DIL left nasty drunk messages on my phone.

[zarasmyworld]

I woke up on Sunday morning to a voicemail from my son's wife saying I was manipulative and a narcissist and my husband was a mug for putting up with me, that I'm a terrible mother and grandma and lots of other upsetting things.
I have been very upset understandably about this and have asked DIL to explain but she says she doesn't remember saying it and didn't mean it.

Ds says as she was drunk and as she doesn't remember to just forget about it.
I haven't even had an apology in nearly a week and Ds doesn't even seem bothered that she's been so unkind.
AIBU to think I'm owed some sort of apology or explanation and ds shouldn't let her speak to me like this?
I shouldn't be expected to just carry on as if it didn't happen should I?
I have told DS how hurt I am but still no apology.

I would go round there personally and say you need to have a talk with her to clear the air. Tell her you want her to hear the message she sent you and then play it to her. Two adults, face to face. Just play her the message while you're there.

YANBU she should feel awful and apologising straight away.

The fact that she hasn’t and that DS is downplaying, sounds like she means it sbd DS agrees.

I would also record the voicemail using your DHs phone.

It sounds as though they’ll completely deny it ever happened else.

I agree that it would be odd for this to come completely from nowhere, but if your relationship's otherwise fine, it's perfectly possible that she actually just had some very minor, standard DIL/MIL gripe on her mind, and that it got massively elevated into a huge deal in her head while she was absolutely hammered.

A bit like when someone is extremely drunk at a wedding, spots Cousin Becky laughing and putting her hand on their husband's arm on the way to the bar, remembers that Becky once flirted with their boyfriend when she was 12, and decides that Becky definitely wants to steal their husband and is a cheating bitch who will shag anything that moves and if she doesn't like hearing it they can take it outside for a fight and actually she's a fucking shit cousin anyway etc.

An 'Oh god, I'm so embarrassed, I have no recollection of that and I don't know what an earth I was thinking, I'm never drinking again' apology would be nice, yes. But I suspect it's actually the embarrassment that's stopping her from apologising - some people are like that and just want to never speak of the horror again. I personally think it's a coward's way out, but I can see the feeling behind it.

I wouldn't expect your son to 'make' her apologise or apologise on her behalf. It's not up to him to deal with his wife's mistakes or to order her to do/say something. It's between you and her.

I'm not saying her behaviour is in any way acceptable - it's not. It's bloody horrible to get a message like that, especially when you don't know what's prompted it, and she should be absolutely mortified and contrite. But I'm just saying there's a possibility that it wasn't so much a case of in vino veritas but more a case of in vino a tiny grain of veritas that was caused by said vino to grow into a giant monster that ended up not being veritas at all.

She sounds like a silly drunken teenager, but I'd launch her out of my orbit, because that's obviously how she feels.

'in vino veritas".

I wouldn't bother with her in future.🙄

😂

I do think you need to sit down and talk about it. Don't be gaslit with the 'drunk, didn't mean it, can't remember' bollocks. It's come from somewhere. Either you're doing things that are upsetting her and your son, or your son is feeding her tripe about the sort of mother you are.

"Ds says as she was drunk and as she doesn't remember to just forget about it."
I would have to forward the voicemail to him, ask him to listen to it, and to see how long it takes him to just forget about it. And I would absolutely insist that he listen to it.

Some things cannot, nor should be, swept under the carpet.

My husband would be FURIOUS with me and be discussing divorce if I did this to his Mother and vice versa. This is not acceptable! Etc is your son gaslighting you?! So she can be a complete twat and verbally abuse you and you’re meant to accept it? Can you invite your son and her over for lunch and talk in person and say if anything needs to be said let’s just say it.

It sounds like your DIL believes what she said. You say she is quiet which maybe partly explain why she hasn’t had the courage to say it while sober. Your son will have been feeding her certain information, that’s why he isn’t bothered - I’d say this starts with him. You’ll need to have a difficult conversation with them, or just your son alone and give him the chance to speak from his heart.

And people are being a bit disingenuous here, Op isn’t saying he’s the boss of his wife. However, I think most men would be extremely unhappy at this happening if they genuinely didn’t believe she was a bad mum /gran. Likewise women would be fuming at their husbands for verbally attacking a parent /family member. I would definitely have some choice words for my partner if they spoke to my family like that. Especially if he didn’t bother to call or pop round to give a sincere apology with some flowers or something. I wouldn’t just shrug and say oh well - unless I agreed with him.

It is his job to mediate. It's his mother. Both the DIL and the OP have an interest in reaching a resolution for the sake of their relationship with the son.

She could be doing this every time she gets drunk.

I would cut her off immediately and put it down to alcoholic behaviour.

There should be consequences for that highly abusive phone call.

If people make excuses/enable this drunken slobber-talk then it’s like giving her permission to do it again.

It’s horrible when people are viciously abusive so do something nice for yourself- you don’t deserve this.

Oddly I’m in a very similar situation with my sister in law. She did apologise but there’s never been an explanation and I just don’t know how to move on from it, lots of brushing under carpet. I thought we were close, I’ve invested a lot in the relationship and am feeling sad that I got it so wrong.
I’m going to try and move past it as I want to have a relationship with my in-laws but I’ll never really feel comfortable with them again.

What a cop out, the old, ‘ I was sooo drunk I can’t remember it’. excuse. I hope you’ve kept the messages. Wether she remembers it or not, the words came out of her mouth, she should apologise.
She needs to take a good hard look at herself and cut down on her drinking if it’s causing memory loss. The son is downplaying it.

Alcohol is a disinhibitor. It's likely both things at once. The behaviour was inappropriate and the thoughts behind that VM have likely been brewing for awhile.

None of us knows if her accusations have any truth to them, only the OP knows that. Either way it's a horrible message to wake up to.

I don't think you're going to get an apology as she's not taking responsibility for her behaviour at all. I wouldn't insist on one unless you want them both to shut down further.

I wouldn’t bother asking for an apology, but I would definitely want an explanation.

I suspect either you do have some idea what’s going on, or your DS certainly does. Is it possible he has been complaining about you to DIL?

Well either there is some huge backstory and OP is delusional - in which case, DS and Dil should be using this as an opportunity to open a dialogue.

Or its bollocks in which case an apology is required.

Either way, at this point, OP's DS and Dil are behaving badly, whether or not the OP is a terrible person.

Hm. I wonder if something happened between them. Has he been up to something and blaming it on you? It would explain his desire to brush it under the carpet...

Shouldn’t that be the other way round?

OP you probably should first take a long hard look at yourself and truthfully see if she has a point. If yes then have a chat to her about it, if not (you haven’t ever been a cow to her) then maybe play the message to your son and chat with him about it first before speaking to your DiL. I feel this needs to be a calm face to face (friendly rather than hostile) chat as you don’t want to ruin any relationship with your gc.

There's obviously more to this story. You need to talk your Dil directly. I wouldn't let anyone talk to me like that.

I agree.

“A drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts" said a wise person somewhere!

She’s bang out of order but there’s probably some truth to what she’s said?

Exactly. People reveal what they really think when they're drunk. In fact, they're much more honest than when sober.

Missing missing reasons....?

This didn't come out of nowhere. And the fact that your son is unbothered and neither of them are concerned about making it up to you suggests that there is a back story.

I could imagine my brother not giving a shit if it was his wife that left a voicemail like that but our childhood at the hands of our mother was... difficult. Of course as far as DMs concerned, she was a great mother. DH on the other hand, would go apeshit if I did that to his mother - he would be divorcing me no question, she was a lovely woman, and a wonderful mother to him.

Can you get them to listen Back to the message? Maybe she has minimised to him what she said