket)
Me- 'I'd save you the trouble and shoot myself'

shovetheholly She sounds horrendous! It hurts to hear a mother so in contempt of her own daughter.

"Probably a blessing not to have them so close together" said by sonographer as I was crying after she had just confirmed my miscarriage of my very much planned child

Still pisses me off years later

When I was in the GP's waiting room for an emergency appointment because I was suicidal. I'd been given the last appointment of the morning so that the GP would have longer to see me. They'd been very careful about asking me to wait in a public room but I said it was OK. Until a man took one look at my face and said "cheer up, it might never happen".

I know it was just thoughtless but really I could have been in there for absolutely any reason, many of them quite horrendous. Why do people feel they can invade your personal space in this way?

Oh...I'd had an eye operation and walked out of hospital with a big dressing on and a caretaker with a trolley said "You should have ducked!" I could have had my eye removed! He didn't know it was a minor procedure!

Pretty mild compared to others on here, but when I was 12wks preg with DS1 we were told he had a 1/5 chance of downs. Me and DH were shocked and I was extremely upset and stressed.
FIL rang. 'Now, you ARE going to have an abortion aren't you? my God I hope the Catholic church hasn't brainwashed you too much' (My family are liberal catholics, I am a lapsed catholic, we got married in a catholic church as it was the one my grandparents got married in. FIL has this idea that my family are old school catholics who don't believe in birth control, divorce, abortion etc despite me explaining several times this isn't the case.)
I was and refused to speak to him for months.
Luckily DS was not Downs, but I still can't believe he took advantage of my state to voice his opinion yet again.
I know it's extremely mild compared to others on here, particularly those who have lost DC and family members. to you all.

Ex told me he was never going on holiday with me because my thighs were fat and I'd look horrible in a swimming costume... (At the time I was a size 12, very hourglass, and had tonnes of male attention constantly so I knew it was BS?an attempt to dent my self esteem - even knowing the psychology, it still hurt).

After I had our first child, he went on and on about a fortnight after I have given birth, that I was "a fat shitter". It was the least weight I ever put on in any pregnancy.

I was so unhappy with him, I didn't need to diet at all - my weight plummeted fast, post baby, because I just couldn't eat - despite breast-feeding baby for a year. It wasn't long before I had a 29" waist - much fatter than I had been when younger but still I was a nice size and shape. All excitedly, I told him I had measured my waist that morning, and guess what, it was back to 29" already? He snorted and said "Yeah, right. You have a 29 inch waist!"

When I was 18, I wrote a play for a competition at a very famous London theatre - the winning play would go into production. I got a letter back, saying that it hadn't won but they loved it so much they wanted to "put it into development". being young, naive and 200 miles away from London theatre, I had no idea what that was at the time (I later realised it was a huge thing and a honour!) and so I wrote back, a bit nettled, telling them not to bother. My brother - who had ambitions to be a writer but never made it - said to me, a couple of years later, and in front of a huge group of people "Ah but you're a failed writer!" Even at the time I knew an offer of having a play developed by a world famous theatre wasn't exactly 'failure'. But it made me feel shit. I had the last laugh. I now write non fiction and am published regularly all over the world. I'd imagine he still likes to think of me as "failed" because I am a jobbing writer, not J.K.Rowling. ;o) I think that stung so much as he knew that writing meant everything to me. And wanted to humiliate me in front of loads of other people.

My stepmother once said to my dad "You're not from a real family. What do you know about proper families?" He was an only child. But had 2 kids of his own and she had 4 kids. The irony was, all her kids remained childless and she has no grandkids. My dad was to have 7 grandkids. I think I know who ended up with the proper family.

On telling my step MIL that we found out our DC is a little boy at our scan: 'never mind'.

The Jehovahs Witness who knocked on my door and opened the conversation with how massive I am for 5 months pregnant. I cackled loudly as she was A HOUSE and, I'm guessing by her advanced years, not in the least bit pregnant.

In first place: my boss saying, when I went back to work after having a month off following the sudden death of my mother and a miscarriage in the same fortnight, 'it's about time you came back. We (meaning my employer) have been very patient with you really. If my mum died I don't think I'd be that bothered.'

I was so stunned and numb I just stared at her, baffled. My blood still boils when I remember that, the cow.

I'm afraid i'm another tactless one. I don't think i've ever said anything awful to anyone, especially not after a bereavement or personal tragedy. I'm not heartless, but i do tend to speak before i think

Can't put too many here as all my friends know them and it will out me, but i once said to a work acquaintance who i'd just met; 'ooh, what happened to your face' (complete with an exaggerated wince). I thought she'd banged her head, turns out she had a big port wine birthmark on her forehead. She was very gracious about it though, luckily.

I have a very sensitive sense of smell and am constantly saying 'pee-eugh whats that smell', and it will turn often turn out that its someones lunch or new perfume etc, you get the gist. I mortify my husband on at least a monthly basis, which is progress as it used to be daily

Was talking to a long-time friend on the phone shortly after my beloved mother died. He listened for a bit, then said "well, it's not as bad as losing a child, is it?"

Another one:

I had finally got pregnant at 3rd attempt of IVF. Naturally I was delighted, but when I told another Mum I was pregnant at school pick-up for my elder child (who was 9), she immediately said "oh, is it wanted?". I can only assume she thought that, as I had a big gap between children, I couldn't possibly want another! I can't remember what I said, I was so flabbergasted.