Petty things you still can't forgive people for

[Milkbath]

I have two

First one is my SIL (husband's sister)
She means well, but we're very different people, and she can be brash and overbearing. We're constantly working on maintaining boundaries for her, as otherwise she'd stamp all over them.

When I had my baby, she arrived unannounced a few days after we came home. This coincided with the community midwife visiting, and instead of making her excuses and leaving, SIL sat there and listened as the midwife asked me all the usual questions, some of which were extremely personal. Meanwhile SIL's toddler DC was trashing the house. In hindsight I wish I'd said something, but I was so weak and exhausted. The midwife should have as well, she kept glancing over at sil with that sort of expectant "time to fuck off now" look but sil has the hide of a rhino. Midwife was younger than I was at the time and I think she was a bit intimidated too. Even sometimes now I think back to it and it infuriates me!

Too many to mention without riling myself up but when I presented a report to my ex-boss and said “and you’ll see from the highlighted sections the patterns are here and here” he put his hand up to stop me speaking and said “you mean highLIT” I shouldn’t have just ignored it and carried on but he’d been passive aggressively criticising all of my work up to that point as I was friendly with a colleague who stood up to him, so I said “sorry, is that even a word?” He confirmed it was and that I should know basic English and I replied with does it even matter?!?! Our relationship soured at that point but luckily he retired a year later and my new boss ribs me about it to this day!!

My MIL didn’t see DD2 til a few months after she was born and for some reason was convinced she had black hair, though she was platinum blond.

She then questioned how it was possible she was blond as DH and I have dark hair. She later asked DH privately if he was sure DD was his child. DH patiently explained basic genetics and pointed out that FIL and my mum are fair haired. It made me laugh at the time but it was outrageous thinking back on it.

Had my son five weeks early,in hospital 3 weeks with breathing problems etc.Home a few day when a friend called around.....she went to light up a cig....I said sorry no smoking in house could you please go in back yard,she replied I havent come round to stand in back yard so she left.She never got in again.

Phoned a friend to tell her I had breast cancer. She asked me to keep her updated..So I would text her etc.I phoned her one day and said I am out of hospital now after my 3rd operation which was a mastectomy.I will be stuck in doors for a while because of drains and also wont be able to drive for a few weeks.....she said come see me when yo are better.....she lives a 10 min drive away and never once visited me when I was ill.....or since.

My son was being bullied which a close friend knew all about.....she phoned me said John is having a birthday party and your son is invited.....I ask are there many going,she tells me the kids names....I say why has Bully been invited....oh John was playing out with him the other day and wants him to come....I say sorry my son wont be going....She phones me a week later.....my son can now come because Bully cant make it....I say sorry if you invited Bully my son wont be going.....she kept repeating but he cant come ,he wont be there.....I said listen to what I am saying,you invited the Bully .....she eventually got what I was saying.
Pissed me off because when her son had been hit by a kid she slagged everyone off who had anything to do with that family.

Years ago the place I worked had a new pt role. It was school hours and term time only so a great job for anyone with kids. I rang a friend who I thought might be interested. He wasn’t but mentioned it to a mate of his. This mate happened to be my SIL. I get on ok with SIL but she worked ft so it hadn’t occurred to me she’d be interested in this role.

Anyway SIL rang me and we talked about the job - I said it might be awkward as a large chunk of it would involve reporting directly to me and doing a lot of my more boring work. She insisted that wouldn’t be an issue and so I recommended her to the senior manager. On this recommendation she got the job and we started working together.

After a 2 month honeymoon period it was an unmitigated disaster. She hated the parts of the job that involved working with and for me and would do anything she could to avoid them preferring to focus on her other role. However our senior manager disliked the way she carried out this role and there was a great deal of friction between them. I was stuck in the middle between them. Eventually SIL went off sick with stress and refused to talk to me because she thought I was ‘ friends ‘ with the woman she said she was bullying her (our mutual senior manager) despite my trying to reassure her that the woman was only a colleague and she was my priority.

The situation couldn’t continue, it was making both our working lives hell and making SIL ill. After talking it over with DH we decided that because SIL was a single parent of 3 and needed the money from the job much more than we did (by then DH’s job was going really well and so my salary was going straight into a savings account) I should resign for the sake of family unity so I left. The company was concerned about the (not unfounded) accusations of bullying so SIL was allowed to renegotiate her role so she only kept the bits she liked and reported to someone new.

At the time it was a relief to no longer deal with the toxic atmosphere, we were sufficiently well off that we didn’t miss my money and family relations certainly improved and I went in to retrain in much more satisfying line of work but a small part of me is still very bitter that doing SIL a favour led to me leaving a job I had loved until then.

I just previewed this and it is LONG. It just shows that even years after the event this still rankles.

My then best friend for being totally and pretty bloody shit when my nan died and then again two years later even worse when my grandad died. We're still friends as we mix in the same circles but it's nothing remotely close like we were.

The teacher who laughed at the bow I’d painstakingly put in my hair. I was never into anything girly as a kid and my friends persuaded me to wear it. It totally crushed my budding confidence when he said I looked ridiculous.
The senior member of staff who made personal comments about my work and tried to ridicule me to divert attention that she’d totally lost control at an important meeting

One of my old school friends ruined my 21st birthday by calling a friend I'd made through work a "Pikey", a "dirty Gypsy", and continuing to drunkenly ask her to "get her fortune telling ball out".

It was the first night I'd had out in 18 months (I had a baby whom my parents couldn't be convinced to mind for a few hours... my work friend's mother babysat my daughter overnight so that I could enjoy my 21st), and it really opened up my eyes as to this particular old school friend. He lived in the posher part of the same town as my work friend, so obviously considered himself "better", or more superior to her... but really? He was just a jealous, nasty, dickhead of a snob.

Old work friend is still one of my closest friends almost 23 years later... my 21st was the last time I saw/spoke to the bellend who made her cry in the pub toilets.

Also my 21st. My parents, baby daughter and I were going to go out for a meal on the day itself to celebrate. My mother had been to a course the day before on body language and... actually, I forget what. 10 minutes before we were about to leave to celebrate my 21st, my mother started yelling about how my father and I were being disrespectful to her, our body language was this/that/the other, and she knew what we were really saying, because she'd spent (3) hours being taught about how to read it, blah, blah, blah.

We didn't go for dinner.

My parents still haven't acknowledged that I actually turned 21.

I spent the night feeling as though my own mother cared more about imagined slights (I was just trying to get my daughter ready at the time, so fuck knows what my mother imagined I was "saying about" her through body language), than she did about me. It took years, absolute years before I worked out that actually? My mother just couldn't stand that it was my event... my celebration... and not hers. She made herself the absolute center of attention on an evening when her only daughter should have been.

I've never told anyone either of those petty grudges of mine before, but I still harbour resentment over both. Work friend is lovely, ex-friend still (I'm told) an absolute bellend... and my mother? Well...!

Oh and my dm who didn’t want to ‘waste her holiday’ and booked a last minute cruise instead of helping me out when I had a potentially life threatening pregnancy condition and two toddlers. I realised then she would never change

When I was at primary school I dared a boy to show me his 'thing.' We were both about 7 and he quickly pulled it out in the lunch queue. Another boy told on us and I got into trouble from the headteacher and my parents who were called up to the school and I had to write a letter of apology to the boy who had exposed himself to me.

To this day, 30 years later, I'm still outraged!

@couchparsnip

My DM did this too
I was so fucked off because if she had just said do you want to come I may have gone, but she will never do that and gave me tickets to see an X factor performer she really liked on my birthday. It was an outdoor performance and she then got really annoyed and narky when anyone was speaking/laughing while he was singing so to make her stop moaning I sat silently at the outdoor performance for someone I don’t really like all that much on my birthday

Then she did it again the next year for my birthday and booked us festival tickets for the day she wanted to see a band and not the day I wanted to see acts. The Sunday acts were to my taste and the Saturday hers. I had to drive her there and back and fell asleep in a camping chair stone cold sober during the performance of the band I do not like at all and still to this day hearing any of their music I feel the rage bubble up!

My FIL stayed sat on the couch whilst the midwife asked me all personal questions wtf?!?

This year will not be sending Christmas cards to those who did not send me one last year (I made a list - v v v v petty of me).

So fed up with taking the time to write cards to friends who can’t be bothered to send one back (and who then post on FB that they are not sending cards this year but have made a donation to charity instead). Well buy charity Christmas cards then you lazy f***s!

@WinniePig this annoys me too . I decided a few years ago only to buy Xmas cards for immediate family . I give money to a couple of local charities too , I don't announce on fb like others are doing so feel a bit miffed this is now a trend .
I admit a friends birthday coming up so thought what to get her but then I thought no for my last birthday which was a big birthday I got nothing from her and she cancelled on me on my arranged night out . I know it's petty but it's the lack of effort that stings .

@FlamedToACrisp you have reminded me of my own appendicitis / chocolate based grudge! I had an emergency appendix op from school and my parents came to visit later that night. They brought with them a little package of Cadbury dairy milk tiny individual bars (the sort that fit into a toy chocolate dispenser machine if you’re old enough to remember). A wonderful way of presenting Dairy Milk, usually reserved for Christmas inits great extravagance (like boxes of Maltesers). Trouble was I was nil by mouth and they ate them. In front of me! Cruelty in the extreme

@username678889 Exactly! It’s the lack of effort that annoys me too.

My area manager telling me i need to get better at dealing with my emotions (at 16 weeks pregnant) utter dick

When I was in year 9 we played hat game in English where you go round the class and everyone has to name an object or whatever starting with successive letters of the alphabet.

We were doing it with colours, and my letter was U, so I said "umber". My teacher told me that there was no such colour and I was thinking of amber, and wouldn't let me get a dictionary to prove that I was right.

Still fuming twenty years later!

Had a new boss I didn't get on with. Long story but we butted heads a lot. I found out later he said to a colleague "She's usually right but I won't tell her that"!

When I was in college I was really poor. Had to watch my money very carefully. I lent a friend £10. Still haven't got it back! I also lent same friend a martial arts sword case I'd spent hours making. Nope, not seen that again either.

Urgh, ditto on the vicar story, AtillatheHun. When my grandmother died, my aunt (her daughter, my dad's sister) got the vicar to name every member of her family - including her children's partners and wives - along with a reason why my nan loved them so much. Silence when it came to our side of the family, and fucking embarrassing given that we were all sitting in the front row together.

Ho hum. Never liked the woman much anyway.

BIL asked to be best man for DH - he was going to be asked, but still it irked a bit as this was on the actual day we got engaged.

Now BIL is getting married, DH is completely excluded from any part of the wedding party, and SIL to be has asked her third cousins to be bridesmaids as they don’t have any nieces or nephews. So not quite sure what DD is... It wouldn’t have been too bad except they told us this in front of DD who got very upset and to this day they still seem oblivious to the hurt that her uncle has caused.

Also, I'll never forgive my Kindergarten teacher (30 years ago - I'm good with a grudge) for not telling my parents when a blue tit died inside my welly boot, I put my foot in and its claws got caught on my sock. I pulled my foot out and waved it around like a bloody mad thing, trying to get it off. She pegged it out of the classroom in a rage to shout at me to 'Be quiet immediately!' and 'stop making a fuss - it's only a bird!'

Told my mum what had happened after school that day. She didn't believe me, and actually told me off for my 'active imagination'. Only apologised after parents evening when the teacher mentioned it in passing.

The teacher went on to become a nanny for a very famous 80s pop star. Fingers crossed those kids didn't fall foul of a terminal blue tit!

A colleague was complaining that a piece of equipment had gone missing. I said that I had borrowed it a few times but definitely remembered putting it back. Suggested that maybe someone else had borrowed it and could it possibly be in X? (There is only really a couple of places you could use said piece of equipment). Another colleague then started grilling me about whether I was sure I had put it back and doing what I can only describe as ‘very intense eye contact’. I’m not amazing at holding eye contact and it makes me feel really awkward so I then looked like a massive liar who is going around borrowing things and losing them. Which I definitely didn’t.

Same colleague has also told several people about how she ‘made me cry’ (separate occasion) and seems to think it’s funny. I was having a shitty day and she pointed out some mistakes I’d made. She was right to as they needed to be rectified urgently so I don’t hold that against her but I got a bit upset about the situation as I was frustrated, tired, and hormonal. I don’t know why she keeps telling people I cried like she thinks it’s hilarious ffs?

My MIL crying at our wedding because she felt like she was ‘losing a son’.

The cow in The Magic Roundabout was NOT called Daisy, Child's version of Trivial Pursuit, and your fuck up caused me to lose a game. See also the friends who smirked and said 'it's the answer on the card!' knowing full well I was right, the absolute shower of bastards.

This has enraged me on your behalf, it's bloody Ermintrood and if anyone argued it was Daisy I'd be tempted to deck them!

Ooh Marvedllous! I was in a pub quiz once and one of the questions was "What are the 3 primary colours?"

And I assured my team they were red, blue and yellow.

Of course they are!

Then, the answers came and they said fucking GREEN! Red and Yellow!

I tried and tried to explain that blue and yellow MAKE green so green isn't primary but the dumb master wouldn't have it and this was before google.

Wankers.