My Australian MIL

[WS12]

So I just wondered AIBU to be peed off with my MIL, or am I just being precious...

I am from the UK, born and bred in northeast England. Met my DH there who is Australian and got married had kids, lived there together for 7 years. Then we moved to Aus in 2016.

I get so annoyed at the digs all the time from my Australian MIL (culture clash I think) about England (she always loved visiting us though and came regularly often twice a year!).

Yesterday she said she was concerned about my DHs health when we lived there as he was always ill with cold ... ummm 60 million people manage to live here just fine....

Tonight's digs are (she's staying with us for three nights). Out potato peeler is old fashioned and she will bring me a new one "I'm going to bring you a new peeler. This peeler is so old fashioned. This is from England" and I said it actually isn't it's from Woolworths...

Second dig. My son is receiving speech therapy to help his clairity and sounds. She asked if it was to help him learn to speak Australian. I could've punched her. She isn't saying it nastily, but it's like she just doesn't think of how offensive that actually is to me as a native English speaker.

My DH says she has no filter, like the rest of his family. She still also insists we have a ghost in our house.

👊👊👊👊 I feel like moving back to England just to piss her off.

DH and I came with DH British passport too. We are kiwis but not here with the working holiday visa initially.

And I don’t think you get her humour at all tbh.

Even if it IS just her "humour" and "piss-taking" it still gets fucking wearing if it's every single fucking time the OP sees her.

My Dad has a weird sense of humour and enjoys "leg-pulling" - that gets fucking wearing as well!

KC225

I get the same from my MIL here in Sweden. She tells me I am so lucky to live in Sweden instead of that dangerous dirty city - London which she refused to visit when her son lived there with me for 10 years.

Apparently Sweden invented everything and England is good for one thing only 'Midsomer Murders' which she and watches with Swedish subtitles.

Whaaat? Sweden did not invent everything - Scotland did. Jeez That woman is woefully ignorant.

People who do this comparison thing are trying to make themselves feel better about living in some forgotten backwater.

We are in the UK and we punch well above our weight. Go us.

To all those saying my MIL has a sense of humour and these digs are a joke, I assure you she is not joking. These things she says to me are not said to make people laugh, she is serious when she says them. She was also serious when she thought we were helping or DS to speak with an Australian accent. The fact some are trying to see this as her joking shows how unacceptable that actually is. She isn't joking.

At times she shows so much distain for anything British "those things you put on them over there" derogatory turning her nose up at bad smell type attitude.

They are such a weird family though. But they're cut off from the real world, all living and working on their farm. There are no 'outside' people except me and my other SIL (my BILs wife who they don't particularly like).

My SIL (DHs sis) genuinely believes aliens are making contact with her. I can't deal with their crazy.

They are also very stuck up, and yet like on a shit hole; their house is literally falling down I do not jest and do not exaggerate!

The language comment was rude but I do agree that Australian veggie peelers are way better than British ones. (I am British but most of my family are Australian. ) Although it sounds like you did have an Aussie peeler.

Not
'Like on a shit hole'

Rather
Live in a shit hole

Tulippa that made me smile thanks 😊

Firstly we are a North Atlantic Island - so our climate is never going to compare to South Africa, Australia and the like. I do point that out to people - we can't help where we are in the world, so no point moaning about it.

However, if you look up world weather tables for precipitation for example (aka rain) the UK is way down the list. In fact we are way down almost all of the lists - our climate is nowhere near as bad and we think it is and everyone else thinks it is. We actually live on a very green and fertile island that fed and launched a nation of inventors, poets and explorers who went sailing off around the world to colonise countries (as did the French, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch of course so we weren't unique in that) which resulted in all those English speaking countries that now slag us off.

But back to the weather - what we have is a temperate maritime climate and our weather is a lot better and less extreme than many other countries. However, it is changeable and unpredictable - so you can go from grey leaden skies to glorious sunshine and back several times a day!

And as for the food thing - I have American friends who think we live on jellied eels and Spotted Dick. I just laugh. I've lived in France and my sister lived in the US for over 20 years and I've eaten far better in the UK that I've ever eaten there because you can get pretty much anything you want here. In fact the two best meals I have ever eaten in my life have been in Wales - one many years ago when I was travelling through and stopped in Brecon for lunch, and the 2nd was last year on holiday near Newquay (not the Cornish one - the Welsh one) - the most magnificent pub meal ever!

I honestly couldn't give a shit what other nationalities say about the UK - I think it says a lot about them that feel the need to run it down all the time and frankly I don't think us Brits do ourselves any favours either because we have a tendency to run it and ourselves down too.

SlowlyLosingthePlot You could read some famous Australian books etc and say 'what sort of Aussie are you?' When she invariably hasn't read it. - Man from Snowy River, Town Like Alice, anything by Banjo Patterson or CJ Dennis

Oh, please - you are really letting your ignorance show.

Additionally,your examples - of Just give it back to her. are so sad. You have sent the benchmark for irony/wit/humour/whatever you are aiming for so low, that it is ludicrous.

How can the food be better in a third world country?!? Gobsmacked at that suggestion.

I would get the hell out of there - being cut off and on a farm is very bad news in Australia - country people can be so narrow minded especially if they haven't travelled much - sounds a risky situation re isolation and DV as well. Better off near other people….

Wow, having been brought up in rural Victoria I can assure you that's not my experience at all, and frankly rather offensive

She sounds very annoying and basically harmless OP
Hang tight she will be gone soon !!

WTF woman! That's a hell of a leap, and a load of offensive stereotyping bollocks!

People who do this comparison thing are trying to make themselves feel better about living in some forgotten backwater.

We are in the UK and we punch well above our weight. Go us.

I think we need a diagram of an Aus vegetable peeler

With kitchen utensils, you use the ones that suit the job and your hands/level of dexterity. I can only use a Lancashire peeler to peel potatoes (the wooden handle type with orange twine around it). There may be other more modern types of peeler but they aren't very effective if I can't hold or use them.

My husband uses some kind of complex corkscrew to open a bottle of wine, but I can never work out how to use it and go for the traditional type with the lever arms.

With Brexit the numbers will probably drop as they can’t come in with an Irish passport?
Probably not Ireland and Britain are part of the Common Travel Area which predates the EU so unlikely to be effected by Brexit (Common Travel Area. The Common Travel Area is an open borders area comprising the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. The British Overseas Territories are not included.)

Ps I am Irish living in Ireland with my English dh so have an English MIL and the very ignorant comments I have got over the years are truly laughable. A flavour: Why do I need to change over my money can I not use sterling? Why are your schools different? why do you have Irish on your road signs? why aren't Ireland in the Commonwealth Games and so on and so on. I like to think though I have managed to educate her over the years about Ireland and what our country stands for.

It's wearing. My MIL is from the same country as me but I'm from the south and she's from the north. Every time we see her there is some sort of dig about southerners, and some reference to how much nicer and friendlier northerners are. She also mocks my accent: 'grarse? GRAAAAARRRRRRSE????' After almost 20 years it's still hilarious to her and grating for me. (Tip of the iceberg btw)

@IJustLostTheGame I can imagine, this tread is the tip of the iceberg for me too.

My DH grew up on the farm they still live on, but he is nothing like them. I don't know why the person above was offended

Believe it or not, there is no one Aussie vegetable peeler type.
You can buy lots of different ones there, same as you can here.
Although I haven't found the metal one with the bean slicer on the end that my mother used to favour over in Australia.

This is a selection - I have the white culinaire one, that can be bought from Woolworths (a supermarket in Aus, not the same as it was here)

Your MIL sounds like a boorish twat.

Having lived in U.K and Oz, it is a condition not confined to any single country or continent.