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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

456 replies

Squirrel78 · 15/06/2015 19:42

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!!

OP posts:
icelollycraving · 15/06/2015 22:32

Dm also said at a family party,I can't stand girls between the age of 12-17. She was sitting with her gdds whose ages range between 12-17. They were Hmm

wheelycote · 15/06/2015 22:33

A few days after my dad's funeral (cremated). my best mate rang me up and told me she'd just found out that they take the body out of the coffin before cremating and reuse the coffin for another. something to do with it takes more fuel to burn the coffin too....I hadn't thought about it...never crossed my mind to ask funeral director beforehand. I made my excuses and got off the phone quick to her....it added to the grief...never told her how it affected me...just showed me that she didn't and doesn't have a clue about life

fastdaytears · 15/06/2015 22:33

Aged 12 from DM in a department store "it's like you have reverse anorexia. You look in mirror and think you're a lot thinner than you are" Angry

She denies it now but it so happened.

So trivial though. Some absolute shockers on here Flowers

Wibblypiglikesbananas · 15/06/2015 22:33

FIL - 'at least you know you can conceive' - when we told him I was PG with DC1.

SayThisOnlyOnce · 15/06/2015 22:36

Your son is so smart and well groomed... where on earth does he get it from?

Also had the 'are you pregnant' NO I AM FECKING NOT exchange.

steppedonlego · 15/06/2015 22:36

My dad as I was putting on makeup for a night out when I was 18.

"You're like the opposite of an anorexic. They look in the mirror and see something fat and ugly when really they're thin and pretty, but you look in the mirror and see something thin and pretty when you're fat and ugly."

Sad
steppedonlego · 15/06/2015 22:38

*fastdaytears I'm so sorry, it looks like I've copied you, I swear I haven't.

manateeandcake · 15/06/2015 22:38

"I'm thinking of making a documentary about failure, and I was wondering if you two would be in it" -- friend to me and my then-DH, at that time artists in our late 20s.

We laughed.

thewavesofthesea · 15/06/2015 22:39

I complemented a lady on her baby son's gorgeous red hair in a cafe; and said how much I loved it as it was he same colour as my son's hair (who was also a baby and with me).
She said - 'Well I've just about accepted it now' with no hint of sarcasm, just that red hair was an affliction that she had to accept in her son Hmm

SunnySeason · 15/06/2015 22:39

When is your baby due? When I wasn't pregnant.

Wow you have hung on to your pregnancy tum - this little gem came from my consultant at my 6 week post pregnancy check.

Oh dear another girl. What a shame. I hope you're not too upset it wasn't a boy. You're still young enough to try again though!

You were quite a horrible child.

Whatabout · 15/06/2015 22:40

My DM shouted up to DSDAD "Whatabout's lost another baby!" In the way you'd shout about burning toast. She wasn't being heartless just tactless.

thewavesofthesea · 15/06/2015 22:41

And the number of times I was
asked when I was pregnant with my sons if they were accidents. Mainly because I have a professional job I think. Because being pregnant in your mid twenties is scandalous when you have a good job Hmm

MoJangled · 15/06/2015 22:42

Some of these are horrible Sad

Whose fault is it? (DMIL on being told we were going for IVF)

Aren't you too old? (DMIL on being told we were going for adoption)

Why are you crying? Don't you like blood tests? (nurse drawing blood while I miscarried at 12 weeks)

When are you going to have another one? Have one soon, go on, do (otherwise lovely people with first children the same age as only DS)

Can we invite you to be on our panel? We need a woman (about a billion colleagues)

blondiebonce · 15/06/2015 22:42

Was at Specsavers when I was 8.5 months pregnant. As I was getting my glasses fitted the woman said "so, was the pregnancy planned or was it a mistake?"

Er? Fuck off.

Ruedewakening · 15/06/2015 22:44

My DS1 is a surviving triplet, born very prem and spent weeks in NICU. A midwife at the hospital told me that she didn't know why I was upset being in a standard bay with newborn babies next to me, it wasn't like I was properly bereaved as I still had one baby who I might be able to take home, one day. Hmm

Fortunately my GP friend had come to visit me, heard what she said and went and kicked up a stink at the nurses station, while I just sat there going Shock for a while.

Samcro · 15/06/2015 22:44

god these are bad
I always thought the mum telling me that I was lucky dd's disability was visible was bad(weirdly I got what she meant)
\and the lovely doctor who thought her going on school trip was a waste of time, thank god he was an out of hours one I never saw again

Flossieflower01 · 15/06/2015 22:45

That I seemed like the sort of person who could murder her children (from a colleague following a tragic news story about a depressed mother who'd killed her children and herself).

That I was irresponsible and a waste of time and resources (from a GP that I visited the day after being raped whilst asking for the morning after pill).

startwig1982 · 15/06/2015 22:45

I had someone ask me if I had miscarried my new pregnancy about 4 months after I actually miscarried. I was ShockShockShockBlushBlushAngryAngry

Idontseeanydragons · 15/06/2015 22:48

Just remembered FIL's reaction to us announcing my first pregnancy:
"Are you fucking mad? You're both mad, how can you 2 have a baby in your situation? Xxx (mil) tell them they can't have a baby!!'

Now. In all fairness to him, not only were we skint but also still living with our parents and only I had a full time job. Not ideal in the slightest.
On the upside him and DS have been best of buddies since DS was a toddler and those words are long forgiven Smile

fastdaytears · 15/06/2015 22:48

Steppedonlego our parents obviously went to the same parenting classes...

Idontseeanydragons · 15/06/2015 22:48

Should mention that was the one and only time I ever heard my MIL tell my FIL to fuck off.. Grin

ditherydora · 15/06/2015 22:49

I don't about what someone has said to me, but I once bumped into a (male) ex-colleague who had always been very good looking - and blurted out without thinking "God- you've aged". He took it with good grace really but I did go beetroot

fastdaytears · 15/06/2015 22:50

I'm finding this thread so upsetting. Ladies you are all made of much, much tougher stuff than me. Maybe we can get a MN guide to stuff not to say out in time for Christmas and people can learn that some of this stuff is so far from being acceptable

Spero · 15/06/2015 22:58

Not to me, but to my dad when he rang one of my mum's friends to say that she wouldn't be able to come to a concert that night as she had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

'But i was so looking forward to it!'

Mum died 12 weeks later and this woman - supposedly one of her best friends - never came to see her, never wrote, never called.

some people are just massive, massive shits.

minsmum · 15/06/2015 23:01

A couple of days before dh and I got married my dm asked him if he was sure he wanted to marry me because he could do so much better. We have been married 28 years and he was always scrupulously polite to her but never forgave her for that.

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