Easter lunch - who is right him or me?

[Itsalonghaul]

We were lucky to have a family invite for Easter lunch yesterday.
We arrived and BIL and SIL were clearly tipsy and in high spirits already. Music is blaring, everyone was drinking wine. It was sunny and lovely outside, and none of us have been out for four months with 'other people'. Drinks were flowing. Everyone laughing all good.

Dh barely drinks so is always happy to drive. SIL and family and I are having a blast, and to be fair we were having a great time. I have two teens. We left around 3 and a half hours later. Given it takes nearly two hours to get there - it is always usually an afternoon.

On the way home Dh tells me I was too loud. Teens then join in and to be fair they consider any kind of drinking 'sad' and for 'old people' and so were not impressed, they apparently were bored and wanted to leave earlier, and told me I have 'lost my filter' I actually felt like I was being told off on the way home, like a naughty child - I am nearly 50!

My view is that its our first day out after lockdown, a few drinks is to be expected and I think it was fun, what is the problem?!

Both dh and dc are quite open about being introverted, I am the opposite, and live for friends and family and I have really missed laughing with others. Honestly it has been endless this winter for me.
They are not keen on the lockdown ending and all three socialise reluctantly. I am usually mindful of this, and respect our differences, but they seem to look down on me, as if wanting to be with other people is some kind of weakness or sin.

Should I have stuck to one drink and left early as they would have preferred? Or right to enjoy what short time I had having fun whilst I could? I am feeling bad this morning, when actually all I did was relax and have a few drinks in the sunshine (at no point was I actually drunk or anything!)

Even if you were a bit too drunk and embarrassing, so what? It’s been a shit year, and you may have let your hair down for a few hours.
I can think of countless times my kids have embarrassed me, do I let them know every time so they feel bad? NO.

@GravityFalls

Also, It can be quite embarrassing and uncomfortable to see your mum behaving in a different way to what she's normally like.

True, but...so? They’ll live. We’ve all been slightly embarrassed by our parents as teens and lived to tell the tale. It’s normal. It’s fine. We don’t live to save our kids from any embarrassment or awkwardness, ever.

Of course they'll live! I was replying to the question " why were they embarrassed? "

I think it was very wrong of your dh to side with your teens in criticising you. Just awful. So important parents are a “united front”. The kids are young and in a puritanical phase that’s understandable at their age but not on for dh to Wade in too.

Although your thread has made me want to have a glass of wine!

I used to like seeing my mum have fun and be the life and soul of the party can’t remember being embarrassed by her at all.

Also, It can be quite embarrassing and uncomfortable to see your mum behaving in a different way to what she's normally like.

And?? I think it's good for kids to see their parents 'off duty' ..... we're human too and (hopefully) don't completely lose our personalities when we become parents.

Seeing your mum have a laugh with her friends is a good thing!

Although frankly I have no sympathy for kids embarrassed at their perfectly normal parents - my father though lovely taught at my school and even did assemblies on occasion. Mortifying.

Do you think the OP is only herself when she's drunk alcohol?

You do realise that part of being yourself is choosing what you do and do not do, not being dictated to by others. The OP is an adult who has agency over her own life, if she chooses to drink alcohol then she is perfectly entitled to do so. Or do you think she doesn't have the right of choice? That's a bad lesson to teach teenagers don't you think? that your choices in life are only correct if they are validated by others.

I also would have given the same answer if the OP was a man and would be thinking poor sod

@TheJerkStore

Also, It can be quite embarrassing and uncomfortable to see your mum behaving in a different way to what she's normally like.

And?? I think it's good for kids to see their parents 'off duty' ..... we're human too and (hopefully) don't completely lose our personalities when we become parents.

Seeing your mum have a laugh with her friends is a good thing!

Yes it is, but not if she's laughing because she's had alcohol, which is the case here.

Bollocks to them!! Enjoy yourself

Next time you want to go out and have fun leave your miserable family at home !!
To put into perspective it doesn’t take a lot for the average teen to get embarrassed by their parents so really don’t worry about it!

Ffs some people on here 🙄

We've been locked up for a year. We haven't seen family and friends and it has been a long, boring, dull, hard, heartbreaking and tedious year. I'm an introvert who normally has little interest in socialising but I'm done with this life. I want to party too and think it's fab that @Itsalonghaul had such a fabulous time yesterday.

We also had a party - the teens decorated the garden with fairy lights, my husband rigged up a sound system and big table and my dad (who was a professional chef!) did the cooking. My sister and her husband came around - we hadn't seen the, since last summer and we all had a few drinks, a lot of loud laughter and a long, fabulous catch up.

(Yes, there was 7 of us - so shoot me)

My two grew up with an alcoholic, drug addict as a mother. They were both very anti-drinking when we took them on, but my husband and I refused to give up our moderate drinking and over the years they have seem us drink responsibly and have both tried it. The 18 year old now has a few glasses of wine with us and the 14 year old a glass of wine with dinner.

I'm also the daughter of an alcoholic. She was nasty sober and even nastier drunk. It wasn't the drink though, it was her and it never affected my drinking habits.

People can get drunk sometimes and it doesn't mean they are bad people. People can get tipsy, dance on tables and make complete tits of themselves and that is still ok. It is a long way from alcoholism.

Yes it is, but not if she's laughing because she's had alcohol, which is the case here.

What a ridiculous comment.

It sounds like she was laughing with people presumably because people were saying funny things. It's not as though she was sat on her her laughing to herself because she was pissed! Jesus can people not laugh with their friends anymore??

The OP doesn't have an alcohol problem she has a DH problem.

@Limalama

Do you think the OP is only herself when she's drunk alcohol?

You do realise that part of being yourself is choosing what you do and do not do, not being dictated to by others. The OP is an adult who has agency over her own life, if she chooses to drink alcohol then she is perfectly entitled to do so. Or do you think she doesn't have the right of choice? That's a bad lesson to teach teenagers don't you think? that your choices in life are only correct if they are validated by others.

I also would have given the same answer if the OP was a man and would be thinking poor sod

Of course, but that's not what "being yourself" means.

You don't know that frog, she might have been laughing because, god forbidden, she was actually just having a good time.

OP, I think we are forming a social club on here of like minded mums. See you at the virtual bar in 10mins for a large glass of wine. We can be put in the stocks and pelted with rotten veg later for being drunk and disorderly

Anyone else good for happy hour at 5pm? we can get the Gypsy Kings on for the OP!!

frog perhaps not to you but we are all different aren't we.

Also, It can be quite embarrassing and uncomfortable to see your mum behaving in a different way to what she's normally like.

Parents aren't obliged to be in 'parent mode' 24/7 once their kids get to the age of OP's kids. It doesn't do them any harm to see that their parents are human and like to have fun just like they do, albeit in different ways.

So Mums can't drink or laugh anymore.
What are we allowed to do?

Also, if the horsey child retains this interest into adulthood and is embarrassed by other people partying and having a few drinks, she's going to spend a large chunk of her life mortified.

Ha ha this. My sister was horsey. Most of the summer following my a-levels was spent at various events with her and other horsey people getting trashed in horse boxes!

Your DH was bang out of order for criticising you in front of your kids. If he had a problem he should of waited until you were alone.

Your kids are bang out of order for piling on. If that was my kids I’d remind them I’m their mother they do not get to tell me how to behave and insult me like that. And I’d tell my DH he’s also out of order for allowing your children to disrespect you like that.

They actually sound like they gang up and bully you, even abusive. If you and your DH are so different and he treats you like this, why are you with him?

I’m far more outgoing than my DH but he’s happy for me to be me and would never criticise me like this.

@MyDcAreMarvel Did you dip your keyboard/phone in venom before typing out that post? Did you have a bowl of hostility for breakfast today?

Also on second thought maybe have a word with your kids about being so judgemental. People are allowed to drink as long as they are t hurting anyone (what you described was very calm and normal) your children have no right to look down on people for their life choices, in the same way they will find themselves annoyed when they are called boring by their peers for not drinking. They are not boring for not drinking and people aren’t boring for drinking. Everyone has the right to live the life they choose without sanctimonious judgment from little children with no life experience!

Aren’t*

@Limalama

frog perhaps not to you but we are all different aren't we.

Sure, so what are you saying?

How can anyone take this seriously?

It’s not like the OP is an evenly objective party in all this

I have NO idea whether or not she embarrassed herself

All I know is that my mother. An alcoholic. Would have sworn blind and written articulately why her family were being kill joys.
When in actually fact - it was devastating to witness

Op you were far more restrained than dh and I, we had friends round at 3 who left around 9 after (too) many bottles of wine!
We were all so utterly delighted to be there, to be out, to have some freedom, to have the day stretching out in front of us just to chat and have fun, it really was joyous and we did get carried away.
It's a shame that your pious/ sanctimonious dh and dc didn't feel that way, my teens didn't participate much and I guess that's one key difference- it is boring to be at a family party when you're a teen but unless they'd asked over and over to go home and you refused it doesn't sound like you were there unduly long.
I think it's time for an honest chat about how you feel and definitely your dh needs to recognise that you are not the same as him and shouldn't be openly criticised for that.
I'd far rather have you than them in my garden!! I hope you get to do it again. Soon as I totally recognise what you say about being locked in

@Lassolarry1980

How can anyone take this seriously?

It’s not like the OP is an evenly objective party in all this

I have NO idea whether or not she embarrassed herself

All I know is that my mother. An alcoholic. Would have sworn blind and written articulately why her family were being kill joys.
When in actually fact - it was devastating to witness

All we can do is go off the information the OP have given us. There is nothing to suggest she has an issue with alcohol. She went to a family party and had a couple of drinks. People need to stop projecting