What things do your partner's family do that you think are really rude? And what things do your family do that you now realise are rude?!

[SarahAndQuack]

This is absolutely a thread about a thread (the one where the OP's husband leaves the table). It just got me wondering. What does your partner do because they've been brought up that way, that you think is actually really rude? And what things did you discover, as an adult, were really rude that your family thought were normal?

DP's family have no table manners whatsoever - anything I could name that someone somewhere thinks is rude, they do it. But one thing that really irritates me is that they'll let you explain what you're going to cook, then when the meal is being served, they'll say 'is there anything else - I don't like x' or 'is there something else for ChildsName to eat?' Then they fully expect you to heat up something else for them while everyone else's meal goes cold. I trained DP out of this but something minor that bugs me is that I was taught if someone comes home with the shopping, you go offer to help unpack. It's just what my mum does. DP just doesn't get this and, though it's irrational, it never fails to irritate me.

As for my family - my parents are both eye-wateringly rude in shops or any kind of situation where they're paying for a service. They barely bother with 'please' or 'thank you' and they will complain at the drop of a hat. My dad recently had me read an email he was sending to his lawyer - who he thinks is doing a good job for him - and it was so rude I was squirming! No 'I hope you are well' or anything, just a list of demands and criticisms. I was well into my 20s before I really understood how to write a polite letter.

What about you?

@Courante

Dad - continued watching TV when I came to visit (planned - 2 hr trip); rarely made any attempt at conversation other than the odd rude statement e.g. 'you're fat' (I was definitely slimmer than him) or 'you spend too much money' (based on what I'm not sure - the fact I always paid for our meals out and he never offered?). Licked his knife.

Step mum - smoked when I was in the car with her (even short journeys) and would come in to a room I was in and light up. If I wound down the car window or left the room I was called a rude brat. I considered her to be the rude one. When I was older she also came out with rude one liners to people e.g. 'you're starving that child' (didn't approve of breastfeeding - it was a fad apparently); 'why have a dog and bark yourself' in response to people being kind enough to do things for her.

FIL - clicks his fingers when eating out to get attention in a very flamboyant and pompous manner; noisy eating and talks with is mouth full; double dips. We actively avoid eating with him now.

MIL - talks over the top of people (often about something completely different); monologues; also double dips but the worst was when DS had made a frosted cake - we all had a slice and about 3/4 was left over. She sat there running her finger all around the remaining cake where the two layers joined licking her finger and going back in multiple times.

There is more for all of them but I suspect I've said enough now!

The cake is horrific what a psychopath!!!

My in-laws never have a conversation. They will talk at you, about anything they are interested in, or about their neighbours (who we don’t know), about SIL and her family and what they have been up to, or FIL will regale us with stories about his work in the 1970/80s.

They won’t ask us a thing about our lives and haven’t for at least 10 years that we’ve been counting. They have no idea what DH or I do for a living, what DD got in any of her exams in the last 4 years (GCSE or ALevels), that DD is autistic, if we have been on holiday. We’ve though about moving and then seeing how long it would take them to notice. It’s really weird.

MIL since covid has become insular and self absorbed. I actually worry a bit about her. She is obsessed with two friends and their families and one of her grandchildren (who’s an adult). She talks about them incessantly in minute detail. She rarely asks about us. We are actually living with her whilst we work on our house and she is becoming increasingly unable to cope with everything. HOWEVER DP’s wider family are also self absorbed. You sit for around 30 mins nodding and smiling whilst they regale you with how amazing their latest trip/purchase/event they’ve been to is. There is no give and take in conversation. So I think MIL is like this naturally. They have no interest in others really unless it’s a chosen person or people they choose to show interest in. I find it bizarre but I do know other people that are like this. I actually think it’s a lack of being able to hold flowing conversation.

@Clovacloud snap! My MIL doesn’t know what my job is and we’ve lived with her for a few months now

My parents/siblings will come for dinner and turn up exactly when the food is being served. Not even a few minutes early for chat etc

They then start eating immediately, while I’m still bringing some bits to the table or before I’ve even had a chance to sit down.

Me and the children now shout “oh that’s okay, don’t wait for us” They’re finally getting the hint 😂

@LottyD32

OMG! Yes! This! My DP too. I can tell her when dinner will be ready, give her a five minute warning, etc. etc. Still I get:

'Oh, are you serving dinner? I'm just going to go to the loo ...'.

To be fair it's not deliberate, it's some kind of weird Pavlovian reaction, but I still find it annoying.

If he ever does it now I just start, I'm not letting my food go cold. But he knows I find it rude now so its not often.

DH has a talent for finding jobs to do just as I tell him dinner is ready, my favourite one is the time DS and I had almost finished by the time he turned up having just gone off the change the batteries in the smoke alarms. Needless to say, DS and I just start without him.

Husbands family, always on devices, ignoring each other. PIL are rude/abrupt with people they consider 'beneath them' particularly in restaurants. Lots of passive aggressive comments etc. My husband did it a few times in the early days and was told to cut that shit out pretty sharpish.

My mum is a moaner, very negative. My Dad can be a bit loud and embarrassing

My MIL and my Mum do the same thing so as bad as each other. When you arrive, if the TV is on , they don't turn it off or mute it. They are both a bit deaf so it's loud. I have to ask to mute it in order to have a conversation. These are planned visits so not as if I'm turning up unannounced while they are watching something.

My MIL is generally the paragon of manners so this really flumoxes me.

One thing I've always struggled with MIL is she is absolutely inisitent on helping to clear up if she's eaten at ours but point blank refuses to let you help if you go to hers. I always always offer and do as much as I can but she just bustles you out of the kitchen.

She's old and frail now so it doesn't really happen and she's very lovely so very minor!

My own Mum is the kind of person who talks at you but isn't very interested in anything anyone else has got to say.

Reading all these makes me think they are more inconsiderate than rude but few of them would actually bother me.

People are just people with all their flaws. People behave as they have been taught to behave and, just because something is different to your own way of doing things, doesn't necessarily make it rude.

There's not much I wouldn't let go over my head actually, unless it was a direct and personal attack on me.

Nothing really! It's my side they probably think are rude; my parents swear like troopers and smoke indoors which they wound definitely see as rude.

Oh and my DM can be very loud and feisty

@SliceOfCakeCupOfTea

My parents are early for everything and are weirdly clean.

If you ask them to come over for 10 theyll be here anywhere between quarter past 9 and quarter to. They'll also start tidying and cleaning stuff. I've left my mam in the living room before while I was cooking and came through and she was dusting.

If we are going round there and say we'll be there for 10, she'll be frantically texting me for location updates from half 9. It's so frustrating.

I've sort of trained myself out of it now but I used to be the same.

My PILs are like this. Will routinely be half an hour early for things. Have been known to text us when invited round saying “we’re here now but we know we’re a bit early so we don’t mind sitting in the car”, an hour before they were due to turn up. They HATE the idea of being late and see being early as therefore polite, no matter how early it is.

These days they will just let themselves in if they’re early and start helping out with the housework, which is kindly meant but I find maddeningly boundary-crossing. Rest of their family are fine with it though, it’s just me and my weird daughter-in-law ways who doesn’t want to come home to find unexpectedly early MIL refolding the contents of my clothes drawers…

The cake is horrific what a psychopath!!!

@autienotnaughty - now I know her better it was almost certainly a covert manipulation tactic so we would offer her the rest of the cake to take home (and that is indeed exactly what happened!).

FIL would be with your ILs scoffing more than his fair share of the buffet with no consideration for anyone else. He's not overweight at all but I think MIL has him on quite a strict regime to ensure this and when the reins are off he goes wild. One Christmas he ate nearly the whole tin of BIL's expensive caviar [gifted from his wife as he is a foodie] barely leaving any even for BIL!

My dad is the world’s fussiest eater, and will spit things he doesn’t like back onto his plate while pulling a face. He’ll always ask for the food to be modified to suit his palate. He also turns the TV on and watches it at the dining table while everyone else is trying to talk and eat.

My boyfriend’s parents are very nice, but are obese and take no issue with bagging up any leftovers and taking them home with them… without asking us if we plan to eat them first!

I come from a family where you eat at the table, or you don't eat at all: meals are quite formal and we all eat at the same time in the dining room, or kitchen for breakfast / lunch. Maybe music / radio in the background, but the TV is absolutely verboten: mealtimes are for conversation.

The first time I visited my OH's family (who are lovely, btw) I was quite shocked that people ate off their knees in front of the TV, people ate at random times, separately, in rooms that weren't the dining room / kitchen.

In saying that, my family can be blunt to the point of combative (a hefty discussion about politics is considered normal dinnertime entertainment), so my OH was quite taken aback by that.

We've been together almost 20 years now, and both get on really well with each other's families, though: different strokes for different folks and all that.

My FIL never takes his shoes off when he comes round. He wears them all the time at home as well, he puts them on in the morning like they're part of his outfit which I just find weird.

My family are cross talkers, though we don't find it rude when we're doing it amongst ourselves.

Having the football on during a meal where it can only been seen by half of them so the rest of them turn around to eat. I said to DH on the very early days I was never having that after spending a couple of hours cooking Bloody Sunday lunch. I'll happily arrange it around the football but I'm not cooking a family meal for everyone to ignore each other.

No serviettes for a meal, kitchen paper would be fine but nothing. They'd rather have food around their mouths.

No bins in any bathroom, what do you want me to do with my sanitary towel?

The American contingent never say thank you to any kind of server / shop assistant / person generally making their life easier and don't start me on how they use cutlery. It's like eating with Neanderthals.

My family are horrendous for talking over each other, DH used to get mad at me when we were dating many many years ago as I'd be on the phone to him and having simultaneous conversations with my mum and sister. We are from a huge family so it was always normal to us.

Also not so much my OH's immediate family - his brother's wife's family, so extended.

They are a big family of seven adult siblings, and while they're lovely, they are SO LOUD: they all talk at once at 120dbls, nobody actually listens to each other, so there's lots of 'what? Pardon? Say that again?', and everything is at 100mph.

There are also about a dozen nieces and nephews who seem to be growing up the same way...

As I say, they're nice people, but I do feel the need for an extended lie-down in a darkened room after spending any time with them.

Manners cost nothing
Manners maketh the man
Be polite to those who are performing a service for you. They don't have a choice but you do.

I love this thread.

My mother is very rude to anyone serving her, such as shop staff and waiters. I think it comes from insecurity and having to feel she has established herself as someone to be reckoned with (wtf?) but she often makes a big performative show of not liking whatever it is that is being offered to her.

-I took her to the Wolseley and she made a point of asking what sort of tonic they had, and when they said Fevertree she complained that she'd wanted Waitrose own brand (??)
-Took her to an evening with Nigella Lawson and she made a point of announcing to the audience how much she loathes Nigella Lawson.
-Took her to a talk on design and she stood up half way through and announced "this is boring".

Etc etc. She also demands things are done for her and has zero ability to go with the flow or accept that other people might see things differently. I live in absolute dread of turning into her one day and have warned my husband to tell me if I do, which would be fine except I can remember my mum asking me to tell her if she ever became like (equally horrible) Grandma. Coastal shelf and all that. Despite all this I think she perceives herself as someone who is very hard done by and a total stoic.

(If my sister is reading this- hello!)

I used to tell my ex when dinner would be served. Then nearer the time I'd give him a ten-minute warning, then a five minute warning. And still he'd futz about while I ate alone and the food I'd cooked went cold.

I left him more than 15 years ago and it still makes me angry thinking about it.

In my family guests have to be attended and entertained when outside bathrooms or their dedicated bedroom.
In DHs family people go off and do their own thing (sometimes things like food prep that will need to be done at some point in the visit, but also just having a nap!), even if that leaves a guest alone in the main room for an extended period.
He does not understand why I find it rude to both the guest (who to my mind, he is declaring uninteresting) and to me (who is then pinned in the room indefinitely while he takes some leisure time and can't swap out for the food prep etc) when he does it in our house. I also find it bizarre to visit MIL and then be left on our own - why did we come?

The American contingent never say thank you to any kind of server / shop assistant / person generally making their life easier and don't start me on how they use cutlery. It's like eating with Neanderthals.

Not sure what part of America you went to or where these said family members are from, but it is considered VERY rude not to thank you period.

*not to say thank you