Father-in-law constantly mentions disgusting things while everyone is eating

[radiantorange]

My father-in-law is quite narcissistic. He's always talking about himself. He's always comparing my husband to himself and how when he was my husbands age he had his life more together, was more travelled etc… my husband has learned how to cope with his remarks after many years in therapy doing CBT and just either ignoring him or sometimes calling out his behaviour – which is shrugged off by Fil.

He has written an autobiography (he's not in anyway famous) and he likes to tell outdated and ridiculous jokes over and over too and I just think he likes his voice to be heard. One time on a long car journey I tried to count to 10 in my head every time he stopped talking and I never got to 10. And he can be fairly generous but with that generosity comes him repeatedly telling you and whoever else is there what he has done for you or given you and how he didn't need to and just goes on about it for a long time so you feel compelled to keep thanking him and telling him how nice it was. Likely feeding his ego.

Anyway, I can just about cope with him too, choosing to ignore most quips about my unhoovered carpet or whatever else in my house he deems not good enough.

But I've noticed now that pretty much every shared meal we have with them, be it lunch, dinner or coffee and cake he always has to mention a really gross story or fact about a toilet habit, bowel movement, cat's shit, stinking fart, diarrhoea etc… and every time, everyone including his wife is cringing and disgusted and will say 'please stop talking about this', which he will… but he'll wait a beat then finish the story, like he just has to. If it's not planned then I think there's just something in his brain that waves a flag to say 'everyone is eating – say something gross to spoil the moment so you get the last laugh'.

Is there anyone else with similar family/friends/ colleagues who literally talk 'shit' when you eat?

Am I being unreasonable to be so annoyed at this behaviour in particular?

I'd walk away with my food. I wish I'd done that one rare time I ate dinner with my mum and sister, when the latter started discussing her menstrual cycle over the table. In detail. I really did not want to know.

You abruptly cut across him every. single. time.

Him: "and then the dog did a massive sh.. "
You: "did you get that blouse from Marksies Jane?"

Absolute prick. He needs cutting down to size.

People really sit there and listen to this? Why?

I would never have another meal with him again

The best thing to do would be to tune him out and concentrate upon your food. But it sounds as though you're all too delicate for that.

It's the only way you won't reward him for talking through the meal, though. Stopping, complaining, not eating the rest, going pale and clutching pearls, or any other response than you all being completely deaf to anything he says, all reward him with attention and a reaction.

It amazes me what people put up with from family that they'd never put up with from their friends. You don't have to share your time with this appalling individual.

🤣🤣🤣

Your life is honestly too short to spend time with this grim man.

Just don't see him again, problem solved.

I think if everyone simply stopped spending time with people out of duty and only spent time with people who were pleasant company, these idiots would soon mend their ways or become very lonely indeed. Either way it would be a win for the people around them.

I react with silence and rolling my eyes 😂 putting them down really bugs narcissists.

Then when they try and compare and big themselves up, I am passive aggressive and subtly hint what they fail at compared to so and so

If they're a bit aggressive I will put down subtly, if they start reacting I treat them like a baby.. I go "oh my I'm Soooo sorry if your hurt, I didn't mean to make you feel bad.. bless you.. what did I say?" If you say it subtly they can't exactly say what you've said that's bad and they make themselves look like an idiot in front of people..

Had an abusive Ex I'm not a natural bitch btw, just had to use this certain tact after years of being destroyed by the behaviour.

Why are you still socialising with this man?!

I'm not sure I could resist saying something like "well, if anyone would know about talking shit it would be FIL" to the rest of the tbh.

Used to work with a colleague who whenever I was having something to eat would talk about something disgusting. She was very odd anyway, but this was a particularly weird and annoying habit. I just started calling her out on it with "I'm trying to eat here!" or something similar. Did find it incredibly irritating and bad manners and was definitely doing it on purpose.

I've got one of those, even down to the memoirs. The only difference is that he prefers physical comedy to disgusting topics. He'll intentionally drop, knock over, writhe on the floor, put pans on his head, or have fake violent fights with inanimate objects to keep the attention on himself. He also can't hold back from extreme misogynistic commentary in the name of 'humour'.

Another This. She called it.

Why does your husband still engage with this? He has had therapy to deal with this man. I feel like the disgusting table talk is the mildest of his vile behaviour.

Lol, all this talk of running to bathrooms and taking your plate to another room.

Just tell him to shut up, that he's disgusting and nobody wants to hear it. Then start talking about something else and ignore him. If he carries on rambling, just ignore the knob and he'll soon run out of steam.

I swear people enjoy making themselves the martyr in situations like this. Like bollocks would I be eating in a separate room or locking myself in a bathroom just because some tone dead idiot won't be told.

Why are you spending time with him he sounds gross 🤢

Why should OP/her family be the ones to get up and walk away?

Just tell him that nobody wants to listen to gross things at mealtimes (or any other time!) and that if he can't control what he says then he should take his plate and fuck off to another room.

I agree with PPs - grey rock and/or go no contact. Any reaction is rewarding his dickish behaviour.

I only had to read the title to know this was a narcissist. Brought back memories. Very typical narc behaviour. Absolutely must be the spotlight of attention for any reason. Burping, farting, complaining, anything at all. He(ex) called it Alpha Male behaviour. He said that any of his behaviour that made others uncomfortable made them inferior and him superior. He revelled in it, relished it, manufactured it, lived for it.
Avoid meeting up with your fil. That is all you can do.

I have something similar in my life. At Christmas dinner said relative saw nothing wrong with talking about a dog he had who had to be taken to the vet for eating shit.

if you don't want to tell him to STFU can't you start talking about childbirth? periods? roadkill?

I'd have no problem telling someone this rude to stop talking.

[Grin]
Each one has a separate title. Oh god, and there's a separate book of poems. Honestly I fell out with him ages ago about something unrelated but it would have been worth engineering a rammy with him just to get myself out of reading that pile...

Agree. He’s acting like my toddler who has learned that saying poop and calling you poo poo is “funny”

Treat him like a toddler and completely ignore his behaviour until he stops it and acts like a decent grown up

Of it leads to not seeing him / going anywhere with him, even better