If my mum goes out for a meal with my db she always seems to mention, oh he wouldn’t let me pay a penny

[Lardlizard]

Aibu to find this needless info a bit crass

She’s saying it BECAUSE he owes her money. It’s to create the story that he treats her most marvellously because she hates that he took money from her.

I can imagine she says this shit to the rest of the family too like aunts and uncles and doesn't mention the fact of all the debt !!

Did he? Good! He owes you bloody thousands doesn't he - nice to see you can squeeze a few coppers back haha!
This is a great reply. 👆

She will sometimes say about it my other brother too, but to a lesser extent as he takes her own twice a year, but he’s very sensible with money and has never ever borrowed off her and certainly not in money debt to her

It’s almost one of these wives who’s husbands cheat or treat the wife like crap
Yet give her flowers etc then the wife boast about how she always gets flowers every week

Did he? Good! He owes you bloody thousands doesn't he - nice to see you can squeeze a few coppers back haha! Perhaps I should try that one in a jokey way

I think it might not go down well though

I think it might not go down well though
It wouldn't but it would be the truth and make her see it.
I suspect she is trying to convince herself only you know her personality.
If this is the case I'd just smile and nod.

What would her reaction be if you pointed out it's the least he should do ? You say it won't go down well ?

Your threads are always weird OP.

Funnily enough my mil did this to me the other day

Commented how sil often buys her clothes and creams etc etc.

For context ils are minted however fil is a controlling feck so mil has no money in her purse ever and no access to anything as she has to ask fil if she wants something and he quite often tells her she doesn't need it and that's that

Well I totally don't go with that way of life at all so when mil says it to me I ask how come she didn't buy it herself and her reply is always she wasn't allowed.
I normally respond with well if I was you I'd be getting abit more control of that.

My dmum doesn't make comments however whenever we go somewhere (in my car using my fuel etc) I end up paying for breakfast or coffee and cake and fuel and it's now very rare she offers. She's very good at wondering off when the bill comes so when lockdown happened it was a good thing.

I invited her out with us shopping not long ago for the day and she said she wanted to buy lunch as she hasn't done so for a long time. Lo and behold she wandered off to find a table while I ordered and ended up paying and never offered to reimburse even though she said she wanted to pay

My mother used to expect me to go to Waitrose and buy my own food for the time I was staying with her! I used to take her out to lunch and she would always say "I expect you get a fair bit of petrol money at work still" to guilt trip me before the bill arrived. I would have paid for her every time but her extreme meanness meant that I would suggest we went halves about every 4th time. She stopped buying coffee because she didn't drink it herself, to the annoyance of many of her visitors. I told her that if every i visited and there was no coffee I would be straight in the car and back home!

Sons are generally fawned over by mothers.

Relivedlady

Do you think she thinks your well off ? Could be a sort of it with my mum although I’ve never discussed with her our income she most know it’s high so perhaps that makes her expect
(Makes excuses for her)
Either way it’s not worth causing any bother over
I’ll most likely stick to the oh right
Reply

Ultimately in the end she is the one that ends up missing out, because like with the holiday thing that was really taking the piss so we didn’t take her this year

It’s not so bad one meal out etc but when it’s several days of paying everything for her it starts to take the piss a bit! So the end result she didn’t come this year.....

She mentions it because she feels bad about him owing her so much. She's trying to defend him in a way.

Be kind. Just say "oh yes, he's always been very generous"

And she'll feel happy.

Very funny @VelveteenBunni

I smile and nod or say oh right
While thinking well he owes you thousands and internally shrug my shoulders

"Dave took me for lunch and wouldn't let me pay for anything!"

"As he should. How is he going with paying you back all that money he borrowed from you?"

Honestly, say it once, and you'll probably never hear about his generosity again...

Just innocently say “ah, is that him starting to pay back what he owes you? 😇 “

VelveteenBunni Nail on head !

@VelveteenBunni

🤣🤣🤣

Why are you taking it so personally?

My DM and her siblings all do this. Anything - a lunch or a dinner she has to tell everyone who bought what. She could be talking about trips from years ago and still feel the need to tell you who paid for what. It's tiresome and actually when you are on the receiving end of her generosity, you literally never hear the end of it. She insisted on taking me on a trip once, had bought flights behind my back so I felt guilted into her not wasting the money. Literally every waiter/ shop assistant that served us got the tale that she was on a holiday with her DD who she was paying for. Like they cared. I had a week of her mentioning this several times a day, and it was actually excruciating . I refuse to even discuss going on a trip with her now. Never again.

I don't know how you might handle it but I take my cue from Mrs Brown and just go 'that's nice' whenever she's on about who paid for what.

I'd reply "oh, that's nice" or "that was a nice treat then" and leave it at that. To some people who pays seems to be important and they seem to think that if they are paid for it somehow confirms the relationship. Utter rubbish in my view but I'd humour her and move on.

@sst1234

Why are you taking it so personally?

Because she is the person it is being said to and seeing a bit of back story, the mother is making a point. So it is ...errr.... "personal"

You can get some comfort from the fact that she is probably doing the same thing to everybody. I'm not particularly close to my siblings, but when we got together at DMs funeral, we realised that she had been playing us off against each other for years. I guess we should feel sorry for people who have to resort to these silly games to maximise attention and treats.